January 27, 2012 at 1:54 am · Filed under Grief
In the February 2012 issue of Good Housekeeping, the magazine printed this pop quiz written by Peggy Post, now the head of Emily Post’s etiquette institute:
Your coworker shared her good news that she was pregnant. Later, you learn that she has miscarried, so you:
A. Say nothing, some things are private
B. Leave flowers on her desk with a note
C. Tell her you are there if she wants to talk.
As Baby Loss Moms, we are confused by this quiz. Can we pick B and C? How thoughtful for someone to acknowledge the real pain of returning to work after something so devastating with the offer to talk. And what a keepsake to treasure in the baby’s memory box, a note and perhaps some flowers to dry out and save.
I myself couldn’t decide which answer was better. “A” was obviously the throw away option.
But then I read Peggy Post’s answer:
A. With a good friend you would be more personal, but saying nothing is the best approach–until she shares the news with you. Then, offer your support.
What?
So, I’m picturing this scenario. Your coworker, coming in after a few days off, all she was allowed in many cases because there isn’t a funeral, sits at her desk. She knows everyone knows she was pregnant. (According to the quizlet, she “shared her good news.”) She’s got a staff meeting in a few hours, and she’s barely holding it together. Last time she sat at her desk, she was expecting a baby.
How does she “untell” her pregnancy? How will she even keep from falling apart? So far the only person who knows is her boss and one friend she had handling her phone calls and mail.
She walks down the line of cubes to get her mail from the friend and notices no one looks her way, as though she is train wreck it isn’t polite to stare at. She turns back around, rattled. Should she send an email out? Ask her boss to? Will this make it worse?
Peggy Post, supported by Good Housekeeping, thinks that because this coworker doesn’t stand by the break room door and announce, “I’m not pregnant anymore! Be nice to me!” that she doesn’t want or need anyone’s cards, flowers, or even kind words. According to this magazine, you are to say nothing.
This is not common sense, and surely not common decency. If this woman’s mother had died, or her husband, you would hug her or offer condolences. Peggy Post, and by extension, Good Housekeeping, has just told thousands of subscribers that unborn babies are different. It’s best not to talk about it.
Baby Loss leaders have worked hard to make miscarriage less of a silent pain, something we are allowed to feel, to be upset about, to mourn. Good Housekeeping has just set us back immensely. Imagine the outcry if Peggy Post had told readers never to bring up breast cancer, or divorce, topics that once were taboo but now can be openly discussed.
Many Baby Loss Moms have written Letters to the Editor, which may or may not see print, and even if so, will be long after the damage is done to the casual reader who might remember this advice for years. Still, we can try. Write Good Housekeeping at ghletters@goodhousekeeping.com
Many Baby Loss Moms have expressed their outrage on the magazine’s Facebook page. Feel free to continue to remind them that we are here, and we are not going to say nothing.
When the Facebook comments hit a zenith thanks to the work of Nikki on her blog, Good Housekeeping did respond within the thread. The answer was hard to find and even though I knew it was there, I had to read for 20 minutes to locate their response:
We talked to Peggy Post about your comments and here is what she wanted us to share with you: “Thank you for your feedback – a powerful reminder of the power of emotions and the importance of empathy. You, our readers, are so correct; I totally agree with you that reaching out to this grieving mother – regardless of a concern to respect her privacy – is truly the correct answer. Even if her miscarriage had not yet been general knowledge among her co-workers, a one-on-one heartfelt “I’m so sorry” would have been better than waiting to express condolences. This Pop Quiz is misleading and caused hurt and concern for our readers. For this, I sincerely apologize.” — Peggy Post
I can respect an apology, even though it has a jab in it (“regardless of a concern”).
Now let’s help Good Housekeeping correct its error. They need to write something longer, something their subscribers will actually read and learn from, to erase this terrible error from the minds of the readers, and impart good and useful information for a tragedy that is so common, 1 out of every 4 women will experience it.
So to suggest a full-length article on helping friends, family, and coworkers after a miscarriage, write ghletters@goodhousekeeping.com
You can also write Peggy Post, who wrote the quizlet, directly at peggypost@goodhousekeeping.com
But please, whatever you do, don’t say nothing. This misinformation must end now.
December 1, 2011 at 2:26 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Baby Dust, Relationships and tagged: Stella & Dane
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this topic since I started writing Stella & Dane. This couple has pretty tough beginnings, small town, disapproval, and both of them have a lot of growing up to do.
I know that in this story, they will weather more than the average couple. Two miscarriages. Multiple rounds of failed IVF. Eventually, they will give up on having children. And due to Dane’s terrible past, they won’t ever be able to adopt. I’m sure Stella often wishes a baby would drop from the sky.
By the time we meet them in my book Baby Dust, they are a well established couple, one to be envied in their devotion to each other after all this history. But how did they get this way? What built a relationship like that? It’s been on my mind as I form their love story.
I’m not sure I have the answer. The father of my angel babies and I divorced, and that shared history was lost. He and I were the only people who were really close to those babies and those hopes. It’s a hard thing. We clearly didn’t have what Dane & Stella had. We fell apart.
Recently two of my baby loss mom friends got divorced. In both cases, the men just walked out of the relationship. How does this happen? What causes it?
And more importantly, what creates a relationship that weathers this?
Disappointment in how the father handles the loss is one of the most common sources of upset in the emails and messages that I get. The fathers aren’t sad. They don’t get it. They want the moms to “get over it.” Is this part of what creates the rift? How do we get past that and back into a loving relationship?
I’d love to hear from moms with wonderful supportive partners after a loss.
And if you’d like to see how Stella & Dane develop, I have a mailing list where I share their story as it goes along. Currently they are still young and immature. Stella’s grandmother, the only person she’s ever felt loved her, has just died. And she’s ready to blow out of town, with or without her new man, Dane. But life is about to deal a severe blow, a course of events that their lives will never recover from. If you’d like to follow it, you can sign up and get updates as long as you want, unsubscribe if it doesn’t interest you. Stella & Dane’s list.
I’m about to get remarried. I can hope I’m doing better this time around, and we’ll have to adopt as I’m too high risk for babies anymore. I’m looking for answers too.
October 25, 2011 at 1:54 pm · Filed under About Deanna's Book, Baby Dust and tagged: Stella & Dane
My next book is going to be FREE for those who want to read it as I write it. In Baby Dust, you met Stella, who had two first-trimester miscarriages and several rounds of failed IVF. If you’ve read it, you learn Stella and her husband Dane’s devastating secret as to why they can’t adopt.
This new book takes you back to when Stella and Dane meet, and how she stands by him, and gets you all the way through her losses and how she comes to terms with the way her life has gone.
So sign up to read excerpts of the book as I go along. The e-book will be sent to everyone on the email list when it’s done before it goes on sale.
Sign up here to get excerpts and the entire e-book when it’s done!
Writing begins next week! I’m so excited to get back to Stella!
October 15, 2011 at 8:54 am · Filed under Remembrance Day and tagged: October 15th
I’m spending this morning listening to the song list that I will play at tonight’s candle lighting ceremony here in Austin. Each year, I have added a new favorite to the list, and now, hearing my history of song choices, I’m reminded of all the time that has passed since I was pregnant the first time. So optimistic I was, unaware that anything could go wrong.
Of course, I still had no idea all the directions life would go. Three babies wouldn’t make it. Two would, but Elizabeth is reminded every day of the complications of losing her twin sister, medicine twice a day and still not knowing when or where a seizure might happen anyway.
But we are grateful, so grateful for the two daughters we got to keep. And while today will be hard, it always is, I don’t forget that this journey led to my life’s work, a purpose that carries me through everything. Other people might question why they are on this earth, what they are meant to do. But I know.
Here are the events happening here in Austin today:
10 a.m.
Memorial Service at Gateway church
The theme is Seasons of Hope. They’ll be planting a memorial tree on the church property in honor of those who’ve lost children through miscarriage and still birth.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=267431516618597
3 p.m.
Baby Dust: A Novel about Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss
Book Launch and Signing
The Book Spot
1205 Round Rock Ave #119
Round Rock, TX 78681 (Map)
(Corner of 620 and Lake Creek Dr. by Round Rock High School.)
Book summary: What happens when five women from completely different walks of life each lose a baby? Support. Healing. Friendship.
Families will be given candles to light during the Wave of Light that evening.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=248851078490256
5 p.m.
Face2Face Austin Dinner and Balloon Release
A local support group affiliate of Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope will be hosting a gathering at La Margarita Restaurant (1530 IH-35) in Round Rock immediately following the book launch.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=179100578838084
7 p.m.
Wave of Light Candlelighting
Deanna has hosted the annual candlelighting to coincide with the international wave of light for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day for many years.
We meet by the pond next to the lighted fountains behind the Long Center to light our candles from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. in a silent memorial vigil.
Park off Riverside Drive near Auditorium Shores or in the lot on Dawson Rd. (Map)
If you need music to play while you are lighting a candle at home, Casey Shay Press has aYouTube playlist of beautiful songs.
October 14, 2011 at 9:02 am · Filed under Family, Relationships, Remembrance Day and tagged: October 15th, social networks
I know many of you are hurting over family, friends, or coworkers who downplay the loss of your baby. They are not intending to hurt you, but they somehow think that if they don’t mention it, you will forget faster. Or that if they tell you that “time heals” or “you can have another baby,” you will snap out of it, and suddenly be the easy-going person you were before.
Tomorrow is your chance to tell them otherwise.
See, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day isn’t something you made up. It’s real, it’s international, and it’s an opportunity to bring our babies back into our lives, and to share our experiences, and to remind people that we will never and should never forget.
Live by example, and use the events surrounding you as your chance to educate them about the Baby Loss community.
So post to your Facebook page, or Google +, or Tweet. Let them know you still think of your baby, and that you still miss that little person that should have been with you.
Social networks give us an opportunity like none other to advocate, to enlighten, and to spread good work.
So take a second to post a picture of something that has to do with your baby–a pregnancy test, or flowers you got, or just a poem or image. I’ll make it easy for you–here are several to choose from if you have nothing of your own:
Have a peaceful and healing remembrance day.
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