Filling out medical history has always been something I never really loved doing. While I never had anything overly crazy to report I just hated having to remember specific dates and information about my past and my family. Now, after my miscarriages, it’s something I dread entirely. It provides a moment of pure grief while you fill in the section of pregnancy history and the D&C you got under procedures. Recently, while filling out medical documents for a new primary care physician I got to the pregnancy history section and found these options: total pregnancies, full term births, prematu ..read more

Mother’s Day and May in general can be a difficult time for those who have lost a child or have lost a mother. We often dwell on what should have been, could have been, or would have been. But it’s important to look beyond the traditional definition of “mother” and think of mother as “nurturer.” In that sense, we are all mothers regardless of our situation. To nurture is to provide love and influence, to care for, support, educate, encourage, protect, and teach. To nurture is to help someone to grow and develop. We nurture our families by caring for the elderly, supporting our spouse, and guid ..read more

February, known as “Heart Month,” is special to me for a number or reasons. It’s a month for expanding our awareness and understanding of heart disease and proclaiming our love for those close to us. Smack in the middle of the month is Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week. Congenital heart disease affects 1 in 100 babies. But a lot has changed over the years. When I was born, my mother was told I would never survive. Doctors could not even diagnose what I had because the diagnostic tools were so limited. Fortunately, I was eventually diagnosed with Ebstein’s anomaly when I was a teen and st ..read more

Miscarriages and pregnancy loss bring out a lot of emotions in a person that often make it hard to express to others what exactly they are going through. For me, I first mourned the dreams I had for my family with that baby included, the experiences we would go through as new parents, and the picture I had created in my head of what our life would look like. I mourned the fact that I wasn’t pregnant anymore but didn’t have a cute little baby to show for it. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that it just happened – quick as can be. In a split second it was all over, and I felt like I was ..read more

One of the books I am currently reading is Bittersweet, by Susan Cain. She posits that suffering, loss, and pain are not feelings simply to be medicated or avoided but instead to be processed and absorbed. Bittersweet is the embrace of sadness and the longing for beauty, for something beyond our existence. Holding together these seemingly disparate experiences, Cain believes is the pathway to “creativity, transcendence, and love.” Bittersweet, she says, can draw us together in the shared experience of longing for the transcendent. For me, a manifestation of bittersweet is resiliency. Resilienc ..read more

“Touch is far more essential than our other senses. … It’s ten times stronger than verbal or emotional contact.” — Saul Schanberg in A Natural History of the Senses Grief can be a very lonely experience. Some who are grieving prefer to be alone with their grief, while others are inclined to reach out for support and comfort. Those trying to comfort someone grieving face similar issues as well. We often don’t know what to say, what to do, how best to comfort our friend or family member who is grieving the loss of a child. I tend to throw myself into activity after a loss. When I lost my grandso ..read more

I must admit I am a worrier. I needlessly worry about what might happen in the future. After my daughter-in-law miscarried Liam I worried about whether or not she would be able to have another child. I worked myself into a state before my open-heart surgery, worrying about things like the breathing tube, chest tubes, and whether or not I would even survive. But my worries proved to be unfounded. My daughter-in-law gave birth to a beautiful rainbow baby boy who will be two this year. And I did survive surgery—I found it ironic that the things I worried about never materialized; it was the thing ..read more