Coping Tips

Reach Out & Touch Someone

Having contact with another person is a physical need during grief that can be overlooked. Touching, hugging and holding another person is both comforting and healing.

Here are some great ways to connect with others:

Hold hands with your spouse or a close friend.
Hug and play with children.
Cuddle pets.
Get a massage.
Have a manicure or pedicure.
Have your hair washed and styled at a salon.
Hugs. When you need a hug- ask for one!

culled from hopexchange.com

This Christmas

Did some Christmas shopping today (I know...I’m late aren’t I?). One of the people I shopped for is a lovely lady that has been of tremendous help to me on my regular job. She confided in me the first day we met how she’s been married for four years and still trying for a baby.

2 weeks ago I met a receptionist where I work (at the staff clinic) who came to see me excited cos she believed she was pregnant (had all the signs). I’d sent her back for some tests and was to review the result but she didn’t return. Went to see her today and it turns out that she started bleeding heavily a few days after we saw and didn’t have the heart to return because she knew she’d lost the pregnancy.

This Christmas I realise that there are many hurting women for whom this time will not be all laughter and fun but a time with moments of pain. I want to use this opportunity to say that you all are in my prayers.I pray you’ll “have yourselves a merry little Christmas” and that “next year all your troubles will be out of sight”.

Somebody not Nobody

“One of the great diseases is to be nobody to anybody...feeling unwanted, uncared for and deserted” – Mother Theresa.

After a miscarriage, the greatest injustice you can do to the mother is act like the baby was nobody to anyone. To a lot of women they lost a baby (not just a pregnancy) and they need to know that that “fetus” was Somebody.

It is important to us that we know that this baby was not a “nobody” or a “nothing” and that there are people who appreciate and acknowledge that the loss is a genuine one.

If you know anyone that may be grieving, even if she’s putting on a brave face, let her feel validated in your appreciation of the genuineness of her loss.

COMFORT

There’s a comfort that comes after a miscarriage when you hear of or read about another woman’s experience.

The comfort of knowing that we don’t think it was “just a pregnancy that wasn’t meant to be”.

The comfort of knowing that the ache in your heart isn’t abnormal: we’ve all felt it.

The comfort of knowing that you won’t always want to just stay in your pyjamas crying into your ice cream; you will get better.

The comfort of knowing that you are part of an amazing sisterhood: birthed in pain but surrounded with warmth and love.

Take comfort.

We're all the same

Many people may not understand or even agree with what i'm trying to accomplish here in Nigeria. In fact, the O&G consultant i worked under during my internship is convinced i'm wasting my time and support services for women after a miscarriage are unnecessary. I, on the other hand am convinced that they are.

I remember a story recounted by an author and preacher, Walter Trobisch in an old book i fished out from my mum's box not too long ago. While preaching in a church in a country in Africa, he used, as a preaching aid, a song from the musical “Fiddler on the roof” by Joseph Stein. After the service, an aged woman (using a translator), quoted a line in the song back to him, saying that it had touched her in a special way. He stated, “if a line from a modern American musical with a Jewish background, taking place in Russia, touches an almost seventy-year old widow who grew up in the African bush- the hearts of people must be the same all over the world. The differences are on the surfaces. Deep down there is nothing but that naked human heart – longing, fearing, hoping – the same wherever it beats”.

It is my earnest conviction that the results of this work will go a long way in healing hearts. I pray it does.

a prayer

This prayer was composed with help from different sources and I hope people will find it helpful.

Lord I come to you for I am heavy-laden and overburdened: cause me to rest. Relieve and refresh my soul; lift me up for I am bowed down. Lord, let your presence remain with me that I may be still and rest in you. I hope in you, God and wait expectantly for you; for you are the help of my countenance and my God. Therefore I know I shall yet praise you.