Pregnancy & Infant Loss

In 1988, President Reagan declared October Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month to recognize the unique grief of bereaved parents who would otherwise go unnoticed and unsupported. I was eight years old playing with my baby dolls and roller skates that strapped on to my shoes when the whole country wrapped parents with empty arms in a symbolic hug. I didn’t know exactly twenty years later that social support would be a hug for me as well because I’d be lighting my first candle, two of them actually, to honor the memories of my sweet girls alongside thousands of other parents across the county.

It’s been twelve years since my babies died, and I’ve participated in eleven Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness events, both privately and publicly. I’ve been privileged to read thousands of babies’ names out loud, walk hand in hand for miles with other families, and stand at a vantage point where all the lit candles looked like stars lighting up the night sky. The community aspect of coming together to share our losses and our love is beautiful, yet every year it brings a lump to my throat. How would the world be different if all of our babies were still alive? What would our children be like? What would we be like?

All I have to do is look into the eyes of any other parent and I can see they are having the same inner struggle. My heart is so comforted by the opportunity to honor my babies publicly, but still aching that I have babies to honor. These things are supposed to happen to other people, not to me, to my family, or to my child. We all love being there and hate it at the same time. We embrace each other, light the candle, join the remembrance mile, wear a t-shirt with our baby’s name on it, and walk for them instead of with them. It is powerful to draw strength from each other and heartbreaking that we even need to.  It is in this fragile space we need each other the most, and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month helps provide that.

I’m both sad and thankful Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month exists. I’m sad because infants should not die, and parents should never have to navigate life without the baby they love. There shouldn’t have to be a month set aside each year to bring awareness to the most unfair experience in the world because it shouldn’t exist. It’s an indescribable tragedy so painful I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Yet it happens every day. It is estimated that 11,300 babies die before they reach their 28th day of life here in the United States, 24,000 babies are stillborn, and 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. That’s hundreds of thousands of families affected by pregnancy and infant loss every year. Even if I wish Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month didn’t have to exist, I’m glad it does. I need it, and so does everyone else.

I’m thankful because twenty years before I would ever know the feeling of never taking my girls home from the hospital, someone was fighting for me, using their voice for me, and leaving the world a little better in the wake of their own tragedy for me. I’m honored that my heart counted somewhere to someone simply because they knew grief is less of a burden when we carry it together.  I’m even more honored that they created a cultural shift that allowed me to speak my babies’ names without stigma. They carved out a safe place for me – for all of us who share this burden - in a society that would otherwise have no idea what to do with a bereaved mother or father. It’s healing to intentionally honor the hearts of parents who would otherwise be overlooked and create space for them to share the memory of their beloved child.

When my twin daughters died in 2008, I worried how the world would ever comprehend the tremendous loss of two sweet little girls no one met but their family and the medical staff. I didn’t want them to be invisible, hidden away like a secret, because they didn’t live long enough to be seen and known the way all human beings ought to be. All I wanted was for my girls’ lives to matter to more people than just me. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month helps make that possible.

The month of October brings awareness to so much more than all the precious babies gone too soon, and the parents that miss them. It also brings awareness to the people who have walked with us; the doctors and nurses, family members, and friends. I don’t know how I would have made it through without the nurses who held my hand and the doctors who waited outside the room while I held my babies for the last time. Without the social worker to help with the paperwork, a friend to call at 2 am, and all the other people who stepped out of their comfort zone to love a grieving mom through the hardest time of her life. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month is for them too. It’s for all the kind and caring people who don’t wait until October to see us and love us.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month also brings awareness to new dreams, the ability of the human heart to heal, and the transformative power of collective compassion. I’ve spent over a decade healing my heart and helping others do the same. Nothing makes more of a difference in the heart of a hurting parent than to know they are not alone. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month reminds us all we are in this together. It gives us a platform to be seen, to join hands and hearts, and use our voices to speak life. Our babies didn’t only die; they also lived. Because they lived, we loved them. And that love has transformed every part of us. Loss awareness is love awareness.

It’s not easy to lose a child. We need all the support we can get. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month is the catalyst that creates more and better opportunities to support hurting parents. It generates reverberating awareness that lasts much longer than only a month. It creates bonds that last a lifetime. It makes membership into the club no parent wants to be in survivable. October isn’t a month, it’s a movement toward a more compassionate society, and I’ll be spending every day thankful not only that it exists, but for everyone who embraces it. Together we can keep improving the way bereaved parents are treated and honor our children gone too soon with our refusal to allow a single parent to fall by the wayside.

Rachel Tenpenny is a proud mom, entrepreneur, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, and creator of Hungryforhealing.org. If you are hurting, she wants to help you heal. By sharing her experience with you, including her best decisions, biggest mistakes, and the most important tools in her healing toolbox, it is her hope these insights will become the foundation on which you build your healing after loss. Healing is possible. She’s living proof. Originally from Southern California, she currently lives in Northern Virginia with her two sons Dustin and Colton.