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{October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, join us with the #thismotherhoodstory as we journal our way through topics surrounding grief and life after loss.}

Saturday, October 14, 2017 – Journal Prompt
Did you choose to name your gone-too-soon babies? Why or why not? If you did, what special meaning does their name hold?

“I can’t tell you their gender, but I can tell you that there may be a little something extra down there.” The ultrasound technician had just completed our eighteen week scan with the twins, and while she wasn’t allowed to officially tell us their sex, she was gracious enough to give us a hint.

We had already picked out names, and quickly settled on who was who: Alistair was baby A and Landon was baby B. Just over ten weeks later, I was beyond thankful that we’d chosen to call them by name for a large portion of the second-trimester. In the shock of my heartbreak, I didn’t have to worry about naming my now deceased baby — I already knew exactly who he was.

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My husband and I had been married for a little over half-a-year when we discovered that I was pregnant with identical twin boys. I loved being pregnant: I floated through those first few months on a carefree cloud of pregnant woman glow. I watched my belly grow larger and rounder; stretched by little elbows and knees that wriggled and squirmed just out of sight. It was miraculous and beautiful and most of all, worry-free.

Because I was carrying multiples, the hospital slapped a “high risk” label on my medical chart and treated us to extra ultrasounds and doctors appointments, but this all seemed a mere formality. Never once, did I worry about losing my babies. As far as I knew, words like “stillbirth” or “miscarriage” belonged in history books or museums — I didn’t know that they were still a very real part of 21st century life.

Fast forward a few months, and I was being rushed in for an emergency c-section: one twin born still, the other literally described as “limp and floppy” and fighting for his life. Our firstborn, Landon, was buried in a tiny plot of damp, green earth, and our survivor, Alistair, came home from the hospital seven weeks later. My life had changed irrevocably and I was embarking on the long and painful journey of life after loss.

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**UPDATE: Thank you so much for all of your beautiful and deeply thought-out responses. Over thirty women shared their hearts and their children’s stories with me, and for that, I can not say “thank you” enough. Thank you for trusting me to honour their memories and in the process, hopefully encourage other grieving mothers. The form is now CLOSED to responses but I would still love to hear your stories. Feel free to e-mail me or send me a message if you would like to share your own story of loss, grief, and hope on mommymannegren.com**

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for some help from my grieving mama followers!

Over the past eight months or so, I have been working on a book that I’ve tentatively titled, “Journaling Your Way Through Pregnancy Loss.” The goal of the book is to help encourage grieving mothers to embrace and better process their grief after a miscarriage or stillbirth. As you know, society doesn’t often talk about pregnancy loss, and it can be a confusing and isolating experience for women to go through. I’m hoping that this book will help break some of those taboos and allow women to find freedom and beauty in the story that they’ve been given – even when that story doesn’t exactly look the way we’d like it to. And ultimately, I hope that this book will point our grieving hearts towards Christ and remind us that while we mourn, we do not mourn without purpose.

In order to make this book stronger, I am in the process of revising my first draft. One of the things that has been suggested is to find some additional stories and insights from other grieving women, and add them to the book too. Here’s where I need your help!

If you’re interested in sharing your story with me, I have created an interview questionnaire for you to complete. Any of the answers that you give may be used as examples within the book, but most likely I will choose one or two of your answers to include. I may edit or re-write them slightly to fit the book. You can also let me know whether you want your answers to be anonymous (I’ll pick a random pseudonym) or whether you want me to use your first name when sharing your story.

I know that these stories are very personal and close to our hearts. Please don’t feel any pressure to participate in this. This is YOUR story and I don’t ever want to share a part of it unless you’re completely 100% comfortable with it. If you prefer to simply answer more generally – that’s fine too – any additional insight I can get into pregnancy loss would be a huge help!

It is a rather long, written questionnaire, but please don’t feel that you have to answer every question (not every question will be applicable.) I really appreciate your honesty as I know that some of these questions may be very difficult to answer. I’m hoping that this generation of women will be ones who stand up for the brokenhearted, and support the generation of grieving mothers who come after us. This book is just one step in creating that conversation and I hope you can partner with me in that.

Feel free to take a look over the questionnaire and complete it as you wish, here: http://bit.ly/2hlUI3Z

There is no guarantee that this book will be published, but I am working on making it as strong as I possibly can in hopes of helping create honest dialogue and discussion surrounding pregnancy loss.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. Thank you so much for considering this!

Much love,
Liz