Our Little Sparrows Podcast
Our Little Sparrows Podcast
How Do You Remember Your Baby That Died? SE1 EP1
Are you finding it difficult to think of ways to remember your baby? With October being Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month it can be especially stressful to think of ways to honor your baby that died. Today Toni and I (Geoff) talk about (10) specific ways that you can remember your baby in a very special way.
Whether it is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, or the anniversary or birth date of your baby, a holiday, or any time in between, you can honor and remember your baby. There are many ways you can remember your baby. Do what is special and meaningful for you and your family. It will be special because your baby is at the heart of what you choose to do.
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you all ready for this okay so are you finding it difficult to think of ways to remember your baby tony and i today we have 10 ways to help you remember your baby hey everyone welcome to our podcast we are tony and jeff braybeck we are the founders of our little sparrows pregnancy and infant loss support and today we are talking about october which is right around the corner and october is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month right and just a little i guess we should give just a little background for those of you who are um listening in on the first time uh whether you're on youtube or you're listening to us on a podcast audio tony and i are parents of loss and our firstborn olivia was born and also passed away and went to heaven in 2013. so in fact on our fifth wedding anniversary so next tuesday october 5th will be our fifth wedding anniversary or our um 13th pardon me wedding anniversary um and it's also um olivia's eighth birthday yes yeah and you can you want to speak to our other losses yeah and so she was our first born our first pregnancy and and then um actually about probably a little over a year after that we got pregnant again and unfortunately before we even got a chance to go see the doctor uh we lost the baby at about seven weeks and so it was another hard loss for us and um and then you know a few months after that we got pregnant with our son and who's almost six now he's almost six now and as much as you know that was um amazing but it was also very scary having had two losses already and then a couple years after that in 2018 we were trying again and got pregnant again and we lost that baby at about nine weeks right yeah it's been it's been a tough road and although that's not our whole story um obviously um it's important that uh i think the audience i think whoever is listening uh or watching us on youtube um would like to know yeah you know where we're coming from so yeah yeah i think the best way to did you have some no i was just gonna say like just to talk about october yeah october is pregnancy awareness info loss awareness month is just that not only are we remembering babies that have passed away but it's also just recognizing that a family's journey to building their family is not as easy as it may seem or look like um and that usually more often than we know there's probably a lot of couples that have experienced loss right as well so the whole the whole month of october is bringing awareness to that and just connecting with others yeah and i think um i know um from from you know meetings that i've been at with other parents um a lot of questions a lot of the primary questions after loss are what do you do right what do you do um to continue to acknowledge uh the life of that child of that of their baby right right because i think you know the finality's there the baby's gone right and um and and the question comes um i think it's twofold a lot of times i think it's like primarily it's i don't want to forget my baby so how do i remember my baby what what do people do that have been down this road before so you're a loss you have no sense of community because you feel so alone in the hospital at that moment right or at the ob office or wherever you're at that you found out that the baby's the baby's already gone or or the baby died you know shortly after birth right um and the second question is uh i think for a lot of people is like you know if i want to continually remember my baby and not lose that memory what is that what does that look like for me not just acknowledging the baby initially but continually thereafter and do i right right like and that's done in so many different ways which is which is really why we wanted to go over 10 10 things that we felt were very poignant and very personal and it's something that anyone can do right for the most part uh depending on your situation to remember their baby um any time mm-hmm october yeah any time of the year well i think too we got um it also allows us permission to remember and honor our babies i think you know and it's something that we could totally talk about on a different topic is that um we are often made to feel like we can't remember or honor our babies because they were maybe we lost them so early in the pregnancy or you know they are not acknowledged as as as a loss you know something that we can grieve over and so i think october um well when you say when you clarify it when you say they're not acknowledged as a loss do you mean they only see it as a baby that died not a baby that was that should have could have been yeah or some may even see it as not even as a baby you know depending how early and what their view is and sure i think you know we're kind of the um idea or the assumption is that you know it's a baby you can get over it you know there's no need to grieve you know wasn't even a baby yet i mean that's a whole other different discussion but but then there's also the other camp that says you had time to grieve that baby's that baby's gone that that chapter is closed i mean there's there's so many different flavors i think there's lots of different messages out there that say that says to us that we should not have to grieve the life of this baby right um but i think the whole point of october is that we can exactly and it's important today we're taking a stance saying you should you should be given permission yeah to do that so we're advocating um for remembering your baby yeah so that's awesome well um i think the way i i was thinking of approaching this is just um say all the to all the 10 ones that and then we can go over each one and kind of unpack in more detail but essentially the 10 ways that that tony and i um and this is from a previous episode it's just um from last year but it this this year we decided to do it in more of a conversational way um and unpack it a little bit more and we're hoping that this allows you to connect with what we're going to say and what we're going to talk about maybe in a more personal way from from this point of view but the 10 ways are fairly straightforward uh first say or display your baby's name whatever that looks like there's a lot of creative people out there um and if it's not you there's there's uh websites etsy being one and so on and so forth but right yeah yeah uh number two would be choosing a comfort meal uh a comforting meal to share with your family um or even your friends neighbors uh those who are close to you uh primarily three make a cup of tea light a candle um the fourth one write a letter to your baby the fifth one release a ladybug a butterfly number six would be to plant a flower or a tree number seven paper seeded hearts that's an interesting one i really like that um number eight is volunteering uh donating to an organization your time um and and uh and there's other ways to do that as well uh number nine getaway and that's not run away yeah but we'll impact that yeah and the tenth and the last one we had was uh creating a special uh spot uh or place in your home so let's go back to the first one so the first one is saying or displaying your baby's name yeah um and this especially i mean for those who may have not have named their baby um this it could be something as simple saying as simply saying baby your last name you know it could be baby brayback or or you know angel yeah so it doesn't necessarily have to be a name but something that you can identify your baby with and we have a personal experience with that are miscarriages yes because they're so early on yeah uh one was seven or eight weeks and the second one was closer to nine weeks um and i mean yeah the nine week one was more was harder for me because we actually had that first ultrasound i'm sure that wasn't easy for you as well right but our first uh um um miscarriage we didn't even get to no we didn't even get to see that one and we didn't name either one of them so i guess yeah that's a good a good a good segue yeah we've kind of referred to them as baby bees exactly yeah so that's kind of how we identify with them and so you don't always have to have a specific name for your baby but something you know that you can right identify your baby with so ours are both baby b yeah so that's why we do the marching band's annual walk yeah and um excuse me and on our t-shirts our for our our group our uh local non-profit that we're a part of sharing parents of sacramento there's a small plug uh we we print olivia's name our first porn and then we say brave and then we said and one year i thought it said baby bees i think that was the for the year right after that first loss and then when we had the second miscarriage we i just put it as brave back babies i don't want to take up too many lines on the t-shirt yeah but um anyways i've heard other things like you know butterfly raspberry um you know maybe kind of like identifying the size um like the size of the baby at the time right um so there's lots of different ideas the t-shirt again some people do that for as a family they'll make t-shirts every year you know creating a sign or a painting or artwork is nice and it's just nice to hear your baby's name so if you are a family member or a friend who knows of someone that lost their baby just saying their name to the mom or dad saying hey i remembering i'm thinking of baby butterfly today and um that means a whole lot to a person so if if you know of someone you know just giving them that's an actual that's a special gift just to hear their name so yeah you can share a picture or post on social media you can do artwork right or just giving a gift with their name on it or engraving and in the middle of this month of october pregnancy and infant loss awareness month there is the wave of light and that's when people post their babies picture their baby's birthday you know whatever information they feel comfortable yeah but they do it in remembrance of and and typically light a candle right um but we could talk about that in more detail in another episode yeah the next one yeah okay all right so number two um choose a comforting meal to share with your family or friends and then it's different for everyone it's different for everyone i think the point is just to gather with those that support you and that you want to share in memory of your baby and having a meal that's special to you is is in just gathering with your family and friends you require you know yeah um making a cup of tea light a candle um this could also be like something you could do on the wave of light which is on the 15th of october um but this is number three yeah number three um but this i think is just speaking to to me is just speaking to um taking a pause in the middle of your day and doing something to kind of slow down and and and just honor remember and and it's something simple in in something easy that you could do right yeah and when you say that when you say it's just something simple just to honor and and take a moment i think of silence yeah and i know again from meetings that i've been at that i've facilitated you know for monthly grief support at our at our sharing parents group that we're volunteers and and involved with one of the most uncomfortable things is silence but sometimes that's all we need yeah you know so it just that's what crossed my mind yeah all right number four writing a letter to your baby not easy not easy it can but i know um it does bring up a lot of emotions and probably you go like emotionally somewhere where you may not want you know feel ready to go but i feel like that's an opportunity to be able to say some things um that you didn't get a chance to say to your baby and it can be it can be as long or short as you want it to be and um you know write a letter to your baby you can read it out loud or or put it someplace special just say do you think this is something you just do by yourself on purpose or if you're or if you or if you should do it or if you have the opportunity to do it with your partner with your with your spouse with the child's uh parent do it with them yeah i mean i think it's dependent on whoever how you feel others would respond to it and if they would want to do that i think that's something you could definitely invite them to participate with you on that and sometimes it's hard like opposites attract right and you've got opposite personalities so i think sometimes it's hard like when you're one place in your uh lost journey your partner is usually in a completely maybe yeah or a different place right so maybe this is a way to kind of come together together yeah when you feel that you're often drastic or just opposites right and i think too with grief you know sometimes we we tend to avoid grief because either it's it's too emotional for us it's too hard um but there are times when you know it's needed it's it's healthy and sometimes we do need to kind of go there and allow those feelings of grief to come up right otherwise you know it'll catch you off guard you know when it'll come up later when you're not expecting it so um i think times like this is important to allow ourselves permission to to express and feel right and um and i think too if you're if you're extending that invitation to your your spouse your partner the child's other parent um you might be surprised yeah how open they'd be like oh yeah i would definitely do that that's true you just don't know yeah it's tough man it's tough because i think we're already internalized internally we internalize a lot let's be honest unless unless we have our really close friends or our relationship with our partner with our spouse is really tight to on that or deep on that level where you're regularly talking about it right you're regularly sharing most couples don't you know most most parents aren't regularly sharing right so it's so easy for one day two days three days a week a month to go by without directly addressing what had occurred because time passes time moves on and we get nervous we get shy or we're just not wanting to go there for whatever reason right i think these exercises that sounds very educational but these opportunities i guess i would say during the month of october kind of allow a revisiting although it doesn't have to be as heavy as the initial loss it doesn't it can be but i i think the fear is that it's just going to be so overwhelming right that's one of the fears but you know just think of these 10 things as invitations to to to continue communicating with your family with your friends right right yeah yeah and that was number four yes okay so number five is a good one um it's something that we do annually um at a memorial for our sharing parents group of sacramento releasing a ladybug or a butterfly so we specifically do butterflies at this event it's very special it is and it's such a it's a beautiful thing um to see the butterflies take off and and yeah and they just kind of flutter up to the sky and you can and some of them hang around forever yeah some of them do yeah ladybugs would be really hard to track i think no well they don't really fly right away they just kind of crawl but yeah but it's something i you know the butterflies and the ladybugs like a lot of people do balloons and those are really special too if you're if you're concerned about you know the impact of having balloons out there then you know we totally do like you know butterflies though they can be expensive and you do have to pre-order them um right but ladybugs you know you can get them at the grocery store not grocery store the garden center and grocery store on the corner and um you know just that is more of a you know also giving back to nature in a way because well i think it's symbolic of that you know the birth you know because these are these are young butterflies that were just born that season yeah that are raised and then obviously sold for special events for for people that put them in their gardens yeah you know all that stuff and it just keeps it keeps the um the species um thriving that's for sure right and ladybugs i think are really good for those who love to garden uh because they're also pest control but yeah that's just that's my perspective yes so yard guy yeah and number six to go along with that is to plant a flower or a tree in memory of your baby and this is done in all sorts of ways yeah i mean property a memorial garden that's in your city there are there are memorial gardens in cities that it's definitely something worth googling and looking at i mean even if you don't own your own home there's little ways that you can do yeah if you live in an apartment or you know you don't have property to plant a tree or anything you can have a potted plant and keep that and you know it's you know lots of beautiful flowers and things that you can just keep you know in an apartment or inside if you can't do it outside so right mm-hmm yeah i don't know i have i have mr green thumb over here mr green thumb over here right yeah but i mean that's my concern my that's my concern is if the plant dies then it's like well that's me yeah right that's my my interpretation of it is like man i would pick and number one i'd pick an evergreen type of uh plant yeah that never never loses all the leaves because that's just depressing i don't know it's not but anyhow it's just psychologically like the image to me and then obviously i've had a lot of plants in the house and they don't survive right so i'm not sure i'm not too sure about that um but i'm i'm more of the mind like you know a fruit tree a japanese maple you know something but again you're right it's like you have to have property for that you have to yeah or you have situations like i said the memorial garden and specifically too i mean there's space lodge um in wisconsin and uh they have their own property and they allow people to sponsor um trees but they also sponsor bricks and they sponsor benches and they sponsor you know the lake that's that's on the property and they sponsor a lot of things yeah um but trees are definitely prevalent um and it's all sorts of trees on the property so yeah yeah cool all right so number seven yes oh this is a good one why don't you talk about this one yeah so paper seated hearts and and these are i mean i've seen on them on amazon i'm i'm sure you can get them other places as well and there's these are paper hearts that are embedded with flower seeds and there's different sizes like a paper mache yeah like it dissolves yeah it's like almost like yeah um i know you can get them like larger ones um that you can get for maybe like wedding celebrations or anniversaries um i've seen smaller ones that we've used before and also um for if you've heard of still birthdays they do a hearts release every year and they're just they use little tiny paper hearts with flower seeds embedded in them and they write their babies names on the hearts and they release them they release them in a special area and basically what you what you can do is if you order some of these you can basically spread them onto some soil either in your garden or in a pot keep it wet and then it gradually eventually um oh flowers will start to sprout and you'll have a little it's like ground cover flowers flower garden yeah they're they're basically um annuals i think there are no yeah at least you know it's just a nice you know you see them kind of sprout and flower then it's kind of a little bit birds love it i mean it's just it's something that attracts butterflies it attracts um you know and it's usually good um for around a garden near a garden too yeah that's a good one and i even remember when we went um to face lodge there was um uh there was a family and for privacy reasons we obviously won't say anything um but they specifically gave seeds uh in general so not just these heart seeds that are preloaded and they dissolve when you water them they actually did packets of seeds yeah so i think that's another obviously another version of this yes um so and spreading them in memory of which is awesome yeah so volunteering or donating to an organization i think we can actually what you're already saying about planting a tree or you know having um not a tree well yeah you could do a tree but like organizations that like faith's lodge where you can donate money right and have either a bench placed or a tree planted or like you said like a brick in the garden um laid with your baby's name on it and that's a really special way to support an organization and then also have your baby remembered at the same time yeah it's pretty neat when we went there just to to read um the plaques because then i think of you know if we did something like that um people would be saying olivia's name so i think that's that's the huge part is that is that we want our babies names to be said in different forms different different fashions uh um and that's and that's one way to do it is to sponsor something obviously the organization um puts together the plaque and mounts it and then it's there like it's a it's a it's a it's an installation right um and so you walk by and you say oh that's such and such lake and such and such you know nest which is the top of the of the face lodge uh you go up there and you got a 360 degree view of 80 plus acres that they're on which is so cool yeah but in faith's lodge right their daughter faith that's the ultimate yeah that'll never be forgotten yes um so volunteering obviously you can you know see if there's any local organizations that support pregnancy and infant loss but it doesn't necessarily have to be that it can be another organization that is meaningful or special to you and but you do it in the name of yeah in memory of your videos you did a food bank and you took a box of yeah you put a card in there or you write on the box in memory of our sweet olivia hope and we've also seen friends of ours who um donate classroom supplies to a class yes yeah of the what the child would be so if the child that you lost was gonna go into kindergarten that year right um we've had friends who donated classroom supplies to a kindergarten class and that and i had never primarily i'd never thought of that uh in general let alone for us yeah and when i saw her do that it's a friend of ours um and she posted it on uh facebook i was just like duh yeah what a what an it's like sometimes the best ideas are right in front of us and we just don't you just don't know what you don't know right yeah because she doesn't have any other children um and if you've never if this is your like olivia our firstborn it's like we didn't you don't know because you haven't been through those experiences like james is now our son has just started kindergarten well now i would probably think of right i would probably think of things like that right yeah so and this is another reason why we you know these are conversations that that never really yeah are not worthy to have right mm-hmm you know remember how do you remember your baby it's like oh you talked about that last year yeah we talk about it every year yeah and not just we always see new things coming up too so it's yeah it's not all the same things that we can suggest it's like oh you know there's so many more there's so many different more ways and you can go to our website and we have a resources page uh so our little sparrows.org um and our resource page has a lot more uh up you know ways to remember your baby as well on there so definitely suggest that right so that was number eight yeah uh number nine get away i can tell you this sure even though i interject a lot yeah but i think when we lost olivia i i think you you saw something on groupon for for tahoe for yeah well it was a it was suggested to us by what yeah and so i found a groupon deal for a place up in tahoe it was all last minute yeah it was great after the fact because it all worked she was born at 33 weeks yes we went we we chose to carry the term and we went as far as we we could i think it's your body but yeah you went as as far as um things would go and that was that 33 weeks and it happens pretty quick yeah thereafter and then yeah our pastor who married us although we never really fully attended his church years later here he is um giving a eulogy in person in the nicu yeah for us so we got out of town and that was one of the best things that we could have done and correct me if i'm wrong you also took a picture did we take a picture that first trip of olivia and put it out in the room or was that the following year um i don't think we we may i don't oh no we might have i think we did because we had her pictures already for the service so from now on we would have had we're plugging a lot of things yeah face lodge now laying me down to sleep yeah uh sharing parents in sacramento yeah um right so we we not only got out of town this is my point sorry roundabout way uh we we not only got a town uh we also took a framed picture we obviously took a picture out of a frame in our house and we replaced it with with olivia's picture and then uh you also brought a candle and we as long as we were in that room um don't want to start a fire we kept uh we kept that candle lit yeah and we had her bear too we had her yeah the weighted bear the molly no not the weighted it was that takes forever to come the build-a-bear yeah that we had so there we go we're plugging like 10 things today we're not even trying um we are not sponsored no affiliate links yeah either but anyhow um yeah so we had the molly molly bear excuse me we had the build-a-bear uh which we had her heartbeat recorded and that's a whole nother story by itself yeah that we'll we'll tell another time another time and then we also had the picture of her and the candle right so so for us it was all about olivia it was also our anniversary yes that week everything happened on that day and then that you know it just goes from there so so that became kind of our go-to thing to do every year until james was born except we did do it we did it at least once with james um uh getting out of town and then uh it's we've kind of changed it up here and there going to the zoo going to fairytale town yeah we've since made it more of a family day right but but yeah but without any existing kids and it was just olivia our loss we definitely got out of town and it was it was one of the best ways to not feel under pressure to be around family mm-hmm you know like oh we'll have you guys over for dinner we're not in town yeah sorry uh you know and so i think it was low pressure it takes away the pressure there's no pressure right the only pressure is is like just getting packed and getting out and then once you're there right you just settle and and spend the few days or what not um so yeah i think i think it takes away a lot of it takes away a lot of um things around you that can uh that can make that time of year stressful or make it unbearable in in some ways because you feel like you have to live up to a certain expectation that other people may be placing on you whether they realize it or not right there's a lot of there's a lot of benefits for getting out of town yeah it was just really nice to get out out of the city and into a place that was um not so congested at least it felt like it was not so congested and it was a beautiful time of the year i mean it was mid mid october at that time and the the leaves were perfect it was orange and yellow and reds so for me that has become my favorite yeah and then christmas so but yeah it was just a beautiful time of the year and plus also being in tahoe it was not the peak season so there was not a ton of people so that was a benefit that was a benefit to us because we it was pretty easy to organize it find a deal yeah a groupon and get out and just there's just not as many people yeah a little low to know yeah anyway so getting away was all that said yeah getting away and getting out um you have to do a state vacation yeah we've talked about that before i think it was that was father's day um last year not this year but uh last year when i did a series on do i even want to be acknowledged you know and that's a difficult conversation especially if you have no children already and you just experience a loss like no you are a dad but that's a tough one um but uh i think i had mentioned something to to the effect of you can even do a stay vacation you know but turn off the phone yeah you know you're basically out of town but you're at home yeah yeah or connect you know even if you can't do a multi-day trip right you know just do it one day trip or you know an afternoon out go somewhere go for a drive or or if you just stay at home but try and disconnect from your usual day-to-day things yeah see that was the other nice thing about getting out of town is we have animals and so we didn't have any responsibility yeah so i think responsibility is a big reason to get out of town if you can if it's just an overnight uh is that you're just putting you're putting a lot of things behind you that you're no longer responsible for because you're not there right yeah so i think that's a that's a good way to let letting others help you in that regard right yeah yeah all right now we're almost there number 10. all right creating a special spot or place in your home and we're not talking about a shrine no i think it can sound like it's a shrine yeah but okay so go ahead and unpack that well i mean we in our house we had a place where we had a lot of olivia's things we had her picture up and a candle so it was just became a place where we kind of put a collection of things gifts that were given to us um you know in a special spot and so that was one of the places that that we ended putting some things for her things we wanted to display um we didn't display everything i still had a big box of things that i kept you know special things that i didn't want out that were you know either maybe like too special like i really wanted to protect them well the hospital did a uh memory box yes there's some really personal mm-hmm and and stuff you don't want to lose stuff you know that's private to you i mean it's not it's private for whatever you feel like it's private it doesn't mean anything you know extreme right it's just a private thing and yeah just something you chose not to display right so i mean a lot of ours was out in the open it was and we didn't really have we didn't have a and nor do we have it in like a case of anything you know like it wasn't protected kids could never get to it it just happened to be a good spot to do it right it was in the kitchen it was between the kitchen and the living room you know on the fireplace mantle so to speak yeah and we just turned out to be in a way it was kind of like it was in that area that we always hung out and it was either in the kitchen or you know the living area where we watch tv and stuff and so it kind of felt like she is in the room with this including i mean for my from my understanding of it you know it means different things for different people right it could mean completely different for you than it did for me or a flavor of what it meant for me too or means for me too we've since moved out of that house but um for me for me it meant that well this may sound weird it was a reminder that she existed i know that right but a visual it's a visual reminder i think also it's expressing how we feel how we chose to position her in our family we chose to continually acknowledge her as our firstborn because she was and she is right so putting her not just putting a picture with the other family pictures but also doing a special niche area i think it's like seeing that she's there with us and we know she's not um physically here with us but she's still here you know in our thoughts and and in our hearts um and we yeah i don't think it was i i feel like it was a pretty easy um um uncomfortable curve to get over because at first you're just like this is this is just different this is like how long are we going to display this for and we just naturally left it because it just felt over time we just really really were able to accept the fact that we're not uncomfortable with it to whatever level it may have been you know new to us or different or not sure what others would think of it um it it was normal it became it became our new normal right right and they always say that in our community you know the community brings the losses like now it's my new normal yeah i don't even think i even really thought about that i just put it up there and but did you think you're gonna put it up and leave it up or or put it up for a time and probably take it down no i i i think i just was gonna put it up and just left it left it there because it was almost like it was almost like a a a part of our house the way it was decorated and or things were placed and it was just yeah and we over time we slowly added to it and yeah it became a little clustered a little clustered but but you know there is some really nice things that people have given us her ashes were there this the different sparrows you had collected the figurines um the wooden heart which is now here um her flower uh yeah our brother our my brother's in-laws um actually did that at their church um and there's her that's actually that's the picture that we took to tahoe actually yeah so funny we're talking about it it's right there um and you know little trinkets like this that tony had collected um listening to the audio obviously you can't see these things um i'll put some links to pictures um in the description below if you're on youtube um you can obviously see it so great anyhow yeah but i mean yeah did you have anything else sorry no i mean no creating a special spot yeah no and you know what some people may decide after a period of time they don't need to have it or want to have it up it really it comes down to to each their own to each family to each each person there's really no right or wrong right way and it's not set in stone just because you do it one year or for a month or you know whenever you choose to do any of these it doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it every single time you can you know you know it too it's i've been in meetings where parents are like i don't have anything of my baby and that's for various reasons right um i think it goes back to what what i said earlier is that you don't know what you don't know so when you're not prepared for something and you're thrusted into it like even though we chose to carry we still didn't know how long that was gonna be right how many weeks were gonna go by until she was born and what that was gonna turn out and then when it does happen all of a sudden you're just thrusted into this situation and you're just making you know decisions they're being at you know questions of questions that are being asked of you by the by the hospital staff at least was was our case was our experience um and so these things are not even part of the conversation no the fact that the hospital had um a support person they had the um child life specialists which is amazing not every hospital has it and and when you think of child life specialists you think of you know cancer patients you think of uh kids that are in the hospital for an extended period of time due to surgeries and and they're there to support them and their families well they also support families of loss they're currently in the the higher tier care for us it was the nicu um some facilities have it in the high-risk maternity ward and the nicu and others don't yeah and they definitely don't have it in a typical labor delivery uh ward no no i don't think that the support staff is is hard to come by and for loss but we had the experience of going to the nicu and we had the experience of child life specialists so we also had what they provided so we had items uh in a memory box footprints foot impressions of her foot in uh in placer repairs yeah so on and so forth right pictures um that they printed right there yeah which is phenomenal um and so you may not you may feel like you have nothing you may feel like you have nothing that you can put in a special spot to share um and i think that's a difficult situation yeah well that some parents find themselves in true i mean you may not have pictures or maybe may not have you know a blanket you know or something tangible to hold but there you can find something to represent you know if it's something that can that reminds you of being pregnant or something that reminds you of your baby it could be like a kind of a flower or maybe you identified your baby with like an animal like right like you know we have the sparrow it could be a butterfly you know you could have you know things like that in your special spot um you know it could be like a feather or maybe it's like a star you know it's whatever you identify yeah and you know as maybe representing your baby and and if you know especially for those that don't have anything physical like tangible that was you know either that may have been like a photo or something that touched your baby maybe you had an early miscarriage and didn't get a chance to even see or hold your baby right um or even an ultrasound or an ultrasound even there's things that you know if you say you know maybe it's rainbows or something or clouds you know look for pictures of clouds or pictures of rainbows and you know things like that find something that you connect with and and you put that in your special place yeah well i hope that i hope i hope that helps i i hope that um all ten of these different ways of remembering your baby um i hope that it it it helps parents um get some ideas get some ideas and maybe even helps them feel better right about connecting mm-hmm being able to connect with their baby in that experience yeah and then allowing yourself to remember and grieve in different ways i think it's important for people to know that it's okay you know and we don't all grieve the same way and um it's all dependent on them and how you feel and how you connect to your baby i want to remember them so you know we're not you obviously you're not limited to these 10 items there's definitely more ways but we hope this will at least you know kind of start you on a i don't know in a path or something inspiring something might inspire you so and it's a it's a process right the journey uh never really ends our lost journey um is until the day that we're we die and we're no longer on this earth yeah um but it's it's learning how to live with our loss um instead of feeling like we have it's something we have to let go and let be right it's not true right like that's a lie yeah um you have the opportunity to remember remember your baby however you like and whatever that looks like for you is the right way yeah um and we're all grieving right we're all grieving in our own way and and so it's important uh to feel that freedom um to remember your baby the way you want and that's our goal that's our goal is to is to give different opportunities different ideas different tips sometimes we call them tips and a lot of it's from our personal experience a lot of it's from what we've heard from other parents in various settings that we've talked to yeah so well if you're on the youtube channel we hope that you found this episode helpful um tony and i want you guys to know that um that you are loved that you're not alone and that your baby and babies will always be cherished and always remembered um if uh if you guys are on the youtube channel and you want to catch our next next weekly podcast you can click or tap on the image up above if you click or tap below you can connect with our grief series the pregnancy journey grieving from diagnosis to the loss of your baby and beyond