10/14/2025
October represents a lot of different things to different people. It's the start of autumn, a time of transition between the heat and growth of summer, and the slower, colder months ahead. It's falling leaves, and pumpkin spice, apple picking, and sweater weather. Maybe for you, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month...or maybe, maybe it's Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.
If you've ever experienced the loss of a pregnancy, the loss of a babe, you aren't alone. One in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage, and in the US, 21,000 babes are stillborn each year.
For the people birthing those babies, the ones experiencing the miscarriages, and the ones having to make impossible decisions, there is the pain and grief of the lost life... lost time, dreams, and the loss of their babe, and there's the compounded pain of the stigma society places on those surrounding such a loss. This month - this day, can help shine the light on this very human, all too-common, experience.
We as humans are meant to live in community with others. To share our experiences, and to tell our stories so that we aren't carrying so much heaviness all on our own. It isn't shameful to talk about your loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and there is no time line. Grief is not linear. It ebbs and flows and reminds us of the depth of love we have for someone - the strength of memory, and how we are continually shaped by our experiences.
I've humbly entered dozens of rooms, met mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers, best friends and cousins - I've witnessed unbearable grief and incredible joy - wonder, acceptance, disbelief, relief, confusion, guilt, all existing alongside the big, big, love for the babe they carried and nourished every second of every day that they had with them. Maybe that was just for 12 weeks, maybe 19, 25, 34, maybe 40 - but no matter how long they had with their little one, it was, and never will be enough.
I remember their names. I honor their life, and the loss.
Carter.
Connor.
Ryan.
Ayden.
Maddox.
Alexander.
Roman.
Lielle.
Chase.
Jensen.
Madison.
Angel.
Finnian.
Alexander.
Harvey.
Kolter.
Alexandra.
Owen.
Eloise.
Baylin.
J.
Blake.
Jacinda.
Muneer.
Eloise.
Keegan.
Marigold.
Heath.
Allen.
