How Do I Help My Niece – Her Baby Was Stillborn
My niece, suzanne, gave birth Monday, May 12, 2008 to a 6′8″ little boy. The baby was still born. Her pregnancy was fine and she had been to the doctor the previous friday. Baby’s heart beat was strong and she discussed inducing labor with her doctor. They scheduled it for Saturday, May 17th. On Sunday she started to feel not so well and put a call into her doctor. She was given an appt. for the next morning. During her visit they were not able to hear a heartbeat so they did an ultrasound and discovered there was no longer any life in the baby. They sent her directly to the hospital and induced her labor. She has a 5 year old son who was born thru c-section so she had not yet experienced giving birth vaginally. She later told me it was the hardest thing she ever did. They also were able to hold the baby and the nurses took numerous photos with the baby and various family members. She was given a small teddy bear that was dressed in the clothes the baby wore. She also has a darling keepsake box that holds the baby’s footprints, a handprint and a lock of his hair. That is what she will take home with her when she leaves the hospital today. They are in the process of planning a service for the baby. I have experienced many losses in my lifetime starting with my dad when I was 5 yrs. old. I lost a younger brother to suicide and several other losses along life’s way. But I have never felt such a sadness as I feel now. To see my niece go from expecting to bring home a baby boy next week to planning his burial in a matter of hours is indescribable. I sat with her yesterday for a time and just held her hand and cried with her. She looks so much in disbelief. My heart aches for her and I want to help her. I am very close with her as her own mother is an alchoholic and can provide no real support. My brother, her dad, is there for her but he too is at a loss. The normal order of life has been switched around and we have no precedent for this situation. I am loking for knowledge on how to help my niece get thru this. If there is information available in the Cincinnati, Ohio area to teach me how to help her please tell me. I am a christian and believe in God’s eternal plan but I need help with this one. Thank You, Aunt Katherine
Drs. Gloria and Heidi Respond
Dear Katherine,
You have done the best thing possible right now – to sit and hold her hand and cry with her. For this kind of loss there are simply no words that console or comfort. She is lucky to have you. She may need help just getting the details of the burial accomplished – it is a tremendously hard thing to do. You don’t mention her husband – he may also need comforting and may not be able to console her now because of his own grief.
Her emotions may be much too raw right at this time to respond to any kind of help and there are simply no guidlines to tell you when she will be ready. Each person grieves in her own time and way. You sound like a very wise and compassionate woman and you will notice the little clues she gives you clues as to when she is ready. Your loving presence and undestanding is probably what she needs the most right now.
When she is ready there is a wonderful group called The Compassionate Friends. http://www.compassionatefriends.org. Each member has lost a child or a sibling and they understand what she is experiencing. They do have groups in Cincinnati and you might like to contact them to find the group located nearest to your niece. They also have an online support group for mothers who have lost babies during pregnancy or at birth. These may be of help to her later on. She may also need the help of a professional grief counselor for a period of time but it is too soon to determine that.
It also may be helpful for you to listen to some of the archived programs of our radio show, Healing the Grieving Heart. You can find these at http://www.thegriefblog.com and clicking on Radio Show Archives at the top. or by clicking http://thegriefblog.com/grief-grieving-death-of-a-child/Â There are some programs dealing with grief in general and some specifically about stillborn and infant loss. We recommend:
January 24, 2008
Pregnancy Loss: Our babies are just a cloud away
Guest: Diana Gardner-Williams
October 11, 2007
Coping with Pregnancy and Infant Loss
Guest: Monica Novak
Our live show is aired on Thursday mornings at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. This week’s guest is Dr. William Worden who is a nationally recognized grief counselor and author. His words may be helpful to you in knowing how to comfort your niece. Often we read letters on the show so you may, if possible, want to listen this week. We wlll also post your letter on The Grief Blog. Not only will it help others but it may possibly bring you answers to some of your questions as our readers respond to you plea for help.You might like to check periodically for comments.
I know it may be the last thing she wants to hear but I recently had a miscarriage and through working with my pain I have found a part of myself I never knew I had. I realized that you can grieve in a good way. I learned that Resistance makes you stronger, tragedy makes you appreciative, loss makes you love even stronger, and pain forces you soul to grow stronger. To live a life or ease and excess makes the soul grow soft and weak. Being given everything you want and need in the world makes you lose out on the grand and terrifying adventure of creating yourself. When you lose something important to you something that breaks your heart it gives you the gift of rebuilding, to make yourself stronger than you were before. Heartaches and loss any devastation is an opportunity a choice to prove to yourself who you are what kind of person you want to be. To allow your grief to take you to that dark place of self destruction hate and fear, or the embrace you pain, feel it fully even if you sometimes the sadness is too heavy to even breath and make it your own. To own your fear and loss creates another part of you it may not be beautiful or refined but it is strong and willful. To choose to make your grief into a part of you and channel it into something meaningful or beautiful or even something honest. You will stop trying to run away from it stop trying to make it not so. We can’t change our past or our hurt. There is no easy fix when you lose part of your heart. But the bravest thing to do is to get out of bed each morning and take those breaths that make you feel like falling apart, and try. Try everyday to connect again to see beauty in the world when all you feel is sadness. Just try, and try and try and eventually you will take a breath that does hurt quite so bad with the sting of grief. Then day by day, even moment by moment take advantage of your life. Use the overwhelming loss and grief to enrich your life, don’t forget about your loss but change it into strength. The upside of tragedy is that it touches your core and it can either break it or build you stronger. You find out who you really are, what you really want and who in your life is truly there for you. Change can be the scariest thing in the world especially covered by loss but please don’t honor the lost with your life falling apart honor the lost by improving loving and growing in their name. Honor them not by your mourning but your laughter, not with isolation but with connection and kindness. Make your loss important and make your lost loved one so proud of who you have become. Do not dishonor their life by loosing yours as well. The dead do not need your tears or your hate, they nourish and are released by your strength your smiles and your belief in life and beauty. So as hard, impossible as it may seem to grow beyond your loss, remember not to be selfish and scared. Live your life so if they can look down they will cry with joy and the person you have become and live through your joy.