Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

This picture brings up visceral memories of the pain I felt the day Ellis was stillborn and also captures the mysterious ways that grief brings us together.

The two women in this picture are really special to me and have both experienced deep losses of their own. This was the moment before my friend Jess baptized Ellis. I’d been weeping for hours and was weary from the work of laboring our little boy’s spirit into heaven. I love how Jonna held my face to look into my eyes—it’s a picture of how our brokenness creates cracks in our surface that lets us see into each other’s souls.

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness day. I feel a special connection to all the parents out there who’ve suffered the pain of losing a baby and am so grateful for the people I’ve gotten to know through this unfortunate bond.

Witnessing others express their grief and love for their missing babies has given me the courage to explore my own experience of loss and ultimately to make my own meaning out of something that felt meaningless. That’s one reason awareness is so important—so that we can better understand and support each other.

One of the best things you can do for someone whose baby has died is just to show up. It’s okay if you don’t know what to say or do—just trust that you have something unique to offer. Author Elizabeth McCracken says, “This is why you need everyone you know after a disaster, because there is not one right response.”

Another way to support bereaved parents is by helping to remember their babies. You can do so this evening by lighting a candle at 7pm as part of the Wave of Light event in remembrance of babies who were lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death.

On this day of remembrance, I hold Ellis and the other babes we’ve miscarried in my heart, as well as all the people who’ve helped to lift me up out of the darkness of pregnancy loss.