Things You'll Need:
- love
- support
- pre-planning, if you can
-
Step 1
Each New Year:
On purchasing your new Day Planner or Calendar, write under Mother's and Father's Day (or a few days to 1 week prior) a note to do something for the parents you are trying to support through this infant loss, stillbirth, or miscarriage. -
Step 2
The First Year or Two:
The first year or two, will take a little more time and thought. You may feel uncomfortable or bewildered yourself, so give yourself time to go through the feelings of loss or confusion yourself. Most of all, don't give up on making the effort.
Find a card, and write 1 paragraph at least. OR: write a letter, heartfelt, for each of the holidays. Money or costly gifts are not necessary.
As the years go by, or if time is lacking, a handwritten letter, card, or email is all that will ever be necessary. If this person is very close to you, then always make allowances for doing more and being present for the person. Ideas for Gifts or Ways to Spend Time appropriately will follow in steps further down the list. -
Step 3
Ways to be present as a spouse:
When a couple recovers from such an incalculable loss as this, they may feel a gulf open up between them; but the holidays of Mother's Day and Father's Day offer a great opportunity for healing. Honoring and loving everything your husband and wife means to you, minus a baby, and also honoring that person as the vessel that helped create that baby is the twofold duty of a day like this. These two days fall within a month or so of each other and can offer a great deal of comfort and strength lasting for that entire span when you are mindful as a couple. The renewal of spring and summer can give a natural uplift in the mood as well and lift your spirits as a couple if you both make the effort to reunite spiritually and emotionally--it does not necessarily have to be physically, because for many, the emotional part must heal for grief to be overcome.
Though your babies or baby may have never taken a breath on their/its own, or may have only lived for a short time: this holiday is a day to cherish and love and celebrate the parents your are forever, and that child. You may be parents for other children as well: in the present or future, adopted, fostered, or your own.
You will also always be a parent to the children or child you lost:
On Mother's Day and Father's Day: Show love for the vessels who carried the parts of that child--both male and female, father and mother. You still deserve to honor each other as valid parents for the rest of yours lives. There may be more bittersweetness and some deep sadness, but over the years, you may also be able to cherish each other more in the process because you show each other a deep amount of care and love on this day.
Hold Each Other Closer, Bring the Flowers or Write a Love Note, Place a Gentle Hand on that Shoulder, Make Eye Contact, Spend more time before your spring out of bed in the morning, holding the person you wanted to have the child WITH. There but for the grace of your partner came that blessed dream of the baby....show him or her how much you cherish and feel for him or her on this hard to get through day. -
Step 4
Willow Tree Angel Ornament also avl. in statuary size. Courtesy of Willow Tree. Stock Photo.Gifts for a Tough Mother's or Father's Day:
The Same as Anybody Else:
Spring Flowers (sign that life renews itself)
A Heartfelt note or card to the Father or Mother (if you are stumped, then use a blank card with a Spring Theme, avoid easy-to-mind platitudes or easy answers to complicated problems and religious themes about things being "meant to be").
A baby tree, rose bush, flowering shrub, or plant. Something that renews itself, like a perennial or bulb, etc, is thematically ALWAYS a good idea.
Even an Email Card that wishes someone a happy Mother's or Father's Day is fine if you are low on time and it is not within the first 2 years of the death. It is good to keep remembering the person is still a mother or father, especially if you are a friend or family member. Ask yourself: Would I send this person a card for Mother's or Father's day, or because I want them to know I care about them especially much on this hard day?? If the answer is always yes, then do it.
Willow Tree makes mini-statuary gifts of angels. These are readily available on ebay and at gift shops across the United States. They sell a particular Angel with Halo holding a baby. One is larger and another comes as a Christmas style ornament-size that is appropriate for display all year long. Both are milky white. These along with a few others would be appropriate gifts for stillbirth, miscarriage, and infant loss. I have used them myself many times for women I know personally.
Remembrance Jewelry:
La Belle Dame is a Canadian Company that I have used three times, located in Canada, who makes stillbirth and miscarriage personalized bereavement jewelry for a fair price. I will provide a link to them at the bottom of this article. There are other companies like these, but they are the only ones I can endorse personally, and they accept pay pal. They sell key-rings, necklaces, bracelets, and do free personalization for parents and grandparents, etc.
Making or buying an album or journal: These things may seem bittersweet to you, but they will be cherished later by the parents as some of the only things that the parents have to keep to memorialize the baby's time on earth. If you don't have pictures, then either ask the grandparents or the parents to make a disc for you, of pregnancy photos, or you can always make a blank album. -
Step 5
More ideas to support the parents during the first 2 of so years:
Bring a special meal (or offer to help Dad cook one if he's no kind of cook) before Mother's Day or take Mom out to lunch if she feels up to it. A restaurant gift card is also good if you can afford it and the couple feels good about going out.
If dad or mom is too down to keep up with the yard work during the spring or summer during the first year, offer to help or sponsor a teenager or landscaping service for them.
Any kind of housekeeping or cooking help within the first 3-6 months of the loss of the baby can be priceless for a recuperating mother and stressed dad.
If you are close to the parents, and they wish to clean out the mother's closets and nursery of maternity and baby clothing and nursery furniture, that can sometimes be the most heart-wrenching thing of all. Sometimes donations, or returns with receipts may need to go back to various stores and watching at a big store like Babies R Us with all of the pregnant mothers can be more than a grieving mother or father can bear. Your help can be irreplaceable at this time. At least offering when the time is right and being available to do the hard work of repackaging and running some of those hard errands can clear the air in the home IF the couple wishes to have a clean start before they go on to have another baby or are not able to have another baby in the future.
Similarly, if the mother and father want a clean slate, repainting that freshly painted nursery into something once again, is something you could help do. Be receptive to the family's desire to do so.
Running to the grocery store, pharmacy, or just watching a pet or kid, etc: it's all great stuff to do.
