At 18 weeks pregnant, I went in for an ultrasound and after moving the wand around my belly and taking measurements, the technician said, “I have to go get the doctor, because I see some things that are very concerning.” Those devastating words were the beginning of my grief journey that led me from losing my son to finding myself. This book describes my experiences of carrying my son to term, grieving his death, and rebuilding my life. I read a lot of memoirs at that time but struggled to find books that provided advice about how to survive the rest of my pregnancy knowing that my baby would die.

 

This book combines self-help with memoir. The self-help portion offers advice for navigating this journey of loss and grief. It contains suggestions about making the decision to carry to term, birth choices, creating memories, arrangements after death, and surviving a subsequent pregnancy. Individual grieving styles are validated, and support is offered for enduring and managing intense emotions and activators of grief. Hope is instilled through discussions of ways to attain posttraumatic growth. The memoir portion consists of journal entries woven throughout, beginning with the diagnosis and continuing through the rest of the pregnancy, birth, death, a subsequent pregnancy, and returning to school to earn a degree in clinical psychology.