my stillbirth booklist
just finished the highly-recommended "life touches life" by lorraine ash, for which i cared not at all. the author's way of dealing with the death of her daughter at 42 weeks is to maintain a relationship with her in the spiritual dimension. clearly, she's found a place that works for her, but it's not the place for me, and so i found it pretty annoying. the one thing i did like about her story is that the loss of her daughter made her more open and actively compassionate towards others, which is something to which i aspire.
yesterday i read the iconic (among parents of dead children) "when hello means goodbye", which one of the nurses evidently handed to my mother-in-law shortly after i told her to get that damn bear out of my face. she suggested that perhaps i wasn't ready to read the pamphlet and that my mother-in-law give it to me when she thought i was ready. either my mother-in-law forgot about it until saturday night, or she thought saturday night at justin's birthday dinner, 2 1/2 months after the fact, was the right time, which is kind of goofy since it's about dealing with the immediate aftermath of perinatal death.
it was pretty simplistic, but i did like that it included pictures of a mother with her stillborn son. i have a huge compulsion to show EVERYONE pictures of hans, but 99.9% of the population definitely does not want to see his pictures, so it was nice to see that someone else had pictures and they shared them. "life touches life" also has a picture of the author and her husband and her daughter, and that was the best part of the book.
the best thing i've read on stillbirth is "when a baby dies", which has many brief case histories and was far more therapeutic than any of the pantheistic or sentimental stuff everyone seems to publish, if border's rack-o-death-and-dying is any indication.
my therapist suggested the classic "on death and dying", but i've read it before (long, long ago) and didn't really feel too inspired to read it again. kubler-ross also wrote a book on the death of children, but it seemed to be more about older children and didn't feel relevant.
a new issue of "american baby" arrived saturday. i haven't opened it yet, just because i haven't had time, but i plan to read it tomorrow on the bus. the issue that arrived that day i arrived home from the hospital - the day i delivered hans, actually - i wasn't prepared to read and sent home with kath. but i read the last one that came, and i find that reading baby stuff, even the articles about clothing for toddlers that is more expensive than anything i own, to be hope-inducing, and i need all the hope i can get to keep my head above water.
and now i'm going to go spend the final minutes of my husband's birthday with him if i can tear him away from the crate of records our tenants put out for the garbage truck.
yesterday i read the iconic (among parents of dead children) "when hello means goodbye", which one of the nurses evidently handed to my mother-in-law shortly after i told her to get that damn bear out of my face. she suggested that perhaps i wasn't ready to read the pamphlet and that my mother-in-law give it to me when she thought i was ready. either my mother-in-law forgot about it until saturday night, or she thought saturday night at justin's birthday dinner, 2 1/2 months after the fact, was the right time, which is kind of goofy since it's about dealing with the immediate aftermath of perinatal death.
it was pretty simplistic, but i did like that it included pictures of a mother with her stillborn son. i have a huge compulsion to show EVERYONE pictures of hans, but 99.9% of the population definitely does not want to see his pictures, so it was nice to see that someone else had pictures and they shared them. "life touches life" also has a picture of the author and her husband and her daughter, and that was the best part of the book.
the best thing i've read on stillbirth is "when a baby dies", which has many brief case histories and was far more therapeutic than any of the pantheistic or sentimental stuff everyone seems to publish, if border's rack-o-death-and-dying is any indication.
my therapist suggested the classic "on death and dying", but i've read it before (long, long ago) and didn't really feel too inspired to read it again. kubler-ross also wrote a book on the death of children, but it seemed to be more about older children and didn't feel relevant.
a new issue of "american baby" arrived saturday. i haven't opened it yet, just because i haven't had time, but i plan to read it tomorrow on the bus. the issue that arrived that day i arrived home from the hospital - the day i delivered hans, actually - i wasn't prepared to read and sent home with kath. but i read the last one that came, and i find that reading baby stuff, even the articles about clothing for toddlers that is more expensive than anything i own, to be hope-inducing, and i need all the hope i can get to keep my head above water.
and now i'm going to go spend the final minutes of my husband's birthday with him if i can tear him away from the crate of records our tenants put out for the garbage truck.
posted by laura at 11:39 PM
2 Comments:
lauralu -
I'm sorry you didn't like the book that I recommended. I did find comfort from her viewpoint of her stillborn child. I think that literature on the subject is so hard to relate to sometimes, each person definately has their own experience.
At any rate, I have also been dissapointed that no one else wants to share the pictures of Isaac. I asked my sister if she wanted a copy of her with the baby at the time of his birth. She declined, politely. Nice, I have never declined a picture she offered to me of her living children and me. Just a bone in my side, I guess. Hope you're doing well.
you know, we printed pictures of hans and of us and/or various family members (depending on who it was for on which side of the family), and we had color copies made of the certificate the hospital gave us with his hand and footprint on it, and we put them in big envelopes and gave them to our parents and siblings and justin's grandmother after the memorial service. we didn't ask, we just did it. i suppose someone may have thrown them away, but all the feedback we got was positive and appreciative.
i'm getting good at doing what i think i right and not asking permission first...one of the more positive things to come from my son's death, i'd say.
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