Our Little Sparrows Podcast
Our Little Sparrows Podcast
(5) Special Tips On Getting Through The Holiday Season With Baby Loss. SE1 EP3
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(5) Special Tips To Help You Through The Holiday Season. Are you dreading the fast-approaching holidays after the loss of your baby? Would you rather hide out in your room and not come out until after January 1st? No matter how happy the season is, you may or may not feel the same way as everything and everyone around you says you should. So how do we get through this time of year? Should we embrace the holiday season even though our baby is dead? So many questions, hopefully, our (5) Tips will help you decide what is best for you and your family.
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✅ TENDING TO YOUR HOLIDAY HEART
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✅ TENDING TO YOUR HEART AFTER THE LOSS OF YOUR BABY
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all right here we are on our third episode for our new audio podcast how you feeling tony i'm feeling good good well i like i like what we're going to talk about today we're going to kind of enter into the holiday season what that looks like for our community pregnancy and infant loss i know for for some people out there you know someone listening to this podcast they're dreading the holidays coming and in fact they're like you know what i'm just not going to come out until january 1st so today we're going to offer five tips to hopefully help that person embrace get through get over this holiday season yeah cool well all right well hey everyone i'm tony and this is
this is jeff
well thanks for being here we're the founders of our little sparrows pregnancy and infant loss support right and we're gonna get right to it so why are the holidays so challenging let's talk about that for a minute do you want me to go over the first one sure okay so the first one we have is i think it's challenging because we have a lot of conflicting emotions and one obviously if you've just gone or have experienced the loss of your baby or maybe it's still challenging for you maybe it's your second or third year into loss holidays can be really hard it's supposed to be a joyous time it's supposed to be a happy time and when you yourself may not be feeling happy and joyous you're maybe really fresh into your grief or the loss that you've had and it's hard to feel that happiness and joys that you know that you see on the tv commercials and on the holiday movies and things like that so i think there's a conflict there because maybe you're feeling like you want to be happy but you you're just not you know able to emotionally you're dealing with a lot of grief feelings of grief and it can just be a really rough time so i think there's that idea of like i should be happy but i'm not kind of thing so i think that's like outside pressures expectations yeah i mean and actually that kind of leads into the second point which is pressure and expectations and how did i know i don't know how do you know that but i don't know do you have anything to say about that or no i think you're right i think the normal holiday programming that we're used to watching every year whether we want to or not hallmark channel that's not a plug no it's not actually i'd like to boycott walmart anyhow i think the traditional holidays out the window whatever traditional you know is for our family or whatever's traditional for your family i think everything's changed right i i think those are one of the first things we say when we talk to a friend a neighbor you just feel different nothing's the same anymore everything's completely changing and so i think those expectations those pressures come from uh obviously programming right it comes from you know
holiday movies holiday uh holiday talk shows uh it also comes from everything you see in the grocery store everything you see you know on display you know at your warehouse you know home depot lowe's all that stuff right you're just bombarded with this you're supposed to be happy you're supposed to be joyful this is a joyful happy time of year right and although it's not their fault it's it's it's because our life our circumstances have changed right but yet it it doesn't take away from you do feel expected to be at a certain level of happiness and you do feel that pressure of i still should decorate i still should put up the tree right yeah so i think i think the holiday season brings a lot of undue pressure and unnecessary expectations that we take for granted you know before our loss right and after laws is just different right so so you don't feel like you need to live up to it or maybe you feel like you should but you can't right right so there's a there's totally different i think personality character has plays a lot into how how it affects you right it affects everyone differently yeah i feel like it's just it's inadvertent these pressures and expectations of course there's direct pressures and expectations from family members from spouses from children that just don't understand right you know maybe because they're aged they're too young like it's there's a whole gambit right of of scenarios of where that where pressure and expectations may come from right well if you think about it like someone who has not yet experienced loss or have any kind of significant loss holidays already have enough pressure and expectations alone there's like so many gatherings yeah get all your christmas gifts yeah and have it all nicely packaged and everything and yeah like gatherings for work or for like family gatherings there's that pressure and expectation just to be there but like you mentioned you kind of have this feeling like you have to be on like you know you need to be social you know kind of in the holiday spirit whichever one it is and it's hard to do that when you are you know going through grief you know experiencing the loss of your baby or you may want to check out and just take the season off but you don't feel like you have permission right yes yeah there's a lot there's yeah and so there's obligations you know that we feel obligated to attend a lot of different functions or just be a certain way or have a certain level of energy throughout the next like two months that we have different holidays coming up so that's a lot to take on in i think for us it was easy just to check out because our loss was in october yeah and so it was so early on that when when halloween rolled rolled around we just put a bowl of candy out and then a note said take one or take two or whatever it was yeah and then when thanksgiving rolled around we just stayed home and when christmas rolled around we just stayed home well yeah we went home to we went in yeah to your family right but it was very low-key it's not it's not what my family puts on for christmas which is different to in its own right but yeah for the most part we we gave ourselves permission uh to do or not do certain things during the holiday season right so yeah and our neither one of our families expected in fact they didn't say a whole lot yeah they kind of just let us decide which is ideal yeah yeah i'm sure that doesn't happen for a lot of families yeah all right so the next challenge is energy and by energy i mean physical energy so grieving can take a lot of physical energy right from you so there's a lot of like fatigue tiredness you might even actually be feeling some like physical pains and aches that you can experience through grief or because of grief so that can take a toll on your body and then come up you know with the holidays coming up and all those expectations and things that you have to get done that just kind of adds to your depleted energy level and your capacity to complete those tasks seems really overwhelming so that is another challenge that you know grievers face just physically not having that energy level yeah i mean i mean i think that almost goes hand in hand with just that numbness and that sense of uh of like you're lost like disoriented right i think all those kind of tie in together disorientation of of you know normalcy of patterns everything's broken right it's very interesting i mean at least i mean that was our experience that you know normal patterns kind of all got put put to the side as we were reevaluating what had just happened and how that is going to affect us moving forward and i think a lack of energy goes right you know in tandem with that it falls right in line with that because i think i think that lack of energy is from the feeling uh the sense of loss right the sense of disorientation yeah it's numbing right and that's the numbness is there too and it's a numbness of um
kind of like your your perception of life is numbed for the moment because you're in shock of of the severity at which you know you lost your child or losing a child can be you know very severe to our emotions our psyche and our ability our capacity to bounce back is different everyone's capacity to back bounce back whatever back is right is different for everyone and so for you know what may take you a short amount of time may take me longer right and vice versa you know it could be the other way what to what took me a shorter amount of time took you longer right you know and that can vary in a whole bunch of different categories of of our recovery if you want to call it recovery but it's that learning to to grapple with our grief learning to you know really defining for ourselves what does that grief mean for us what is that going to look like moving forward that i mean that was always on the forefront of my mind is like okay we're in this position i have no power to change it so what do i have control i have control over over deciding what are we going to do moving forward you know what am i going to do personally and then what are you and what i'm going to do as a family as a part as partners as as a couple as married you know uh married couple and that was really and i didn't rush it like i there were times where i wanted to but then i i lost that and that energy just went out yeah so my energy was like this right i don't know about you yeah but mine was up and then it was down and it was up and then it was down i think that's something you know that okay i had to learn to too because it was it was up and down it was all over the place and sometimes i you know you just kind of have to kind of learn to roll with it especially in that first it's almost like you have to listen to your body thing right you know how they say listen to your body your body will tell you like if you get a sports injury if you if you get an injury in general yeah uh you have to listen to your body right right there's the physical healing but then there's something different that's internal right and you just you have to listen i like that i totally agree with that yeah it's definitely something i had to learn for myself right i mean you have to listen but i i should i should preface with you have to do healthy you have to do good things right for yourself you have to get a decent amount of sleep you have to eat healthy food junk out i mean there's going to be stressful times and you're going to hit the junk food but obviously what we put in is what we're going to get out right too so don't jump too far ahead oh really yeah oh is that one of the five it might be one of our specials it might be special tips all right so one of the last things we have as a challenge that we face as grieving right and you may be facing too is that the holidays are centered around families and so there's a lot of focus on kids maybe this is this was supposed to be your baby's first halloween or thanksgiving and christmas and that can be really hard when you're out and about and you're seeing all these kids you know having a lot of good time if you're seeing maybe see another family with their new baby and and that can bring up a lot of emotions and sadness because that was supposed to be also for you and in your new baby and unfortunately your baby died for whatever reason your baby's not with with you and so that can bring up a lot of of just really hard feelings or i don't know if heart's the right word but like just i think it can be overwhelming yeah right it can just it can flood you your emotions can just come flooding back you know and you have these flashes of what you wish would you know would have been you know so it's like yeah i'm thinking of grief recovery thinking more better uh different better or more what you wanted yeah yeah in your expectations right right your hopes your dreams your expectations all those things changed so that's i think that's one of the main reasons why it's so hard is because it's such a family time it everything reminds you of what would have been what would have been what was supposed to be and and that's and that's really hard for people and for yeah it was hard for us as well so we do have some tips to share with you let's get into those five and this is these are things that helped us and so we just want to share that them with you and hopefully they help you as well as you navigate this delicate holiday season so right i mean for the most part these are fairly simple fairly straightforward but i i i think we just want people to know that we're thinking of you and we're here to support you and you know you're not alone yeah yeah and that's mainly that's mainly what this is all about all right so tip number one and you've already talked about this is that we need to take care of ourselves so take care of yourself take care of yourself yeah so and you know making good choices you know as much as you can and then and there's going to be days where you're not you know you might just want to reach for you know that comfort food or not you know just stay in indoors all the time and there are i'm currently doing keto so so i just think of cheat days it's like i get a cheat day it's like no you're not supposed to but anyhow yeah yeah but i mean don't be too hard on yourself yeah don't be hard on yourself take it one day at a time when you can get good rest you know get a nutritious meal and add water you know or hydrate yourself you know to your regular diet or whatever you know eating that you have i think we all know what's healthy and what's not yeah in general and just start with small small things it doesn't have to be like a huge lifestyle change right away and especially if you're you know just in the freshness of of grief then it's right just i mean in general you never want to go to extremes yeah so it's in and mainly like especially within that first year it's really difficult you know to you need to give yourself a lot of grace yeah make a really significant change so just learning baby steps to take care of yourself and especially in the holiday season when it can be really overwhelming you know allow yourself some space to get some fresh air you know take a breather and and maybe you can find another mom to do it with yeah that's good that's not a bad idea
so physically yes and so those are some physical things emotionally as you just said you know find a friend find a supportive person that you can call or text on the phone go for a walk with you know someone if you are believing in prayer some that you can pray with someone that you can just trust and that can you can just kind of you feel safe with to just have that person just to kind of let you be you know be where you're at and not have to feel like you have to be a certain way or say certain things it might be another lost mom mm-hmm uh another you know mom that that their baby had died so right so emotionally yeah just having that person there to support you is gonna help you through a lot of those tough days so number two it's okay to say no so allowing yourself permission to say no to going to certain functions or you know certain activities that the holidays bring talking about that pressure and expectations kind of knowing what is your limit you know what is what are you what is your capacity what can you do and what what is your limit and allowing yourself to say no thank you you know to those you know and it might be you know a family gathering that you've been to every year and your family's expecting you to be there but maybe you're just not up for it and and allow yourself some grace if you really don't feel like you are up for it gracefully and kindly just say no thank you and you know you explain to them why if they're confused this could be an opportunity to help people be aware of how difficult pregnancy and infant loss can be and yeah a lot of times people might think oh it's just it was just you know early pregnancy loss might be they might assume that it's something that is easy to get through or over and it's it may not be and if that's something that you know maybe people need to be a little bit more educated on is just to have that conversation say actually no it's really right i'm really struggling and i'm really missing you know it's interesting because it goes back to that that that common that that common conversation is like they don't get it the things they say are hurtful it's painful to be around to be in the same room because they say insensitive things right right and and the irony of it is that we're the victim of baby death our baby died right that's a huge loss to us but it's interesting because although we're the ones that it happened to it actually is important that we become our own you know advocate advocates yeah at the same time setting boundaries right and so i almost feel like it's twofold right it's it's it's setting those boundaries knowing first this is what i'm this is what i'm okay doing this is what i'm not okay doing right and then once you set those boundaries but you know for yourself or between you you know for yourself between you and yourself or between you and your partner or you and your spouse or whoever you decide to include on on that then when when when you have to explain yourself to someone you don't do it in such a such a way that it's like well i told myself i wasn't going to do this or anything like that you advocate for yourself and you say i'm not going to put myself in this position because of xyz right yeah and you may not realize that that's the effect that it has on someone you know who's lost their baby but that's exactly why i'm not going to the christmas party right you know or the family gathering you know because some people their annual you know their family reunions are always during the holiday times or whatever right whether it's on the holiday or not but even those are things that are hard to show up for but yeah you are your best advocate you are the best person to tell people why you're not going to be coming you're not going to make it because it's not there it's not their life experience right they didn't experience the death of their child you did right so i'm not saying it's easy no but i'm saying that that's that's that's the way to put your best foot forward and keep the insensitive comments to a minimum by number one not putting yourself in that position saying this is my boundary i won't talk i won't go to that person for that kind of support because they can't support me that way it's just not in their in their makeup it's not who they are right so that's a boundary you know and then if you do if you do have to tell the person that's putting on the event then i'm not gonna make it you have to also be willing to back that up and and advocate why so that you it's educate advocate educate same synonymous you have to educate others what you're experiencing what you're going through yeah and whether they choose to accept that or not that's different yeah that's their that's on them but it's part of the journey right and it's very healing right it's it's something we all have to learn and that's probably something you know like that's like a whole other podcast episode we could talk about for sure right but i mean it's it's ongoing you know ever you can talk about birthday parties you can talk about uh baby showers you can talk about family reunions you could talk about holidays yeah and and no matter or going to the going to yeah anyhow you could talk about those things and every time you talk about those things it you you still talk about boundaries and and and educating others about what you've experienced and what you're going through yeah it it never ends right right right start small i mean keep it simple right it sounds overwhelming and maybe it is right right you you can only do so much do the best you can but know that no one else is really going to advocate or educate for you right like you can do for yourself right so baby steps baby steps that's terrible anyhow small steps and lead to lead to bigger steps lead to to bigger conversations that that you're willing and able to have as you build that confidence and as you build that
understanding of how to share with others because there's definitely there's definitely you know there's a good way to share there's a good way to educate and then there's not a good way right and you know you'll learn that away along the way yeah i mean that is definitely another podcast episode that we should touch on because there's so much more that we could say about that so let's keep going here so our next point our next tip is actually it's a good thing we started an audio podcast right there they're meant to go longer okay okay so so same in the same way allowing yourself to say no point three is allowing yourself to say yes right so don't yeah allowing yourself to do what you enjoy of the season right and don't punish yourself don't yeah don't hide if you don't like if if it's something it's just you've got to evaluate yourself and this could be something like you do daily or moment by moment it you know it could change like you might feel up for it one day you know but the next day you may not be up to going to that holiday party or the halloween event so just a self evaluation as to what is your capacity what do you want to do how do you want to spend the these holidays do you want to spend it with your family with your friends or is it something you want to just rather keep low key to yourself and your immediate family or your spouse and allow yourself to say yes to those things you know holidays as hard as it can be for for many grieving parents there are still some joyful moments and i think sometimes we get on this thought that i have to be sad you know through the holidays and we can get ourselves on that kind of emotional mental track but we also can allow ourselves to feel those good moments feel those good feelings of happiness excitement anticipation and i mean even though our loss was in october and the holidays were basically right there you know i still wanted to experience christmas you know and you know i love christmas so i'm jumping like i could skip over halloween and thanksgiving and just go right to christmas but it was hard but i still wanted to enjoy certain aspects of christmas so it's okay to have those good moments and create memories or or whatnot and so we did find a way to do that and still have time to remember and honor our daughter within those christmas or holiday festivities right and so and it began a tradition you know so every year now i like to pick out ornaments for the tree that have our daughter's name and now our son and our youngest daughter audrey's name so that's something i like to do so allow yourselves to do the things that you like and are up for and allow yourself to say no to those things that you just don't feel like you can handle and that's not to say that's going to be the same every year it could be different the next year you might be up for a little bit more and that's okay right yeah yeah okay i have nothing to add on that i agree you definitely don't want to feel pressure to do things you know just do do what you feel interested in doing and sometimes okay i guess i have something to say so sometimes we do say yeah i do you know the leaves are falling it's fall time i wanna you know for us i want to go up to apple hill just just the two of us or just our our family however many that is uh immediate and then uh grab some donuts and a coffee and maybe buy a frozen pie and come home right that kind of thing but when we get there and we may feel overwhelmed so we have to you know we have to we have to know our boundaries again and even though that's something that you wanted to step out and do you may not be able to do everything that you want during that day that you wanted to do but at least you made a step you know a step forward into something that you enjoyed in the past and still enjoyed doing moving forward yeah so no pressure to like complete whatever you started but at least you started it yeah right and i think too i mean this goes on to another topic but if you're check checking yourself like self-evaluating what year's your capacity what are you wanting to do or what are you not wanting to do and then communicating that to especially if you have a spouse or partner that you're with and because they may or may not feel the same way so important to talk it over and just let each other know i feel this way i feel up for going to apple hill right now but once we get there i might feel a little differently about our plans for today so just allowing yourselves to be flexible sure yeah cool so okay tip number four since you've done tip one through three sorry that's okay so the fourth tip we have is surrounding yourself with the people that truly support you so hopefully that's your partner uh the baby's dad uh or mom hopefully that's you know your your spouse whatever that situation is but if not then obviously there's other parents of pregnancy and infant loss maybe there's a local non-profit you know you're going to the grief support groups or the support groups in general already and then you can find a you know a friendship build a friendship from there i mean that's very common but you definitely want someone like i said earlier you have to know boundaries right and if you know that that's a person that won't be able to support you emotionally or or spiritually or whatever level that you know whatever it is that you know that you need then obviously that's a boundary that you would have with that person whether they know it or not that's that's i wouldn't recommend telling them i have a boundary against you it's like no uh but but but knowing your boundaries with certain people and then obviously you you want a support person that can respond yes whether it's a mom of loss or not you want someone that can respond to you and and and fills a need that you have emotionally or spiritually or just just just a good listener you know a safe space someone someone that uh respects your your thoughts you sharing your emotions with them and responds in kind right right yeah i think that's important yeah you definitely want to have that positive support and you know one that's gonna you know doesn't necessarily have to be a person who's experienced pregnancy or infant loss or even loss in general right it's just the person that has like that empathy and that understanding that life that where you're at in your life right now is really difficult and certain things are you know can cause triggers and just has that understanding that you know things you just might need that extra space or you just might need that extra time to do whatever it is and so and that person who could also be like you know maybe you could invite them to go with you to whatever that function your you feel like you need to go to and they can help you if if you need an out if you need you know to get to get out of that environment they can help you or you know it's nice to have those kind of supportive people so surround yourself with that right yeah yeah those are really definitely someone who's sensitive to your to your uh your loss and sensitive to what you're going through um because then they're they're receptive right mm-hmm that's the 30 minutes that was pretty that was pretty dramatic i think i had the volume way up well well we have one tip left can we do it
well there we go so okay so we have to wrap it up yep yep let's do it 30 minutes okay so so tip number five tip number five is again but is giving back but again checking yourself as to what is your capacity you know don't want to over over do it if you're not able to right and give yourself grace because you're not going to know right sometimes you're not going to know until you go to do it and you're like oh that's maybe too much i can't do that yeah right so what we mean by giving back is and it can be something as simple as just as donating money to a non-profit or organization of your choice right maybe in memory of your baby it can be volunteering for another organization um helping i don't know a lot of organizations need help around this time of year so and this may not be something that's easy to do the first first year yeah but as the years go by and you and this may not be the right way to say it but as you mature in your in your journey as you yeah as you mature in your journey there's there's certain things that will just pop into your head and you're like oh i want to go do that yeah and as simple as going to a food bank and packing boxes and handing them out to families or or donating like you said to a non-profit maybe specifically for pregnancy and infant loss i mean those things will yeah i think the way that the way that we recognize our our sons our daughters our babies over the years uh changes right it it just evolves and and it seems like for us like this this october uh is eight years since olivia our firstborn and losing her on our fifth wedding anniversary and and it's like now you know as we get as i get further away it may be different for you but as i get further away or up in years in her age it's almost like the way i think about her matures the way i want to honor her
in in certain ways matures
and it doesn't it doesn't feel so like emotionally devastating as it does maybe a you know for me it's like it's like building upon memorializing her and doing it in different ways as the years go on and what was so emotional and so hard to even deal with or even broach you know the situation of the conversation around her birthday around you know the birth of our son james uh who's technically younger than her but yet as he matures he see he still sees her as a baby yeah all those things just just change your whole world right and and so i just feel like i feel like the the older she she would have been eight years now and the further we get uh in life from that experience eight years ago that there's there's a maturing sense that evolves and it's not so much of a an emotional devastating loss now it's like you know what am i gonna do with that experience and it builds upon itself year after year yeah you know there's a maturing because then you also yeah there's growth because you also feel like i can help i can help a mom i can i can help a dad i can't tell them how to heal i can't tell them how to to feel better but i but i feel like that i can support them better as the years go on like there's a there's a mature maturing there to support those who are beginning their journey right or early on in it and may be struggling yeah i'd say i'd say for me the struggles has gotten less but it's not like it's not like eight years less it's like okay on a level on a scale of one to ten i don't feel like a ten and you know ten being the you know just just really in a lot of pain from the loss day one on a scale of one to ten i feel like maybe i'm at a seven and eight like it's still very i cry you know when i think about her or if i have a conversation with someone and i tell her tell them about our journey and it starts from when we lost olivia or leading you know when we got pregnant and leading up to right then i cry man and it's it's it's very overwhelming for me but then if i have general conversations where i talk about you know the do's and don'ts how to talk to relatives how to set those boundaries how to set those expectations that's a different conversation and i'm not nearly as emotional right so there's that too yeah i just feel like there's there's a maturing that happens you know as you get further away from that from from the lost the you know and it's not that we we've you know we've forgotten about her gosh no and it's not a dulling either it's not a doling different you know it's definitely different it's not you know like as raw you know when you have a wound it's you know really raw at first but then right it you know eventually kind of the rawness goes away yeah we there's still a longing it's imprinted on us yeah you know that's that's part of our timeline that's part of our experience in this journey in life yeah that doesn't change right but i think the way that we react to that memory the way we react to those emotions the way those emotions come back to the surface in different unique ways sometimes out of left field uh and other times it's like man i i remember having that same conversation and being completely emotional or emotionally overwhelming but when i had that same conversation just now with someone else for some reason it wasn't on the same emotional level right i was thinking you can't explain that it's different it's hard to explain almost every moment or every time you have a conversation yeah your emotions and you know just even the environment or the person that you're talking to there's lots of different factors right as to and your level of vulnerability i think that's a huge factor yeah so the more vulnerable you are the more you're going to be the same every time you talk to someone about it so and that's okay right but giving back yeah giving back to another lost family another family of pregnancy and if it lost you know through a support group and financially supporting that or volunteering as the years go on as the months or years go on and you feel comfortable and ready to do so obviously there's volunteer opportunities with those organizations and we've seen people do things like you know collecting toys for the age that your baby would have been in this holiday season and donating it to an an organization that's distributing toys for families in need or things like that you know that's you know that's a good way to get involved but and you could you know maybe make a tradition out of it if you want but again it's also you know checking yourself every time it's like what is my what is your capacity you know what can you handle what do you want to do what you know what do you need to let go of this year so and just allowing yourself permission to do all of that yes or no yes or no yeah those are five good tips so just you know take care of yourself uh is tip number one tip number two it's okay to say no tip number three it's okay to say yes tip number four surround yourself with the people who truly support you uh and the fifth and final tip was giving back donating and volunteering yeah that's good good stuff all right well we hope this helped yeah i mean as always we want everyone to know uh we want you to know if you're listening that you are loved uh and that you're not alone and that your babies uh all of our babies will always be remembered well if you got value out of this episode and you want to watch our next podcast episode where we address who is our little sparrows you can click or tap on the image above if you click or tap below you can join us on our grief series the pregnancy journey grieving from diagnosis to the loss of your baby and beyond thanks for joining us