“We Care. We’ve Been There”
When a baby dies, nurses Carla, Patty and Gail help families grieve
By Rich Reece/Pictures by EW Photography
In 1985, Gail Heider, a labor and delivery nurse at a large Midwestern hospital, was expecting her third child. Five weeks before her due date, the baby died. “We were in complete shock,” she recalls. “There hadn’t been any problems with previous pregnancies.” The hospital had no support system in cases of stillbirth. “We had to cope in our own way,” Gail explains, “and our actions made some of the hospital staff uncomfortable. But we held him, bathed him and took his picture.”
That sad event, Gail says, “changed my life, and it changed that hospital, and I give my son credit for that.” Other women at the hospital came forward with their own experiences of losing infants, years before, and not even being allowed to see them. As a result, the hospital began a bereavement program for families affected by perinatal loss -- infant death during or shortly after pregnancy and delivery.
Today Gail is part of a team of three Catholic nurses at Wilmington’s New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC) who support families dealing with actual or imminent fetal or infant death. Her teammates are Carla Edwards, a labor and delivery nurse, and Patty White, who works in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Like Gail, Carla and Patty came to bereavement ministry as a result of their own experiences of loss. Carla suffered four miscarriages. Patty lost her infant son, Sam, in 1993 due to a heart defect.
“I was angry,” Patty remembers, “angry at God. What had I done to deserve this? What had I done wrong? But I learned that I didn’t deserve it. It was something that happened, and it was up to me to decide what to do with it.
“I see now that it was God’s way of leading me down a new path that I would not have chosen. I don’t know that I would be doing this work if Sam hadn’t come into our lives and made this huge difference. Fourteen years after he died, he still makes a difference every day of my life. And through the work we do, he impacts the lives of others.”
The bereavement program at NHRMC is called Resolve Through Sharing (RTS); the model originated in La Crosse, WI, and is replicated in hospitals across the country. Team members carry beepers 24/7 so they can be summoned in emergencies. And they follow up with bereaved families for a year or more after the event, sending cards, meeting outside the hospital, checking to see how the family is making the transition through the grieving process. In addition, Patty and Carla conduct classes for other professionals at the hospital, including chaplains and new resident physicians, on helping families deal with the shock, sadness and bewilderment that accompany the loss of a baby.
“Really all the people who see these patients are part of the team,” Carla says. “We try to show them how to help families with whatever they need at the moment. Pictures, memory boxes, bathing and even dressing the baby if that’s what the family needs. Baptism or blessing. There are still people who are extremely uncomfortable with what we do – ‘You photograph a deceased infant?’ -- but in the wake of this thing that has happened these are the only decisions you are able to make. Anything the mother and father can do to be parents at this moment will help them eventually work through their grief better.”
“Sometimes the loss is so emotional,” Patty says, “that caregivers’ first reaction is to avoid much contact. We emphasize how important that contact is.”
“And what to say, what not to say,” Carla adds. “You say, ‘I’m sorry.’ You tell the truth about what’s happened, what to expect. You don’t say, ‘Your baby is in heaven.’ You don’t say, ‘You can have another baby,’ because you don’t know.”
“This particular child is irreplaceable,” Patty says. “You need to grieve this child, even if you have ten more. You need to make as many memories of him or her as you can. Our staff tries to offer as many options as possible.”
“Listening is important, too,” Gail adds. “So often, the family is in shock. There are things going on clinically as well as emotionally; they may be bombarded with information at the same time as their ability to process it is impaired. Instead of talk, they need a lot of very gentle nurturing through this phase.”
The loss of a baby, grief counselors know, can have an adverse effect on a couple. “Men and women grieve differently,” Carla says. “So he may not know how to accept her emotions, while she may think his not expressing grief outwardly means he’s not as affected by their child’s death. Meanwhile he’s thinking that he’s supposed to be the ‘strong partner,’ even though he’s torn up inside. Couples need to work hard to understand each other’s feelings, to keep the communication lines open, and to realize that at no given time are they necessarily going to feel the same.”
“Sometimes,” Patty adds, “in an effort to be comforting someone will say, ‘Well, at least you have each other.’ But we always tell couples that you need other resources as well, a chaplain, maybe, or a caring friend.”
The experience of having a friend like that motivates many women who have suffered the loss of a baby to “pay it forward.” Patty recalls a couple she met eight years ago, who still keep in touch with her. Their baby, born very prematurely, was on a ventilator in the NICU. “I’d see them every day,” Patty recalls. “The baby was very sick, and died after two weeks. The family was Catholic, and my daughters were altar servers at the service for their child at St. Mary’s. Afterwards they started a support group in Jacksonville for parents who had lost infants. The lady has had two children since then, but they never forget that one, and she is pursuing RTS training.”
Carla remembers another mother she worked with about a year ago: “She was very angry at first. She could not figure out why her baby had died, and sometimes you never do find out. We had long talks about it. A couple of weeks ago, though, she came by to tell me that an aunt, who had been a great comfort to her during her bereavement, had gone through a death in the family. ‘I don’t think I would have been able to comfort her if this hadn’t happened to me,’ she said. ‘I was able to be there for her.’ She’s training as a nurse now.”
Patty, Carla and Gail agree. As Gail puts it: “When I lost my son, God opened a door I would never have wanted open. I would never have chosen to go through that pain. But it was a tremendous growth experience, and so many people supported me that I would never have expected. I have no regrets.”
Psalm 139:13-14
You formed my inmost being;
You knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise You, so wonderfully You made me;
Wonderful are Your works!
Psalm 71:5-6
For You are my hope, O Lord; my trust,
O God, from my youth.
On You I depend from birth;
From my mother’s womb You are my strength,
Constant has been my hope in You.
Psalm 4:9
In peace I shall both lie down and sleep,
For you alone, Lord, make me secure.
Resources
RTS. In Wilmington, an infant loss support group meets on the third Wednesday of each month. For more information, contact Patty White at patty.white@nhhn.org.
Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc.
http://www.nationalshareoffice.com/contact_request_info.shtml Share will send a packet containing information regarding the emotional issues of pregnancy loss, a listing of support groups in your area, the Share Bereavement Resources catalog and a copy of the Sharing newsletter. The information packet is free to bereaved parents and will include a copy of the bi-monthly newsletter, Sharing. Share offers the newsletter to bereaved parents free of charge for a one year subscription
Empty Cradle http://www.emptycradle.org/ is a non-sectarian, non-profit parent support group composed entirely of volunteers.
The Compassionate Friends http://www.compassionatefriends.org/ assists families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive. Their web site includes a locator for local chapters.