On Saturday evening of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, Tiny Treasures was honored to host the second annual Wave of Light Retreat at the Church of St. Michael in Stillwater, Minnesota, co-sponsored with the Respect Life Committee of the Churches of St. Michael, St. Mary, and St. Charles. As part of the evening, we prayed, shared our stories, and talked about the myths of grief and the spiritual truths about grief. Parents were invited to honor the memory of their little ones by putting their names on seed-embedded butterflies and hanging them on our "Tree of Life" (new this year). The butterflies can be planted and will sprout into beautiful wildflowers. Finally, Tiny Treasures, in a small display, shared some of the appropriately sized clothing that we make for babies who pass away at any stage in pregnancy, during birth, or early in infancy. It was a beautiful evening and I am honored to have been a part of it!
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HighlightsAlthough Tiny Treasures Perinatal Loss Resources & Support was officially founded in the fall of the year 2013, 2015 was the year Tiny Treasures actually launched. (2014 was spent accumulating enough Tiny Treasures to have enough to offer families and organizations.) Here are some highlights:
Our ImpactIn 2015, Team Tiny Treasures gave away at least*:
Numbers of individual types of bereavement clothing given away in 2015 include at least*:
2015 Recipients of Tiny Treasures baby bereavement clothing:
Our Volunteers & Generous Friends
FINANCIAL REPORT In 2015, $580 was given to Tiny Treasures and our expenses were $230 (not counting $40 in GoFundMe fees which were paid before the funds were received).
Our FutureTeam Tiny Treasures plans to continue supporting bereaved families for years to come. More beautiful clothing items have been rolling into Tiny Treasures Home Base in the last few weeks! We are currently working on hand-made baby bereavement clothing items to help a local grief organization connected with ten hospitals--which, according to my contact, have NO clothing items appropriately sized for babies who pass away. With this large need, we would love to welcome more crafters on our Team! Contact us if you can help! It is still my desire to become a grief recovery specialist. In order to achieve this goal, I am in need of financial support to complete the training. If you wish to give to this special project, click the "Support Bereaved Families Now" button and let me know you want your gift to help with my training expenses. For those who wish to give financial support to Tiny Treasures, but want to directly support families, you may choose to sponsor a mother in need of post-loss support; sponsor a Care Basket or Deluxe Care Package, provide the funds for a family to receive emotional and physical support throughout their loss, or simply direct your gift to "where needed most." Together, we can help bring hope, comfort, and peace to parents who have experienced baby loss.
I have a dream. My dream is to help families welcome their children into the world with tremendous love, overwhelming peace, and, most of the time, abundant joy. Except when the joy is laced with pain and sorrow. Then my dream is to stand beside and hold their sorrowing hearts in my prayers while joining them in their tears. ...And stay by their sides as they live the days, weeks, and months after the loss of their child, feeding them the only thing that can be safely given to them: hope. Hope that they can recover. Hope that they can heal.
One of the last things I did before my third son was born was finish up the final assignments of my Stillbirthday doula certification program. I am very glad that I pushed through because after he was born I would not have had time to finish. During my son's birth, unexpected complications occurred. Born without heart beat and without breath, I learned first hand what a stillbirth is. However, my son's birth story has an amazing twist, because he died, but he didn't stay dead. At least fifteen minutes after his birth--(I actually checked my watch)--he gasped and one of the midwives said she could feel his pulse. Immediately after my son's birth, as I laid next to him and watched the color fade from his body, unconnected thoughts and prayers were racing through my mind. I do not remember many of them, but one I do remember is asking God, "Do I have to experience stillbirth first hand?" Yet I believe that my Stillbirthday training had prepared me for that moment. I did not panic or wail--I was able to pray and beg God for my baby. While there is no "right" or "wrong" way to behave when your child's life is cut short, I am grateful for the gift of knowledge that the training gave me, and the gift of being emotionally prepared for any outcome.
My son's birth story has a rare happy ending, one for which I never cease to be grateful. However, though death was cheated in my third (living) son's case, we have five other children who passed away during their pregnancies. I am well acquainted personally with loss. Since my son's recovery, I have been able to support families experiencing loss during pregnancy as a certified birth & bereavement doula with Tiny Treasures. Though I launched Tiny Treasures prior to my son's traumatic birth, my own experiences during and after his birth gave me additional drive to develop the Tiny Treasures baby clothing donation program, and to minister to grieving moms through a loss support group, and informally in person, and over the phone and via email. My training as a certified birth and bereavement doula has borne fruit in many unforeseen and meaningful ways. I have a dream. Just as I felt that tug to become a Stillbirthday doula, I feel a tug again. I want to give the gift of healing to other parents who have lost their baby--parents whose stories do not have a happy ending. I feel a call to become a Grief Recovery Specialist, offering the gift of recovery from grief especially to parents whose children pass away during or around the time of birth. Perhaps one day I will do so as a midwife, a profession for which I am studying; that remains to be seen. I've wanted to be a midwife for at least ten years, and I am learning the information and skills I need to practice midwifery. However, it will take years before I am ready to practice midwifery. I have learned not to look too far ahead, because life is unpredictable. My training as a Stillbirthday Birth & Bereavement Doula has given me tools to help families before, during and after perinatal loss, and I believe it will continue to be valuable training in the years to come. Taking the next step and becoming a Grief Recovery Specialist will give me the tools to help grievers to experience recovery from grief. Becoming a Grief Recovery Specialist is the least I can do as a way to thank God for the gift of my son's breath and life. This is my dream.
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AuthorChristelle Hagen is the Founder of Team Tiny Treasures and a certified birth and bereavement doula. Archives
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