Empty Arms Bereavement with Carol McMurrich

Carol McMurrich, founder and executive director of Empty Arms Bereavement, tells her heartbreaking story of how, during the early stages of labor, her first baby, Charlotte Amelia, died from a compressed umbilical cord. Through her emotionally tumultuous roller coaster, Carol created a program specifically for those who have lost a baby, to assist the families and friends as support people to the bereaved parents.

I have personally experienced Carol's compassion and support when my son and his beautiful wife lost their baby girl Teagan at 23 weeks of pregnancy. I had absolutely no idea how to support my son and daughter-in-law. I was also an emotional wreck. Carol helped me through the pain and gave me resources that I could share with my family as we all experienced our grief in very individual ways.

The mission of Empty Arms Bereavement is:
   Empty Arms Bereavement Support serves individuals and families in Western Massachusetts whose babies have died through miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death, or termination for medical reasons. By cultivating personal connections, creating a compassionate community, and fostering professional collaborations, we provide grieving parents with valuable resources and validation as they navigate the murky days, weeks, and lifetime without their baby.

This podcast episode is dedicated to my granddaughter Teagan Grace who died in her 23rd week of gestation. I never got to meet her, but she will always have a place in my heart.

You can find out more about Empty Arms Bereavement on Insta and Facebook or visit their website Empty Arms Bereavement

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Before we get started with this episode, I will warn you of the intensity of today's topic, which may be a trigger for some listeners. In this episode, we discussed the loss of a baby. We discussed miscarriage, stillborns, and the death of a child. This episode bears a great weight, yet also allows a discussion that is most often shunned and/or silenced due to how Western culture approaches death. It is our hope that those who listen come to realize that there are so many out there who may need help. There are resources and people who have been through this and who are there to offer the guidance, the space, the understanding, and the compassion to others who find themselves lost or hurting so deeply they don't know where to turn or how to move forward. Hi, Carol. Hi. Thank you for joining us today. Welcome. Your story would be described by most as a tremendous loss. And here you have turned your emotional and very personal experience into a purpose to help others. You and your family just celebrated the 19th birthday of your first daughter, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

We did. Yep, for Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

I understand the emotional depth of this conversation. Would you be able to share your story?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

So I was, I think, occupying the body that many young expectant parents do in the United States of America, where we have both, I mean, not for developed countries, we actually don't have very good birth outcomes, but they sure beat 100 years ago. And also a culture that really leans into success and doesn't really like to address the possibility of things going wrong. So Charlotte was my first baby, and I had a textbook healthy pregnancy, and everything looked great. And I was young and healthy, 26, um, which I think is probably like the best age to have a baby. Um and my experience of it, I guess, um it's probably easiest to just sort of describe what it was, what it, what my perspective of it was was that I um I woke up in the night and my water had broken. I had been asleep for an hour or two and had felt the baby kicking like crazy when I was reading my book and you know, went to sleep, thinking I wonder if tonight will be the night, because I was already over, I was coming into my 42nd week of pregnancy, I guess. I was 41 weeks in one day. Um, so already pretty significantly post-date. And so when my water broke, I thought, yay, this is finally happening, like they can't send me home now. And um had a phone call with a midwife, and you know, it was the middle of the night. So she said, as long as you're not too uncomfortable, why don't you just stay home, as long as your fluids are clear and the baby's activity is normal, like we'll just check in eight or nine o'clock in the morning and sort of see where you're at. And so I thought, great, this is, you know, I knew that's what they were gonna say because they had told us, you know, in our birth class, don't come in right away, like stay home as long as you can. It's a long haul, don't rush in at the first site of labor. So um I thought, well, I'll just try to, you know, see if I can get some sleep, um, you know, as if that would be possible under any circumstances, like when your water breaks and you're like in the early stages of labor.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

But and it's your first baby, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

And I thought, well, I'll just get the baby to move so that I can like be sure that I've got that box checked. I could see clearly, you know, I could see the water was clear, and um, I couldn't get her to move. And that had never happened before, but I think I also had never been in labor before, and so it wasn't like immediate panic. Um, but I did call back after a couple of hours and say, like, I haven't really felt any movement since my water broke. And the midwife was like, Oh, it's probably nothing. Just come on in, we'll just see how things, you know, we'll just check, put you on the monitor and see how things are. And um something that's interesting to look look at it from the perspective of midwife. We were delivering at a small community hospital. They have about um, I think they have about nine. I don't know, I'm not gonna give you the statistics. It's a small, it's a small hospital though. They usually will have like four to six losses a year. And this midwife had just delivered, when I called her, probably like six hours earlier, another full-term stillborn baby girl. And she told me that when I called, she kind of was like, Well, it couldn't be happening twice in one night because that would be ridiculous. Like that couldn't possibly happen, like statistically, in this community with this small number of births and the small number of losses we have. Um, and then I came in and they put me on the monitor and couldn't find the heartbeat. And I think that, you know, medical professionals, I think, always sort of go through this little like song and dance when they can't find a baby's heartbeat, where they say, like, oh, I can't, we can't find it on the Doppler, but like sometimes the Doppler's not working properly, and let's get an ultrasound. And like, I've never heard the story of the person that has that happen, and they bring in the ultrasound and they're like, Oh, look, there it is, everything's fine. Like, I don't need those people. But um, maybe that happens sometimes. But um, you know, the stories I hear are always like mine, where and I mean, I know for me, you know, I had this gigantic baby, I'm a tiny person, like the heart was always, you know, they found the heartbeat in like two seconds every single time I went for an appointment because it's not hard to find where the baby is in my body. Um, and so as soon as they couldn't find the heartbeat, I was like, this is not good. Um, and and then they brought in the ultrasound, and you know, of course, it's like some doctor I've never seen before who says to me, I'm so sorry, but we don't have the baby has no heartbeat. Your baby died. And I just remember thinking, like, how is that even possible? Like, she was just fine, like two hours ago. Like, how could she be dead? Like, that doesn't like it just didn't compute. Like, I couldn't understand literally, like, how is that possible? Um, that you could just like one minute be fine and then the next minute be dead. Like, I had never even like accompanied another person through death before. I mean, I say that like it's unusual, it's not unusual. I mean, that's one of the things about our culture. Like, we live spread apart from family members, like we don't necessarily sit with our family members as they pass away. You know, I wouldn't, even if my grandmother lived in the next town over, like I may or may not have been invited to witness her passing. Like, it's really hard to comprehend. I think anybody who's been like in the room with somebody when they die or has been like really has someone really close to them die suddenly, that like for your brain to process that somebody who you're really invested in is like just not there anymore, it's like incomprehensible. And you know, I think that for a lot of people when they picture this situation with a baby, they kind of think, well, like how could that be such a big deal? Because it's like just a baby, like you don't have the person in your life yet. And so, like, why would that be so hard to overcome when that person's not really firmly established in your life yet? But I think what is hard to understand is the first of all, the biological investment that your body has in that person that like when you have a baby and your baby lives, you almost don't even realize how like biologically primed you are to like just pour everything into that baby. And you know, I think you can see it in, you know, I think any, you know, mother of a newborn or newborns can tell you that like no matter how much you want to not care that the baby is crying, your body cares that the baby is crying, right? And so that's just a really simple example of how your body is like totally honed in on like you need to take care of this baby. And then the other piece of it is that you know, you're you restructure your life in this society to have a baby, and you have this forward thinking, this planning that is like so far beyond. Um, you know, it's not I I've like, it's not like, oh, like I am so excited for this baby, and I'm just imagining my life with this baby. It's different from like, you know, you or I saying, like, oh, I hope one day I can like travel Europe and like I'd love to see what it's like to be in Italy. Like, that's like something that you like kind of think about and you like wish it might happen. But like when you're planning for a baby, it's like planning in the same way where you're like, okay, like tomorrow morning, like I gotta get like this kid to the doctor's appointment by nine o'clock. And you're like, you know, you're you're gonna do that. You're not like, well, if things go well and the house doesn't burn down, I'll take the kid to the doctor. Like, it's just a plan that you have, and it feels real in your brain. Um, so I think that um, you know, those two pieces both kind of dig into like why this is so hard to comprehend and why it's so hard for your brain to wrap around it. And my brain just shut down. And I can remember that the very first thing that I like among the first things that I said to my husband who was there, first of all, he burst into tears and I just sat there and I was like staring at the wall, and I was like, just I like didn't I had nothing, I just kind of went blank. And I said to him, um, maybe we should invite people over this summer, like for dinner parties, because everyone's gonna be afraid of us. And I said, you know, maybe we could like go to Europe this summer, like because we're not having a baby. Like the things that I thought were like, even in the moment as I was saying them, I was thinking, like, this is ridiculous. Like, why am I not crying? Like, what's wrong with me? And I think that, you know, that's just your brain going into shock. And in that, you know, and then I had then I had to deliver this baby. And like many people who are in this situation, I said, Can't you just give me a c-section? And they said, No, like you're already in labor. Like, that's doesn't, you know, that doesn't bode well for future pregnancies. Like, we need to just let you go through this. And in hindsight, I'm really glad that that I didn't. I mean, there are providers who will give people c-sections under those circumstances because they just feel so guilty, like they feel terrible, thinking like that's the worst thing to have to go through labor and then not be able to take your baby home. But I actually find for myself, and I have heard this from many, many other people over the years, that there is this, you know, when you give birth, it's like a very sort of fundamental human experience. And it feels like something that you're doing with and for your baby, and you don't get much. And so to have been able to do that and to like participate in that, like very just it's like a universal experience of motherhood felt like appropriate and kind of awesome in like the actual sense of the word awesome. Um, and that's not something that I was thinking in that moment, of course. Um, I was picturing just like this is the most horrifying thing in the whole world that I have to give birth to this baby and I'm never gonna get to take her home. But what happened, which happens to most people, is that when she was born, she just like, you know, before she was born, in my brain, I think I had kind of like pushed aside like the fact that she was still gonna be my baby because it felt like the whole plan, like everything, I felt like the plan was canceled, like everything that I was expecting to happen wasn't gonna happen. And so I sort of lost sight of the fact that like that baby was still there. And then when she was born, she was just this like beautiful, perfect baby. And I had never had a baby before. She was my first baby, so I think there's a sense of kind of just like total, like sheer amazement that every person, like mother or father, goes through when they see their first child, because it's just like so mind-blowing that you can like grow a human being inside your body, like you know that it's true. But I mean, I had five babies, and like even in the fifth one, like that baby came out, and I was like, Oh my god, it's a person! Like, how is that possible?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

You know, like I won't tell you what I was thinking by baby number four.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Oh my god, it's just crazy. But like, it's just kind of mind blowing. And so I had like these pretty normal, like maternal feelings of just like love and like amazement, and just like I wanted to hold her and I wanted to just be with her. And um, you know, many people who are listening they've had may have no sense of like what is what happens when that happens. And um, I was surprised when I was in labor, a social worker came and sat down with me and said, you know, when your baby's born, we hope that you'll spend as much time with her as you want to, and you can invite your family to come in and meet her, and you can take pictures. And I remember almost feeling badly for her. I thought, like, this woman is so nice, and her ideas are ridiculous, and I don't want to do any of them. I just thought, like, why would I want to do those things? Like, I just want to get out of here. Why would I want my family to come and meet my dead baby? And then after Charlotte was born, like she just was my baby, and I was so glad to that I had been given that opportunity. And um, and I did invite my family to come and see her, and I did take pictures of her, and all of those things were actually the things that I feel like were my tools for surviving this experience. Was that I mean, I don't under I don't have any idea how my brain would have handled the grief process that I went through if if I didn't have like the the foundation of my relationship with her be something tangible, if that makes sense. It does. You know, before your child's born, every every aspect of them is just like theoretical. And also most people have a point of reference for understanding that when someone you love dies, the grief process is kind of wrapped up in like, how do I continue that relationship? Like, what has this person meant to me? Um, what do I remember of our time together? Often we will have like physical objects, right? You might like have a person's sweater, they're you know, something they gave you for Christmas one year that like takes on new meaning because they are no longer alive. And so with a baby, as a parent, we do want to continue that relationship. It's it's like imperative and instinctive that like you will not, you can't like abandon this role of parent, but you don't know how to do that because we don't have a structure for that in our culture, and other cultures do. Um, and I think that that's really telling in terms of just how human the experience is. Other cultures have ceremony and ritual around like, how do you represent the children that you gave birth to that are no longer living? Um, and that might be included in the in the language that you use when someone asks you how many children you have, or some people have um like objects that they will use during like family ceremonies that like acknowledge children who are no longer living. And we don't have that. And so it means that we really have to like build a relationship in our almost our imagination of sort of who our child is, and but when we have the physical experience with them, um, it allows us to to like engage in parenting behaviors and like have a physical relationship with our child that then we can kind of fall back on those experiences in our memory as like something to treasure and something to hold on to. And for people that I know, and there are hundreds, who have had like meaningful and and well-guided experiences with their infants around the time of death or after death, those periods of time are not typically like traumatic in their memory. The periods leading up to it and certainly the period after it is very traumatic, but those moments are typically like over time associated with like fondness and love and sort of like that feeling of connection because it's it's just doing the thing that you want it to do, right? Even though the baby isn't living. And I will will just say that in the context of my story, that um this is part of the work that I do now is that it's really important, it was really important to me, and it continues to be really important for everyone that I've met since that you do have really compassionate guidance during that time. Because while it may be instinctive to like hold your baby because you love them instinctively, we also are all like very, very programmed social beings, and we want to like follow the code of conduct for like the society that we live in. And we don't live in a society that like talks about like hanging out with your dead relatives, like we live in a society that likes to just be like, Oh, you died, you're going to the funeral home, and then we're gonna just like deal with you there. And so, even though your instincts might be, oh, I want to hold my baby, your brain might also be like, they're gonna think you're weird if you hold your baby. So you actually require people to say, like, you know, like the social worker did to me, like, actually, in these circumstances, we do expect that you will do this, and we hope that you will, because these are the things that help people down the road. And so I did that, and I will tell you that even though I had really sound, like loving care and support, my brain was still kind of going a million miles an hour, thinking like, um, have I take have I been spending too much time? Do I seem weird? Should I be saying goodbye now? Like always feeling like my clock was ticking. And I think part of that was just because the people who were taking care of me didn't realize like just how much guidance I actually needed. Like, I what I will say to people now is like, you can spend the time that feels comfortable for you with your baby. And for some people, that may mean that after a couple of hours they're overwhelmed emotionally and they feel like they just want to get, they want to go home. And and if that's the way that you feel, then that can be what's the right amount of time for you. But I also know other people that have spent like two days wrapped up in bed together, and if that's what feels good to you, then by all means, like take the time that you have because this is it. Like, and that's the thing that I think is hard to wrap your head around too, is like you're never gonna see this kid ever again. This is it. And um, I don't think that I really understood that as weird as that sounds. I mean, of course, like intellectually, I could have parroted it back to you, like, yes, I'm saying goodbye to her, I'll never see her again. But it was, it felt like I don't think that I actually was thinking about kind of like, these are my only hours, like, how do I want to use them? Um, because I wasn't, you know, I wasn't really in my actual brain. So um we spent about six hours with her and then we we slept, we slept there. We we we basically said goodbye to her because we were exhausted and we didn't realize that we could keep her while we slept. And and then the next day we we went home without our baby. And you know, we went back to this house that we had bought while we were pregnant with like the intention of like this is where we're gonna raise our family, and we had put together this sweet little room for her, and um, and we had left like 24 hours earlier, like on the cloud nine, thinking we were going to like have this baby, and then we came home and it was all over, and like, where do you start again? Like, what do you even do? And like that was this this like continual loop in my brain was like, what am I supposed to be doing now? Like, I don't even understand like how I am supposed to like just proceed with my life right now. Like, do I just like get up tomorrow and like take a shower and eat breakfast? Like, how how do you like I guess and I guess the sort of the when I look back on it, it's like I was just in this like totally undefined space. Like I had I had I had already left the world where I was just like a ma a pr a woman with no children, right? Like I had left that world and I had walked like so deeply into the world of being a mom, but like now I had no kids. And so, like, what where did I belong? Like who who would I fit in with? And how would I how would I kind of like find my people? Because I didn't feel like I really fit in with my friends with no kids, but I obviously didn't fit in with my friends who had kids. So like I just didn't feel like I I belonged anywhere. And I knew that I mean, of course, as soon as I had my own loss, and there wasn't even really a very high-functioning internet in 2003, but I I, you know, bought books and there was a limited internet, and sort of started reading up like on the statistics and is and realizing like this is not really that unusual. Like this happens all the time in various, you know, various iterations. Like if you look up the numbers, like in the United States, there's just shy of 4 million live births a year, and there's 26,000 stillbirths and 21,000 early infant deaths, and half of those take place on the first day of life. So, you know, that's like 37,000 babies that are, you know, being born and not coming home. Um, and there's like 900,000 miscarriages. And by medical definition, a miscarriage is classified any loss that happens before 20 weeks gestation. So um it's it's a lot of people that are going through some form of expecting a baby and then not expecting a baby and having to deal with with an aftermath. And that aftermath looks different for so many different reasons. I mean, the aftermath is certainly different, you know, socially, depending on the gestational age of your baby, because you know, what percentage of the of your world knows that you were having a baby, and therefore what percentage of your world are you having to like explain what happened to? Um, it depends on your, you know, where your your everything about you that makes you you, you know, your your culture and your faith and your family structure and um your socioeconomic status and like all of the pieces can either like help or complicate things for you. But what's true across all of those things is that most people don't like most people who live in the United States are pretty illiterate when it comes to grief and don't really know how to hold space for people in their loss and don't really know how to just sit with pain. And I mean, you know, I always feel like everyone can latch on to a point of reference for this. That like, you know, when someone dies, I mean, you can be as basic as like look at our system for leave. Like, if your like husband, mother, or child dies, you might get like three or four days. That isn't even enough time to like have a funeral, you know. I mean, like, we are we do not accommodate for that. And we just have such strong messaging of like A, overcoming things that are hard, and overcoming always means like leaving them in your past, and also um just the idea that um being being happy and being sad are two like opposite poles that can't happen at the same time. So that in order to be happy, you must abandon something that makes you sad, right? So um, you know, there that's messaging that like we all come into our grief with. It's like this is a time-limited experience that I'm supposed to somehow conquer this thing, right? And the idea of conquering the loss of a person who you anticipated that you would have in your life for the rest of your life, and also who you are like biologically programmed to care about above your above and beyond your own needs, it's like impossible to wrap your head around that that reality and where to begin. And so what happened for me was that I had uh my closest childhood friend had moved to Georgia and her neighbor had lost her first daughter four years before that. And so, my childhood friend, who was one of my best support people, she called me every day and said, What's today like for you? And just let me talk. And she said, I'm going to have my friend Carrie call you. And you don't have to say anything, you don't have to talk to her if you don't want to, but I think it would really help you to talk to her because she actually understands what this is like. And so this girl, Carrie, called me, and at the time, so her daughter Claire had died, I think four or five years earlier, and she had subsequently had two more daughters. So she had like a two-year-old and a baby at home. And she called me, and I just remember there was something about her, she had such visceral memories of the experience of losing Claire and how it felt to be in that body of a postpartum mother with no baby in her arms, and just that like overwhelming grief and that overwhelming sense of isolation, and nobody understands like how terrible I feel, and um, like, how am I ever gonna make it through the the next hour, let alone the rest of my life? But yet, like now she's like kind of like making peanut butter sandwiches and like getting her kids into bed at night, and and and she's doing she's doing those things at the same time. Like I was watching in real time somebody who both absolutely was still deeply attached to and loved so much and mourned so deeply for this baby that she had lost, and also was just like in the thick of parenting living children and being, you know, a moderately functional human being. And that was the thing that I needed to feel like okay, like you could people do this, like this is like evidence for me. This is like the first thing I've seen that actually makes me feel like maybe I can do this, you know, maybe I can I could do this. Like, and it wasn't a conscious thought, but I just know that like knowing she was out there made me feel like I could do it. And so that was sort of like the seed that was planted where I felt like I have to find my people, like where I live, because ever those people are out there, like I know they're out there, and I don't know how to find them, but I need them, and I know they need me too. Like, we all need each other because this is something that is so it's so confusing to negotiate it with people that haven't been through this, and I'm sure that is the same for so many other things. Like, if you are a like a survivor of any of the other things, and you don't have a single other person in your life who has survived that same thing, there's a level of isolation that that you you can't overcome. And maybe it only takes one person who says, like, yes, I have been there and I see you to just like make everything feel a little bit easier. And I just wanted to bring that to this area because I knew that there are people all over you know, Western Massachusetts that have experienced this.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

From what I read, I understand that you approached the local hospital, Cooley Dickinson, and said, I have an idea.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah. And actually it was a little more aggressive than that. So the social worker that had had sort of like given me the guidance during my labor with Charlotte, um, I want, I guess it was about three years later, I found out that her position had been cut. And as I said, I, you know, I really, I really was aware, even just upon leaving the hospital, like if I hadn't had that guidance, like this could have looked really different. And so I I really, honest to God, Barbara, I can't imagine how I would have done this because it seems so not my personality. But I just called the social work office and I was like, can you just let me know like who is helping these families now that this person is no longer employed? And they were like, we're not really sure. Um, we don't really have someone who specifically does that work. Like, would you want to come in and talk to us about it and sort of give us some pointers? And I was like, as a matter of fact, I would. Um, and then I found out that um there have been some miscommunications with a family regarding like visit, there was a support group at Bay State that had changed locations, and um and I said, like, you can't be sending people to the wrong location. And the person I was talking to said, it doesn't even really feel like it makes sense for us to be sending people to Bay State. What if we just started something here? And I was like, Yes, let's do it. So I had sort of percolated the idea, of course, that I wanted to do something, but I think that really the fact that I saw very clearly that I had a cooperating partner in Cooley, like really lit that fire, and we just got it going. And there was a a woman that I had met around the time of Charlotte's death who had herself experienced a loss. At that time, it was probably 15 years earlier, and her loss was um earlier, like in the early 20 weeks for an earlier gestation loss. So she was further out from her loss, and she also had a loss at a different gestation, and she was really interested in helping, also. So we started off facilitating together, and also Greg was always there, my husband, which was great because we always had a dad there. Um, but it I think that that was a great, it was a great start because we had, you know, some difference in stories and time period. And right from the get-go, we talked to Cooley about like if if somebody is at the hospital and they have a loss, like please like we call us, like we can come in and and help them and do that important work that your social worker used to do that now falls on your nurses who may or may not have had the ability to learn how they're supposed to be doing this, because most nurses just learn on the fly. And um, you know, in a hospital with like six losses a year, like a year fly over the last five years may have never included a baby dying. So um, that was the intention, but it just didn't really happen. And ultimately, what we figured out was that um really, in order to get people at the bedside, you couldn't really ask people. You had to just say, someone is going to come. And so about probably five years after we started the support group, we um at that point we had expanded to several support groups. We had an early loss support group for miscarriage, we had a group for um subsequent pregnancies, so people who are pregnant pregnant after loss.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Rainbow babies.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, yeah. And um, and I think we I don't think no, we had not yet started, I think we just had those three groups at the time, but we um we started to to really build this program that we call the companion program at Cooley Dickinson, and that now is at all of the hospitals along the Connecticut River Valley. And and so really the way that that program is has to be offered, because you don't know what you want or what you need, and you don't really want, you know, what what people at Cooley would would say is, you know, for those people that had been offered for us to come in and had said no, then they would come to the support group and they would say, Oh my god, why didn't I say yes when they offered for you to come in? That would have been like absolutely life-changing if I could have met you that day. But I didn't want to bother you. Like, I felt like, well, what if you were eating dinner? Like, oh, it's gonna be Christmas next week. She probably has a lot on her plate. Like they were looking at it like they were interrupting something.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

And so that's how I felt when I called you.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

It's like you're like, oh my God, I'm bothering her. And like, you know, when people do that, now I'm like, you don't understand, like, this is what I do, like, this isn't bothering me. This is what I do, like, this is what the resource is for. And it's not a convenient resource, it's not a convenient, it's not a resource that you can be like, I'd like to meet with you. You know, you and I can do this for this podcast, but like, you're not, you can't plan ahead three weeks to like talk about your baby that died. You need to talk today, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

So it's like and like you said, it's new. They don't know how to maneuver, they have no idea. Nobody knows. What they do know is that they want the privacy and they want the time, but they don't know what to do with those thoughts that are in their head that don't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Exactly. Exactly. And so now what we, you know, what we ask ask the nurses to do, and and some of them are very compliant, and some of them forget that this is how they need to do it, but is to say, like, this is what we do when a baby dies here. Somebody from Empty Arms will come in and they will talk to you. You can send them out, you can kick them out after five minutes, or you can let them, you know, you can use them for whatever it is that can be helpful. And so we talked people through, you know, we do this, you know, we hope that you'll spend time with your baby. We can organize professional photography, we do all kinds of memento making for them, and we, you know, just make suggestions for them, like here's a little stack of clothes that will fit your baby if you want to dress her, and you know, just really like encourage and try to normalize all of the things, kind of normalize like a menu of options, I guess, is what it is. Because, you know, a lot of well-meaning people will say things like, Do you want to hold your baby? And you're like, I don't know, do I? Like, is that what people do? Right? So Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

And the part that they're not saying are those thoughts that people have that are so dark or would be perceived by someone other than them. Of how could you even think like that? That's right. There's so much guilt and so many thoughts that you can't admit that you're actually having these thoughts in your head. Because what kind of person would you be if it was actually verbalized? Right, right. And people who haven't been through that have no clue. They just don't understand what it that there is also that component.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah, absolutely. And so so that that we call our companion program. And that I feel like is a really important piece just because it we're kind of able to offer people things and also sort of model for the nurses, like just normal interactions, because we are normal when we go in there because we're used to it, and it's not like terrifying for us because this is sort of the work that we do. And then in the in the aftermath of people's losses, there's a bunch of different things. So we have we actually have a lot of different groups now. Um, we have groups for different types of losses. So um I mentioned um miscarriage, early, you know, early pregnancy loss, we have an infertility and loss group, we have a um termination for medical reasons support group, we have a later loss support group. So those are kind of for like different loss experiences, but then we also have groups for like people who have different components to their identity that makes their loss like just it's just like another layer to talk about. So I have a men's group because the experience is different for males living in this world. Um, we could host a like non-gestational parent group periodically. Um, we have a people of color support group because that carries with it another layer. We are going to be launching an LGBTQ plus group because that carries an additional layer. So just like some of those groups, just because there are pieces that, you know, there are ways in which I feel like, you know, when we launched, and for in many communities, kind of everything is under one umbrella. It's just a pregnancy and infant loss support group. And there are a lot of pieces of the social experience following a loss that are really universal, that a lot of people struggle with, regardless of all of the different pieces that make them them and all the different things that make up their story and their loss. But it is helpful to have a place where you feel like you can dig into a little bit more deeply, like the nuances of your own specific experience. So I think that those um having more groups has made just the experience stronger for people. Um and what we try to do in our groups and in the companion program is to always kind of have our networking hats on, in terms of like, you know, my underlying goal behind everything that our organization does is that I want people to have friends who have been through this. And so that friend is like, you know, normally you like make friends with someone because like you both like to, you know, do something together, or like you meet because you're, you know, at the library and you both have a two-year-old or whatever, you have like something in common. I mean, people of like such different people will like bond with each other because they have this really powerful universal experience, and it's a really powerful base of a friendship. And I want people to have that. And so we do, for example, a contact list for everyone at the end of a meeting that people can opt into, and most people do, where their contact information is shared with other group members. And, you know, we say to people, like, people put their name on this list because they want to be in touch with each other. So don't feel shy about reaching out to someone and saying, something that you said last night really struck a chord with me, and I was thinking about you today as I was driving to work. Like, that's exactly what that person wants. And, you know, hoping that people will use each other as resources. And even if people, you know, haven't come to a group or we just met them companioning, you know, sometimes I'll meet someone in the hospital and I'll think, oh, this person's story reminds me so much of this other person. And maybe I can do an introduction because I think it would be really helpful for this new person to meet this, you know, person whose baby maybe died two years ago, but who also had a two-year-old and also had had another miscarriage before, and just, you know, like similar circumstances, just a point of reference. And I really like it's my hope within the organization always to kind of cultivate that sense of just like kind of for people who are are interested, and not everyone is. I mean, some people come and get what they need and then they move on, and that's a perfectly fine way to use the organization. But there is another set of people who come and they get what they need, and then they feel like this passion for like I can give this to somebody else, and that's a way that I can sort of continue to unfold my child purpose in the world, that I can become a support for someone else. And I mean, you offering when you support someone else by just sharing your story and being present for them, like that is such an incredible way to heal. One of the things that we hear over and over again is that like in this community, it's the place where you still get to be your baby's mother or father or whatever your relationship is to that baby. That, like, when you know, when you come in this door, like even if you have three other children, like I'm looking at you as so-and-so's mother, and like that's the reason why you're here. And that's so valuable, you know, to be able to feel like you're still a parent to that child. And and what I think is true, um, is that you know, it's hard to move through the world as a bereaved parent, and there's like so many places where you kind of bump into things where you feel like you're not being seen or you're not allowed to share your story. And I think having a place where it's always allowed and where you're always seen somehow makes the rest of the world like a little bit more manageable, like you can kind of like not be it quite as bothered. Um, so that's what I think.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

And so you began, it's called empty arms bereavement, and that's now a 501c3, correct?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yep, that is correct. And um, we started, I mean, we became technically a 501c3 11 years ago, and um, but at the time I had four small children, and actually we incorporated, I remember that I filled out my IRS paperwork with my baby in like a little Moby wrap as I stood at my kitchen counter, like bouncing up and down to keep her asleep so I could fill out the paperwork. And I was like, boy, I don't think this is going anywhere quickly, but like I'm just gonna get this paperwork. We're gonna get done. Yeah. So um, I mean, I didn't, I never had any babysitters or anything, any childcare. Um, I was home with my kids and actually had a couple of other kids that I took care of. And then when they the kid other kids that I took care of were all the age of my oldest son. So then finally, when everybody was in kindergarten, um, then I was able to really lean into this and really think about kind of like how do we really stabilize this? So that was six years ago. Go. And I mean, the work of stabilizing it is eternal and forever because we're never gonna stop looking at people and their stories and their needs and kind of creatively trying to figure out like how how do we keep this conversation going? Because, you know, as we meet their needs, I think we have this increasing awareness of like, okay, well, we're meeting these people's needs, but then, you know, what about the people that don't want to come to a support group? Like, what are some things that we could do to try to meet their needs? And then it brings up like, well, what's happening in the hospitals? And like, what are some different things that we could be doing in the hospitals? And I do do a lot of education work with professionals, with um, you know, mostly with nurses and midwives, um, occasionally with doctors, uh, harder to get their time, um, mental health providers, and just sort of trying to to help them to understand what this experience is like and what's helpful for people, because I think that their education is really limited. Like in nursing school, you know, this gets kind of glossed over, and what people typically get is they get the checklist, you know, make footprints, encourage parent to hold baby. But what they're not really doing is thinking about like, well, why am I doing that? Like, what's the purpose of doing that? This instinct, I think we have like something in the culture that we live in gives us this like false impression that like if you can just move through something quickly, it will be easier, right? Like, just get me through this as fast as I can. And what you don't realize when it's happening to you is that like in some ways that's like the worst thing that you can do because your your brain isn't gonna like resolve it any faster, but then you have less to work with, right? You have less to work with in terms of that idea that we're we have these like imperative bonds with our child that like are not negotiable to our brains, and that we we almost have to figure something out for ourselves in terms of like what do I do with this? What do I do with this this baby's role in my life? And and it looks different for everyone. I mean, I you know, clearly am still like talking about Charlotte every day, and that's you celebrate her birthday, and you have some kind of memorial for her. We have a little garden that's um, so there's a little path um along the mill river that we had walked on. So she my water broke on a Monday night, and the Sunday before that was Mother's Day, and so I was like already a week pregnant, a week overdue, like enormous. And we had this lovely day out, and I got all his attention for being pregnant and like being a mom, and went out for breakfast, and I got a rose, and then we went for this beautiful walk along the river, and then the next day, like everything fell apart. And so um, we chose to have Charlotte cremated. Um, honestly, at the time, I think partially because I kind of thought, well, I think that's what I want for myself, so I guess that's what I would choose for my child, but also because we had only just moved to town. I didn't know how long, like I didn't know what our life was gonna. I, you know, we were both at like the beginnings of our like working lives. We were young, and I thought, like, well, what if I bury her here and then we move? Like, I couldn't bear that thought. So we had her cremated, but then I started to feel like really bummed out that I didn't have anywhere to go to like feel close to her, like I was almost longing for like a grave and the idea that I could like go somewhere and put flowers and sort of feel close to her. So I have no idea how we thought this idea up because I was in this totally altered mental state at the time. But a couple months after she died, we decided that we would walk along the path and we would find like the perfect spot that was like somewhere along the path, so that we could, and we would put a little stone, like a little marker, and like make a little garden. And so we did. Um it was and we put it there in 2003, and the original stone was there until 2021, and then it disappeared, which was sort of totally alarming and so funny because when I first wanted to put the stone there, my husband was did not want to do it because he was so worried that someone would take it. And I was like, why would someone want it? Like, who would take something like that? And no one did, and then fight, and then it disappeared, and so we took that as an opportunity and we we carved up a new one and and and we every year on her birthday, it's like our tradition on our birthdays that we go there with all the kids and we plant some shade-loving flowers, and we like keep up. There's like some hostage and stuff that grows, you know, the perennial and stays there, and we clear off the stones, and and we can see that other people visit, that they'll they'll be like sea glass and like a pretty rock, like people will leave things there. And I actually just was um tagged yesterday that somebody who I don't know in the community like posted on their Facebook, I found a secret garden. And then all these people who knew about the garden posted on it, you know, some of them saying, like, I know this garden, this is Charlotte's garden, I know her parents. Other people saying, Oh, I I stopped there too, I love it. And then the person said, Oh, this sounds really personal. Maybe I shouldn't have posted this. And then somebody else said, No, I think that's exactly the point. And then, you know, it was like 18 comments deep by the time someone tagged me and I was able to go in and say, like, I love this post, it totally made my day. Um, because it does. I mean, I feel like I and I mean, there is an aspect of parenting, I think, like for anyone who's lost a child of any age, that that like your your brain doesn't forget ever like the age that your child would be and like what they would be doing. Like you just, you just know it. It doesn't mean that you're like sad about it. Like when I think about like, oh, Charlotte would be 19, she would have just finished her first year of college. Like, that doesn't make me want to burst into tears. Like, I'm very used to the fact that like she is not 19 and coming home from college. Like, I've had 19 years to like wrap my head around the reality that she isn't here. So it's not like, you know, sometimes I think I can picture people being like, oh man, like look, she's still wallowing in the grief. Like, it's really different. It's not wallowing in the grief, it's just like living the reality that like I did have a baby who like would have been 19. And and because she died, everything in my life changed. Like I had another baby 11 months later. I mean, I would never have had another baby 11 months later if she had lived. That baby, he would not exist. Like this child who is like the light of my life is like this gift in the aftermath that, like, you know, it doesn't mean that it makes it okay that she died, but it does mean that I have to just be like, well, that's my life. That's how my life unfolded, right? That's it. And, you know, that's what life is. Like, life throws you beautiful things and life throws you hard things. And when it all boils down, like you just get what you get, and the only thing you can do is just like work with what you have. And right.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

And I I think that such monumental things in a person's life, people like you, it changes not just your life, but it creates something for someone else to go to because it it's it's if Charlotte hadn't a past, maybe this program wouldn't have helped all the hundreds of women and families that you have helped. And it wasn't a positive, but you turned it into something that you saw lacking and brought to the world that you didn't have. Right. And and you know, so Charlotte served a beautiful cause in a in a most tragic way.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

And you see this all over the place. I mean, you see this, you know, all over the place. You see that, you know, people's, you know, the people who are involved in like, you know, the legislation around gun rights or people whose kids were killed in school shootings. And like, and that is what I feel like there is this, you know, you can you could almost like roll your eyes at it, but like it's not, it's it's real, it's it and it's twofold. It's like for you personally, as that person doing that work, you are like giving your child's life meaning. And that feels so I mean, in the same way that like we want our living children to grow up to be like, you know, strong, capable, beloved human beings in this world, like if your child dies, you you want to somehow like perpetuate their purpose for them. And you would like to imagine that that purpose is, you know, then benefiting someone else down the road, and that you're maybe somehow like sparing somebody else. You know, I've never I I'm my work is not protecting other people's babies from dying. Um, you know, that that could be a place that that we decide to go at some point and or to cooperate with other people on, but my work can be and will always be to try to change the experience of living in that aftermath for people, just one person at a time, which doesn't sound very big, but I think it does have a big impact because, you know, now, like if you live in Northampton and your baby dies, like somebody right away is gonna tell you, like, oh, you should call empty arms because they've heard of it and it exists. And the fact that there's a thing that exists that is for the thing that is hard for you right now means that the thing that is hard for you is like a legitimate thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Right. And this is offered to parents in Western Mass correctly.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

Um and since, you know, when we started, it was just for Western Mass because you had to be able to drive to our support groups. And since the pandemic, all of our groups went virtual. And so that created this question, you know, in the early months of the pandemic, uh, sometimes I would get emails from people who lived in different different places, and I thought, like, well, what should I do? You know, is can we can we accommodate more people? Should we accommodate more people? I don't have ambition of being a national organization because I love the idea that people like that we're actually creating real community around this, that like not only can you go to the same support group, but you could actually go out for coffee with someone or take a hike with them or whatever. So um and if you know, once a group gets above like 10 or 12 people, it's too big. Um, so but what we've found right now is that it seems like we're keeping our groups open to people in Massachusetts. And it seems like, given the other resources that are available for people in other parts of the state, that it's not overwhelming us. But we have a pretty unique style of running groups that I think appeals to some people. Um they just like the group and they want to come. And I feel like it's working right now to offer it across state and maybe would evolve one day into there being kind of like a central mass hub and an eastern mass hub, and then we're the western mass hub. I don't know, we'll see. Um, I'm never really, I never feel really anxious about like growing and changing, except for in like a really responsive way to just like what's right in front of us and what our needs are. Right now we're still really working on Western Mass and kind of how to keep that thing, keep this, get this thing as good as it can be, serving as many people as we possibly can. Um, and the one place where we've strayed beyond that is um our Termination for Medical Reasons support group is actually we're offering on a national level because there just really isn't support for people, and it's like such a heart-wrenching experience. They really, really need support. And we just decided that we did not want to close our doors to anyone. So that's that group sometimes splits into two groups because it's so big, and that's fine, and we're gonna um continue to build that resource, I think, on a national level, just because it's we feel really passionate about making it be available to whoever needs it. And there are other resources. You know, if somebody calls and says, you know, I live in Kansas and I had a stillbirth, I've got a list of places in Kansas and national support groups I can refer them to. Um so you know, if I can't include somebody in one of my other groups, I have other places to refer them to. So that's kind of why we've made that distinction.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

So when people wish to look you up, your website is emptyarmsbereavement.org, correct? And I'll put that link in the show notes as well so people know. Um, and your physical address is that the 140 Pine Street? Yes. Is that where you're at? Okay. And then I know you have a very active Facebook page. You've got like one 1.6,000 people following you right now. Um, and that would be also that's empty arms. I believe so.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

I feel like it's not super active. We're not well at the bottom of the list. I'm like, oh my god, Facebook, I forgot we even had a page.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

But yeah, no, you do, and you have quite a few, you have quite a few followers. So um, so I will again link um your social media link as well. And that they can go to your website and find that information out as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 57:45

Yeah, and one of the things that I want to say is that like for people needing support, um, I talked about the way that we do the companion program, but if you go to our website, you'll see that like all you have to do is just like we have a phone number and all you have to do is just text the word support because we want to like take away that awkward conversation because that's the hardest part is like, how do you ask for help? Um, how do you say, like, you don't know what you need? How do you say, like, help? My baby died, or like, help, my son's baby just died. Like, I don't know where to start. So you just say support, right? And it's like, what do you need? I don't know, right? So then we can reach out to you and say, I am so sorry that you're dealing with this. Here are some of the ways that we might be able to support you. Like, does any of that sound like it might work for you right now?

SPEAKER_00 58:35

And what is that phone number?

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Um, good question. It is four one three.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Is it on your website?

SPEAKER_01 58:43

It is on the website. It's four one three five seven zero zero eight one one.