When you go through baby loss, it takes not only a toll on your spirit and heart, but also your body. Guest writer Maree Leith writes about how starting to run – even though it started off as a glorified shuffle – helped bring her back into her body, after experiencing three baby losses and why the SANDS gatherings helped her and her husband build a community.
This week (Oct 9 – 15) is Baby Loss Awareness Week and here at Capsule we’re committed to sharing the stories and information about this topic which is SO important, yet so rarely openly discussed. Here is our round-up of stories and resources for this year’s Baby Loss Awareness Week – and how to help those who have experienced baby losses.
In 2008, my world changed and with it came a whole lot of grief, confusion, heartbreak and pain. These feelings would continue for another couple of years as we kept losing our babies because they were born way too early. If you have experienced the loss of a baby at any gestation, it can flip your world upside down and leave you broken. That is what happened to my family, time and time again.
Holly was stillborn at twenty-two weeks’ gestation; Liam was stillborn at almost twenty weeks’ gestation and Katie passed away at six weeks old from a bowel disease called Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC).
I like to share my journey to let other bereaved parents know that they are not alone and to bring awareness to baby loss across NZ. It is sadly a common thing and yet, I feel we don’t talk about it enough. I wanted that to change, so after we went through our losses, our husband and I connected with, and then set up our own support group for a voluntary, parent-run, not-for-profit organisation called SANDS. SANDS was set up to support parents and families who have experienced the death of a baby at any stage during pregnancy, as a baby or infant.
We ran monthly support meetings warmly welcoming bereaved parents into our home in Stanmore Bay, Auckland. Although these were emotionally hard to run, they provided a safe, private and gentle space for parents to share or not. Sometimes for them it was enough being surrounded by others who had been through a loss. Turning up to one of these meetings may have been a huge step for some, I know it was for me. I sat in the car sobbing for hours before I stepped into my first meeting.
I also taught myself how to do foot and hand casts for babies who had passed or were going to. This was a way I could give back to bereaved parents and give them something I wish I had had: something tangible to honour their babies.
The first baby I went to cast was in the same hospital room where my daughter Katie spent had spent six weeks in before she passed away. That was incredibly hard; I had to take some deep breaths before I walked into that room. But the saving grace is that I knew I was doing this in Katie’s memory.
All of this voluntary work helped my grieving process and provided an extended family of support for me and my husband. Grief was always there and came in different forms. One day you are ‘fine’ and ‘coping,’ then the next you are a ball of tears on the floor in the supermarket. And that went on for years.
I remember at one of my SANDS training weekends a speaker said, ‘Grief doesn’t go away but life happens around it.’ It was true – and that stuck with me. My grief didn’t get smaller or go away. But my life started to fill up and then all of a sudden, that became the new focus. I could move forward with tiny steps each day.
It took a couple of years of working through my grief, and also for me to give birth to Amelia who was 34 weeks gestation and ‘viable’, for me to come out of the darkness. I had built enough mental tools to cope day to day and mother a newborn who I had yearned for, for years. But throughout that time, I still had a real fear that things could always go wrong.
When Amelia was six months old and a bouncy, chubby, healthy baby girl, I knew I wanted to do something about my fitness. I was overweight and unfit from the journey of deep grief and consistent pregnancies. I had very little motivation to move, but I knew I had to do something to make a difference.
I decided to try running; I knew nothing about how to do it and just how brutal it was but I was desperate to make a change and be around for my family. I would only run in the dark, because I was so embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to see me. I would walk to one lamp post and then shuffle to the next, on repeat.
The moral of this part of my story is that I chose to get out and start chipping away at my health. No matter what my runs may have looked like. I went on to complete my first 6km event and have continued climbing in distances from 10km, a half-marathon, then a marathon… right up to the ultra-pinnacle of 160km (aka 100 miler). Last year, I even completed a multiday seven-day stage race in Queenstown.
Now, I try my best to get others out and moving, whether it’s in the form of shuffling, walking and running. And a big emphasis on those at the back of the pack: because they’re still moving forward and covering the same distance as others! Through this passion of mine, I am launching my first book – called Finding Her Stride – to inspire New Zealanders to get moving. In this book I share my journey of baby loss, because it really is the reason why my life changed and running was the vehicle I used to continue my therapy and find myself again.
This is a collection of stories about women of all ages and from all walks of life. Their tales of how running or walking has changed them. Featuring tales from 19 New Zealanders, this is a book bound together by camaraderie, determination and grit.
Thank you for reading my story, I understand it may have triggered some but I do hope it has helped others in their journey. If you have experienced a loss please remember your grief is yours, you do it how you want and what feels right for you.
Finding Her Stride is $35 and can be purchased online; 100 percent of profits from book sales go to Cancer Research Trust New Zealand and Speed Freaks (a charitable trust that gets people running as a form of rehabilitation from addiction).
