(5) Ways To Honor Your Baby This Christmas Season. SE1 EP10

What Can You Do to Honor Your Baby and Your Grief this Christmas Season? In this episode we are going to discuss (5) ways you can honor the life of your baby and your grief this Christmas season.


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***If you are dealing with difficult feelings and emotions from the death of your baby, we encourage you to reach out and connect with other families of baby loss in the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Community. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are great resources for finding other loss moms and dads in our community to connect and share our babies with. We also encourage you to connect with us (Geoff and Toni). We are here for you and your family. You are not alone, You are loved and, Your babies will always be cherished.***


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Transcript

well hey everyone welcome back to our podcast today we're going to discuss five ways you can honor the life of your baby and your grief this christmas sean hi everyone this is Toni and Geoff brabec we are the founders of our little sparrows pregnancy and infant loss support if you're new to our podcast you can check us out at our website which is our little sparrows.org  you ready to get into the five ways sure cool  like Toni said just a minute ago we're going to talk about the five ways you can honor the life of your baby as well as your grief during christmas which probably sounds weird to someone it's like honor my grief what does that mean well that's what we're going to get into yeah  the first uh way that we have for honoring the life of your baby as well as uh your grief is to just simply create a new tradition yeah and this could mean something very different for each family right for sure  what are me ideas of creating a new tradition well something that we've implemented at our Christmas is that i like to buy a new christmas ornament for a tree  with our daughter olivia in mind and   i have been picking ornaments that have her name on it and  along with that as we've added to our family now we i pick ornaments for not just olivia but al james and audrey and  it's kind of become this kind of annual thing that i like to do is pick ornaments usually at apple hill and i mean we should probably full disclosure our christmas tree is up it is like thanksgiving's not even here yet it's right in three years it would probably go up november first if i had full fledge right decision-making abilities on that but  i try and hold off at least close to thanksgiving right but yes our tree is up already just because i am canadian and we celebrate november 1st for our christmas  got it our thanksgiving's in october yeah way before  we have two months full two months of the christmas season where i come from i really like i really like buying uh the christmas ornament i know that we we were even given ornaments  with olivia and if you if you haven't listened to our podcast  before this is the first time you're chiming in  our lost history just briefly uh our first born olivia  eight years ago this past october  just two months ago or not even two months rry like six weeks ago right eight weeks ago  and then we had two subsequent miscarriages early term  roughly seven and nine weeks yes  yeah i really like that that we that you bought uh ornaments for olivia and put her name on it and then you we were al given ornaments  with olivia's name on it but  i think i think it's special to include uh your baby in your family holiday season and an ornament is is is a great is a great way yeah i think it's a way to include them and and i mean there's obviously little uh different ways that you can do that i mean another suggestion you you could do is to write a late write a letter to your baby  or journal and it doesn't necessarily have to be a letter format but just taking time to journal writing out your thoughts writing out your heart and that can be something you do privately just yourself or you if you want to share it on with others either on your blog or or on social media even it just depends on what you're comfortable with and how much you want to share another way to honor the life of your baby is to include your baby's name in me of the older traditions that you have right  such as like you know hanging a stocking  for christmas christmas eve we've added our one for our daughter olivia and  that's i mean i guess it's kind of the same as almost the same as buying a christmas ornament with their name on it right  but mething that you know something that you already do now you're adding to it and including your your baby  you know decorating your tree or home with items that were inspired by your baby  that's something that you can do just to bring a little bit of remembrance and a little bit of you know having your baby kind of almost participate with you in a sense  that way they're kind of like in the home and you're  you know you see these items that you put out for your baby and that is just kind of you know your way of having them participate in a way i pernpersonally i think it's similar to the ornament putting the putting out the stocking and i really like i really like seeing all the kids names on the stockings it's something where eight years later that's very normal and it just feels natural it didn't necessarily feel as natural to begin with for obvious reans but over time i grew accustomed to it but not not like in a nbing way but accustomed to the continual acknowledging that olivia is part of our family yeah and i think a stalking is is  natural the third idea that we have  is just giving in general   collecting donations for a specific organization in need again if you know about a non-profit specific to pregnancy and if it loss that might be near and dear to your heart and something that you would want to do there's other nonprofit organizations obviously and another option or another idea is volunteering  again this could be the non-profit for pregnancy and infant loss if they have a volunteer you know opportunity during the holidays or even not during the holidays right it could be any time of the year  and then outside of pregnancy and infant loss there's there's still opportunity homeless shelters toy drives we've talked about uh toys for tots uh in previous episodes that's perfect for during the holiday time i think it's ideal great  but uh food banks i think too in addition to those those ideas yeah definitely giving back is a really nice way to honor your baby the fourth idea or fourth suggestion would be just is just taking time to hold space and just creating space and time in the busyness of the holidays to just reflect to remember and you can do that by lighting a candle in honor of your baby and  or if you are still pregnant and maybe you're  having i guess or you were given maybe a life limiting or fatal diagnosis of your baby and you're still pregnant and you're facing the holidays now knowing this news what you could do is take time to to read your favorite holiday or christmas story singing your favorite ng to your baby letting them hear your voice  just making time just to just for you and your baby whether it's  whatever it may be and there's a lot of different ways but those are just a couple different ways  just to hold space allow yourself to have those moments  whether it's where you need to cry or or not  maybe you need a good laugh and that's okay too  yeah whatever it may be allowing yourself just to allow yourself to to be and just kind of embrace that moment fifth is  to say their name and more than say it you know say it speak it see it hear it  you know share your baby's names talk about your baby talk about what they meant to you and  you know if a pern wants to talk to you about your baby or want to listen about your hear listen about stories about your baby i'm having a hard time talking but  speaking your name speaking their name  can bring a lot of healing to our lives it just allows us to just to kind of you know acknowledge  that our babies matter to us and that  we have a lot of love for them even though they're not here doesn't mean that we stop loving them that we've forgotten them  just seeing their name it's because it's the one tangible thing that we have is their name and   hearing their name seeing their name is like a gift back to us and i think too i i think i think what you said i mean obviously spot on i mean whatever your thoughts are about it whatever your feelings are about it they're right they're right for you  obviously i you know you saying how it made you feel connects with me because

you're my spouse  i kind of know you on that level  but i think too for i know for our family around olivia's birthday because they're let's not be fooled you know life does have a tendency of moving forward without you whether you want or not right and  there will be days weeks maybe even months where you don't necessarily outwardly speak their name even though you may have thought about them or or there was a memory that that reminds you of your baby that's different right but the the fact that you know around those milestones around the birthdays around the holidays saying their name it's like it's like reconnecting yeah on that deeper level that that baby existed that baby matters uh and you want that baby uh you want others to know that that your baby did exist and your baby did matter and  going you know full circle where around olivia's birthday  it just naturally came up you know we're taking time off we're gonna go out of town and we're doing this for olivia's memory olivia's birthday al happens to be our wedding anniversary but we don't gloss over and not say her name it's all about it's really more about olivia than is our anniversary right yeah really that's the way it's become and i think that's good but for for my parents for for my mom and dad there came a point where we had to actually it just dawned on me that they don't really say her name around the birthday this was early on things have changed since then  but i realized at that point that we had to i had to tell them that we want like if you want to send her a birthday card send her a birthday card right like we would love to see a birthday card with olivia's name on it  does it bring up  tears and sadness yes but it al brings up the the joyful memory that she existed and that she is is unmeasurably important to us yes yeah  yeah say it speak it right see it on a card you know see it on on the tree on the christmas tree  yeah i mean i can't even i can't even speak words that are that are more important than that right yeah i just want to add too because i know there's families out there that have had loss of a baby but maybe didn't name their baby  that's true yeah and that's i just want to say you know that's okay like you don't really have to give your baby a specific name like we have  a lot of times families will reference their baby as like  something like baby star or a particular flower or a type of bird or anything like that and if that's the way you've chosen and that's how you remember your baby then then use that you know use  use that symbol that you've picked for your baby and and reflect that you know throughout your home throughout your decorating whatever you choose to do and when we say say their name we we  are in a way saying not you know not that we're pressuring you to to name your baby name but  but just to say you know baby star or even if  you're not sure what to name your baby  you could use  baby and your last name  type  is another example that we've seen  there's different ways to name your baby  and it doesn't specifically have to be a name yeah i hope that makes sense no i mean it makes sense to me you're right i don't know if it makes sense to if you're listening yeah  but the closest example closest example and not far off at all i think it's pretty spot on actually would be our miscarriages uh our early term miscarriages being seven weeks and nine weeks or seven eight weeks and nine weeks yeah  right in there we just it was baby b right for our last initial or the initial of our last name and we kind of just kept it simple with that and that's okay yeah that's fine i kept it for both and i think that's okay too and or sometimes depending on what you know we're having their names put on for something like on the back of a shirt where we right you know for sharing parents  we put olivia's name and then we put brabec babies

we're taking you know i'm like thinking we're taking up three lines which would hey we deserve all well we could get three but i'm like we just you know i'm okay with just saying brabec babies in that particular instance  again those are just five tips five ways uh that you can honor uh honor the life of your baby and your grief at the same time uh this christmas holiday  Toni and i always want you to know that you're not alone and that you're loved and that your baby your babies all of our babies will always be cherished and always be remembered and if you're listening to the youtube channel a podcast you can click or tap up above to see our next week's podcast and if you click or tap below you can join Toni and i in our grief series the pregnancy journey grieving from diagnosis to the loss of your baby and beyond thanks for joining us