Butteryfly Mommies April Giveaway

Butterfly Mommies is holding another giveaway for the month of April. Click the link to their site and enter as well!


This month they are asking; What forms of support helped you the most during your time of loss and even now? How would you recommend other people support grieving mothers? (As we know, many times people who love us often don't know what to say or how to act)

I had such a hard time after loosing Bryston, I basically put myself into a kind of hermit mode. I didn't want to leave the house and if I did, I didn't want to go by myself. I spent many weeks locked in the house hiding from the world. I guess I thought that if I hid that it would all go away. I didn't think that I could trust myself and my emotions in public so I did my best to avoid people outside the family. I would drive a town over to go grocery shopping if I had to. I did whatever it took to not run into someone that I might have to talk to. Someone that might set me off in a public place, which is still something I deal with 8 months later, the fear of being unable to keep my composure.

I spent weeks reading books about miscarriages and baby loss and blogging myself out of my grief stricken world. But for me, my biggest support was my family. My parents cooked meals, brought me my medicines, and took me on drives just to get out the house. They fielded questions from curious neighbors and took care of all the things they knew I wasn't strong enough to handle. My mother even screened the books, cards and messages that I had received to make sure that there was nothing in them that might be hard for me to deal with.

One morning I woke up to find my mother on my front lawn planting a memorial garden for Bryston. A week later my parents took my husband and I on a week long trip to Alabama to see my sister. They listened while I sobbed and prayed for me to find peace and strength. My family helped me take those first few steps back into the day to day life, and let me go at my own pace. Looking back, I remember asking Ty how he could just jump back into life so easily when I could barley go to Walmart by myself. And his answer was so straight forward and to the point. He said, "Because we cant hide from this. It's hard, but we cant stay at home forever." Ty encouraged me to get out on my own little by little. And I did, slowly. He held me as I sobbed and recounted my first encounter with someone who hadn't heard and had asked how our baby was doing. They listened to me and tried to help me understand what was happening when nothing made sense anymore and when they didn't have the answers they prayed. And I cannot stress that enough, about the prayers. Without those prayers I might just still be curled up in a ball locked in my bedroom. So please, never stop praying for me or for any of us. Prayer moves mountains and I am living proof of that.

As for what I would recommend as far as what to do for grieving families, I'd suggest all of the above. Be there if asked and don't be offended if you're not. Sometimes all I needed was to with my family and those closest to Bryston. Cook a meal or run a few errands for them, because who knows how long it will take before they can even manage to do these for themselves again. Its the small things in life that were hardest for me. Pray, Pray, and then Pray some more. God is the one true comforter in this life and only He will truly understand what that person needs. Send a card that says you're sorry for thier loss and thinking of them and praying. Do not offer advice or relay a horror story of how your cousins girlfriend had 5 miscarriages before conceiving a healthy live baby. I had this happen several times and was petrified that I would go through this again. Do not offer the cliche sayings like God will only give you what you can handle or You'll have another. This only made me madder at God and at the well meaning individuals. Grief for me went hand in hand with anger at God and at the situation. Bible scripture meant to comfort me sent me into a blind rage. I remember being told that God knew my baby before he formed him in my womb and my reaction was to scream, "If he knew him then he knew that this would happen and He did nothing to save him!" It was irrational but it's how I reacted at the time. I'm not proud of that but it is how I felt at the time. I reacted much better to the I'm sorries and we're praying. And I beg of you, do not ignore that this happened. You may not know what to say or do and that's okay, but if you do not acknowledge the fact that I had and lost my baby, chances are I probably wont acknowledge you on the street the next time I see you. It's hurtfull not to.

Boy this turned out longer winded than I intended, LOL! Guess I had more to say tonight than I thought I did. Dont forget to hop on over to Butterfly Mommies to enter the giveaway!