“Bereavement after the loss of a baby is often quiet and lonely,” writes Christine O’Keeffe Lafser, who has twice lost a child to death. “There is no wake or funeral, no grave site, no memorial to our baby’s life or death. . . . Since there are no real memories of our little one’s life, people have a hard time comprehending the depth of our love and grief.” In these reflections, Lafser offers grieving parents the empathy and courage that can come only from one who has walked the same difficult path. “Chris expressed so many of my thoughts and feelings and made me feel so normal. . . . The greatest gift is learning that God does not desert us in our time of need.” Linda Davis, Compassionate Friends, after miscarriage and stillbirth “The juxtaposition of a Scripture text with each reflection is inspired. Some of the texts are breathtaking in their beauty and appropriateness. This book is a ‘must’ for anyone who is ever touched by the loss of an infant.” Joseph Awad, poet and grieving grandfather “This book will be very helpful for parents who are mourning the loss of their child. It will also prove very beneficial to anyone who is ministering to a bereaved parent.” Robert N. Craig, O.F.M. Cap., hospital chaplain “These reflections allowed me to ‘be’ how I was feeling—not feel like I should be going through the stages of grief that other books described. With this book I was no longer a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.” Jeanette Siebels, after infant death

Reassurance for parents who struggle with anger, guilt, and despair after a miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death.

The author recalls the events surrounding the kidnapping of her newborn daughter.

Tens of thousands of women and families every year lose a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The statistics are sobering--between 10% and 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1% in stillbirth, and nearly 23,000 babies die before their first birthday--but statistics alone miss the depth of the hurt. Each loss is personal and devastating. No woman is prepared to lose a baby, and caregivers are often unaware of how best to help. In Hope Beyond an Empty Cradle therapist Hallie Scott first shares her own story, as a mother whose only child, Abigail, was stillborn, and then leads readers through a healing process that makes space for heartbreak, despair, guilt, questions, and anger. Life is never the same in the wake of the loss, but a new normal is possible. The book will be a welcome resource for families who have lost a child, as well as for those seeking to care for them in their traumatic grief.

Coping with Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Death.

Now with updated content. “I’m not picking up a heartbeat.” These are the most dreaded words an expectant mother can hear. As joy and anticipation dissolve into confusion and grief, painful questions refuse to go away: Why me? Did I do something wrong? How will this affect my ability to have a family? What do I say to my children without scaring them? With the warmth and compassion of a Licensed Professional Counselor and writing as a mother who has suffered the loss of a baby and a sixteen-year-old son, Pam Vredevelt offers sound answers and advice. As an expert in love and loss, Pam gives reassuring comfort to any woman fighting to maintain stability and faith in the midst of devastating heartbreak. Empty Arms: Hope and Support for Those Who Have Suffered a Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Tubal Pregnancy is the essential guidebook for anyone suffering the agony of losing a baby.

Beside the Empty Cradle points you to the paths of satisfaction that will help you regain the joy that infertility has stolen.

When your baby dies before birth, you experience an extraordinary grief. You never get to hear your baby's voice nor see life in your baby's eyes. Still, your baby lived. Your baby came into this world. Your baby's existence is important and real. This small book offers tailored information and support for parents experiencing the early hours, days, and weeks that follow the death and birth of their beloved baby. Stillbirth is always a devastating shock, a heartbreaking collision of birth and death that leaves parents helpless. In this accessible book, you will find comfort and ideas for affirming and honoring your precious baby's life.

During the 1990s, Greece had a very high rate of abortion at the same time that its low birth rate was considered a national crisis. The Empty Cradle of Democracy explores this paradox. Alexandra Halkias shows that despite Greek Orthodox beliefs that abortion is murder, many Greek women view it as “natural” and consider birth control methods invasive. The formal public-sphere view is that women destroy the body of the nation by aborting future citizens. Scrutiny of these conflicting cultural beliefs enables Halkias’s incisive critique of the cornerstones of modern liberal democracy, including the autonomous “individual” subject and a polity external to the private sphere. The Empty Cradle of Democracy examines the complex relationship between nationalism and gender and re-theorizes late modernity and violence by exploring Greek representations of human agency, the fetus, national identity, eroticism, and the divine. Halkias’s analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity.

Amy Kuebelbeck shares how she and her husband made the decision to forgo extreme measures to save her son Gabriel after learning at five months pregnant he suffered from hypoplastic left heart syndrome and discusses how they prepared for his inevitable death after being born.