You are currently viewing Episode 178 – What the heck do I do with PAIL Awareness Month?

Episode 178 – What the heck do I do with PAIL Awareness Month?

It’s October…now what? This month is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and each one of us acknowledges it differently.

In today’s episode I’m breaking down what this month is all about, what options are available, and the top 10 questions I see people struggling to answer when it comes to HOW the heck we “celebrate” thirty-one days that can seem to require a lot from our already broken hearts.

Transcription

Today’s episode is such a good one and I can’t really believe I haven’t specifically talked about this before, but we are going to talk about what should I say for Remembrance Month? What do I do? What even is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month? It is October 2024 as I’m recording this, but I think it’s really important to understand what is this month?

What is the day like October 15th? And what do we do? Because we all are different and we’re all going to participate in this differently. And I want to start out by saying, I’m going to go through a lot of questions that people have, and I’m also going to talk about all the things that are available, but you never have to participate in anything that you don’t want to.

This is your first time and you’re just overwhelmed with grief and you don’t even know what’s going on and you just want to like shut down social media, not do anything. You don’t have to. You have full permission. If you’ve been doing this a long time and you’ve gone to like walks for the last 10 years and now you’re thinking, uh, I don’t need to go to remembrance walk this year.

We’ve got other things going on. That’s fine too. So the first thing is you do not have to participate in anything. All the things I’m going to talk about, all the questions I’m going to answer for you, they are for people who want to participate. So I would say, keep listening because maybe the reasons that you don’t want to participate, you’re going to find some answers of like why it’s so hard for you or what’s going on with you so that you can do some of those things if you want to, um, But like it’s feeling like a little bit much.

And yeah, I just got to start off that way because I know there, there seems to be like some sort of pressure, but there really, really isn’t. So I don’t want you to feel any pressure. Um, but let’s dive right in because I have 10 questions that I’m going to answer for you. And I’m going to start though, telling you a little bit more about Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month, which is October.

We share a month with breast cancer. And so that’s pink. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance is pink and blue but here’s some of the, the history I was looking up and I was looking up different history and like different information. And here’s the gist of it. I’m just going to distill it down because it’s different in every country and different, you know, now that we are so globally connected, but basically.

It hasn’t been going on a super duper long time. It started as a like a declared thing in 1988 in the US, but basically everyone everywhere had kind of come together and say, Hey, this is important. We need to bring awareness. Number one, because grieving families have grieved in silence for. So, so long, like seemingly throughout history, we like really weren’t able to talk about these babies who died.

Um, so we want to be able to grieve out loud. We want a space to share our babies and share about their lives. Cause it’s not just grief. It’s love, but also. , to acknowledge these families and to hopefully bring awareness so that we can make a difference so that we can move forward so we can lower these rates of miscarriage and stillbirth and infant mortality and all of that.

Okay, so what do we have? The biggest. Well, there’s so many things, but let’s just go through. Okay. The wave of light on October 15th at 7 PM, whatever time zone you’re in, you are invited to light a candle and keep it burning for one hour as we do this throughout the world, and this has gone pretty global, um, there will be a wave of light going all around the world.

Because, you know, as each hour changes, , the candles are lit in a different time zone. And I think it’s such a beautiful thing and like a really nice way to remember for me, We would try to light three candles. So one for Lauren, one for River, and one for all babies gone too soon. And this year I ordered a really cool remembrance candle from Sage and Sarah.

They’re like a loss candle maker. Um, And we’ve had different ones and we’ve, yeah, different charities have been selling candles or we just had candles of our own tea lights. Again, you can make it as elaborate or as simple as you want. There really, really are no rules about this, but. October 15th, 7 p. m.

Wave of light. Um, and a lot of people will post on social media. So if you want to do that, um, you can post your candle. You can post what you’re doing. Sometimes people do name readings during that. So many resources online and in person. Okay. There are a lot of walks, which are generally, I call them strolls.

Like in our, where I live in Utah, they have a pretty huge walk, but we get together, there’s some music, um. And they do read names and then we take a little stroll around the park and there’s always like a little remembrance item. And it’s a really beautiful thing. I would say for people who have not done that before, or maybe you don’t have or know of an organization near you, um, as this comes out, hopefully you still have time.

Get on Google, like do some good searches for your area. Ask people, I would say like call the funeral home you went through, call maybe the bereavement, whoever helped you if you were at the hospital, or call friends that you know that have had losses near you. They may know of an organization because I feel like most states, most places do have something.

And if you don’t have something near you, Again, there are so many virtual things that you can participate however much you want to. I used to travel. I traveled at one time, like four hours. , we lived in a little small town in the very corner of the state and I traveled four hours to go to the nearest walk.

So it’s really up to you what you want to do, but definitely get in touch with local, um, resources ask if you’re in an online, like a Facebook group and you can say, Hey, I’m in this area. Does anybody know? of bereavement resources or any events going on. There can be lighting up pink and blue. I know a lot of people, , if you haven’t done this yet, but you might want to next year, but they would like connect with local government and different places to light up pink and blue, light up their town hall or, you know, You know, Niagara falls, like all these things, they, they’ll light up, um, towers and buildings and whatever, um, with pink and blue.

And that can be a really, really special there’s fundraisers. There’s probably five K’s there’s runs. There’s like all kinds of auctions and things going on. So those can be really, really fun to participate in. And then again, any type of ceremony, name readings, walks, all of that. And then there are a lot of social media things.

So if you’re not on social media, but you want to feel connected, or especially if you live somewhere, or you’re just not able to go to anything in person this month, um, you can do it on social media. I think it’s a really beautiful thing. Uh, sometimes there are daily challenges, like there would be a prompt.

Each day where you would share about your baby, or sometimes people are just encouraged to kind of share their story online. Um, again, this can be a beautiful thing. This can be, this can feel like a lot of pressure. And so you don’t have to post on social media. Not at all. And you don’t have to post every day.

And if you do want to do like the entire month, like a 31 day challenge, and you miss a couple of days, that’s okay too. Or if there’s days where the prompt just like, you don’t have words for it. That’s okay too. All right. You make it what you want it to be. So here are my 10 questions and I am going to try to like zip through them.

So as always, if you are really struggling with in any of these areas. Come and talk to me, come and do coaching, because I’m going to teach you all the skills you need to be able to answer these questions for yourself, so they’re not so stressful, um, and really distressing, like, this is a very tender subject, and an awareness month can be a beautiful thing, it can also be just a really hard thing, so open up to Whatever experience you’re having, you’re not doing this wrong.

You’re doing a great job. Let’s dive in. Question one, and these are in no particular order. What do I say when I post? Here’s the thing, you get to say whatever you want. You get to share as vulnerably as you want. You get to share as many details as you want. Um, it’s really up to you. And a lot of times we feel like we’re coming from this place of like, I need other people to understand how hard this is.

I need other people to acknowledge my baby’s life. I need other people just to, yeah, to understand what I’m going through and what this is like and what I’ve found. And what I’ve seen in my clients is this is not a great motivation. This can be a very painful motivation because you cannot control what other people think, right?

Of course we can influence and it can be a great thing, right? We’re bringing awareness. So that is kind of our goal that we want to bring awareness, but you, you can do it coming from a different place. So the question, what do I say when I post? I want you to go inside of yourself and ask yourself, what do I want to say?

, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. It doesn’t have to be long or short or whatever It’s not about that. It’s really about you getting to share your truth and your story and your baby and your love That is all that matters. So don’t get caught up in what the words are.

I would really start from a place of like, how do I want to feel as I’m sharing? Right. And you might be a little nervous. You might be a little scared, but most of us, I think, want to feel some, some love and some pride in her babies and like, be proud of ourselves for what we’ve gone through. And we want to help other people who may also know this pain.

So. It doesn’t matter what you say, just think about

what message you want to share from your heart. Inside of you towards out instead of like I said, thinking about how you want to make others people feel or how you want to change their minds. Um, and then come from your heart. How much do I post? You can post as much as you want or as little as you want from zero to a million posts.

It doesn’t matter, right? You need to check in with yourself. And again, if you’ve committed to posting the whole month and you notice that it’s getting overwhelming, You can take a step back, just take care of you, but there’s no right answer to this. It’s really what works for you and take it day by day and adjust.

Should I share pictures? If you had a loss where you were able to have pictures of your baby. Um, a lot of people are afraid to post these or nervous, or maybe you post them a lot. Everyone’s different, but I see a lot of people being nervous about posting their babies, especially if they’ve passed, uh, at an earlier gestation or they had like skin issues or different things where they think maybe people think.

Something is weird about these pictures, or they’re going to say something about my baby, or they’re going to think it’s gross. Honestly, people do get the feedback that like, that’s not okay, that’s morbid, that’s like, I don’t want to see that. Um, it can be really scary. So number one, check in with your nervous system.

Putting pictures of your babies on the internet sounds scary to your body. Right? It sounds risky. So it makes sense that you might have some nerves about that. Um, and you need to decide for yourself. So, for example, I have a few pictures that I’m comfortable sharing online, but I don’t share a lot online because I Of my own baby’s pictures, um, river.

We don’t have any Lauren. I have quite a few, but I have a few that I feel comfortable sharing and the rest, I just keep in my photo album. So I guess I’m kind of middle of the road, but for me, I just, I don’t like posting pictures of my kids on the internet. to begin with. And so putting pictures of my daughter who had died, um, it felt like a lot for me.

So I did put it on like a personal blog that only family and friends had access to. Um, but overall, that’s how I do it is I have a few pictures that I feel comfortable with and the rest I keep for myself. So you get to decide, but again, come from inside of you. What do you need to do to keep yourself supported?

Right? If you know there’s people in your life who are going to say things and you don’t want to deal with that, you get to decide, is that a reason I wouldn’t post my baby? Or you get to decide why would I post my baby? Why would I post these pictures? Because you love them because they’re adorable, because you want to share them just like everybody else does.

So come from your heart, listen to what’s inside you and don’t try to control other people around you. Next question is, what if I have never shared? There are lots of people, and you might be one of them as you’re listening, that you really didn’t talk about how you had a couple of miscarriages before you had living babies or um, you know, the, whatever situation.

Sometimes we haven’t publicly shared our losses before. And so, again, just notice, why does that feel so scary? Why does it feel so vulnerable? Do you want to share? Are you feeling like this is the year that you want to acknowledge this baby or babies that you have that people don’t know about? That’s a question you’ve got to ask yourself.

Look at your reasons for doing it, and then if you want to do it, expect to be a little nervous. Expect that it’s going to be scary and then, you know, just go for it because once you go for it, then you don’t have to answer this question again because you will have shared. In my experience, the more we share our stories, the more we can connect with people.

And the more you find out that people around you have also experienced really similar things. I guess I’ve maybe been lucky. But I have had like 99. 9 percent amazing experiences when I’ve shared my story. So I know it’s vulnerable. I know it can be terrifying in the longer you go without saying anything.

It can feel like a lot, but if you feel drawn to sharing your story, even though you’ve never shared it before this October, or whenever you’re listening to this, I say, go for it because it can be a beautiful thing, but you don’t have to. You absolutely don’t have to. And it doesn’t mean anything about you.

Like, you are still a great parent. I know you love your babies. So, choose from the heart. Next question is, what if I always share? I’ve seen this too, where it’s like, especially in that first maybe year, like these seasons where you’re really like so focused on sharing. your baby that you’ve lost or if you’ve had lots of losses or you’ve been struggling with infertility.

It can feel like you talk about it a lot and then it’s like, oh my goodness, should I add more? Should I be sharing more? Should I be talking more? Are people going to get sick of it? Uh, are they just going to tune it out? And this is basically the exact same answer. So what? Can you share your baby too much?

Like, is that even possible? I don’t know. What do you think? What really matters is what’s in your heart. If you feel like you have things to say for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, you want to influence, you want to educate, you want to talk about your baby, go wild. There is nothing and no reason you can’t do that.

So if you always share about your baby, go ahead and share more. And again, do it for you. Do it for you. Next question, should I go to an event? This can be a difficult question because people wonder, will I be able to handle it? What will it be like? What’s the What’s kind of the vibe? Is it going to be really sad?

Is everyone going to be crying? Am I going to fit in? There’s a lot of questions. So if you have an event and you’re not sure if you want to go or not, maybe you’ve even registered, but it’s getting closer and you’re a little nervous. It’s your first time. Um, really? I think getting together in person in a community with other people who know the pain and the grief of baby loss is a beautiful thing.

When I go to ours and it’s become huge, you just see all these people that, and there’s families and they’ve got t shirts and there’s like, there’s kids there and it’s very inclusive. And we all have that in common. And I think in our world, we’re, we’re connected and we are connected online, but there’s something special about in person and you got to do traffic and you got to drag your living kids and maybe your partner doesn’t want to go.

And you know, you, you’ve got to work around it, but. I think it’s worth it. If you’re on the fence, I’m going to push you towards just go, uh, just go because yeah, we just, there’s something different. There just is, there’s something different about being in person. And actually I’m going to be planning some in person things soon because I just, I want to be in person with you.

So be on my email list if you aren’t so that you hear about those. Next question, what if I don’t want to do anything? I think we’ve gone over that. It really is up to you. Just be careful about what you’re making it mean. If you want to opt out, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, are you making that mean anything?

Are you saying unkind things to yourself? Are you thinking that you’re, you know, left out and you see other people doing it and then you have like some FOMO around it, even though you know the best thing for you to do is to just, um, opt out this year. Just notice if you’re adding extra suffering, notice your inner voice, that inner critic.

Is it coming out? And tell it to stop. Tell it to be kind. Tell it to be gentle. Okay, this is a month where we do need to be gentle with ourselves. Because even though it’s an amazing opportunity to talk about our babies, it can be a lot. So if you don’t want to do anything, Don’t do anything. Just be careful about what you’re making it mean.

Next question. What if my family, friends, partner don’t support me? I have seen this a lot too, and I have experienced it in my own family. Some of my family liked to go to these events. Uh, some of them don’t. I have friends who were really sad because they really wanted to go to a walk and members of their family didn’t want to.

That’s pretty common. So what if. They don’t support you. Number one, let’s question because here we’re always trying to be aware of how we’re thinking the stories we’re telling. If you’re saying, so for example, let’s say your in laws don’t want to go to the walk. They think it’s weird. If you, believe that means they don’t support you,

or if you make it mean they don’t love your baby, or they care about their living grandkids more than their dead grandkids, you are going to cause yourself a lot of extra suffering. But what if we just let everyone grieve the way they wanted to? What if we just allowed them to have their emotions and their thoughts and their stories and make their own decisions and then you make yours?

Right? If you want to participate in something, if you want to post online, if you want to go to an event, do that for your own reasons and let other people do things that they want for their own reasons. It really is. That is like a global, if we could all as humans grasp this concept of like truly giving people a choice and not judging them for it, I think we would just all get along so much better.

But it doesn’t mean they don’t support you. It just might mean they don’t want to go to a walk, or they don’t want to share online. It’s too vulnerable for them, or they don’t know what to say, or they’re not as aware as you are. They haven’t worked through a lot of the things that you’ve worked through.

That’s okay. It really is okay. So if your family, friends, or partner don’t want to participate in this month the same as you, choose how you want to think about them. Choose what you want to make it mean, but don’t make it mean that they don’t support you. Because I think that’s just a path that’s going to send you down to a lot of resentment and, uh, Um, hurt feelings and it’s going to disconnect you in your relationship, right?

The way we think about people is how we create connection. It’s not whether they’re sitting next to you at a walk. It really is how we think about them. Would it be nice if they came? But is it nice sometimes? Like I’ve gone to a walk a couple, well, maybe once or twice where I just went by myself. And I got to volunteer and I helped set up and I helped clean up and I, you know, I could just do what I wanted and I didn’t have to worry about everyone else’s, um, things that, you know, so it can be nice.

Maybe make the best out of it. Okay, last two questions. How do I take care of my emotions? Now this is a big one. I will admit that, but I’m going to make it quick. Really, number one, always is awareness. So what are the stories you’re telling? What sentences are running through your brain? What are you saying to yourself,

what are you thinking about your baby? Okay. Then what is going on in your body?

What is your nervous system doing? Like what, what emotions, what sensations, what is happening in your body? Our body knows. And when we have these milestones and we have these reminders and we’re seeing lots of people sharing or whatever, you know, it can be a lot on our emotions. So we always want to just check in.

What am I feeling? Sometimes we don’t know. We can’t put a word. If you can’t. Put a word to it, just go in your body and describe the sensations. Just for me, when I’m sad or I’m grieving, I would say it’s like, there’s this heaviness under my eyes. Um, maybe my head’s a little lower. I feel something in the pit of my stomach.

My heart feels cold and heavy and there’s an ache, you know, and maybe I don’t know what the word is for that. But I know that it’s grief and I know that it, it can be sadness or just missing my babies. So just check in with your emotions and then notice what are you doing to replenish and recharge your emotions.

A lot of times, especially if you are very involved in this community or you have a charity or you’re posting a lot or you’re doing a lot of things. We almost can have remembrance month burnout. Like I’ve seen it a lot. I actually did a class like how to not burn out last year, but I know it’s a real thing for people.

So just check in with yourself and if you, and replenish, you know, do the things you need to do the basics, sleeping, eating, going for a walk, um, you know, taking care of your physical self. And then mentally, are you up in the middle of the night? Just, you know, scrolling or thinking or worrying or whatever it is.

Okay. And then, so that’s the, um, making sure we’re replenishing. Then we want to take, check out our input. What are you exposing yourself to? What is coming in that might be affecting your emotions? And then what is going out? So as you post, as you do the wave of light, as you go to a walk, is that stretching you thin?

Um, where is your emotional energy? Really check in with that and then just pay attention because you can tell when you start doing this when you start being aware of your emotional energy, checking in with your emotions, noticing the stories and the things that you’re telling yourself, um, you absolutely will start to recognize like, Oh, I, I’m getting low, like my emotional energy is low and then put this just really, really simply.

Be aware of your emotions, be aware of what’s affecting them, and then do more of what You know helps you and a little less of what’s harder and I think it’s okay though to Stretch yourself because the more we stretch ourselves the more we realize like oh I can do this I can do hard things. I can share I can be You know, we call it vulnerable because it feels like We could get hurt or like, it’s not socially acceptable to talk about our dead babies, but really like the more you do it, like I talk about my dead babies every single day and guess what?

It doesn’t drain my emotional energy anymore because I’ve done it so much. So there’s that too, like recognizing that the more you can just be true and authentic with yourself and as you interact with the world. It actually becomes easier. You actually get stronger. Like these muscles, if you want to call them like emotional muscles, get stronger because I know at first it’s really, really hard and scary and everything is so tender and raw.

And also I know there’s such a pull to talk about your babies. But it also, like, let it evolve over time. Let your story evolve. Let yourself evolve as you take care of your emotions. Just remember that there’s so much love and, like, Yeah, pride like we’re just so proud of our babies and it’s okay to want to share them Just check in with yourself.

And if something is really too much always you can take a break. Last question I had is number 10. What about the rest of the year? I love sharing my babies in October But what about the rest of the year? The thing about an awareness month is we get permission Right. And we have other people doing it with us.

So as humans, we love that. We love having permission. So we don’t have that voice in our head saying, is this weird? Should I not be doing this? What are people going to think? That voice just gets quieted down for a month. And then we have other people and it always feels better as humans to be in a group of people, just all doing the same thing.

You know, that’s why we love finding people that we have things in common with. That’s why we connect so much with other baby lost parents. So the rest of the year, you just have to give your own self the permission and you just have to find your own community or be okay with. Being the only one because I can guarantee that if you are speaking up and you are sharing your story There are probably multiple people in your circle of influence that have the same story aren’t sharing But they’re loving that you are and they’re getting hope and strength from that.

So again, don’t do it For them, but know that they’re there. It’s just, they’re quieter. You can’t see them. Maybe they’re not commenting or posting themselves. They’re not saying things to you in person, you know, at the PTA meeting or something, they’re not coming up, but they appreciate you. Because it isn’t always easy to talk about the hard stuff, but I think it’s so beautiful when we can.

I love sharing about my babies. I hope that this was really helpful. I hope that if you’ve had any of these questions that I’ve answered them. And if you have more questions, please reach out to me. You can contact me on Instagram. You can come over to my website. Um, But let’s all do this together. Let’s support each other.

Let’s lift each other up because I think this is a beautiful, beautiful community. And remember you get to make this awareness month what you want it to be. So think about what you want to create and move towards that. And don’t worry about any of the other details, no matter what anyone else is doing, you got to do what’s right for you and your family.

I’ll see you next time.

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