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HomeWorld & NationNational Catholic RegisterCatholic Support for Parents Experiencing Miscarriage or Infant Loss

Catholic Support for Parents Experiencing Miscarriage or Infant Loss

October is recognized as Infant Loss Awareness Month.

By Patti Maguire Armstrong/National Catholic Register

Alone in her hospital bed, Theoni Bell opened the new journal her husband Bastian had dropped off. “Mom, write me a story,” her 9-year-old daughter had scrawled on a note inside.

Story? What story was there to tell at such a time as this?

Their 27-week-old unborn baby had arrived unexpectedly and was stillborn. It was during COVID in 2020. No visitors were allowed, so Bell was very, very much alone.

“I began to write about my daughter’s short life, because I was suffering so badly with longing to hold my baby,” Bell shared with the Register. And thus, her book Jellybean: A Baby’s Journey to God was born.

Perhaps long overdue, there has been a recent burgeoning of books and programs for parents suffering the loss of unborn or infant children, filling the void for grief support within our Catholic faith. October is recognized as Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Bell lost their first child at 10 weeks, but just a few months later conceived their now-13-year-old. There were later two more miscarriages, and they have three children on earth now.

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“My husband and I wrote Jellybean for the siblings of children who die in the womb,” Bell explained. “It helps them understand that this baby was a living member of the family. Jellybean also addresses topics like life in the womb, the role of Our Lady, intercessory prayer, growth through suffering, and charity toward others.

Bell noted that the Church allows us to hope that our babies without the chance for baptism are in heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church entrusts unbaptized children, including miscarried babies, to the “great mercy of God” that “allow[s] us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism” (1261).

“There is no dogmatic teaching on where these children go,” Bell stated, “and even St. Thomas Aquinas wrote with hope for babies who die before baptism.”

The book is especially for children, showing the role babies have in their families even if they don’t survive on earth. “I think that it is a benefit for children to pray to their siblings in heaven, if that is where our babies go. It strengthens our bonds as a family to face our trials together, encouraging each other to keep praying and comforting each other when one of us is hurting.”

In the book A Catholic Guide to Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss, Abigail Jorgensen, assistant professor of sociology and health care ethics at Saint Louis University, addresses questions from the medical and theological standpoint to the practical. She has one child on earth and experienced four miscarriages. As a Catholic bereavement doula, Jorgensen walks with families through early child loss, drawing on the Bible, the Church’s prayer traditions, the saints, sacraments, and an understanding of the grief process.

The book addresses unique angles such as the baby as a lost sibling and how we parent our deceased children. Regarding the question of where the souls of unbaptized babies go, Jorgensen explained that the Church has moved away from the idea that they are in “limbo” rather than heaven, although she acknowledged the idea still has a hold on the Catholic imagination.

One aspect many parents are unaware of, she noted, are various liturgical rites after miscarriage. The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops offers consolation at such times through a special “Blessing of Parents After a Miscarriage or Stillbirth.” There are also adaptations for unbaptized children in the Order of Christian Funerals, with readings for children who died before baptism. Canon 1183.2 of the Code of Canon Law allows funerals with these adaptions based on the local ordinary’s permission, which varies from diocese to diocese.

“There’s a lot about grief but nothing really about the loss of a child, let alone a child that wasn’t baptized,” Jorgensen said. “I’m trying to help turn the tide, so the Church lets parents know, We are here for you.”

Katie Braulick, mother to five on earth and two in heaven, a member of St. Mary’s Council of Catholic Women in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, felt there was nowhere to turn in the Church after her first miscarriage. “I had a miscarriage shortly after moving here,” she said. “It was the hardest thing, but there were no resources. I could have been upset, but instead, I began offering resources and information to help prepare our priests to minister.”

A year after the miscarriage, Braulick founded Embrace Ministry in 2017 at her parish — St. Mary’s — for parents who lose a child before birth or shortly thereafter. She pieced together resources and books and also directs people to Catholic Miscarriage Support, a website with practical, emotional and spiritual support for men and women.

“Embrace Ministry has events during the year, offering resources at the parish,” Braulick explained. “In October, during Infant Loss and Miscarriage Awareness Week, resources are available at the entrance of church, and people can write down their intentions in our spiritual bouquet prayers for troubled times, miscarriage, for adoption and pregnancy.”

Reading material, a special ceramic cross, and coloring books for siblings are available for free. On Mother’s Day, there is an announcement at church honoring biological mothers but also those who are hurting and those who are spiritual mothers. “You would not believe the number and variety of women who come to us,” she said. “I didn’t realize all the women who would need that healing touch.” Braulick receives around a dozen calls a year from across the U.S. from parishes wanting to create such support at their churches.

One of their miscarried babies, Tommy, lost at 12 weeks, is buried on her husband Ryan’s grandmother’s grave, but there were no remains obtained for Felicity, lost in 2023 at 8 weeks. Every year, on Tommy’s birthday, they visit the cemetery and celebrate with ice cream on both birthdays.

Braulick notes that her children talk to their siblings who provide a direct link to heaven. “It creates a pro-life connection, knowing that life is life from the beginning, that will never be lost,” she said. “Much good has come from our children knowing their siblings.”

Nursery of Heaven

“How is your wife doing?” is a frequent question for fathers after a miscarriage, according to  Patrick O’Hearn, co-author along with Cassie Everts of Nursery of Heaven: Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss In the Lives of the Saints and Today’s Parents. “There is so little for men who are grieving,” he said. O’Hearn also co-authored The Grief of Dads: Support and Hope for Catholic Fathers Navigating Child Loss for all kinds of loss.

O’Hearn and his wife Amanda suffered seven years of infertility and two miscarriages, eventually linked to toxic mold in their house. They had the home professionally cleaned and moved away — and a year later had their second baby.

In Nursery of Heaven, several stories from a father’s perspective are part of the collection that includes experiences of saints who suffered loss, such as Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Gianna Molla, and Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo. Four of the stories involve our Blessed Mother, including a mother seeing her child held by the Blessed Mother while she was still in the hospital. There are also prayers and consoling suggestions, such as ways to find solace and the significance of their child’s life.

“Fathers’ grief is different,” O’Hearn noted. “We are not as emotional. Men hold it in more and retreat to other things. Research shows that men grieve less intensely and get over it quicker and tend to feel their primary role is to support their wife.” He recalled that, in retrospect, it came across to his wife like he was not really grieving.

“Men feel more marginalized and less involved,” he said. “You should grieve; you lost a human life. It’s important to give yourself the right to grieve; it brings healing.”

Red Bird Ministries is another program recognizing that pregnancy or infant loss has largely been an untouched subject even within the Church. The organization specializes in Catholic compassionate support in a number of ways for those who have experienced child loss of any age for parents and siblings, plus guidance for pastors to help minister in such circumstances.

The president, Kelly Breaux, who suffered four personal losses, including two babies after birth and two in utero, has worked with families suffering loss and authored  Hiding in the Upper Room: How the Catholic Sacraments Healed Me From the Grief of Child Loss.

Cassie Everts, the co-author of Nursery of Heaven, said after five miscarriages in the first eight years of marriage with her husband, Aaron, there did not seem to be any books on the topic. “I had no idea I could have had a burial or prayer service, naming and commending our baby to God,” she said. “There’s more outreach in recent years; but at the time, I felt so alone and had no idea that the pews were filled with other couples who have gone through this. We wanted to document stories and offer support to help people keep their eyes on Christ and the saints and see other couples who have gone through this and to learn about resources in the Church.”

Everts explained that her losses brought her to her knees. “Lord, why aren’t you hearing our prayers,” she cried. Despite many novenas and visits to shrines, Everts felt stranded in a “desert of infertility.”

But through prayer, she and Aaron felt God calling them to adopt. In 2015, they brought 4- and 5-year-old brothers home from Ghana, Africa. As soon as the younger one could speak English, he began asking for a baby sister. “We said someday maybe God would call us to adopt another baby,” Everts recalled. Five months later, she was pregnant with a baby girl, who is now 8 years old, followed by three more children for a total of six on earth. She explained that nothing had changed health-wise, but, spiritually, she had surrendered her losses and went deeper in her faith.

“It totally changed my perspective,” Everts said. “God was with me the entire time telling me, ‘Not yet; I have something better.’ He was molding my husband and me, preparing us for the gifts. God has a different plan for everyone, but the point is that God does have a plan.”

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