In 2013, after my dear friends discovered that their baby had passed away just a few days beyond the 40 week mark, I felt a tug to learn more as a friend and a professional birth coach, known as a "doula". I listened to my friends (as best I could) but I was left with a nagging feeling that there was more I could have done for them. This led me to Stillbirthday. At first, to be honest, I disapproved of the name. How could any organization that claimed to be about birth use the word "stillbirth" in their name? (This was why I had named my business "St. Croix Birth" rather than "Stillwater Birth" because I thought it was essential and well, obvious, that one should avoid combining the words "still" and "birth" in one name.) But I soon came to know that the name "Stillbirthday" was specifically chosen because a stillbirth is still a birthday, a beautiful truth that is embodied in the name. With the help of a partial scholarship from Stillbirthday, I followed the tug and become a certified Stillbirthday birth & bereavement doula. |
My feelings of gratefulness for the Stillbirthday training continued during the rough weeks that followed when my son was hospitalized in the NICU, an incredibly stressful and agonizing experience for which I had been explicitly prepared by the Stillbirthday training. I doubt I would have been able to cope as well as I did without that preparation (and I can say without doubt that those were the hardest days of my life). |