If you spend any amount of time in the babyloss community, you see how much support is available for mothers who go on to have another baby after their loss.
It’s everywhere.
And most people treat pregnancy and birth after loss as a given. “When you have your next baby” (never “If”), or “After every storm comes a rainbow” or any of the many other sayings that presume a birth will follow loss, like “It’ll happen when you feel ready to try again”, or worse yet, “…when you are courageous enough to open your heart to healing”.
These statements are not only false, but very hurtful to the many woman who will never know the joy and healing that comes from pregnancy, birth, and motherhood after loss.
We are courageous. We want joy and healing. We deserve redemption. Our hearts are open.
But still, our arms are empty.
Despite the avoidance of this topic, the reality is that not everyone goes on to have another baby after loss. In fact, a significant number of mothers do not have any living children at all.
That means there’s an entire section of the loss community that is struggling to find a place in a community that assumes birth follows loss.
That’s where Still Mothers was born. In the space where need for support met women who were ready to make a change in the community.
Both Lisa and RaeAnne have been a part of this community for many years. We’ve watched as just about every person we’ve met in the loss community has gone on to have living children. And our hearts have broken, time and time again, as we’ve felt overlooked, left behind, and forgotten. We are still mothers, but our motherhood is deniable, because our precious sons are gone. And we don’t “fit” in the community because our arms remain empty to this day.
In 2014, RaeAnne wrote a “Not Everyone Gets A Rainbow” and “When Your Only Child Dies” for Still Standing Magazine. There was an overwhelming response from mothers with no living children, or no baby born after loss, saying how alone and overlooked they felt, and how it seemed they would never find healing since they did not have a baby to raise.
That’s how we knew it was time for a change.
We realized the great need for a positive resource in the babyloss community that focused on the unique needs of mothers with no living children. A place to connect, process, and seek healing with other mothers who understand the heartache of being a mother, but not being able to mother in a traditional way. Because we are all Still Mothers.
We hope that through education and resources, we can help guide the loss community towards an understanding that pregnancy after loss is not a given. We hope to promote healing from within, and finding peace and meaning as a parent with no living children. We hope to be a safe haven for mothers who feel lost and alone.
If you are here because you are a Still Mother, please know this: You are brave. You are beautiful. You are a mother. You will find peace and healing, even if you never have another child to raise.
