I’ve tried three. Two are specifically for infant loss, and while one claims to be Christian, neither discusses God “so as to not offend anyone.” It’s impossible to discuss grief if God isn’t part of the discussion (I can’t imagine where I’d be without my faith). There’s also much talk on IVF and the like at these two.
**That’s really unfortunate.
In our area there’s a miscarriage/stillbirth/infant loss group, and it’s Bible Belt, so everybody is some kind of Christian.**
I even tried a Catholic therapist, but I stopped when she suggested God was taking my babies as punishment (really lady?)
**Is there a board or accrediting organization you can report that therapist to? She sounds like a menace.
There have got to be better therapists out there.
If you try again, do a sort of “interview” with them where you have them explain their approach and what they are planning to do with you. That should weed out at least some weirdos and incompetents. **
I would really love a support group. I’ve traveled over an hour to attend the secular ones. I’ve spent countless hours talking to priests and nuns about this as well, but I’d definitely benefit talking to women who’ve also experienced it.
I’ve had one late miscarriage (baby died at 13 weeks, found at at 14, had to have a hospital induction at 15 weeks), so I can’t speak to stillbirth, but here’s what helped me:
–time
–having another baby (not always a possibility, I know)
–the support group I mentioned (I probably should have gone during my next pregnancy, but I didn’t want to freak out recent loss mothers, but I really did need support then)
–the Mothers of Little Saints forum on CAF in the parenting section (that was actually my first contact with CAF)
–This is going to sound weird and possibly totally unhelpful for you, but learning about the medical side of childbearing was helpful to me. For a couple of years (during my last pregnancy and for the next year) I was a regular at Dr. Amy Tuteur’s Skeptical OB website. That might be a very incongenial place for you (it’s kinda secular and Dr. Amy is pretty in-your-face), but I learned a lot there about the mechanics of pregnancy and what can go wrong. It’s been helpful to me to realize that pregnancy is a very complicated, delicate process, and things go wrong–a lot, actually. Also, there are a number of mothers there who lost babies to stillbirth or homebirth disasters. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but it did me a lot of good. And it has also made me a much better OB/GYN patient, because now I understand more or less what my health care providers are thinking about.
–I’ve also learned a lot from the medical blog at
jeevankuruvilla.blogspot.com. He’s an Indian Protestan mission doctor working in low-resource areas of India and his blog has been a real eye-opener to me. Again, this may not be helpful to you personally (and I would certainly suggest paging quickly past some of the medical photos on the blog), but especially 2-3 years back, he has a lot of stuff about obstetrical problems in rural India. Women are dying or having near misses just because they’re anemic. And even the simplest piece of medical equipment is a real treasure. (In the past, they’ve sometimes had to put relatives to work manually ventilating patients.)
I’m sure you’re very busy, but I wonder if it might not be therapeutic for you to make some sort of connections with organizations that serve mothers and infants in the developing world (or perhaps NICU families nearer to home). If you read up, you might be able to able to get some ideas as to what sort of needs there are that match your resources and skills.
