This morning I am preparing (read: dressing up) for a workshop at noon to over a hundred Rotary Club members. I have 25 minutes or so to explain attachment and trauma issues in some meaningful way that they will remember my message. I have devoted nearly 6 minutes of my precious time to excerpts from Nancy Ashe’s talk at last summer’s ATN conference. How better to understand how an unattached person thinks than to hear it first person?


As I was gulping my coffee (partly to fight the migraine that tried to wind up at 3 AM this morning) I checked out this morning’s paper again. There is a poignant article about a couple whose baby had so many congenital defects it was not going to live long outside the womb. The story is about the couple’s journey through the pregnancy and the baby's birth. Part one was yesterday; part two is today. I'm a pretty emotional sap anyway... but I warn you, the story is not an easy read.


The article mentions a support group that was started by a woman who wanted to help others grieve the loss of a miscarriage or stillbirth or neonatal death. This mentor explains “the unexplainable” to these grieving parents—things like the fact that newborns apparently remain soft for hours after their death, and that it is OK to snuggle a dead baby… or OK not to. This woman says what others need to hear but most folks can’t talk about.


Well, that rang a bell with me. Do you think for one moment that parents who are grieving a neonatal loss don’t have those questions or have mixed emotions about what they are feeling? Do you think their questions or their sorrow will disappear simply by not talking about it? I don’t! And don’t you think there is comfort to be found in the realization that other parents have those same questions and same confusing feelings?

This companion article to the story states what I believe...one can’t escape the inevitable grief, and the obvious reason to grieve, when one gives birth to a stillborn or nonviable baby. Some people will be more able to walk with grieving parents on their journey than others will be… but everyone (or at least most people) will recognize their need to grieve. Not so with us… those of us grieving a less-obvious loss. We grieve the loss of a relationship that died or was never viable. Do you think I will be able to give the Rotarians today a hint of what that means?

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