Helen's Place

While today is the last day of October - pregnancy and infant loss awareness month - we hope it’s not the last day of discussion and dialogue around the topic of perinatal and infant loss. For bereaved parents, their heartache and grief doesn’t end today. Their journey is lifelong. Each parent grieves differently and each family’s journey looks different. But continued dialogue is so important - sharing our stories so that regardless of how you choose to grieve and what path ...you choose to take, you feel like you are not alone. You feel supported, and understood, and heard. That’s why we’re so excited to introduce our new series, Helen’s Friends. This series will introduce you to other voices in the grief community, as they share their own stories, thoughts, reflections, and guidance. If you are a bereaved parent, a support worker, or someone else in the grief community, and would like to share your voice as part of this series, please reach out to me via DMs! Watch for our second post today to meet our first Helen’s friend, Kimberly Patterson! #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #pregnancylossawareness #stillbirthbreakthesilence #stillbirth #stillbirthawareness www.helensplace.ca

As we come to the end of October - pregnancy and infant loss awareness month - we are so grateful for the community we’ve built in this small little corner of the internet. We are grateful for the support, the comments, the shares, and for the personal stories people have been willing to open up and share with us. This is exactly the kind of dialogue we want to foster. So that bereaved parents know they are not alone. So that they have the support they need as they navigate t...heir own lifelong journey of grief, however feels right for them. So that they feel understood, validated, and heard. So that others have the opportunity and the platform to share. That’s why we’re incredibly excited to announce a new content series that introduces fresh voices to our Helen’s Place community. Stay tuned tomorrow for our first post in this series! #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #infantlossawareness #stillbirthbreakthesilence #stillbirthsupport #stillbirth #stillbirthsupport www.helensplace.ca

Throughout this month we’ve had lots of discussions about things you could say to someone who has lost a child (and things that are perhaps best left unsaid). But at the end of the day, if you are still uncertain, and you are still concerned you’ll say the wrong thing, just do whatever you can do to let them know you’re there for them. Grief can be a dark, lonely, isolating place. So let them know they are not alone. Let them know that they have support when, how, and if they... want it. Love them loudly. #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #pregnancyandinfantloss #pregnancyandinfantlosssupport #pregnancylossquotes #stillbirth #stillbirthawareness #stillbirthbreakthesilence www.helensplace.ca

In the early days of grief my desperate search for stories from other bereaved parents led me to the beautiful memoir Still: A Memoir or Love, Loss and Motherhood by Emma Hansen. Emma lovingly shares the story of her first son Reid, born still one day before his due date, and the unexpected and intertwined journey of heartache and motherhood that followed. It’s a beautifully written book, and one that inspired the writing of Helen’s Story. If you are a bereaved parent seeki...ng the comfort of words and stories that help articulate how you’re feeling, or if you are a friend or family member of someone who has recently experienced a loss and you want to better understand, I strongly recommend this book. As we near the end of pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, Emma and her publishers have shared a code to get a signed copy of the book 40% off from now until November 2. Use the following website and the code STILL at checkout. https://greystonebooks.com/products/still #pregnancyafterstillbirth #pregnancyafterlosssupport #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #stillbirth #pregnancylossquotes www.helensplace.ca

Intense grief can have a powerful effect on your mind. For bereaved parents, the early days of loss feel like you’re trapped deep underwater with no sign of light. No signals from the outside world. And no sense of what is up or down. It’s disorienting and all consuming. Everything feels out of control. That’s why it’s not surprising when your mind grasps for and latches onto things that may seem insignificant to the outside world. In the immediate hours after we were told ...Helen had no heartbeat we were sent home to wait for labour to begin. We were completely lost. Our world had just been upended. Our minds and hearts were clouded with the intensity of early grief. We couldn’t think straight. We could barely keep ourselves standing. And so we sat on our couch in stunned silence unsure of what to do. That’s when, with extreme clarity that matched the intensity of my grief, I declared that we had to call Buy Buy Baby. We had ordered a custom glider for the nursery just four days prior, and we had to cancel it before production began. And I had an in-store appointment to complete my registry scheduled for that evening. We had to cancel that too. We barely had the strength to make the phone calls it took to let our parents know what had happened. And yet I forced my husband to make a call to Buy Buy Baby as well. In an attempt to manufacture some semblance of control in a moment that felt painfully out of control we made five phone calls. Four to our parents and one to the baby store. It was not logical. But in that moment it felt completely necessary. In your deepest moments of grief, what have you done in an attempt to feel some semblance of control? #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #pregnancyandinfantlossawarenessmonth #pregnancylossquotes #infantlossawareness #perinatalloss #infantlossquotes #stillbirthbreakthesilence #stillbirthawareness #stillbirth www.helensplace