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Hey Grieving Mamas, I’m looking for your help!

**UPDATE: Thank you so much for all of your beautiful and deeply thought-out responses. Over thirty women shared their hearts and their children’s stories with me, and for that, I can not say “thank you” enough. Thank you for trusting me to honour their memories and in the process, hopefully encourage other grieving mothers. The form is now CLOSED to responses but I would still love to hear your stories. Feel free to e-mail me or send me a message if you would like to share your own story of loss, grief, and hope on mommymannegren.com**

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for some help from my grieving mama followers!

Over the past eight months or so, I have been working on a book that I’ve tentatively titled, “Journaling Your Way Through Pregnancy Loss.” The goal of the book is to help encourage grieving mothers to embrace and better process their grief after a miscarriage or stillbirth. As you know, society doesn’t often talk about pregnancy loss, and it can be a confusing and isolating experience for women to go through. I’m hoping that this book will help break some of those taboos and allow women to find freedom and beauty in the story that they’ve been given – even when that story doesn’t exactly look the way we’d like it to. And ultimately, I hope that this book will point our grieving hearts towards Christ and remind us that while we mourn, we do not mourn without purpose.

In order to make this book stronger, I am in the process of revising my first draft. One of the things that has been suggested is to find some additional stories and insights from other grieving women, and add them to the book too. Here’s where I need your help!

If you’re interested in sharing your story with me, I have created an interview questionnaire for you to complete. Any of the answers that you give may be used as examples within the book, but most likely I will choose one or two of your answers to include. I may edit or re-write them slightly to fit the book. You can also let me know whether you want your answers to be anonymous (I’ll pick a random pseudonym) or whether you want me to use your first name when sharing your story.

I know that these stories are very personal and close to our hearts. Please don’t feel any pressure to participate in this. This is YOUR story and I don’t ever want to share a part of it unless you’re completely 100% comfortable with it. If you prefer to simply answer more generally – that’s fine too – any additional insight I can get into pregnancy loss would be a huge help!

It is a rather long, written questionnaire, but please don’t feel that you have to answer every question (not every question will be applicable.) I really appreciate your honesty as I know that some of these questions may be very difficult to answer. I’m hoping that this generation of women will be ones who stand up for the brokenhearted, and support the generation of grieving mothers who come after us. This book is just one step in creating that conversation and I hope you can partner with me in that.

Feel free to take a look over the questionnaire and complete it as you wish, here: http://bit.ly/2hlUI3Z

There is no guarantee that this book will be published, but I am working on making it as strong as I possibly can in hopes of helping create honest dialogue and discussion surrounding pregnancy loss.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. Thank you so much for considering this!

Much love,
Liz

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Dear Readers, Thank You!

Hey there!

I just wanted to say that I have been so incredibly encouraged and inspired by you! I started this little blog over two and a half years ago, and have been truly touched by the relationships and friendships that have grown through this journey.

Thank you, dear readers, for your encouragement and your comments. Thank you for sharing your hearts and your stories with me; and thank you for listening as we have shared our hearts and story with you. You have partnered and journeyed with us over these past three years, and we are beyond grateful for the purposeful ways that you have loved on and supported us in our grief.

Pregnancy loss touches upon so many families, and yet, it isn’t always a comfortable or easy topic to discuss. Thank you for helping to break stigmas surrounding grief, and for bravely stepping forward to embrace the beauty found within the mess. For those who are hurting and grieving, and for those who are standing alongside the bereaved, there is hope. We mourn, but we do not mourn without purpose.

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Dear Pregnant Mama, It’s Not You, It’s Me

Dear Pregnant Mama,

I saw you at church the other week. You sat with your belly blossoming in all its third-trimester glory and I couldn’t help but sneak peeks at you. You may have wondered if there was something on your shirt, some snot residue left over from your toddler with the nose cold. But it wasn’t you I was staring at, it was me.

I miscarried a baby last December. Eleven weeks along, I was fully expecting to be in your shoes this time of year. I didn’t expect to be sitting here, aching hearted and empty-wombed. Looking at you, I see my hopes and dreams. I see everything that I cannot yet have but so desperately wish for. And as painful as it is for me to admit, it still hurts to look at you.

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Let’s Talk About Miscarriage

Eight weeks into my fourth pregnancy, it ended. Spots appeared as if out of nowhere; these little specks of hopes and dreams lying against faded fabric. I saw the dark blood and broke a twenty-five-year streak. I dropped my first f-bomb.

The word echoed around the bathroom, feeling unfamiliar and rough against my lips. I glanced over at the toddler who was sitting on the couch, happily chewing on buttered toast and watching an episode of Paw Patrol. His two-year-old-self was completely oblivious to the emotional earthquake threatening to shake our small apartment, and for that, I was glad.

I sat in silence and struggled to breathe through lungs that were no longer working properly. What air was left in the room had grown heavy, weighing down upon my shoulders and pressing into my chest. Few words seemed strong enough to contest the range of emotions that had suddenly slammed into me. I cried black mascara tears and gently hugged the flabby belly that had been stretched and loved on by five babies. My heart aching, I whispered and prayed over the child I would never know. “Stay strong, wee one. Stay strong.”

And she did. Until she left us, five days later.

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Baby Loss Update

It is with tears that we come to you today, discouraged and wearied by the loss of another little one, but confident in God’s deep grace and reassuring love.

Since so many of you have invested in the life of this tiny baby, we wanted to give you a brief update as to what has been happening these past few days.

As many of you know, this has not been an easy week for us. It’s been exhausting both physically and emotionally. I’d like to thank all of you who have spent time this past week interceding on behalf of our family in prayer.

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Chasing Light: Book Review

One of my very talented blogger friends, Stefanie Tong, has recently published her new book: Chasing Light, a beautiful and raw look at life after pregnancy loss.

Centered around her two miscarriages and her subsequent grief and depression, Stefanie writes about both the challenges and the search for hope and wholeness following the death of a child.

Reading through this book, I was constantly struck by Stefanie’s incredible honesty and willingness to embrace and explore her grief. She is not afraid to be vulnerable and peal back the intricate layers surrounding loss. Touching on her husband’s grief, as well as conversations that they had with their three-year-old daughter, I appreciated this book’s accurate reflection of how grief and loss affects the entire family.

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Dear Grieving Mama, It’s October

Dear Grieving Mama,

It’s October. The trees have begun to shed their colourful leaves and the smell of pumpkin spice lattes float throughout the cool air. For everyone else, this is a month about Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving turkeys, and trips to the pumpkin patch. But for you, this month signifies something a little different.

This is your first October after the loss of your little one.

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Trying Again After Loss

It feels like it’s taken me a long time to get here. To arrive at this in-between place where I’m finally ready to entertain the idea of ‘trying again.’

Another pregnancy. Another baby.

The thought volleys around in my head. Back and forth I debate whether I’m ready to get pregnant again – whether I even want to. Maybe we have already reached our family’s final number; maybe we will find new ways to grow, just the three of us.

But I know in my heart that I’m not satisfied with this ending.

Not that this wouldn’t be enough. Not that I wouldn’t be perfectly happy leaving things the way they are. But there’s more to this story – it’s not finished yet.

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Comparing Miscarriage and Stillbirth

I was seven months pregnant when I lost my first child. The doctors hurriedly pulled him from my stomach but they found no heartbeat, no breath. He was declared stillborn.

My second pregnancy ended quickly. I barely made it to the eight week mark when the doctors confirmed what my body had already told me – it was over. They told me I had “experienced a miscarriage.”

When you look at their definitions on paper, a miscarriage and a stillbirth are essentially the same thing. Both involve the loss of a beautiful baby in utero. A miscarriage occurs before 20 weeks of pregnancy, a stillbirth occurs after 20 weeks.* Both types of loss involve the pain of losing a child; and both leave a mother with empty arms and crushed dreams.

And yet, there’s no denying that these are two very different experiences.

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Naming a Baby Lost in Miscarriage

At the edge of a grassy graveyard, surrounded by little bronze markers and drying flowers, sits my son’s gravestone. His name is boldly inscribed across the top: “Landon A. Mannegren.” This grave is a physical reminder of his short life, a place that marks his brief stay in this world. This tombstone is a declaration that he was here.

But none of that exists for my recent miscarriage.

I never felt this little one’s first kicks. I never knew their gender or held them in my arms. There is no birth certificate, no ultrasound photos, and no baby nursery. All I could give this precious babe was eight weeks of love snuggled up in my womb and a name to call their own.

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Alistair Turns TWO

To my sweet, little man; my sunshine, my Alistair,

Today you turn two. Just the thought of it evokes all the imaginable cliches about babies growing up too quickly. Because although you still refer to yourself in third person, “baby” has now graduated to “big boy.”

This was a big year for you: learning to walk, beginning to talk. You’re getting bolder as you maneuver the equipment at the playground. You dance and run, tiptoe and sing. If there was a toddler edition of “So You Think You Can Dance,” you would win hands down.

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An Empty Sonogram, Another Loss

Two years ago I sat on a hospital bed and learned about the excruciating heartbreak that can accompany motherhood. I said good-bye to a baby that I had carried for 31 weeks; a precious little one that I had never officially met and yet had whispered to and loved on for seven months.

Almost exactly two years later, I’m here again. I sit in a blue hospital gown, my arm still bruised from where they’ve drawn blood, and watch as the ultrasound technician carefully maneuvers her wand over my belly.

I booked this appointment weeks ago. I should be sitting in this room with my husband, watching a tiny heartbeat pulse on the screen. I should leave this appointment with a confirmed due date and a printout of my baby’s first ultrasound photos. Instead, I arrive at the clinic knowing that this appointment will be different; I arrive knowing that the sonogram will be empty.

We’ve miscarried.

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