SHARE Atlanta

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Pin
Available at our events and groups.

Dear All,

If you missed this month's activities and/or meetings, you were missed. For those who did come, thank you for sharing with us. Here is a link to a pdf of pictures of this month's activities. Thanks to those who are in them and shared.

April - May - Pictures and Ideas for Coping

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Men and Women's Group will NOT meet during June and July.

May's Meeting: "The Significance of You and Your Baby."

Several of our current members couldn't attend due to work related travel or classes. We had about eight moms in all and two past group members, Tamara Partiss and Mindy Seger, joined us to give support to our more newly bereaved parents. Several members were dealing with their feelings as they are in their 4th to 6th month after their loss. Anger tied with the intensity of the reality of the situation was a focus of their reactions. While some are working to find answers others were expressing how intense and fearful their pain is. I felt that their reactions were normal for where they were in their grief. Several helpful links include:

1. Intensity of Grief:

2. Month to Month..that First Year: Make sure to look at JoAnn's Diary.

3. Timeline of Grief:

Searching for ways to prevent another loss and for dealing with coping were brought up. We have lots of medical information on our site:

Pregnancy and Newborn Loss Medical Information

Giving ourselves "permission to parent" our baby is important at all stages, but may be the most important during the 4th to 6th month. One mom said that she had gone ahead and bought the bedding set that she had wanted for her daughter. Another followed through, and she and her husband created a beautiful private memorial service for their baby who was lost through miscarriage. I will be sharing this with you soon. Several shared their mementos..including necklaces, a "for now" ring, an angel bracelet, and a tiny handmade doll. Remembering and loving our baby is a natural and very healing coping response to all that we have been through. We thank, too, the moms who join(ed) us who now have subsequent children and could reflect on their healing path.

1. Mementos and Coping:

2. Thinking about and Planning a Memorial Service:

Emotions and Secondary Losses

June's Meeting: "Grief and Secondary Losses"

Our primary loss is our precious baby...secondary losses are feelings and concepts like the loss of: innocence, hope, communication with others, self-worth, role of parenting, and a host of others. We will share what these are, how they influence our grief pattern and ways to cope with them. Grief is "doable" as we learn how to better cope. Consider joining us - no manner where along your path of healing you are. We gather insight from those who are at different places on the path.

July's Topic: "Grief and Your Emotions"

We will talk about how grief influences our emotions (sadness, anger, guilt, fear, etc.) and ways to identify our feelings and cope with them. We are on the "yo-yo" pattern of grief from the moment we learn about the loss of our child. These emotions tied with the secondary losses are what carry us down the path. Learning to understand what is happening *to* us and how to cope with these feelings and reactions makes grief "doable." We each feel that our pain and subsequent grief is unique to us. In our pain, we often believe that what we are experiencing no one else *really* could share. Our reality is different than others who are grieving. Society would like for us to believe this (and we are a part of that society). Yes, there are parts of each person's walk that are unique, but there is much common ground...more than most understand. As we come to appreciate our new reality and our new *normal*, we don't feel so alone and afraid. Healing gradually happens. While healing is an individual effort, joining together helps us sort through how we might travel our path.

SA - FB

We have a brand new FB page!! SA parents, Allysa and Nathan Wolf have been instrumental in getting this new page started. We will have ALL Updates, pictures, notes, questions and answers, etc. on SA's FB page. So, please consider joining us there. Check it out here:

SA's FB Page

Father's Day

We are thinking about our dads and granddads as you move through these months. Know that we care...I will have some Father's Day items for anyone who joins us in June. Just as there is Mother's Day support on our website, there is Father's Day information for our dads.

Anniversaries, Due Dates, and Holidays (Father's Menu)

Angel Garden & Memorial Brick:

Now, could be a good time to start to think about the wording you might wish on a memorial brick to either keep as a keepsake and/or place in the SA Angel Garden. We order these one time a year on Aug. 15 for an October placing. For many, our Angel Garden with Memorial bricks provides a safe haven and quiet place to visit and find peace. One brick out near our angel says, "A person is a person no matter how small." Every baby is precious..

Angel Garden Video In 2009 SA mom, Reece Ritter, created this beautiful video that brings together visually the “story” of SA’s Angel and Memorial Brick Garden.

We will have a MODS' booklet with pictures, etc. If you would like to share your thoughts, pictures, etc. send them to me and/or go to our FB and post them there! If you have several pictures that might go into an album, please let me know. The administrators of the FB page are the only ones who can make albums. We would like for different ones to be able to do this, but that is not permitted on FB.

Thank you for "sharing." Your input could make the difference for you and/or someone else in our group. We also always are pleased to hear from you..about your own latest updates.

You can see updates on our website under Updates and on our FB page! Come join us!!!

Take care,

Marcia

The love stays..forever in our hearts.

since 1984 A self-help and mutual support group

"Healing Happens" PDF of SHARE Atlanta Families 2011 by Marcia McGinnis

Pregnancy and Newborn Loss Awareness Pin
Available at our events and groups.