Parental Bereavement, Grief, and Trauma Articles by Ann Douglas

No one wants to think about these issues until it happens to them. Then they are hungry for information and support so that they don't feel quite so alone.

• B.C. Authors Offer Advice for Parents Coping with the Loss of a Child: They each experienced every parent's worst nightmare: the sudden and unexpected death of a child.
• Novel Tackles Parental Grief With Wisdom and Compassion: “There is nothing worse than watching your child suffer and not being able to do anything about it,” says Rosemary Nixon.
• Photographers Donate Time to Capture Images of Families with Seriously Ill Children: A group of photographers across the country is helping parents of children with disabilities or serious illnesses to capture some precious memories.
• Still Unanswered, Always Remembered: The Powerful Legacy of Stillbirth: Online slide presentation. A presentation delivered to the Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths in 2005.
• The Loneliness of Grief: A grieving parent wonders how to manage her feelings of loneliness and isolation.
• Feeling Out of Synch with Your Partner While You're Grieving: A grieving parent writes, "I feel very alone and [my husband] makes me feel there is something wrong with me for being so distraught. How can I get him to talk to me?
• Dealing with Feelings of Anger After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or the Death of a Baby: A grieving parent writes, "How can I deal with my anger about the loss?"
• I Can't Help But Feeling Like I Am Somehow Responsible for This Loss: The guilt feelings that we often experience after miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death are our attempts to make sense of something that often makes no sense at all -- the fact that some babies die.
• Dealing with Feelings of Jealousy About a Friend's Pregnancy: A grieving parent asks how to manage her feelings of jealousy about a close friend's pregnancy.
• Dealing with Feelings of Hopelessness After Loss: A grieving parent asks, "Do you have any ideas of ways to cope and continue trying after multiple losses?"
• Thoughts About Death and Dying After the Death of a Baby: "There are times when I no longer want to live, and I wonder what I have to live for since my baby/child died."
• Dealing with Hurtful and Insensitive Comments: A grieving parent wonders how to handle hurtful and insensitive comments (for example, "At least you didn't have as much chance to get attached to your child.")
• Do I Have the Right to Grieve Over a Miscarriage?: "Do I have the right to grieve over a miscarriage, given how common miscarriages are?" a mother wants to know.
• Should I Be Feeling a Different Way?: A reader asks if she should be experiencing the same types of feelings her friend experienced after her loss.
• I Don't Think I Can Ever Accept This Loss: When a baby dies, you are asked to accept the unthinkable -- that all your hopes and dreams for your child will forever remain just that -- hopes and dreams.
• What Does it Mean to Move On? I Don't Want to Forget About My Baby.: Moving on does not mean forgetting about your baby. It means rebuilding your life in a way that acknowledges and honors the fact of your baby's life and death.
• Advice on Answering the Question, "How Many Children Do You Have?": How do I answer the question, "How many children do you have"? a grieving parent asks.
• Am I Still a Mother, Even Though I Don't Have Any Living Children?: Once you have been someone's parent, you will always be their parent, even if they are no longer living.
• Have My Friends and Coworkers Forgotten?: "My family and friends seem to have forgotten about the baby. It hurts so much. Short of avoiding them, what can I do?" a grieving parent asks.
• Coping with Grief During the Holiday Season: A grieving parent wants to know how to tell her extended family she simply isn't up to a regular family holiday celebration this year.
• Advice on Remembering the Baby Who Died: What are some ways I can include and remember my baby in our Christmas celebrations?
• Painful Decisions: A parent asks about her unresolved feelings of guilt about the difficult circumstances surrounding her baby's death.
• Who to Tell and Who Not to Tell: Most of us who have been through the death of a baby rapidly develop a finely tuned radar that guides us in deciding when to share our stories with other people.
• Your Baby After a Loss: "If my baby had lived, then we certainly wouldn't have been trying to conceive so soon and I wouldn't have my new baby. It's hard to cope with knowing that having one of these babies means I wouldn't have the other."
• Life After Loss: How the death of a baby changes you forever.
• Other Places to Remember Your Baby: My baby is buried in another state so I can't visit the cemetery when I like. Is there anything else I can do on birthdays and anniversaries to help me feel like I'm acknowledging my baby?
• Welcoming a New Daughter, Grieving a Dead Son: Katie Allison Granju was 26 weeks pregnant with her fifth child when she received the phone call that every parent dreads: Her 18-year-old son Henry, her eldest child, had been admitted to hospital and it “didn’t look good.”
• Life Transitions with Ann Douglas: In this interview with the Life Change Network, Ann Douglas talks about how her daughter's stillbirth has affected her life.
• Joy, Grief, Hope: The Mother's Days I'll Never Forget: Years of celebrations have blurred together, but a few still stand out, for good reasons and bad. And so does this lesson: Mothering is hard, but mothers are resilient. You can break our hearts again and again, but we will find our way back to joy.
   

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting, including Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss and The Mother of All Pregnancy Books.