HOPE BLOOMS
sharing your stories and remembering your children
By Nick Carrington EPLA Editor May is mental health awareness month and a great opportunity to remember the challenges that miscarriage causes. The physical effects are traumatic enough, but women face intense mental and emotional struggles as well. A recent study suggests that miscarriage potentially doubles the risk of suicide in teens. The researchers focused on teenagers in the juvenile justice and foster care systems, a group who traditionally doesn’t have a strong support system when tragedy strikes. The experience of those teens isn’t uncommon. While other mothers are blessed with support systems in various forms, like friends, family, and church and other civic groups, they may not experience the fruit of that community after a miscarriage. That lack of support occurs for multiple reasons. We still don’t talk about miscarriage enough. People are often uncomfortable hearing about a miscarriage and don’t know how to react. But also, we don’t always recognize that both mother and father have lost a child. In most cases, we should expect the parents will grieve as those who’ve lost a loved one. So loved ones should react accordingly. Many ways that we comfort the grieving are appropriate in this situation, like sending flowers, starting a meal train, writing cards, and providing gifts. As a community, we strive to ease burdens from the loss family so they can focus on grieving instead of dealing with endless other responsibilities. When women and families don’t have people to support them, they may spiral into despair. That’s why the EPLA focuses so much on building community around miscarriage. As we think through mental health, let's not forget that a strong community plays a role in the healing process. So be there for each other and know who will be there for you. When a miscarriage occurs, we not only grieve together, we work to help loved ones heal. Nick Carrington is an Editor for the EPLA and Associate Professor of Professional Writing at Cedarville University
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By Emily Carrington EPLA Executive Director Seven years ago I started talking about my miscarriages. At the time, I was lauded as brave. I wasn’t noticed as brave for enduring the heartbreak of losing a child. I wasn’t noticed as brave for enduring the physical process of losing a child. I was called brave simply because I talked about my miscarriage. And they were right. No one talked about miscarriage. It was newsworthy when celebrities opened up to tell their own stories. It turns out there were a lot of people like me. Just ready to talk into the silence. The hushed culture inspired projects like “Don’t Talk About the Baby” and Grieve Out Loud. For a long time the conversation simply was “WHY ISN’T THIS A CONVERSATION?!” But now it is a conversation. It is at least a growing conversation. We must still work against long-standing cultural norms of silence, but we also must look forward. If we are going to talk, what are we going to say? At Hope Blooms we hope to help answer that question. We still want to raise awareness, and we still believe there is a LONG way to go on that front. But what are we going to say to those who are paying attention? In keeping with our mission, vision, and values at EPLA, I believe it is time to educate, amplify, support, dignify, and love. Educate: As miscarriage awareness grows, it is important we offer clear explanations and definitions so people can better understand the physical experience of miscarriage. While the word miscarriage is used broadly, there are many medical terms that explain embronic development, medical procedures, and female reproductive issues. As the conversation continues we must educate, educate, educate to protect against misinformation. Amplify: We must amplify the voices of people speaking: the families, the doctors, the nurses, the other care providers. By giving these voices volume we are honoring not only their lives, but the lives of the little ones they lost. Support - We must continue to increase support. This includes physical support, financial support, emotional support, and spiritual support. As we listen, we must hear what people need and seek to improve services. Dignify: We are not here to just ruffle feathers, change procedures, or yell about our sadness. We are not here to ask everyone else to yell; in fact - I wish we never had to yell at all. I wish we could grieve quietly with dignity. I wish our lost children were given dignity. As we continue to talk about miscarriage we must do so with an eye on dignity. The same dignity we give all birth and death, because it is just that: a birth and a death. Love: Perhaps this isn’t a different task, but the action that holds everything together. As the conversation continues we must continue to love. We must love each other and more specifically we must love human life. We are honored to use this blog space to do just these things, and we are glad you are here to join us. Emily Carrington is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and founder of the EPLA.
By Maria Servold EPLA Editor As the Early Pregnancy Loss Association has grown over the past few years, we have made an effort to develop and maintain collaborations with other groups. We’re proud to pursue our mission of serving women suffering early pregnancy loss, but we’re also proud to work with other groups to further our missions together. One such group is Metro Detroit Share, a regional branch of the national group Share, which provides support for pregnancy and infant loss. Since 2020, we have worked with Metro Detroit Share to include our early pregnancy loss kits in bags they provide to women suffering miscarriage all over the greater Metro Detroit area. Recently, we provided another 500 small loss kits to MDS.This brings our total to 1,500 kits distributed to MDS in less than three years. The group’s director, Angie Winton, came to Hillsdale with a truck and a trailer to pick up all the kits - for which we are so grateful! (And a special thanks to the Stockdale kids for all their help!) Maria Servold is an Editor at the EPLA, Assistant Director of the Herbert H. Dow II Program in American Journalism, and Lecturer in Journalism at Hillsdale College.
By Emily Carrington EPLA Executive Director My parents were in town visiting to celebrate my husband’s graduation from Baylor University. It was the beginning of a month of celebration: an honors dinner, graduation parties, and goodbye parties. Every few days we had another reason to gather and celebrate our five years in Waco. After church that Sunday, we were excited to take my parents to Dichotomy for a Mother’s Day brunch. The restaurant - a coffee shop by day and bar by night - had just opened and was an exciting addition to the pre-Magnolia Waco landscape. I ordered my mimosa and thought, Well, I guess this is something I can do now. Less than 10 days before, we said goodbye to our first baby. At a little over 11 weeks pregnant we heard the horrible words “I am sorry, there is no heartbeat.” Opting for a D&C procedure to complete the miscarrage, the whole thing seemed rather “contained” and life seemed to spiral on. My husband was graduating, he had a new job, we had bought a house, we were moving back to the Midwest; everything we had worked for for five years was coming to fruition. This was an exciting time of celebration. But on Mother’s Day the shadow of my loss was looming. I was sad, but I was also feeling better. My morning sickness had subsided, my hormones were leveling out, and my body was starting to move forward. I could drink and enjoy the mimosa, something I could not have done two weeks earlier because it was not only unwise, but impossible due to my early pregnancy food aversions. How long would I feel this way? I was at once confused, relieved, and burdened by grief. This year, May 1 is International Bereaved Mother’s Day and May 8 is Mother’s Day. Some might argue that all mothers deserve recognition on the “real” Mother’s Day and that bereaved mothers don’t need our own special day. Others might suggest that such a day is needed, otherwise we get lost in the shuffle and forgotten. These first two weeks of May hold that dichotomy of bereaved motherhood. Your motherhood is valid, your motherhood is real, you are a mother. But your baby is missing and your arms ache and it might feel as though your motherhood has been stripped away from you. Your legitimacy to motherhood is not ruined by your grief of its loss. That is the grief: you are a mother missing the very thing that fulfills that role. That first Mother’s Day, I sipped my mimosa slowly and held my motherhood closely. Emily Carrington is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and founder of the EPLA.
By: Stephanie Gordon, EPLA board member and blog editor
I recently came across a miscarriage photo essay that is genuinely raw and real; I could feel this woman’s pain just looking at the captured moments. A decade ago, an ultrasound photo and a broken heart was the only evidence of my miscarriage. This essay portrays nearly each step of miscarriage, with photo captions that convey the complicated emotions felt during miscarriage loss. One photo caption reads, “I didn’t know how badly I wanted a baby until I was told I wasn’t having one.” Emotions came flooding back about the loss I experienced nearly a decade ago this year. I remember echoing the author’s exact sentiments. Even though a decade has passed, it still feels like yesterday. It still feels like yesterday when I first saw signs of spotting and was in denial that anything was wrong. It still feels like yesterday that Matt and I spent an entire Friday night in the hospital waiting for test results and meeting with multiple doctors. It still feels like yesterday that I was wheeled down that long, sterile hallway, only to have an ultrasound prove our baby didn’t have a heartbeat. It still feels like yesterday when the doctor said, “I’m sorry. Your pregnancy isn’t viable.” When scrolling through the photo essay, I came across a slide that read, “How did I not know anyone who had taken this drug before? Who had to force their body to reject their dead fetus?” She’s right. Why haven’t we talked about this? My doctor gave me three choices; have a D&C, take two misoprostol pills at home, or simply wait. Because I was working at the time, waiting wasn’t ideal and surgery felt abrasive. Since I was about 10 weeks along, I opted for misoprostol, hoping I would be more comfortable at home. The drug was foreign to me, and I knew no one else who had taken the drug. The photo essay’s author talks about not being able to process what was happening while experiencing violent bouts of nausea, vomiting, and cramping - all while trying to pass a baby. Having a miscarriage at home was the most vulnerable experience of my life, and I promised myself I would never do it again if there was a next time. And while this photo essay brought back a flood of emotions, I am reminded of how lost and empty I felt after my miscarriage. Like this woman, my miscarriage wasn’t over after taking the two misoprostol pills. Fortunately, my pills “worked,” but I spent every Wednesday in a lab making sure my hCG levels were declining properly. Every Wednesday was another sore reminder that I was no longer having a baby. Life didn’t stop after it was all over. I gave myself a weekend to have a miscarriage. A weekend. Miscarriage doesn’t stop in two days. It lingers, physically and emotionally, just like you see in the essay. Months later, when I stopped bleeding, I started to feel like myself again, and I finally felt like I could move on. In the essay, the author wonders if she could mourn and be sad. I mourned and I was sad - it still makes me sad. It’s important to know that all women mourn differently. During my mourning, though, I believed I would never experience birthing and raising a child. I believed something was wrong with me or Matt. I wish I had more hope, but the loss was hard, and it was easy to dwell and lose hope. Fast forward nearly 10 years, and it still feels like yesterday. But I now have three beautiful children: two daughters and one son. I would have never believed my life as it is right now during those dark moments a decade ago. Loss is hard. Miscarriage is hard. Grieving is hard. But what we and so many other women have experienced is real, and I promise there is hope for what’s to come. By: Nick Carrington EPLA Editor Miscarriage is complex and so are the problems surrounding it. Medical professionals see it so often, they sometimes fail to show enough empathy for parents who have lost a child. Because our culture doesn’t talk about miscarriage much, families who experience it struggle with how to grieve. Mothers experience physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma. To understand a family’s experience, we need to tell our stories and to read the stories of others. We need to look at the realities of miscarriage, in all its pain and horror, and respond with empathy and love for the suffering. Recently, The Cut published a heart-wrenching photo essay that discusses these realities through various images and reflections. Be warned, some of the pictures are difficult to see, but for those that can handle it, we encourage you to read the entire article. Next week, one of our editors, Stephanie Gordon, will analyze the piece from her own experience. Nick Carrington is an Editor for the EPLA and Associate Professor of Professional Writing at Cedarville University
By Emily Carrington EPLA Executive Director A few weeks ago we had a BEAUTIFUL warm and sunny spring Saturday. Could it be? An early spring here in Southern Michigan? Could the gray shadows of March and April rain give way to the sun?! The bulbs were starting to produce shoots peeking above the soil, the birds were chirping, everything pointed to spring. A week later, it was 20 degrees and snowed for three days. Of course. I knew better. I am a true midwesterner, and a March spring day is only a sign and hope of things to come. In many ways, every pregnancy after my first miscarriage felt like that warm March day. Each pregnancy began full of beauty, joy, and life. Each child was worthy of enjoyment for his or her own sake. Each life was something to bask in, celebrate, and know deeply. But over every pregnancy also loomed that dread of snow. Is this pregnancy for “real” or is it going to be cut short? Is spring ahead or is winter still here? The weight of worry could sometimes feel like it was too much to bear. While darkness often covers those early days of pregnancy after loss, we can look to the hope of the first spring flowers poking out of the snow. They remind us of the promise and hope that life perseveres, even through the cold, dark snow. Emily Carrington is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and founder of the EPLA.
By Emily Carrington EPLA Executive Director The other night I was standing in the kitchen unloading my groceries. My four-year-old was begging for grapes (which she hasn’t wanted for weeks and were not in my grocery order), and I realized we would not have enough dairy-free milk to ride out the coming snow storm. I had hours before the snow came and technically I could load everyone up and head back to the store, but all of life was hard, and that seemed really hard. About that time a friend texted to ask if I needed anything. “Yes I do,” I thought, “I need grapes and non-dairy milk.” In my head these felt frivolous, but they were the most immediate need in front of me, so I told her my needs.
She was happy to help. I was happy for the help. Sometimes in times of crisis it is hard to know exactly what we need. It is easy to respond to the polite request to help with a blank stare not even knowing where to start, not even knowing how someone could help. During my miscarriages I wasn’t even sure what I needed. I knew what I wanted. I wanted my babies back. I wanted it to all go away. It wasn’t always clear how asking for a pot of soup would help with that. I was only 27 when I lost my first baby. I had no experience with sick kids or parents or medical events in my own life. I didn’t really know what I would need in the coming days. Also, sometimes it feels like we have to come up with a relevant need directly related to the crisis. But, we can’t ignore the important - though often overlooked - needs of everyday life. Providing basic help isn’t transactional or charity-driven. It is an act of friendship to give and receive. To be together and care for each other is essential to our wellbeing. So in times of need, don’t be afraid to say yes to help. Emily Carrington is a freelance writer, wife, mother, and founder of the EPLA. By: Nick Carrington EPLA Editor In 2021, the EPLA took many steps toward accomplishing some long-term goals. We moved into a new building that will allow us to store more materials, pack more miscarriage kits, and eventually expand our services. We provided hundreds of miscarriage kits to suffering families and other organizations that could distribute them. And with your generous donations, we were able to hire a part-time employee to help us be more efficient. But as a new year commences, we remain committed to our founding goal: that no family suffers miscarriage alone. Since the beginning of the EPLA, we have maintained the same core values: AFFIRMING LIFE Early pregnancy loss is the loss of a unique and infinitely valuable life, often bringing great grief to women and families as they suffer this loss. BEARING BURDENS Women and families experiencing early pregnancy loss are carrying the weight of death. In isolation, this weight seems too great for one to bear. But together, when we carry one another's burdens, the weight is eased by making room for peace and hope. LOVING PEOPLE Early pregnancy loss brings anger, confusion, frustration, and sorrow. These emotions can lead to both emotional sensitivity and a hardening heart in order to cope with the grief. To meet their unique needs during this time, women and families will be treated in a loving, nurturing, and respectful way. ENCOURAGING COMMUNITY Together we can do more. To better bear the burdens of women and families, a variety of organizations and professionals can work together to meet these needs. Medical professionals, counselors, churches, and related non-profits all offer unique services to help ease the emotional, psychological, and financial burden of early pregnancy loss. GRIEVING TOGETHER Because of the hushed culture concerning pregnancy loss, many women do not know how to understand their heartache. Everyone grieves differently, and, though common, early pregnancy loss is an intensely personal experience. Whether they choose to grieve publicly or privately, women and families need a safe environment to experience grief. By acknowledging the frequency of early pregnancy loss and recognizing it as a death, families are granted space to grieve. In 2022, we ask that you come alongside us, affirming these values, and if possible, helping us serve suffering families. You can donate to the EPLA, volunteer your time or expertise, or write a piece for our blog. And as always, if you know someone who could use a miscarriage kit, please let us know. Nick Carrington is an Editor for the EPLA and Associate Professor of Professional Writing at Cedarville University
By: The Editors Sometimes in the nonprofit world, it is easy to think of fundraising as the necessary thing you do so you can do your actual work. But then, sometimes, everything comes together and something really special happens. On Oct. 23, the Early Pregnancy Loss Association hosted its first Fall Charity Gala. It not only helped us raise money so we can provide resources to families, but at the event, we encouraged community AND raised awareness about pregnancy loss. (All three areas of our mission!) The gala itself was such a testament to the changing culture around early pregnancy loss. More than 50 people in our local community came together, recognizing that caring for women and families experiencing early pregnancy loss is a cause worth supporting. Awareness is rising. Good things are happening. We could not have done it without our amazing board of directors: Emily Carrington, Steph Gordon, Katie Stockdale, Maria Servold, Amanda Allen, Linda Tibbitts, & Sarah Gregory. We are so thankful for our gracious hosts, Bob and Kathy Norton and for our amazing sponsors:
We will continue to work towards our goal: a world where all families suffering early pregnancy loss receive physical, emotional, educational, and financial support.
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