Finding Connection

Grieving and healing is a lifelong journey.

We acknowledge the range of loss experiences, the range of feelings and interpretations around those losses, and that how one views their loss may be impacted by cultural and religious beliefs. Please use whichever language (e.g., fetus, fetal personhood, baby, child) that brings comfort to you and aligns with you. No matter your beliefs or nonbeliefs, finding ways to connect with your love, loss and your baby are supportive to the grieving process.

Here are some ideas that have been helpful to other parents to connect with and honor your love and loss.

Anniversaries, Birthdays, & Holidays

So often we want to do something unique on special days such as anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays. The anticipation of these days is filled with anxiety and an exacerbation of grief. 

Most importantly, make time to consider what is meaningful to you, your partner/spouse, and family. As there is no right way to grieve, there is also no right way to remember. What feels comfortable to one family won't work for another. 

Some ideas that have been helpful to other parents include: 
- Balloon, bubble, butterfly, or lantern release
- Plant a bush, flower, or tree
- Make a donation 
- Create a special event 
- Spend time alone with your spouse 
- Host a family celebration dinner
- Being in nature 
- Hang ornaments during the holidays
- Take flowers/balloons/etc. representing your child's age to the gravesite 
- Adopt a child the age your baby would be at the holidays and buy them gifts 

Create a Sacred Space

Creating a sacred space in your home can be a helpful way to seek meaning through this experience, honor your loss, and keep their spirit alive. Some items that you can include are photographs, cards, mementos, ashes, and candles. Be as creative as you want, and even have more than one space in your home—one that is more public and another that is private. 

Everyday Connections

Much of the time, we believe that it is our pain that connects us to our loss. When the pain lessens, we feel that our connection is weakening. This is not so. There are so many positive ways in which we can connect with and honor our love and loss on an everyday basis.

Some ways to connect that have been helpful to other parents include: 
- Talk to your baby
- Talk about your baby to others
- Write letters to your baby
- Meditate
- Connect through music 
- Connect through nature—your baby can visit you through different animals or natural elements
- Look at photos of your baby 
- Wear jewelry with your baby's birthstone, initial, or name
- Write your baby's name in the sand at the beach 
- Donate toys or make a visit to the children's hospital 
- Donate memory boxes to a hospital
- Participate in Remembrance Walks 
- Visit the gravesite or special places that remind you of your pregnancy or child 

Healing Projects & Gatherings

Faith's Lodge - The mission of Faith’s Lodge is to provide a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or loss of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future. 
Return to Zero: HOPE - Retreats for bereaved women that help them find community, connect with their child, and nurture themselves. 

Remembrance Items

Comfort Cub - A therapeutic, weighted teddy bear that helps people to heal from the heartbreaking pain of an infant who has passed away. 
Held Your Whole Life - Provides delicate and unique keepsake necklaces and key chains of babies who passed away. 
Honoring Motherhood - Hand-made customizable memorial keepsake necklaces. 
Mamie’s Poppy Plates - One complimentary personalized plate for bereaving families to honor them in their time of grief.
Mother of Wilde - Creates child loss prints that are fully customizable with your child's most intimate details and photo (all gestational ages). 
Portraits by Dana - Pencil portraits for both remembering children who have passed as well as living children. 
Portraits by Phoebe Darlington - Pencil portraits that create sensitive and unique works of art that can serve as a memorial to your deceased baby. 
RachaelMillerCreates - Angel baby portraits and memorial portraits to honor babies that have left to soon. Creates keepsakes that includes your whole family.
Sharing Solace - Empowers grievers to grieve and lovers to love their griever though technology-elevated, pass-along-able keepsakes wrapped in an ever growing community built on strength and support so you can always 'Remember. You're not alone.'
Sufficient Grace Ministries - Provides "Dreams of You" memory making materials, including memory books specifically for lives that are brief, a hand-made Comfort Bear, memorial jewelry, and clothing for babies born in any gestation.
The Jasper Fox Project - Weighted foxes for families coping with any form of pregnancy or infant loss.