GUEST CORNER

Contributions for our newsletter's guest column this season are from The Rev. Dr. Richard B. Gilbert, BCC, Executive Director of The World Pastoral Care Center in Valparaiso, Indiana, and from a local Wisconsin chapter of the national perinatal bereavement group SHARE.

Rev. Dr. Gilbert shares his ABC's of holiday survival for those who are grieving at this special time of year. And the SHARE group gives us the personal stories of two different couples who were able to find comfort and support from their contact with SHARE [this article is reprinted here from the St. Vincent Hospital Health Review magazine, with their kind permission].

Light in the Darkness

Carol Anne Scaif

Valentine’s day 1996 was a day of heartbreak for Janet and Marc Tackmier. Their first child, a son they named Cory, was delivered stillborn at 22 weeks. The Tackmiers had known for several days that life had eluded their baby—an ultra-sound had indicated his heart was not beating.

But knowing in advance did little to ease the pain of Cory’s death. The fact that Janet and Marc never had a chance to know their little one did not fill the empty space losing him left in their lives. The Tackmiers wanted—and needed—to talk with people about Cory and his death.

“Often people didn’t understand what we were feeling,” said Marc. “We knew other people who had lost babies to miscarriages, but they didn’t know how to talk about it or didn’t want to talk about it. We wanted to talk.”

The Tackmiers found the outlet for their words and their emotions at SHARE support group meetings. SHARE meets the second Thursday evening of each month at St. Vincent Hospital.

Welcoming families

Though St. Vincent Hospital hosts SHARE meetings and St. Vincent staff members coordinate the meetings, SHARE welcomes all families who have experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death.

“I delivered Cory at Bellin Hospital and a social worker there let us know about SHARE,” Janet said, adding she also received a list of names of women who’d had similar experiences and who were willing to be called. The Tackmiers said that helped too.

“When we lost Cory, I just didn’t know how I’d get through it. I’d pick a name off the SHARE list and just call and talk,” Janet said, adding she still keeps in touch with one of the women who helped her through that time.

Because the Tackmiers had a vacation to California scheduled for shortly after Cory’s death, they weren’t able to attend their first support group meeting until April. Being able to call SHARE members helped fill the gap.

“We had never been to a support group meeting before,” Janet said. “I remember there were about 12 people at the meeting. We went around the table and people were welcome to share if they wanted to.”

“We were nervous because it was a new experience, but,” Marc said, “we wanted to tell our story. The next meeting, we talked more.”

Need to talk

The need to talk and share with others the emptiness people feel when they have lost a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death, is universal. Recognizing people want to talk about their loss was the spark that started SHARE in Fall 1977. That’s when a bereaved parent and several hospital staff members at St. Vincent Hospital’s sister hospital, St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, organized SHARE Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc. They held the first SHARE support group meeting four months later.

Now an international organization with more than 130 chapters, SHARE headquarters have moved to the campus of St. Joseph Health Center, St. Charles, Missouri. SHARE’s main office serves as a resource center for bereaved parents, group leaders, caregivers and other people interested in SHARE’s mission of serving people “whose lives are touched by the tragic death of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death.”

Over a decade

Locally SHARE has existed at St. Vincent Hospital for more than a decade. Organized by a social worker who had worked with families in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, SHARE currently has two coordinators: Lana Reinke, a registered nurse in the NICU who has been a SHARE facilitator for 11 years, and Theresa Shuck, a genetics counselor who joined Lana six years ago.

As SHARE facilitators, Lana and Theresa handle the basics of the support group’s monthly meetings. They’re the ones who often get the ball rolling, but it’s the people attending SHARE meetings who pick up that ball and carry it.

“We usually have a topic, but we keep it flexible,” said Lana. We’ll also have films and topics that go with a time of the year. For example, in November, ‘handling the holidays’ might be something we address. Theresa and I find this is their time to talk and share with one another.”

But, SHARE is more than monthly meetings. “Two times a year,” Theresa said, “we have special programs—most of the planning is done by the parents themselves. In July, we have a picnic at Green Isle Park and in December, we have our Christmas memorial service. Some of the families will come only for these events and often they’ll bring along their children and their extended families.”

Candlelight service

The candlelight memorial service in December features a special touch.

“The parents have chosen to bring gifts in memory of the babies they’ve lost,” Lana said. “The gifts usually correspond to the age their babies would be now. The part parents say they like the best is that their gifts go to needy children. They also may bring an ornament to hang on the Christmas tree, in memory of their baby.” The memorial service brings people back, year after year, regardless of whether or not they’re still active in SHARE support group meetings.

One of the features that sets SHARE apart from other grief support groups is its focus on parents who lost babies at life’s earliest stages. Three times a year, SHARE, along with St. Vincent Hospital’s Pastoral Care Department, Ryan Funeral Home and Allouez Cemetery, conduct a special memorial service for babies lost when they were 20 weeks gestation and under. All three Green Bay hospitals and Shawano Hospital take part.

“As a society,” Theresa said, “we don’t have any public recognition of miscarriage. That’s why we offer a special service for families at Allouez Cemetery. It’s a place parents can go back to and remember their babies. The cemetery maintains a list of names.”

The ceremony takes place in April, July and November.

It was at the memorial service in April 1998 that Todd and Lisa Kreuser were able to finally find some closure for two miscarriages they had experienced—the first in November 1997 and the second in March 1998.

“One thing that helped me,” Todd said, “was attending the memorial service and burial. Now we have someplace we can go to when we want to visit our babies.”

In spite of their two losses, the Seymour couple didn’t discover SHARE until a few days before the April service.

“After the first miscarriage,” Lisa said, “Todd’s sister said she had a friend who’d been to a support group. We didn’t think then that we needed to go, so I didn’t get any more information. After our second miscarriage, we decided we wanted to joint a group, but our physician offered us no help (finding a support group).”

“I started calling the hospitals myself and found out about the SHARE group,” Todd said, adding, “Our first meeting was the memorial service. It was such a healing experience for both of us.”

Telling the story

Todd and Lisa said they hope that by telling their story, others will be able to benefit from SHARE sooner than they did, after two miscarriages.

“We hope physicians will let their patients know about SHARE,” Lisa said. “It’s such a wonderful group. It’s very nice to be in a room, talking with others who know what you’re feeling.”

Todd echoed Lisa’s praise for SHARE and its ability to soothe aching emotions: “You know you’re not alone. Even though you have your own unique feelings, others understand and don’t judge.”

Todd and Lisa experienced heartbreak again at the end of March, when their daughter Sydney Elizabeth was delivered stillborn. A beautiful memorial service was held at the Allouez Cemetery chapel, with burial near the SHARE memorial site.

SHARE families also keep in touch through a quarterly newsletter. In addition to articles, parents often share their feelings through stories and poems. The poem that opens this article appeared in the October, 1998 issue.

One of the most popular columns in the newsletter, Theresa said, is titled “Safe Arrivals.” It’s in that column that Janet and Marc Tackmier let their SHARE friends know about the birth of their son, Mason, in May 1998.