Will You Follow Your Heart?

By Monica Novak -

I was having breakfast with my friend Wendy on a recent Sunday morning when she told me this story.  On her way out of church that morning, she saw an older woman sitting in the pew crying.  It’s a large congregation, and Wendy didn’t know the woman, but something inside Wendy told her to stop.  She followed her heart and walked up to the woman to ask if she was okay and could she do anything for her.  The woman wiped her face and told Wendy that her 2-month-old granddaughter had just died, and she had to go help her son and daughter-in-law through the grueling process of making funeral arrangements.  She was waiting for the crowd to clear so nobody would see her face. 

“Oh no, I’m so sorry this has happened.  How did she die?” Wendy asked, sitting down next to the woman.  “She had a heart defect and got through one surgery and was doing well.  She had gone home and gained weight, and we were hopeful that she was going to make it, and then she went downhill really fast,” answered the woman.

Wendy had been a NICU/special care nursery nurse, and had watched many families during this type of crisis, she told the woman.  But then she shared something more personal.  Wendy told the woman that she herself had lost four babies and that she understood the heartbreak. 

Wendy gave the woman the name and location for the local pregnancy and infant loss support group she had attended.  She also gave her home phone number and told the woman to have her daughter-in-law call Wendy anytime she needed someone to talk to, even if it was in the middle of the night.  And Wendy meant it.  Wendy asked the baby’s name, the names of her son and daughter-in-law, as well as the name of their living son, the baby’s brother.  She wrote them down and said she would pray for them.  Then Wendy hugged her and said goodbye. 

This story reminds me of the time I sat across from a woman in the café of my local Target store.  She was visibly distraught over something, and I wanted to approach her and ask her if she needed help.  I was waiting for her to make eye contact with me, to “invite” me to come over and talk, but she never did, so I stayed put.  After ten minutes, she got up and left.  My heart sank, for I hadn’t followed it’s urging that day.  I will never forget that woman and will always wonder if I could have helped her in some way, if perhaps I was “put” there for a reason.

I was no stranger to the outreach of a caring human being.  After my daughter Miranda was stillborn, I was deeply grieving and struggled with the decision to return to work.  While I was at home on maternity leave, I received this unexpected letter from a co-worker:

July 7, 1995

Dear Monica,

I don’t believe we have met yet; however, we spoke for quite awhile a couple of months ago when you interviewed me for the company newsletter.  I remember our phone conversation well and have been looking forward to meeting you ever since.  I am writing today to express my deepest sympathies to you and your family in the loss of your daughter, Miranda.  It was only this last Friday that I learned of the tragedy that has come to you.

We spoke at length the day you called, but particularly about children and the excitement felt when expecting a new one to the family.  I felt that maternal bond that comes from mothers/expectant mothers talking.  Today I am writing because of another bond felt-that of experiencing tragic loss.  Two years ago on July 2^nd, my father and 16-year-old brother (13 years my junior) died in a weather-related car accident.  It was unexpected and it was unwelcome, as is your loss, and although I have felt great pain and emptiness at no longer having them with me, I can only imagine the emptiness of losing a child-and I know I can never fully understand.  In our department is a mom who lost her four-month-old child to SIDS.  I did not know her at the time of her loss and although the losses and experiences are different, we can take comfort in each other; listening perhaps a little more closely, a little more appreciatively, than others who have not experienced sudden and tragic death.

I have no great words of wisdom and I fear all too few to comfort.  One thing I have read and do know in my heart to be true-All life has purpose.  Miranda’s life within you had purpose, and I know she feels your love.  I hope that we will meet, and I hope that we can talk and perhaps draw some small comfort from each other.

My thoughts and prayers are with you, your family, and especially with Miranda.

Lynne Schwartz

At the time of our phone interview, Lynne had two little girls and I was six months pregnant with Miranda, so our conversation had naturally turned to motherhood.  I had hoped to meet her, but not under these circumstances.  I later made the decision to return to work, in large part because of Lynne reaching out to me.  We quickly became close friends, often spending our lunch hour together, sharing life stories and struggles with grief. 

Lynne and I had worked at the headquarters for a large corporation, and of all the people I could have interviewed for that company newsletter, why had I been connected with her?  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  Lynne was “put” in my life at just the right moment through that interview.  She followed her heart when she wrote me that letter.  And I followed my heart when I decided to go back to work, making a beeline for her department (and a big hug!) just minutes after I returned that first day after maternity leave. 

Of all the people who could have seen the crying woman in that crowded church, why was it Wendy who noticed?  Coincidence?  No, I don’t think so.  Wendy was “put” in that woman’s path because she was the perfect person to console her.  Wendy followed her heart when she stopped to offer help.  And the woman followed her heart when she opened up and shared her pain with Wendy.

Have you ever heard the saying “People are God’s hands here on Earth?”  We’re put in each other’s lives at just the right moment, in just the right place.  Perhaps it’s the orchestration of angels.  However you want to explain it, and whatever you want to call it, it’s all around you if you’ll pay attention.  But sometimes it’s up to you to follow your heart and offer a kind word or a gentle touch.  And sometimes it’s up to you to follow your heart and accept it.  The next time you’re put in a situation like this, will you choose to follow your heart? 

Portions of this article were excerpted from The Good Grief Club: A True Story About the Power of Friendship and French Toast.

Monica Novak is the author of The Good Grief Club, a memoir about her friendships with six other women that carried them through the ups and downs of grief following the loss of their babies in miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death.  She also serves as editor of Open to Hope’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss page at www.opentohopepregnancyloss.com .  For more information about her book, and for pregnancy loss and infant death resources, please visit her website at www.thegoodgriefclub.com or e-mail her at monica@thegoodgriefclub.com.

Blogger’s Baby Hoax Stemmed From Real-Life Grief and Loss

By Monica Novak -

As I walked into the house Friday morning, my husband, Al, handed me the front page of the Chicago Tribune.  “I think you should read this,” he said.  The headline story read “Blogger’s baby a hoax.”  An unmarried Chicago suburban woman named Beccah, also known as “April’s mom”, had been blogging for two months about her pregnancy with a terminally ill baby, gaining support from thousands of people nationwide who encouraged her to continue the pregnancy.  By the time Beccah claimed to have given birth at home to a girl named April Rose who died hours later, even posting a photo of her alleged baby wrapped in a white blanket, her blogsite had one million hits.  The photo tipped people off.  The “baby” was actually a lifelike doll, and followers who recognized the doll realized the truth, which Beccah later admitted.

There was no baby.  At least not this time.  But as Beccah apologized and tried to explain her actions, she confided that she had indeed lost a son shortly after birth in 2005.  Her blog, she said, was in part an attempt to help her deal with that loss.

The personal irony of the story’s timing was not lost on me.  I had just come from Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital where I had been invited to speak before a national nursing review board about the community outreach of the hospital’s Share pregnancy and infant loss support program.  When my daughter, Miranda, was stillborn there 14 years earlier, we were given immediate support-physical, emotional, and spiritual-helping us to say hello and goodbye to our baby.  After we went home, the Share program walked alongside us on the grief journey by way of support group meetings, memorial services, and personal one-on-one counseling when needed. 

Those services are provided free of charge to anyone in the community, regardless of where you delivered your baby.  Hospitals, churches, and communities all over the United States offer Share or similar support programs.  For those who don’t have a group in their immediate area, help is available by phone or online from national organizations like Share, Compassionate Friends, Miss Foundation, and many others.

Beccah’s fabricated story greatly angered her followers who had formed an emotional connection to her.  But I feel like the real victim here is Beccah.  I’m not excusing her actions, but I can’t help but feel a certain amount of sympathy and compassion for a mother who experienced the death of her son and four years later still seems to be struggling to come to terms with her loss.  I can’t help but wonder, did she hold her son, name him, get a photo of him?  Did she have any emotional support in the hospital or at home in the days, months, and years that followed?  If the answers to those questions are no, how might this story have been different if the answers to those questions had been yes?

Monica Novak is the author of The Good Grief Club, a memoir about her friendships with six other women that carried them through the ups and downs of grief following the loss of their babies in miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death.  She also serves as editor of Open to Hope’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss page.  For more information about her book, and for pregnancy loss and infant death resources, please visit her website at www.thegoodgriefclub.com or e-mail her at monica@thegoodgriefclub.com.

Welcome to My New Column and First Posting

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first post of my new weekly column, A Mother’s Thoughts. I’ll be sharing stories from my own experience, stories told to me by others, and any topics I come across that are relevant to pregnancy loss and infant death. I welcome your comments, questions, and your own personal experiences, for it is in sharing that we find healing and meaning in our own lives.  Blessings, Monica

 

Choosing to Live

By Monica Novak

Three weeks after our daughter Miranda was stillborn, shattering my Marsha-Brady-like-existence, my husband Al and I attended a Share pregnancy and infant loss support group meeting. I came home that night with a book from the lending library called Dear Parents. It was a collection of letters written by real-life bereaved parents to poor souls like me. I sat in my bed crying, page after page, but when I finished reading, I realized that for the first time since Miranda’s death, I felt a thread of hope weaving its way through my soul. These parents, and the “veteran” members of the support group, gave me an inkling of belief in the idea that I might one day actually be capable of happiness again.

Well, here I am fourteen years later writing to tell you the same thing. I can’t pinpoint one moment in time when I realized I had become happy again, or even when I was no longer mad as hell at the unfairness of losing my baby. It was a gradual process, a journey, made possible in large part by the friendships I discovered in six other women from my Share group. Together, we laughed and cried (often over French toast and beer), got pissed off, got pregnant again, held cemetery picnics, held Walks to Remember. What we were doing, although we didn’t realize it then, was making conscious choices to keep living life. We were telling the universe, “we aren’t done yet, we aren’t going to let this break us, our babies’ lives must have meaning, and we’re going to figure out how to absorb them into who we are now becoming.”

The Good Grief Club is the book I wrote to share our story with you. For Dawn, Beth, Heidi, Darlene, Tracy, Wendy and me-in the wake of the babies we lost, in the face of the babies who were yet to come-life went on. It can for you, too. But you must choose.

Monica Novak is the author of The Good Grief Club and the editor of Open to Hope’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss page (www.opentohopepregnancyloss.com). Visit her website at www.thegoodgriefclub.com or e-mail her at monica@thegoodgriefclub.com.