I am a woman who, according to the Texas government, lost my fetus during delivery at 38.5 weeks. When she died, I was given a “fetal death certificate.” There was no birth certificate and there was no birth despite the fact I spent 17 hours in labor and delivered a 7 pound 11 ounce “fetus.” She was a much loved and desired baby in our family, and her death 23 years and 2 weeks ago was devastating to us all.

For most of the past year, abortion has been illegal in Texas where I am after a “heartbeat” occurs at 6-6.5 weeks, two weeks after a person misses their period and only four weeks after conception occurred. These rapidly dividing cells are not viable at all. Many people don’t even know they are pregnant at that point. Yet the right wing in our country insists these cells are a baby, not a fetus, as my term child was labeled.

The short version logic of why my child was a fetus and not a baby: to prevent us from claiming a stillborn child on our tax returns. Had she lived for even one second, that tax credit would have kicked in. However, the government wants to make sure we and other bereaved parents didn’t get an ounce of money out of our child’s death. Therefore when it suited them, she became a fetus rather than a baby.

And now, in 30 days, all abortion will be illegal in Texas thanks to Roe v. Wade being overturned. If I should need an abortion due to my advanced age (48) and multitude of health issues that would make carrying a pregnancy to term dangerous for me, I will have to travel many states away, a huge challenge with my health problems. I use birth control when I have sexual partners, but we all know that the only birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence and/or removal of reproductive organs. Even vasectomies and tubal ligations fail. In the cases of rape and incest? Birth control is often not an option for the person with a uterus.

After losing my oldest daughter, I spent a great deal of time on infant loss boards in the early days of the internet. I met so many people who lost children to genetic conditions that were incompatible with life. I met people who chose to have late pregnancy terminations when they discovered their child was not going to live no matter how hard they prayed. Conditions like anencephaly, the absence of a brain, are not compatible with life. None who had late term abortions did so without extreme grief.

There is a huge hypocrisy of conservative leaders. My life and its safety don’t matter, nor do those of any other person who have a uterus. What matters is controlling women. It’s not about babies, as my daughter’s fetal death certificate demonstrates. It’s making sure those with penises control the bodies of those with vaginas.

My throat began screaming as soon as I read about the Roe v. Wade decision. The throat is the seat of our fifth chakra, the place where communication arises from, the place where we often react when we feel unheard. I feel so unheard today, as do so many millions of other Americans who lost the rights to their bodies.

©2022 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Like many in this nation, I’ve been using denial as a coping technique over the past two months. I’ve been trying to believe that somehow, miraculously, the shift in power we were dreading would not happen. I was hoping that it was all a bad dream or a horrible joke. It’s not, though. Our lives are about to change drastically.

The night of the election in November 2016, my 16 year old daughter came downstairs to the family room at about 10 pm from doing homework. Her twin and I were watching the returns come in with dismay. She had just received a text from her boyfriend about the ominous news. Her only words were, “Tell me it’s not true.” I had to tell her it was. She then asked, “Can we move to Canada?” Given that we have family there, it’s not too outrageous of a request.

My daughter’s reaction left me thinking. Her boyfriend is a darker skinned racial minority whose parents were immigrants to the US. Her best friend is transgender. Her mother is disabled. She is almost a woman. Her world is going to be drastically impacted by the changes that result from the election.

My life is also going to be impacted as well; the obvious is that I am a woman and I am disabled. Both of those groups have been declared targets of hatred in the new era, and I personally have already experienced it. I fully expect large parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act to be repealed because the ADA costs money to businesses in order to make them fully accessible, and in the new order, corporate money is far more important than those with disabilities.

There are other places where the new dawn is going to impact me. Without the Affordable Care Act, I am no longer insurable due to the past 14 years of health issues. I face insurance companies refusing to cover my medical bills because of my pre-existing conditions. Healthcare is going to be the most obvious place where I will feel the change.

Other places are less obvious at first glance, but they are real threats. I have never had an abortion in this life, and I hope I never have to. However, Roe v. Wade has ensured that abortion has always been an option in my lifetime. Now I am at a point in my life where I would have to terminate any pregnancy I might unintentionally conceive because of health issues, yet I expect Roe v. Wade to either be eliminated or heavily restricted in the coming year. If that is the case, I will have to limit my sexual partners to men who have had vasectomies or are otherwise sterile. I’m a little more than angry about (primarily older white men) deciding whom I can have sex with.

There are bigger fears, too. I spent the first part of my life living with a narcissist, and having a narcissistic man who uses gaslighting as one of his primary methods of communication in national power is triggering for me and for many others. Watching someone so ill-qualified and so mentally ill about to assume command of so many life-or-death decisions is truly terrifying, especially if one knows how fickle and dangerous narcissists can be.

I’ve spoken with my spirit guides, and they have assured me that the new Narcissist in Chief will not be pushing the big red button. However, they have also affirmed my fears that we are facing an ugly uphill battle in the near future. As a friend of mine phrased it, we are facing at a decision where we as a nation have to decide if we will be governed by fear or governed by love. As things stand now, we are heading toward being a nation governed by fear.

I choose not to live my life in that way, though. For me, the first question to any decision is always “What is the healthy decision?” That question is always accompanied by other similar supporting questions: “What will bring the most love into my life and the world?” “What will bring the most compassion to me, to others, and to humanity?” “What is the right thing to do even if it is the hardest?” I will continue to strive to hold those values dear even when the world around me is leaning in the opposite direction.

So for me, January 20th, 2017 is a day of mourning. I’m dressing in black, the traditional color of mourning in our culture. I’m letting myself grieve as hard as I need to, but I also am holding my heart in a place of love rather than a place of fear. While I can’t change the national or the global situation, I can keep working to enact change around me, helping those who aren’t accepted by others. I can keep working to get compassion enacted in our society on personal and legal levels.

The final words from “Memories” from the musical Cats have been echoing my head all day, prompting me to write this post. We are facing the new day, the new dawn, but we must hold tight to the memories that bring us hope and love.

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life 
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory, too
And a new day will begin
​
©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

When I was a teenager, I decided that I wanted to have two sets of boy-girl twins. That way I could enjoy have four children without having to be pregnant four times. Of course, life doesn’t always work the way we plan it. I was right that I was not the type of women who enjoys pregnancy. However, I did manage to have one set of boy-girl twins.

During my first pregnancy, I held out hope until fairly late that I might have twins, but my midwife was confident that I was having a singleton whom my intuition had correctly identified as a girl. My second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 5.5 weeks. With my third pregnancy, I had my hCG levels drawn very early, and they were normal. I elected not to have thetriple screen done at 14-16 weeks because of the high chance of false positives. My then-husband and I would not have terminated a pregnancy because of Down Syndrome, so we didn’t see the point.

My third pregnancy had not been easy, but my first had not been either. Carpal tunnel syndrome started for me at 10 weeks instead of the 20 weeks it had started at in the first pregnancy. Morning sickness was only seven weeks instead of 10, though. I was tired quite a bit, but that helped keep me on the couch working on my dissertation. One day while I was laying there on the couch at about seven weeks, I had a passing thought about "when the babies arrived." I mentally stopped myself, not sure why I had thought about my impending arrival in the plural, but I shook it off and went on with my dissertation work.

A few weeks later, I was driving on an entrance ramp to the highway when the thought went through my mind out of nowhere, “What if they are conjoined twins?” Again, I told myself I was crazy. There was nothing wrong with my baby, and I was only having one, not two. When I went to prenatal yoga a few weeks later, my instructor asked me if I knew the sex of the baby. I told her that it was a boy, but there was something else going on that I couldn’t pinpoint.

At 18 weeks, we went in for a sonogram to check on our baby. Given that our firstborn had died during delivery, I had spent the previous eight months researching infant loss and reading stories by other women who had lost their babies. If there was something that could go wrong, I knew about it. For many people, their first sign that something was wrong with their babies came during their initial sonogram. That knowledge was in the back of my mind  as the sonographer put the probe on my abdomen. He held it there only for a second, and then he pulled it off and flew his rolling chair over to the adjacent desk. He began frantically flipping through my file, clearly not finding what he was looking for. I began to panic. What had he seen in that second that was concerning him so much? Finally he turned to us and asked, “Do you know that you’re having twins?”

After the sonogram, my then-husband and I went out to lunch, sitting there in stunned silence as we stared at each other contemplating what we had both been told. After the shock wore off, there was only joy. The only thing better than being blessed with one baby was to be blessed with two.

I carried my twins to term, and after an exciting delivery, they joined us in the world. The first six months were very rough, but our babies were worth every sleepless night we went through courtesy of their undiagnosed silent reflux. After they turned two, life became much easier. Now, as they reach 15, my twins are still an amazing source of joy in my world. Watching their unique sibling relationship evolve over the years has been fascinating to me.

Twins are becoming incredibly common in our world with the advances in fertility treatments. According to theCenter for Disease Control, “The rate of twin births in the United States reached a 33.7 twin births out of every 1,000 deliveries in 2013.” When my twins were born in 2000, the natural fraternal twin rate was 1:85, and the identical twin rate was 1:300. Yet despite how common twins have become, our society still sees twins as something incredibly rare and special. I am grateful that I have been able to have the experience of parenting twins in this life because it truly has been a blessing.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

 (As always, I am not a medical doctor.  This information is based on my personal experiences and should not be substituted for medical diagnosis or treatment.  Please speak to your health care providers about your personal situation.)

My introduction to yoga came when I was pregnant with my first baby.  My midwife asserted that the women who took yoga classes did the best during labor; that was enough to motivate me to sign up for really wonderful hatha prenatal yoga classes with a fabulous instructor.  I loved yoga and did it through my twin pregnancy as well as some postpartum yoga.   And my midwife was right:  The techniques I learned in prenatal yoga were fare more useful for me during labor than those I learned in my Bradley childbirth class.

More recently in my life as I was trying to raise myself up out of my chronic illness, my chiropractor started encouraging me to meditate daily.  I was open to the idea, so one day I laid down in shavasana and tried.  I couldn’t do it.  The only thing I could think was, “I need to do yoga first before I can do this.”  So I found the video reviewed here on Netflix streaming (no longer available), and I began.  I was quite pleased with what I had found in this video that was at exactly the right level for me and my physical restrictions.  My chiropractor was thrilled that I had not only begun meditating but had gone back to yoga as well.  He didn’t mean to accomplish quite so much in one try!

The video I discovered was Healing Yoga for Aches and Pains by Lisa Bennet Matkin and Charles Matkin.  In addition to currently being available for short term rental on Amazon Instant Video, the cheapest place I found it for purchase on the web is Target.  There are also more expensive copies on Amazon and Ebay. 

The video is designed for individuals with mobility impairment.  It presents some very common yoga asanas (positions) that have been adapted to make them easier for someone who is physically weak or in pain.  One does need to be able to stand, sit, and lay on the floor, or you could skip that particular section if you can't get into those positions.  A yoga mat is recommended but not required; one also needs a chair to work with, though I’ve used the footboard on my bed for parts of it.   Many times the instructors in the video refer to people with arthritis, but I think the video is great for fibromyalgia or Lyme, both of which I have.   The video is really low key and isn’t suitable for someone who is in prime physical condition, but for those of us with limitations, it can be perfect.

If you have never done yoga before, I’d recommend starting with a private tutor or classes before using a video; then you can use the video instead of or to supplement classes.  I recommend starting with an instructor so that you can learn how the positions are supposed to work so that you don’t hurt yourself.  Yoga may look easy, but it’s actually quite strenuous at times, and it is possible to hurt yourself.  Case in point:  The first time I watched this video, I went into a lunge, something I could easily do when I was healthy.  A split second after I started the asana, I had the thought, “My knees can’t handle this,” and I collapsed to the floor as one of my knees gave out.  Fortunately, it wasn’t anything my chiropractor couldn’t fix easily, but it illustrates my point.  If you’ve got a particular weakness in your body, learning the dangers first is really important to preventing injury.

My only complaint about the video is that the shavasana (or relaxation) at the end is way too short.  I’d like to have at least 15-20 minutes of instrumental music available at the end to extend my meditation period.  I’ve worked around this by hitting pause on the DVD and hitting play on a music machine (iPod, CD player, etc.) of some sort that I have sitting nearby.

One of the advantages to doing a yoga video at home is the that the hotter I get, the more I can just take off clothes.  While there is an all-male naked yoga studio in Austin, that’s not really my thing for many reasons!  If I’m stripping, I want to be in the privacy of my own home.  The video also allows me to pause it if I need a break or if I need to go to the bathroom.  I can start whenever I feel up to it, and I can stop when my body says it’s done.  While it doesn’t have the benefit of socialization with others and the added instructor guidance, for someone who is homebound and disabled, this video offers a way to partake in yoga.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Families are created in many ways, and all of them are perfectly acceptable.  While parts of our society seem stuck on the archaic and unrealistic notion that families should be one man and one woman married for their entire lives plus their biological children, most of us acknowledge families often don’t look like that.  Divorce, death, remarriage, partnering, fostering and adoption all create novel family units.

Yet despite the fact that most people know as many families that don’t fit the traditional notions as those who do, people often feel a need to be nosy and ask questions that are really none of their business.  Such questions are invasive and generally shouldn’t be asked.  If someone you meet volunteers information about their family structure and how it was created, then it’s obvious they are ok with talking about the subject, and it’s ok to ask reasonable questions.  However, if they don’t bring it up, then it’s not fair game. 

I’ve seen this with regard to families I know with non-heterosexual parents.  When a lesbian couple announces one of them is pregnant, it’s pretty obvious that the conception didn’t happen in the “old fashioned” married heterosexual couple way.  However, it’s no one’s business but theirs where they got the sperm from.  Furthermore, despite what the legal paperwork may say in some states, they are both the mom regardless of who carried the child.  I know one lesbian couple where each gestated one of their two children, but I can never remember which mom carried which child.  And you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  They are both the moms.  They both love and care for their kids, and that’s all that matters.

The same is true when it comes to adoption.  In cases of interracial adoption, it’s sometimes quite obvious that the child isn’t the biological offspring of the parents, and yet it’s irrelevant.  Unless they bring up the topic, it’s completely inappropriate to ask where or how they “got” their child.

In my own case, I found an enormous number of people, especially complete strangers, considered the topic of my twins’ conception to be a suitable topic for public conversation.  Most people presume that twins are a result of fertility treatments, and they crudely ask if the twins are natural.  All children are natural regardless of how they are conceived.  If I was in an ornery mood when people would ask if the twins were a result of IVF or Clomid, I would reply no, that my then-husband and I just had too much sex.  That usually shut them up pretty quickly, possibly because they began to realize other people’s sex lives really are none of their business.

I also had quite a few people make completely inappropriate remarks about my subsequent pregnancy after my twins.  One person blatantly said to me, “Oops!” when I announced my pregnancy.  Um, no.  It was a planned pregnancy, and regardless if it was or wasn’t, that’s no one’s business but mine and my partner’s.  Another person asked, “But why?  You’ve already got one of each.”  This is another foot-in-mouth comment not only because it ignores my deceased daughter in the equation, but it also functions on an erroneous presumption that the perfect family consists of one male and one female child.

All of this applies to families without children as well.  It's nobody's business but theirs if and when couples decide to have children.  People should not expect couples to have children at any given point.  If couples or even individuals choose to do so, great.  If not, then that's often a decision they've made with great thought, and it's the right decision for them.  If it was a decision made because of infertility and not by choice, then the couple definitely doesn't need the pressure of others asking, "So when are you going to have a baby?"  Once again, if, how and when a family decides to conceive is not a question that should be broached.

When someone joyfully announces they are pregnant, the best response is, “I’m happy for you” or “Congratulations!”  When someone introduces you to their children, the best comments are along the lines of “What a beautiful family.”  There’s no need to comment on who looks like whom or to ask how the family is formed.  If a couple doesn't have children, that doesn't make them any less of a family.  Just presume the family exists because of love, and that’s all the information you need.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

(As always, this blog post is based on my experiences in life.  I am not a midwife or medical doctor, so please consult with your caregivers when making decisions regarding your pregnancy and birthing decisions.)

I am a strong believer in the ability of women’s bodies to naturally birth babies in 90+% of situations without medical assistance and intervention.  There are times when Western medicine is truly needed in childbirth, but I feel the current profit driven and legally dominated medical practices greatly skew the way childbirth occurs in the US.  The c-section rate should be between 5-10%, not the 30-50% that is happening in our nation. 

However, despite my strong beliefs in childbirth as a fundamentally natural and normal process, I seem to have been a poster child for unusual births.  This post is about my second and third births of my twins.  Because I was an educated and determined woman plus I had luck on my side, they were unmedicated vaginal breech births. That’s a situation that rarely happens in the US any more.

My twins were bothtransverse (lying across my abdomen) at 36.5 weeks though they were still very active and they were rotating their heads from the left to the right side of my abdomen as confirmed by ultrasound.  Previous, Twin A, the twin who is lowest in the womb and will be born first, had been breech and fully engaged in my pelvis.  She dropped at 28 weeks, popping back out twice but never rotating to a vertex position.  We began doing moxibustion just before the twins were born in an attempt to rotate her into a vertex position.  I had also been doing many of the recommended home techniques for rotating babies.  The moxibustion worked:  Twin A dropped violently into my pelvis from the transverse position, breaking her water in the process.  Unfortunately, she dropped in the breech position yet again, not the vertex we had hoped for.  The short version of my labor story is that two hours after twin A’s water broke, she was born, and fifteen minutes later, her brother joined her on the earth plane, both without problems.

The longer version of my pregnancy labor involves a story of a lot of frustration.  My original practitioner quit handling deliveries when I was 20 weeks pregnant (only two weeks after I found out I was carrying twins), so I had to find another OB who would handle twins.  Unfortunately in Austin at that time (2000), there were less than a handful of doctors who would consider letting a woman labor without an epidural during a twin birth, and I refused to have an epidural due to my medication sensitivities and my phobia of having people stick needles in my spine.  None of the homebirth midwives in town could legally deliver twins at that point with the exception of one, and because of our relationship, she did not feel she would make a good, objective practitioner for us though she was present as a doula at my twins’ births.  Those restrictions narrowed my options dramatically. 

Once I finally found an OB who was a relatively good match for me, I started having to deal with the fact twin A was breech and engaged.  My obstetrician had experience in delivering breech twins vaginally when Twin A was breech though most OBs do not.  He could not legally tell me that he would deliver the twins if they were breech due to the medical/legal situation in the US; he actually made us schedule a c-section date at around 38.5 weeks gestation (which I had no intention of showing up for, but it was on the records).  What he did say was that if I showed up with a baby on my perineum, there would be nothing left for him to do but catch it.  So that was our original breech birthing plan:  I would labor outside of the hospital as long as possible monitoring the babies with fetal dopplers and then show up at the last minute.

During the end of the pregnancy I did a LOT of online research; most of the studies I found were based out of foreign countries.  What I discovered was that the US was one of the only nations where breech births were treated as an anathema and that breech births can be safely done if mother, baby, and doctor are all good candidates for the process.  I especially appreciated the works of Henci Goer which helped me to see that my situation made me an ideal candidate for breech births.  I had a proven pelvis with a baby who was likely larger than the twins I was expecting (and they were 1-1.5 lbs smaller than her).  Twin A was in a frank or complete breech position during labor; her head was tucked properly.  The twins were of a good gestational age and weight.  And most importantly, I had a practitioner who was experienced in vaginal breech births, and based on my questioning of him, he truly knew what to do and was not afraid to do it.

The way the birth actually played out was not as we had originally planned.  My labor started unexpectedly when we weren’t sure what position the twins were in.  We never planned on my water breaking before labor actively started.  And most frustratingly, my OB was out of town.  However, the OB on call trained outside of the United States in a rural community and also had a great deal of experience with vaginal breech births.  So luck was on my side in that regard.

I arrived at the hospital labor and delivery ward an hour after my water broke, but I wasn’t feeling contractions yet.  When the nurse checked me, I was at 7 centimeters and she could tell it was a butt presenting.  All hell then broke loose at the hospital as everyone but me went into a panic about a breech twin presenting with a mother who refused an epidural and wanted to have vaginal births.  In between contractions while I was in transition (by which time I was feeling the contractions quite strongly), I argued medical studies with the OB on call.  He ascertained that I did know what I was consenting to, though he still made my then-husband sign AMA (against medical advice) paperwork.  The labwork that they needed to put the epidural in place still had not shown up when it was time for me to start pushing, and they never found my paperwork that my OB’s office had sent over: Again, luck was on my side. 

I only pushed for two minutes with Twin A:  She was my smallest baby and by far my easiest birth.  Twin B was a breech extraction, a totally different situation that I think could have been avoided entirely had I been working with midwives rather than a Western doctor.  However, breech extractions are not uncommon for Twin B births though more and more doctors are refusing to perform them as well.  Since I was unmedicated, I was able to feel the entire process of the OB shoving his hand up my vagina, past my cervix, and into my uterus where he played chase with my son who was really not keen on the whole idea of being forced to be born when he had just gotten the whole uterus to himself for the first time in almost nine months.  That was nowhere near as painful as it might seem, but it’s still not a procedure I recommend doing for fun.

Despite the fact that both my twins were born healthy and vaginally, it was not a positive birthing experience for me.  I spent the entirety of labor arguing and fighting with the staff about the births.  I repeatedly had to refuse to let the hospital do unnecessary procedures and they still did several without my consent.  The birth was sterile in an OR filled with about 20 people whom I did not know and did not want there.  It essentially became a freak show for anyone and everyone to come watch.  I was forced to labor flat on my back with my legs in traditional stirrups though I asked for other positions.  I was ignored repeatedly during the birth.  I was treated as no more than a birthing machine, not a human.

After the birth, both my OB and the OB on call got chewed out by hospital administration for my refusal to consent to a c-section in a situation that clearly turned out for the best for me and my babies.  The legal risk was just too high for the administration to handle even though I would have sued had they done a c-section without my consent as that is medical assault.  The head nurse at the hospital even reprimanded my OB then next time she saw him, placing blame on him for me being an educated woman who wanted the best thing for me and my children.  Fortunately my OB knew she was off-base and ignored her.

While I’m grateful I was able to have these births, they aren’t what I would want for most women.  It is legal now in Texas for certified professional midwives to deliver breech babies and twins at home, and that increases the options for women if they can find  midwives who are trained in breech births and are willing to assist them.  While there are several more naturally oriented obstetricians in Austin than there were in 2000, the options for women wanting to have vaginal breech babies, especially vaginal twins where twin A is breech, are still VERY limited.  This is a situation that makes me very sad.  The greater Austin area has almost two million people at this point, and women should not have to go to other cities and other states in order to have safe, natural births.

(The photo above is of Jodi Egerton of Write Good Consulting.  The henna artwork was done during a Blessing Way ceremony when she was about 35 weeks pregnant.  This photograph was taken when she was 36 weeks and 2 days pregnant.  Her beautiful baby boy was born four weeks and two days later in a vertex homebirth.)

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

(Forewarning: This is a long post!)

After my daughter Rebecca’s recent birthday and death day, a relatively new friend sent me a message asking, “I believe every person has a reason for being - if you also believe thusly, have you discerned what Rebecca's purpose in her much too short life was?”

First of all, I would like to acknowledge how beautifully this question is phrased.  This friend is a spiritual adviser and has worked with people of many faiths as they are dying.  She recognizes that her beliefs are not the beliefs of everyone, and her question left room for me to disagree with her.  It turns out that I do agree with her:  I believe that every life, no matter how short, impacts the world in some way.

Second, I want to point out that this is not a question that anyone should ask a recently bereaved parent.  It’s been 15 years since my daughter died, and this friend knows that I am willing to talk openly about my daughter’s death.  That greatly changes the situation.  In the situation of a stillbirth or neonatal loss, though, a recently bereaved parent is more likely to be in a stage where they can’t see what purpose their child’s life and death has served. They are surrounded by pain, grief, anger, depression, and many other dark feelings.  They may feel they were cheated out of the future they had envisioned.  To ask them what purpose their child’s life served will feel insulting and possibly amplify their pain.  If they bring up the topic, it’s certainly appropriate to talk to them about it, but until they have healed some of their wounds, they may not be ready to move on to this stage of understanding.

So what purpose did Rebecca’s life serve?  I think that there are many answers to that on many levels. One of the first things that came from Rebecca’s death was that my ex-husband and I established a scholarship in her memory.  We used the memorial donations from friends and family towards this scholarship, plus we put in a large amount of our own money over five years.  The Motorola Foundation matched our donations as well.  This is something we never would have done if it hadn’t been for Rebecca.  Now each year we get the joy of seeing the scholarship reward someone who devotes time and service to the Marching Owl Band (aka the MOB) at Rice University.  The annual report on the scholarship often brings me to tears, but they are good tears!

One of Rebecca’s other gifts was to her siblings who were born after her.  I had planned to breastfeed Rebecca, but I wasn’t very passionate about it.  I knew it was best for the baby, best for mama, cheapest, etc.  However, when I was holding Rebecca’s dead body in my arms, I was hit with the most overwhelming urge to nurse her.  I knew logically that I couldn’t nurse her, but the hormonal urge was amazing.  That response drove my dedication for breastfeeding my subsequent children.  I had a very rough start with nursing my twins due to their slightly early arrival (36 weeks 5 days) and rampant thrush which impacted my supply, but I was determined to breastfeed them.  Eventually we succeeded and nursed until they were almost 18 months old.  If it weren’t for that experience with Rebecca, I probably would have given up as so many overwhelmed and undersupported mothers do.

As part of my breastfeeding devotion, I discretely nursed all my subsequent children in public.  It was something I never questioned that I was going to do with my twins since I knew if I left society while breastfeeding them, I’d pretty much never see other people for many months.  This actually triggered a chain reaction.  My friends, who hadn’t publicly nursed their first children, realized that if I could discretely and comfortably nurse my babies in public, they could do the same with their younger babies.  I am sure these women’s change in their stances on breastfeeding in public helped other women feel more comfortable, too.  I see all of that change as having been instigated by my experience with wanting to nurse Rebecca so desperately.

On a much deeper level, Rebecca’s death taught me a level of compassion and understanding that I would never had known had I not lost her.  While I had lost family members and friends prior to Rebecca’s death, the death of a child is incomparable.  Only a few years after Rebecca’s death, I began speaking publicly to help health care providers, especially those in the natural childbirth community, have better resources for dealing with infant loss.  Through feedback I received from those who heard my presentations, I know I made an impact in the lives of others who subsequently lost babies.  My e-mail address and phone number were circulated for a while in the midwifery community of Austin, so I would periodically get messages or calls from women who had lost a baby and who needed to talk to someone who truly understood.  This in turn has led to the life coaching work I do with bereaved families.

On a metaphysical level, Rebecca’s spirit periodically stayed near me for almost four years after her death.  At the time, I didn’t really believe in such things, but I knew what I was experiencing.  I didn’t discuss it with anyone because I didn't think anyone would believe me.  I unfortunately didn’t know that I could interact with her, but I was aware when she was around me.  She was the first departed soul I know I encountered and experienced.  After her youngest sibling was born, I believe her spirit moved on to whatever her next mission is.

I believe in reincarnation though I respect that others don’t.  I think that my experience with Rebecca in this life ties to my most recent past life in the 1920s-1940s wherein I had both a late miscarriage (four or five months gestation) and an abortion (not my husband’s child).  I have also seen another male life of mine hundreds of years ago wherein I lost a child in battle; that loss greatly shifted my soul’s beliefs and actions in this world.  Somehow I think that my losing Rebecca in this life was to help me process those previous losses in a way I did not or could not in the previous lives.  I can’t be certain of this, but it rings as truth for me.

One other meaning for Rebecca’s short life came up for me in recent months that was deeply profound for me.  In a healing session, I learned that Rebecca’s soul also needed the experience of coming into this world and leaving it so quickly.  She was not happy about her quick departure, but it served some purpose in her soul’s growth.  This isn’t all just about me and my loss of her!  I still haven’t fully understood what that purpose might have been for her soul, but I know that she too gained something from the painful experience.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Fourteen years ago, my oldest daughter Rebecca died unexpectedly during her birth.  She was moments away from being born when her heartbeat disappeared.  There was no malpractice; we never got a definitive cause of death.  It was simply one of those awful things that happens. 

Since then, I have often been asked what to do when someone else’s baby dies.  It’s a horribly heartbreaking situation, and those who haven’t experienced it personally feel at a loss for how to help.  The following are some of my suggestions based on my experience.  Always use your best judgment to decide what is best for the bereaved family you want to help.

Attend the funeral or memorial service if possible. 

Even if you don’t know the family incredibly well, your presence will mean the world to the grieving parents.  The sheer number of people who turned out astonished us and helped us feel loved and supported in our time of grief.

Yes, you will likely cry.  So will they.  It’s part of what happens at funerals.  No one will judge you for crying.  We knew it was going to be an issue and had boxes of tissues in all of the pews in the chapel we had Rebecca’s service in.  We were sitting in the front row, completely oblivious to what was going on behind us, but a good friend said that during the song  we played near the end, the boxes of tissues were moving fast and furious between people in the pews.

Even if you don’t know what to say to the family, shake their hands or give them hugs and say, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”  That will say it all.  One woman in the receiving line that spontaneously formed after the memorial service for Rebecca couldn’t even get that out.  She was completely choked up, but she gave me a huge hug and moved on.  She has a daughter who was born only three months before my daughter.  I understood what she was processing and why she couldn’t say more.  Silence can be the right choice at times.

Donate to the charity of choice if you are able.

Unless you have a huge moral opposition to the charity of the family’s choice, your gift will mean a lot to them.  My then husband and I chose to set up a scholarship fund in memory of our daughter. We truly appreciate all the donations that went toward it.  It has been a gift that keeps on giving as many years we hear from the actual scholarship recipients in the annual financial update on the scholarship.  That annual letter never fails to bring me to tears (in a good way).

We also had people send flowers to our home immediately after the death.  This is a tradition in our culture for many, but not everyone appreciates it.  Unless you know the family wants cut flowers, it might actually cause issues for them.  To me, cut flowers are just dying in front of me.  I didn’t want to deal with another aspect of death at that point.  I also am allergic to many varieties of flowers, so many of the flowers we received were problematic.  We lived in a smallish home, and there wasn’t much of a place to put them on display where they wouldn’t bother me.  I finally put the worst offender on the front porch.  While it was generously given as a way of sending sympathy, it was making me miserable!

If the family does not ask for charitable donations, offer to create a charity gift fund and follow through with it.

Perhaps the family often visits a local park where you can donate funds and have a plaque or tile put up in memory of their baby.  Other locations have tree planting memorial programs. Perhaps they belong to a church where there is a memory wall that you can donate to.  Whatever you offer to do, make it something that would provide a meaningful gift to the family and their community.

Offer to set up a care calendar for food donations.

Our daughter died before the wonders of the internet.  We were overwhelmed with food being brought to our home.  We truly appreciated the food, and the spicy Indian food our next-door neighbors made for me will forever be in my mind as one of my best meals ever after months of pregnancy-induced heartburn preventing me from eating such things.   However, there was just too much.  We didn’t have an additional freezer to put things in.  It would have been great to have a calendar set up so we could have spread out food and visits from friends over the next month or two.

Be specific in your offers of help.

I have found throughout my life that when people say to me, “Call me if you need anything” that I almost never do.  However, in times of intense stress including after Rebecca died, I responded incredibly well to specific offers.  One friend and his wife offered to do the music for the service and then did the music for our subsequent twins’ baptisms as part of their compassion and their healing.  They brought us hymnals to look at, and once we had selected the music, they took over everything from there.  We didn’t have to worry about anything.  It was a wonderful gift to us.

Another friend was a Type A organizer amongst our social group.  When she called and asked to help, it felt perfect to let her to take over plans for the reception after the memorial.  She did a fabulous job, and when anyone else asked about it or about giving us more food, I would just send them to her.  Even though I love organizing events, I was so grateful not to have to plan that.

Other specific things you can suggest include offering to drive to the doctor’s office for postpartum visits and to be there to hold a hand.  Returning to the doctor’s office near the hospital (if they used one) might be difficult.  If you are going to the store and live near them, call on your way out the door and say, “Hey, I’m headed to the grocery store.   Can I pick you up anything?”  Trips to pick up other supplies at big box stores might also be appreciated.

If you are a close friend, be aware that the parents may need to do things like return to the mortuary to pick up ashes, go to the coroner’s office to pick up autopsy results, or spend hours on the phone wrangling with insurance over bills for the child who died.  If you can help with those in any way, please offer.  I did all of the above by myself not realizing that I could have asked a friend to come with me and help support me.

We did not have any other living children at that point, but other families may need help with transportation and playdates for their living children especially while the mother is recovering from the birth.  Even though she is not staying up countless hours at night taking care of a newborn, her body will still need to heal from the birth.  Offer to help with the other children just as you would have done if their baby had lived.

Respect the family’s grief.

The family is dealing with their own emotional turmoil at this time.  Do not put your problems on them.  One friend was experiencing a miscarriage at the time of Rebecca’s memorial service.  She walked in the door to the chapel with her personal box of tissues under her arm and a very red nose plus tears running down her face.  That was ok.  She was mourning her own loss (as well as two previous ones), and I knew it.  She had managed to come to the memorial service despite her pain, and I was grateful for her presence.   However, another friend showed up on my doorstep and literally fell apart in my arms, bawling about her own issues that weren’t related to my daughter’s death.  That was very much not ok.  The last thing I needed to do was console her.  I was the grieving mother, not her therapist.

Provide the family with a safe space to talk about their grief and their loss.  Don’t change the subject when they talk about their child or their struggles in the postpartum days.  Show them you care by listening.  It’s an amazing gift for you to give to them.

If you are friends with them, continue to go out with them socially as you did before the birth.

Invite your bereaved friends to social events, even if they turn you down.  Continue offering periodically.  When they feel up to it, they will be glad you are still offering.  We lost a few friends after the death of our daughter, and that hurt deeply.  I know this post-loss rejection is a common event as I have heard this from other bereaved families as well.  People feel awkward when a baby has died and don’t know what to do.  Some chose to shut the bereaved family out of their lives rather than facing their fears and issues.

At the same time, respect limits set by the grieving family.  If they tell you, “We think it will be a few months before we are ready to go out again,” then wait two months and ask again.  Also understand that many bereaved parents have difficulties seeing young children.  After the first few days, I was ok with seeing children who were not born near Rebecca’s birthdate.  However, girls with the same name as her or babies who were the same age as her remained triggers for quite a while.  We had some friends who had a healthy baby boy five days after our daughter was born and died.  They were incredibly respectful to us about how the baby (and his baptism and birthdays) might affect us.  The wife talked honestly and openly with me, and through our mutual tears, we were able to find a way to make it all work out for both of us so that they didn’t worry about hurting us and at the same time didn’t feel like they were excluding us.

Mourning doesn’t end after any set period of time.

After the first month, the sympathy cards stopped coming.  That seemed to be the point at which society expected us to move on.  However, that entire first year was very rough for us, and I’m sure it is for many other families as well.  Continue to send them e-mails or cards letting them know that you are thinking of them.  Call and check on them.  If they aren’t feeling up to going out, offer to come to their place with the clear expectation that they should not cook or clean for you.

Continue to send them cards and e-mails as time passes.  In this digital age, program your calendar to remind you each year on their child’s birthday and/or deathday to send them a note saying you are thinking of them.

Also know that other holidays may be rough for them, especially Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and child-focused holidays such as Easter, Halloween, and Christmas or Hanukkah.  Respect that they may be having a rough time around the holidays and might need some extra support at that time.

Honor their tears.  They will continue to cry over their loss of their child.  No calendar will dictate when that will end.  Even as I have typed this blog entry, my tears have flown and a mound of tissues has accumulated next to my keyboard.  It is far healthier for the tears to flow than for the emotions to be stuffed and stored inside of us to fester and cause harm.

Honor their child as a human being.

For a parent who has lost a child, it is a blessing to hear their child’s name spoken out loud.  They know that s/he has not been forgotten.  If they have pictures of their child, be sure to look at them and say anything positive you can. 

Offer to help them frame the photos or set up a display in their home to honor their child if that is something they would like.  I have some of Rebecca’s belongings in a shadow box, a project I did on mostly my own.  I also made a scrapbook of notes and cards I received after her death, a cathartic activity for me.  However, if one of the parents is not crafty and you are, this might be something you could help with.

Things to Avoid

There are no universal truths when it comes to infant loss, but the following points are pretty close to it.  In my discussions with other bereaved parents, mainly mothers, these are issues that many of us faced and resent.

Don’t impart your religious beliefs on them.

You may believe this is part of God’s plan, but they may not.  Even if they were previously religious, many families lose their faith after the death of a child.  Others’ faith grows stronger.  Follow the lead of the family.  If you are meeting in a religious Bible study with them, that is a different story.  However, when you are offering your condolences, do not talk about their guardian angel or God’s mysterious ways.  Simply say, “My heart hurts for you” or “I’m sorry for your loss.”  Nothing more is needed.

Don’t compare this loss to another.

Someone once said that in losing a parent or a grandparent, you lose your past, but in losing a child, you lose your future.  While losing a grandparent or a pet is terrible, it has little in common with losing a child.  Losing a child is unlike any other loss someone experiences in life.  Don’t compare them.  Unless you have lost a child yourself, please don’t say you understand, because you actually don’t.  I have suffered an early miscarriage, and even that didn’t come close to the experience of holding my dead baby in my arms.   Just tell the bereaved family that you are sorry for their loss and that you will be there to help them however you can.

Don’t speculate about future children. 

First of all, no baby replaces another.  If you have children of your own, you already know that.  Every child is unique and individual.  The child these parents lost will never be replaced.   If this child was a twin or other multiple, don’t presume that having other surviving babies will help in some way.  They are still grieving for the child they lost.

Don’t speculate about when they are going to get pregnant again.  It won’t help them to have to answer nosy questions.  The family may not be able to have other children for health or financial reasons.  This may not have been a planned pregnancy.  It may have been an IVF pregnancy using limited funds to finance it.  The mother may have had an emergency hysterectomy after the birth that you aren’t aware of.  The couple’s relationship may be falling apart.  Don’t presume that they will be able to or even want to have another child.

Secondary infertility is an unfortunately common problem.  The couple may have difficulty conceiving again.  They may also choose to postpone conception until a time when they feel they have fully mourned and healed from the loss of their baby.  If and when they announce a subsequent pregnancy, then you may say congratulations.  Until then, their family planning is their business, and you should refrain from inserting yourself into it.

Don’t pretend like their child never existed or deny their parenthood.

Finally, even if they have no other children, this baby’s parents are still parents.  They have a baby they love dearly.  That child is dead, but the child is still theirs.  Do not imply that they are not parents.  Do not imply that the child does not count.  Their child is their beloved child now until their deaths, and in the beliefs of some, even beyond.

One of the most awful things someone said to me was years later after I had given birth to three more living children. Someone with three children asked me, “Isn’t three the most perfect number of children?”  The other people we were with had looks of horror on their faces, knowing full well what the person had said despite knowing about Rebecca’s death.  In a rare moment of actually being able to come up with the perfect response on the spot, I told her, “I wouldn’t know.  I have four children.”

© 2013 Green Heart Guidance