Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first post of my new weekly column, A Mother’s Thoughts. I’ll be sharing stories from my own experience, stories told to me by others, and any topics I come across that are relevant to pregnancy loss and infant death. I welcome your comments, questions, and your own personal experiences, for it is in sharing that we find healing and meaning in our own lives.  Blessings, Monica

Choosing to Live

By Monica Novak

Three weeks after our daughter Miranda was stillborn, shattering my Marsha-Brady-like-existence, my husband Al and I attended a Share pregnancy and infant loss support group meeting. I came home that night with a book from the lending library called Dear Parents. It was a collection of letters written by real-life bereaved parents to poor souls like me. I sat in my bed crying, page after page, but when I finished reading, I realized that for the first time since Miranda’s death, I felt a thread of hope weaving its way through my soul. These parents, and the “veteran” members of the support group, gave me an inkling of belief in the idea that I might one day actually be capable of happiness again.

Well, here I am fourteen years later writing to tell you the same thing. I can’t pinpoint one moment in time when I realized I had become happy again, or even when I was no longer mad as hell at the unfairness of losing my baby. It was a gradual process, a journey, made possible in large part by the friendships I discovered in six other women from my Share group. Together, we laughed and cried (often over French toast and beer), got pissed off, got pregnant again, held cemetery picnics, held Walks to Remember. What we were doing, although we didn’t realize it then, was making conscious choices to keep living life. We were telling the universe, “we aren’t done yet, we aren’t going to let this break us, our babies’ lives must have meaning, and we’re going to figure out how to absorb them into who we are now becoming.”

The Good Grief Club is the book I wrote to share our story with you. For Dawn, Beth, Heidi, Darlene, Tracy, Wendy and me-in the wake of the babies we lost, in the face of the babies who were yet to come-life went on. It can for you, too. But you must choose.

Monica Novak is the author of The Good Grief Club and regular contributor to the Open to Hope website. Visit her website at www.thegoodgriefclub.com or e-mail her at monica@thegoodgriefclub.com.

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Monica Novak

Monica Novak became a bereaved mother in 1995 with the stillbirth of her daughter Miranda, learning firsthand the devastation of saying goodbye to a much-loved, much-wanted baby before having the chance to say hello. Three weeks later, she began a journey towards healing when she attended her first Share support group meeting. Along the way, she and six other bereaved mothers formed a close bond that carried them through the grief of miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death, as well as the challenges of subsequent pregnancy and infertility. Having been at the opposite ends of grief and joy; despair and hope; indifference and compassion; fear and peace-sometimes simultaneously-she has captured these emotions and the story of her journey in a highly-praised new memoir titled The Good Grief Club. Monica writes and speaks on the subject of pregnancy loss and infant death and is involved with local and national organizations that provide support to families and caregivers. She is a member of the Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death Alliance (PLIDA). Her mission is to bring comfort and hope to bereaved parents worldwide and to educate and promote awareness to the physicians, nurses, clergy, counselors, family, and friends of every mother or father who has or ever will be told that their baby has no heartbeat or that nothing more can be done. The mother of three daughters, Monica lives in the Chicago area with her husband, children, and a rat terrier named Sami. For more information, please visit www.thegoodgriefclub.com or e-mail Monica at monica@thegoodgriefclub.com Monica appeared on the radio show “Healing the Grieving Heart” discussing ”Miscarriage and Infant Loss.” To hear Monica being interviewed on this show by Dr. Gloria & Dr. Heidi Horsley, go to the following link: https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/34073/miscarriage-and-infant-loss

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