OCTOBER 11, 2007 ? COPING WITH PREGNANCY AND INFANT LOSS:? MONICA NOVAK.? Following the stillbirth of her daughter Miranda in 1995, Monica Novak joined a support group, which included six women who had also lost babies to miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death.? The women quickly bonded and began the journey through grief and trying to get pregnant again.? Monica chronicles their journey of healing and friendship in her book The Good Grief Club.? The women are still friends today and have turned their pain into a new way of living, giving back by helping other bereaved parents.? The Good Grief Club is available from Inkwell Productions and on the Share National Pregnancy and Infant Loss website:? www.nationalshareoffice.com; thegoodgriefclub@comcast.net; www.thegoodgriefclub.com.

Monica Novak:? I have come to know through my experience that women who lose babies in miscarriage can grieve just as deeply as I did losing a full-term baby, so you cannot put a timeline on that and say well, because you lost your baby at three months and I lost mine at nine months, my grief is that much deeper as yours.? That?s not true at all.

Monica Novak:? Share is a national organization.? They?ve been around for thirty years, and they are specifically a support organization for pregnancy and infant loss.? Their website is www.nationalshareoffice.com and they?re wonderful people with wonderful resources not only for bereaved families but also for the people who are caring for those bereaved families.

Monica Novak:? Somebody said to me, well, maybe it was for the best, and I said, no, it was not for the best.? She was a perfectly perfect healthy baby and I wanted that baby, and in the case of miscarriage, people really don?t understand because they never saw the baby.? The didn?t hold the baby.? And in their mind, that wasn?t a baby, but to a mother, that was a baby, and that was like, Heidi, you said, that was your whole future, and you grieve that loss just as deeply, and so I think what you need to say to people is that was my baby, and I miss that baby, and I loved that baby already.? I had already bonded with that baby, and I wanted that baby.

Monica Novak:? I did feel let down, but I felt more let down in a spiritual sense.? I guess for me personally, I felt like God had let me down more than my body.? I knew I could get pregnant and I knew that I could carry a baby to term and so I couldn?t understand why this was being allowed to happen to me.? I didn?t feel like this was being done to me, but I felt like this was being allowed to happen and that?s what I really grappled with, but I do know several of my friends felt completely betrayed by their bodies.

Monica Novak:? I think probably one of the biggest ones that I came across and I think my friends would agree with me is that people in the general public who haven?t experienced this really don?t expect you to grieve very long or at all for a baby that maybe you didn?t see or maybe they didn?t see and didn?t get to hold, and so they expect that because it was a being that was with you such a short amount of time, there?s no grief involved so you should be getting over it and back to normal fairly quickly, and that is absolutely wrong.? There?s a very deep grief process going on here, and it can last for a very long time.

Monica Novak:? That?s the beauty of the support group because you can go into a setting like a support group where there are other parents who have experienced the same loss.? Many of them have had the premature babies or the very late trimester miscarriages and know that they can not only talk about their babies, but bring pictures.?

Monica Novak:? that was the number one emotion I would say that I felt shortly after Miranda?s death was I felt so alone, and I had wonderful support from my family and friends, but I felt so alone.? I didn?t think that any of them could possibly fathom the pain that I was feeling at that moment and that support group became my lifeline because all of those people understood, and I would also recommend if you?re going to find a support group, please try and give it at least two meetings, if not three.? The first one is very emotional.? You may not even be able to talk during your first meeting, and that?s okay because most support groups are open and will allow you to just sit and listen, but I found that the second and the third meetings were much easier to go to, and so I would please encourage people not to stop after their first meeting.

Monica Novak:? Probably first and foremost was not to take anything for granted because up until that point in my life, things had gone pretty smoothly.? I had a wonderful husband, a beautiful daughter, and really had not experienced any type of tragedy in my life whatsoever, and so I just sort of expected that that?s how my entire life was going to go and I joke about it in the book that I felt like Marsha Brady.? My boyfriend used to call me that.? I was leading a charmed life is how I felt and never anticipated that anything like this could happen, and so when this happened to me, I learned first to take stock of what you do have in your life.? The wonderful people around you.? Even if you don?t have living children, there must be something wonderful that you can find to be grateful for.? And then appreciate every moment that you possibly can with the people that you love or doing the things that you love to do or just the beauty of nature.

Monica Novak:? Definitely ask for help, and when people offer you help, please take it because they genuinely want to help, and they may not know what to say to you so you may receive help in the form of a dinner, and they may not be able to say how sorry they are, but they may be able to say it through food.? So let them do that.? Let people cook for you.? Let people clean for you.? Let people handle chores that you just can?t deal with when you?re grieving.

Monica Novak:? I just am so grateful that you are having me on the show and bringing to light a topic that is out there and is so important.? So many people misunderstand it, and I think, I just want the world to know that if you?re grieving, take care of yourself, love yourself, and if you?re with somebody who?s grieving and you don?t know what to say, just say I?m sorry and give a hug and know that, I hate to say this, with time it gets easier and it can, and for me it did, and my friends and I eventually found peace and happiness again, and we found true joy in our lives and it took some time, but those friendships are what got us through.

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