Episode 160. I am so excited. To hit this random milestone. Thank you for being here. If you’re new. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is your, how to guide for life after baby loss. That does include a lot of things about grief, but a lot of things about life because. Life is just so multifaceted. And I want to be your life coach that totally understands baby loss.

I’ve experienced this stillbirth and miscarriage myself as well as pregnancy after loss and have also helped so many people. Go through their toughest times. And I’m just grateful for this opportunity. If you’ve been here for a while. Thank you for being here. I love you. I am so happy. You’re here. And I love hearing from you.

So. Send me a message. Send me an email. Reach out, come on. Over. I would love to chat. Today’s episode is a good one. It’s one that I have been thinking about doing for a while, because I see this so often. And. I just wanted to address it. And it might seem kind of like a specific thing. What date should I celebrate? And we are talking about due dates, birthdays, death days, like there’s so many special days when we talk about baby loss.

But I want you to know that whether you are really, really fresh in your grief, or you’ve been doing this for a while, there are going to be some gems in here for you. You’re going to want to keep listening because the goal I have today is that you leave this episode feeling a lot of relief. And a lot of direction and a lot of confidence.

That’s what I always want is. Taking these things that are just sapping so much energy or maybe running in the background. And maybe you don’t think about it day to day. Um, But it’s there. And then when these special days or reminders or milestones come up, It’s like, oh my goodness, what do I do? And you know, it’s been X number of years and I’m still struggling with this. I want you to put the struggle down.

We’re trying to take those extra weights off that we can. We can’t bring our baby back. We can’t have the life that looks exactly like we planned on. But we can put down a lot of this extra weight and this extra suffering. So that is the goal today. I’m super excited to talk about this with you. All right.

Okay. I had to take off my sweater because my like, Headphone cord was rubbing against the zipper. That’s annoying. I hope you couldn’t hear that, but I could hear it. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about where we get stuck, where we have problems, and then we’ll talk about how to solve it. And this is going to be. Like so good. So really what happens. Immediately after you find out your baby doesn’t have a heartbeat or your baby has passed away. We are thrown into this making decisions about celebrations.

Should you have a funeral? Do you bury the baby? Does the hospital take care of the baby? Um, if you were at home, like, what do you do? How do you memorialize this baby? When should you do it? And we have all these dates, I guess it really goes farther back. Right. As soon as you know, you’re pregnant or you’re trying to conceive. We as women as mothers, we’re really planning ahead.

We’re like, if I get pregnant this month, I’ll have the baby this month and we’ll be doing this at Christmas. And, and we’re just planning out our life. We’re planning out the dates or like, You know, my parents want to take everybody on a cruise, like in a year and I’m trying to have a baby. And what’s that going to look like?

And how’s that gonna affect my plans? So. Here you sit. Having these dates you have when you got pregnant, you have, you know, when you’re going to be certain amount of weeks. You have your due date, you have your expected date that you think you might go into labor. Like do you normally go late? Is this your first baby and you don’t know, or have you always gone early or do you have extenuating circumstances that would have you go early?

Like we have all these dates in our head. Okay. And then. Our baby dies. And we have all these other dates, right? We have the date. That we miscarried. We had the date that we had surgery. We have the date that our baby was still born. We have, you know, the deaths date we have. Just so many days. And. So first, I want you to be really gentle with yourself.

If this has been a heavy, complicated subject for you. Or if you just kind of, haven’t known what to do with it. Uh, Recognize that we were all kind of thrown into this in a state of shock. We, we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know, you know, When I had Lauren, I was full term. I had a full sized baby. And then it’s like, well, do we have a funeral?

I just gave birth. Like I just gave birth. My milk came in while I was burying my daughter. To the point that I couldn’t hug anyone, it hurts so badly. Okay, so that is. An insane situation for anybody to be put into. And yet we’re so hard on ourselves as we try to make these decisions. Or as we look back at making these decisions.

It’s really UN. Fathomable what we have to decide. And I saw someone just recently talking about like, When do I have a Memorial? We’re doing this or we’re cremating. And it’s like, when do I have a Memorial? Should I do it sooner or later? I feel like. You know, a lot of people came to the hospitals to do I need to do another thing.

Like I’m emotionally exhausted. I’m physically exhausted. What do I even do? And. That is a whole other story. And if you have any friends in the future that go through this thing, I do offer, like I’ve talked to a lot of people, just kind of having that funeral planning conversation. I’m happy to do that.

That’s not like a. I don’t. Yeah, I’m just happy to do that. So reach out to me. If you ever unfortunately, have friends that need that. Or if you need that, if you’re still in the thick of it, you haven’t decided if you wanted to have a Memorial or do anything. Uh, reach out.

But I want you to just think about, you know, What did you do? What. Felt right. It felt like completely wrong. What do you wish you had done? What would you still like to do? Sometimes it’s like, I would still kind of like to go back and be able to do that. We can’t go back in time, but we can. Do whatever we want now. Um, it’s really, really up to you.

Just be really, really gentle.

You were in the hardest moments of your life and there is. No guidebook for this. And everything is so different. Every culture is different. Every situation is different. We all just did the best we could. With what we had. I want you to , just recognize. This happens fast and furious at the beginning. But then let’s talk about celebrating.

So maybe you’ve passed that part and you’re like, okay, but I want to do a birthday party, but what. What is their birthday? You know, I, I lost them this date. And, but they were due this day. And what do I celebrate? And there’s a lot of emotions.

There’s a lot of different things to take into account.

Like when the dates are what’s going on. You might have some trauma, you might be like totally disassociated from those dates. It’s your worst day. Maybe you don’t want to plan your, your baby’s birthday party on a day. That is just traumatic for you. Maybe you didn’t have enough time to even really identify with the due date, especially if you had an early loss. And I wanted to share. A little personal experience for me. With River. I got pregnant.

. Found out my due date. It was, uh, so it was kind of like the beginning of the year, my due date was in the beginning of November. But considering all of our, like we’d already been through a stillbirth and a pregnancy after loss, and this was my. Another pregnancy. And so I was like, there’s no way I’m going full term.

I had, I had gotten induced at 38 weeks with my rainbow baby, just for like mental health and, you know, purposes. And just making sure he was big enough, but also getting them out of there safely. So I didn’t really identify with the early November. I was like, oh, it’ll be a Halloween baby. Like, will. You know, do a cute pumpkin announcement or something. And. So I didn’t really have a date. As far as the due date.

So that was a little wishy-washy and then. We ended up finding out River did not have a heartbeat at 14 weeks. And so that was a certain day, which I honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I could look at a calendar and figure it out, but I don’t like, remember that date. Off the top of my head. Well, my husband was across the country, so we waited until Friday, which was, he was going to fly back Thursday night.

We were going to go in Friday morning to have surgery, to have a DNC where they take the baby out surgically and. Made that decision. That’s a whole other story. Um, for certain reasons, but. I didn’t realize. So that date was Friday the 13th. And it ended up being just a terrible day. Now my birthday was the next day. Um, the 14th. And.

That was a whole other thing I ended up needing to post on Facebook. That I was in the hospital because during my surgery, it went really, really badly. I lost a lot of blood and I ended up needing to stay in the hospital. And so with my , shaky hands, barely able to hold the phone. I took a picture of my Ivy.

I think a lot of us have done this. Uh, and just said, Hey, please. Don’t say happy birthday to me tomorrow. I am going through like one of the hardest things ever. Losing a second baby, losing a ton of blood being very unwell. And. So. That date. Is not rivers birthday. Number one. That baby had already died. Um, that baby wasn’t born, like in my mind. It’s not. a birth that was a surgery and it was a traumatic surgery. And so that whole thing. It’s just real complicated. And I’m sure some of you out there, this is also true for you. Um, If it’s not your for you. That’s great.

Like with Lauren it’s easy. She was due on March 17th. We found out she died on the 13th. She was born early in the morning on the 14th. The 14th is, is her birthday and then on St. Patrick’s day, I just kinda am like Ray, I don’t know. I just. Whatever. Um, Don’t really do a ton for St.

Patrick’s day. But yeah, with river, it was all kinds of messy and it was all kinds of complicated. So again, all my contributing factors are. Having surgery, having the timeline be so weird having the Friday, the 13th, having it been so close to my birthday. Not identifying with November kind of identifying with October. And just. I honestly don’t have a day for river. And I have done, like we did a cupcakes on November 4th.

Um, one time, a couple of times, maybe. But basically what I decided after just processing this and this loss took a lot of processing. And it still does, but I ended up just saying, you know, a all celebrate river on October 15th, we always light a candle for pregnancy and infant loss, remembrance day.

And that’s, you know, kind of close to. Maybe when we would have had that baby. Um, But, yeah, I really don’t. So on one hand, I’ve Lauren and we like make a cake and we do the thing and we try to go cemetery if we can. And, and all of that, it’s all good. And then river it’s like. Kind of really, really different.

And I just want you to know that that is okay. All of it is okay. Anything you decide to do. Is okay.

What is most important is that you get to choose when you celebrate your baby and you get to choose how you celebrate your baby. A lot of times people have this question and this concern, like. Well, what about my baby? What if they think I didn’t do enough for them? Right? Didn’t celebrate them enough.

Or I didn’t plan a Memorial or I didn’t. Do this and this and this listen. I want to say this really strongly. And you are welcome to your opinion, but. I just want you to have the option that you can just decide that your baby is totally cool with what you did. Your baby is not judging you, your baby. Understands how devastating this was for you and loves you. If anything, they are cheering for you. Not judging you.

So you’re not letting your baby down. If you can’t pull it together to plan a Memorial service, or you don’t know what the heck to do for the birthday. Well, you don’t know what day to celebrate. Just decide. My baby loves me

and my baby is totally cool with whatever I choose to do. The next concern. I see a lot is what are other people going to think? That’s always a concern. There’s going to be input it’s you know, it’s your baby. It’s your partner’s baby. You’ve got your family, your partners, family, friends, all of that.

They get to have their opinions.

They are allowed to have their opinions. And. You get to have the final opinion, of course, with your partner, you want to make that decision together. But often. Uh, partners.

Yeah, I would say that I see a lot like where maybe the mom is a little more into doing something. Then the partner is. But that’s okay. Like it’s okay. They can go along with it. You do, you. But yeah, really don’t worry. What other people think if they think it’s weird to have a cake for your baby, who cares?

Like if they think it’s weird to go blow bubbles at the cemetery who cares? If whatever they think is weird, you know what? They don’t get it. And that’s great for them. I’m glad they don’t get it. And it doesn’t matter. So what I found is I do what works for me. And my family. And we always invite people like, Hey, this is what we’re doing. Uh, if you want to participate.

Great. If you don’t great. And I don’t make that day. Also about like the people who didn’t show up or the people who can’t be there, the people who. Don’t want to participate with us. Like I’m not going to let that bring me down. So. Um, You know, just get a little feisty, honestly.

Another thing is. I want you to understand that. You can allow all your feelings and multiple feelings. So, whatever your situation is, whatever your milestones, whatever your dates you’re celebrating. Open up the fact that it can be amazing and it can be hard and it can be just a whole mixture of emotions.

That is not a problem. We love feelings here. We. Love being humans with so many feelings. Feelings are the best. We’re not here to not feel we’re not here. To feel the exact same thing all the time. Like we don’t want to feel fine. We don’t want to feel good. Just. 99% of the time. Right. That would be really, really boring. We want to feel all the feelings.

So I encourage you. If you’re not good at feeling feelings, you’re not good at holding multiple feelings. Come and talk to me, that’s what I help people do is learn that this is possible and how to do it. And once you learn, it’s like, So amazing, like your life changes.

I also wanted to touch on.

The fact that this is going to evolve. Um, I almost want to say this might evolve, but for most people, I think it will evolve. It’s almost inevitable from what I’ve observed and what I’ve experienced. Is you start out and it’s just like, you’re a new parent, but your baby has died. You all this mothering parenting energy. That you want to put towards your baby?

So of course like that first birthday, the first, the due date, the. All the things, the first Christmas. Um, Or whatever holidays you celebrate. Those are really, really important. And it’s really, really important that you include your baby. And that is a beautiful thing. I love it. Like I remember with Lauren, I’d be like, she would be this many months.

She would be this many months. You’d be this many months, just like a new parent would. And I was a new parent, just, you know, A new parent without a living baby.

But as time goes on, you might shift like maybe it’s really important to you to do celebrations on a certain day. At first and then that shifts you get more flexible. You open up like this year? My husband, um, There’s like this cool event that he wants to go to, uh, and take some of the kids and it it’s on Lauren’s birthday. And it’s like, that’s fine. We can celebrate a different time.

We can celebrate separately, like if he goes and does that, I can do what I want to do, you know? It really isn’t that same intensity as it was. And I kind of grew up being really super flexible with dates anyways, because, um, my parents are divorced and. Lots of times we’d even do like Christmas, with my mom. Early, and then we’d go skiing with my dad, stuff like that.

So, I never was super like set on dates. And I think that that. Can be a really good way to handle this is just learn how to be flexible. Um, learn how to adjust, learn how to evolve. And it will be a lot easier on you on your heart, on your energy. And especially if you’re trying to get other people understand it’s going to evolve for other people.

At first, people are really, really supportive. A lot of people do have tons of support. So maybe. Again for me. I just give lots of personal examples this week. Uh, I would do a service project every year for Lauren’s birthday. And I made some really big goals and I sewed like a ton of diapers and blankets for stillborn babies and made a like thousands of hats. And I would just, people would rally and it was amazing. And it was exhausting. And as time goes on, sometimes that shifts right. Like. I’m almost 11 years later. I think it would be just like a different vibe.

If I tried to do a service project, which I actually quit doing a few years ago. Cause I just like, I didn’t have the energy. Um, and I was putting a lot of energy into like my podcasts and different things. So always doing service, but it evolved. And. I used to do that because it helped me focus on something good.

It helped me honor her and. And keep me busy during the buildup to her birthday. Um, but I don’t. Need that, I guess as much as I did in the beginning. And so be open to evolving, be open to your needs, evolving your desires. The way you want to celebrate. Just be open to all of it and then listen.

Even if you’ve done, like maybe you planned to 5k and you’ve done it forever.

And. And this year you’re just like tired or you just want to do something else. You can do that. You don’t have to worry about like letting people down or any of that or breaking tradition, just do what feels right.

So I want to just wrap this up and I’ve really just today. Lots of times I have everything written out today. I just had some notes and some things I wanted to touch on. And I hope that it has touched your heart. I hope that has sparked some ideas. That’s my goal is always just to help you listen to yourself. Help sparks some ideas for you. Um, and there’s so many variables I could never like describe every variable. I was something that just came into my mind was. If you have multiple losses, right. Um, I have clients and friends who have multiple, multiple losses.

Well, if you were celebrating everyone every time, every loss date, every due day, every. Everything. I mean, it would be. Pretty busy every year. And maybe you do that and maybe you love it.

But maybe you decide, Hey, we’re going to celebrate all our babies on a certain day. And we’re going to acknowledge them, you know, in a simpler way. Each time or, you know, I was thinking about people with multiples who have lost. You know, twinless twins and things like that. It’s like you’re holding that. Joy of watching one grow and then there’s the other one.

And it’s like, how do I acknowledge and bring that in without, you know, maybe feeling like you’re taking away from your living child. None of this is easy. None of this is simple. But what I want you to know is you get to choose what you do. You get to choose when you do it, how you do it, what you do, who you do it with. All of those questions. You can answer for yourself.

So I really want to encourage you to do that, to. Make the days that you celebrate. About your baby and honoring them, but also make it about taking care of you and doing what. You’re mothering energy wants. Honoring that. ANd then being open to shifting, changing and evolving as time goes on. This is a really beautiful thing that we have this opportunity to celebrate these babies. To remember them and to be. Their voice and to be the one who does. Never forget them. So I’m just going to celebrate you for that for. Being that kind of parent who keeps these babies, whether it’s in your heart or whether you throw a huge blow every year. Whatever it is. You’re doing amazing.

And I want to encourage you and send you a lot of love.

The answer to what date should I celebrate? Is. Any one you want.

I’ll see you next time.