Trisomy Moms
Today I was able to meet Elise.
You may remember Elise from THIS post.
Elise emailed me a few weeks after we lost our Baby Kevin. She said she was 25 weeks pregnant with a Trisomy 18 baby boy. A friend had referred her to my blog shortly after she found out about the complications with her baby and she'd been following it for about 6 weeks when she contacted me. This is part of what she wrote...
Your feelings and concerns have helped me feel normal as I face the sad road ahead. Thanks for being so honest in your blog...it's helped me feel okay that I cry probably once a day (although I try to keep it discreet)...
To that point I hadn't really considered that sharing my experiences would be a help to other mom's facing similar circumstances. I am grateful I could help Elise and connecting with her has helped me.
I took her a penny jar and we had a nice visit. We talked a little bit about grief. Before Baby Kevin I was so clueless in how to treat the people around me who experienced a loss. Kevin did a lot of reading about grief and how to best help our kids handle the loss of their brother. The one thing that was common in all that he read was to be honest with them, talk to them often about what was going on--ignoring the loss or pretending like it wasn't happening was the worst thing we could do. I'm sad to say I was guilty of that before our Baby Kevin experience. I never knew what to say, so I often said nothing.
If you'd like to better understand how to help those around you who are grieving here are a few ideas...
and if you are grieving yourself I invite you to join my free program
Tomorrow is picture day for Gracie...almost every day is picture day for Lilly :)
