Bec Sparrow and Mia Freedman formed a strong and long-lasting friendship over their shared experience of pregnancy loss.
In this episode, Dr Ashleigh Smith asks them about how they became friends. How they helped each other through their grief. How they continue to support each other during the milestones and anniversaries. Bec that a week after losing Georgie, she felt strongly that her stillborn daughter was going to turn the light in her life up, not down. Even though Bec “wishes Georgie was here, she is not, and that has changed the course of Bec’s life in some beautiful ways, for example, meeting Mia” Bec says she doesn’t focus on the day that Georgie died, as that would be selling her short, but what she contributed to her life.
Bec felt like Mia was almost like her therapist. She felt as though sometimes she’d be drowning in the waves of grief, and Mia would pull her out. It felt like a fated friendship, it evolved – they later worked together at ‘Mamamia.’ It was a place that both Mia and Bec could write about their pregnancy loss – one of the only platforms that shared stories about newborn baby or pregnancy loss. Bec said that through her rainbow pregnancy, one of the tips Mia gave, was to visualize arriving home with a baby carrier coming through the front door.
Mia says when her daughter May died through late miscarriage, there was no internet and she was unable to surround herself with others who had suffered similar loss. Mia notes that Bec was the first person to treat May as a person, e.g. writing May on a Christmas ornament. Mia feels that before that, she was only ever real to herself. Bec made her baby feel real and that was the biggest gift.
Mia remembers when Kate Middleton gave birth, and she was trying to explain to the team at Mumamia, ‘this is going to be a tough day for a lot of people’ – when the whole world is celebrating the joy of a baby, that can be the loneliest of days for people suffering infertility or pregnancy loss. Mia made sure that on those days, she would acknowledge bereaved parents through Mamamia.
It’s important to have friends when times are tough, but also for those friends to be there to cheer you on when things are good. Mia says that there are friendships for a reason, a season or a lifetime and that this friendship has transcended to be a lifetime friendship.
Bec Sparrow and Mia Freedman have co-authored a beautiful book ‘Never Forgotten’ which contains stories of love, loss, and healing after miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death. It is an ode to their daughters May and Georgie and all the other children who never came home.
The Glimmer of hope and advice offered by Bec Sparrow is that “the raw pain that you feel in the first year or so after pregnancy loss, doesn’t stay that raw forever. It is possible to have a joyful life, even if you have a fractured heart.” Bec feels that she has a life that is full of joy, purpose and meaning. Her pain sits in her back pocket and she can chose those moments now, she is in charge of when to pull them out. “This type of loss and pain cracks our life open, if you let it.”
Links:
https://www.theglimmerproject.com/
https://bluehearts.com.au/the-cause.html
https://stillbirthfoundation.org.au/
Link to Never Forgotten:
Special thank you to: -
Corey Green (pod