October 28, 2011 11:15 AM
Elizabeth Ministry - miscarriage and infant loss
Elizabeth Ministry has over 700 registered local chapters throughout the United States. If you aren't familiar with them, please visit their website to see all the family support they offer.
We respect life, cherish children, encourage families, enrich marriages, and build communities.
Elizabeth Ministry is an international movement offering encouragement, hope and healing on issues related to childbearing, sexuality and relationships.
We offer mentoring, trainings,retreats, spiritual nourishment, programs, educational and inspirational resources.
I am working on an assignment covering their support for parents grieving miscarriages and infant loss (only one of the many family supports they offer). I would love to hear from anyone who has been helped by Elizabeth Ministry - or who wish they had known about it. Please comment or email me if you can share your story.
I will share more as the story is written.
Posted in Pro-Life Issues | Permalink
Comments
I wish I had known about this service! I have had 4 miscarriages with the most recent being just 2 months ago. 2 I flushed down the toilet (one at home and one at work), and the other 2 were taken by hospital staff & disposed of. I can't tell you the guilt and shame I feel for not honoring my babies and being so ignorant of what to do. One baby I wrapped up gently and brought to my doctor because he asked to do a test on the remains. I was shocked when he returned emptyhanded to the room & told me he had thrown "it" away (including the bag I bought special which had the words "True Love" written on it.
I hope to never experience another miscarriage, but if I do, I will honor that precious life through this ministry.
Thank you.
Posted by: Jennifer | October 28, 2011 11:47 AM
I have not personally had experience with Elizabeth Ministry, but I have experienced both infertility and miscarriages.
Thank you for being willing to speak about a subject many people find uncomfortable or worse unimportant.
Posted by: j dan | October 28, 2011 12:45 PM
Jennifer, Your comment brought tears. I only very recently heard of the proper way for Catholics to care for their miscarried babies- and I have been Catholic for 37 years! And if you do press the issue with medical/funeral home staff, you will often be viewed as nuts. Obviously, this is an area about which not much is known and maybe it would be beneficial for we Catholic sisters to inform ourselves on this issue so that we can in turn inform our friends and family. Or be able to act confidently ourselves if we are ever in this situation.
Posted by: Kerri | October 28, 2011 1:25 PM
Jennifer - this is so sad. And in my interviews with Jeannie Hannemann, the founder of Elizabeth Ministry, this is exactly the kind of loneliness and despair - the lack of knowing what to do because no one is there - that they are trying to remedy.
Please check out the resources they have there for women who've had the same experience and need to find come kind of peace about the lack of dignity around a miscarriage.
I have had miscarriages myself, and understand how you feel. I am grateful to have an opportunity to work on this article and to help spread the word and the ministry.
love,
barbara
Posted by: Barbara | October 28, 2011 7:56 PM
Barbara, I didn't experience this myself but was there with my son and daughter-in-law when she was delivering their stillborn. We seemed to have the best situation that could be; the hospital was wonderful; they took pictures and provided a beautiful little lined basket to put our granddaughter in and gave them a memory box for the pix and other items (wish I could remember all - could ask them and find out) gave her a stuffed bear for her empty arms, placed a special tag on the door to let others know this was not a joyful room so people would honor our sadness as they went by and then provided a nice wooden box to place her in for - yes - her trip to the funeral home. In our case this was a 5 hr. trip. Barb, I don't know if even Elizabeth Ministries has thought about this but if someone is sent to a hospital far away from home then there normally would be cost involved in transporting this little body back to the home town; this might be why so many are just disposed of by the hospital (I really hadn't even thought about this being what would happen until I asked) because they can't afford to have that done. What many may not know is that the funeral home can designate someone to do that transporting; I don't know if this would be something someone in this ministry would consider volunteering for or not - 2 reasons why this might be needed - in our case the mother had to stay in the hospital longer than the baby could stay - the funeral has to have the body in a certain length of time in order to take care of it (or at least in our case especially if you're going to have an open viewing, mother's request) maybe anyway, not sure - I don't think the hospital would store it or if that could even be done - and/or I don't think (at least in our case) the parents would be emotionally able to know they were transporting their "dead" baby on a trip. In our case, I took on that task and even for me it was quite an emotional ordeal. Anything else you'd like to know, just let me know. Also we did contact Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photographer but because we weren't expecting this ahead of time they were not able to help us but because she had so come to count on having that done; in addition to the trip I decided to stop by the local hospital just to see if there was anyone there and sure enough they had the name of a local photographer not affiliated with NILMDTS who provided that same service; this is normally done in the hospital but in our case he was willing to come to the funeral home, and yes, they had never done anything like that before but they were willing to listen and talk to the photographer and accommodate us; they got the body ready and then when the parents got out of the hospital, a couple of days later (the day before the service) that night they opened up their place and provided a room for a private photography shoot; the photographer did an excellent job, gave us a CD basically immediately (as soon as he got through and got home so we could pick it up that night, take it to the big box place and get one printed for display at the service the next day). All in all, made for an excellent memorial and to have to keep to honor her. Highly recommend having it done but again to check with your local hospital at least if unable to go through Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.
Posted by: Donna | October 29, 2011 12:08 AM
Dear Donna -
This is so beautiful. I am so gratified to hear of the dignity and grace with which the hospital handled this. sometimes it's not that way, and that is one of the things Elizabeth Ministry is working on - to educate doctors and hospitals - and also currently, pastors and priest.
God bless and keep you and your family.
I will let you all know when I can share more of what I'm writing.
Posted by: Barbara | October 31, 2011 6:08 PM
