Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

October is awareness month for so many causes.  The most common is probably Breast Cancer Awareness Month but near and dear to my heart is

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

It was is a month set aside to remember those babies that have been lost due to miscarriage, stillbirth, illnesses, accidents, etc during pregnancy and after birth under the age of one year old.  In 1988 Ronald Reagan actually dedicated a day in the month to celebrate and remember these babies.  The day that was chosen was October 15th mainly because it fell in the very middle of the month. 

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.   All across the globe at 7:00 PM there are candles lit in memory and honor of those babies who are gone but not forgotten.  At the hospital where I work, I am the co-chair of the Bereavement Committee and three years ago we started our annual ceremony for this occasion.  We have a speaker, do a responsive reading, and light candles.  We planted a tree the first year and this year we added a plaque.  We place ribbons and hearts on the tree as well.  It is such a special time of remembrance.

Tonight the speaker said something that hit this mommy's heart pretty hard.  She said, "When I lost my first baby to miscarriage and my 2nd baby at around 20 weeks, it was hard because as a mom I was supposed to protect them and I didn't."  As a mom, I can so relate to that.  We are their protectors.  We are supposed to keep them from harm and when we don't or can't, we carry so much guilt with that.  When God entrusts our children to us, He does so with a very specific goal, purpose, and time frame in mind.  Sometimes the time frame is shorter than others but we have to trust in Him that He has the baby's as well as our best interest at heart.  God is faithful when we are not.  He is sovereign and even though we may not understand His ways, I trust that He certainly knows what He is doing. 





If you have lost a little one in your life, I pray that you find God's peace beyond what you can understand today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends...Forever!

Image
What is a friend?  Webster defines a friend as: a person whom one knows, likes, and trusts. It goes on to talk about a friend being a supporter.  I would have the tendency to assume that everyone has at least one friend...maybe not a best friend or perhaps maybe not even a close friend but someone that they can call a friend.  I know that difference personality types lend themselves for more friends than others.  I am a sanguine which means that I have a lot of people that I consider to be my friend.  I have always been the type of person that needs and wants friends...people around me who love me, encourage me, and support me.  On the flip side of this, I have always had a hard time trusting people so I tend to be skeptical of people.  Unfortunately, a friend described me pretty accurately this morning.  She said that I (and she is the same way) have the tendency to dislike people until I have a reason to like them.  No, not proud of...
Read more

Replace My Complaining Attitude

If you know anything about me, you know that I am blunt.  I am straight-forward, to the point, and to a fault, honest.  This is something that I have often wanted to change about myself.  Let's face it, there are things about each one of us that we would change, and let me be clear, there are MANY other things I would change but becoming more gentle has always been something I have longed for. I have had people tell me that I should be proud of this.  They wish they could be more assertive like me.  I guess there are good points to this type of characteristic but more times than not, I find myself getting into trouble because of it.   Piggy-backing on that character istic  flaw is the fact that I am a complainer.  I would rather whisper that but again, if you know me, you probably didn't fall in the floor in disbelief that I just typed that.  It is hard to admit.  It is hard to tell a world (okay a few people) that read this that I...
Read more

FUN STUFF!!

Image
We have had a fun couple of days! I worked on July 4th and Rachel and Daddy stayed home doing nothing...I think they enjoyed it! Saturday was pretty uneventful.....we went to Target and bought some containers so that I could put all of my clothes away that are TOO BIG!!! YAY!! It was also a sneaky way to allow my husband to see that I really don't have too many clothes!!! None of them fit! =) Sunday was church and we came back here and relaxed all day. Here is a picture of Rachel from Sunday. Rachel's dress was adorable....went to her ankles.... Brice had yesterday off too so we all went to Hawaiian Falls waterpark in Mansfield for a little water fun after Rachel's nap. It was a lot of fun except for the part where I fell down the stairs leading into the lazy river and in an attempt to keep my child's head above water (I was holding her), I tumbled down about 4 stairs, twisted my ankle, hit my knee, and scraped up the side of my leg all while swallowing a lot of water....
Read more