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I am the mother of three children, two living, one dead. Our second was hard earned, two miscarriages, six years and my son remained an only child. I had prayed in our local church, not having visited since a young reluctant teenager. I lit candles and kept a steady vigil, praying to this God that I Couldn't believe in, but my son remained an only child and his pleadings for a sibling persisted.

I know for us we did have the hospital chaplin come into our room and say a prayer over our son. We do not do the whole baptize thing but it felt right at that moment to have those words spoken and I am glad that we made that choice.

I just realized this morning I probably gave my entire church the impression that I've had an abortion.

I tend to sort of ramble and stutter when I get nervous.

What happened is that I've been asking for years what the church teaches about children that die in the womb. All I ever got was some lay sister shoving a piece of canon law at me about how they can't be baptized if they're already dead. I asked again, because I have been asking for years. I just wanted a straight answer.

A few other things to add:

Support the people who are the front lines of grief, providing support to the bereaved. This is particularly applicable for those who are not in a good position to support the grieving parents, i.e. a hugely pregnant sister-in-law is probably not the most welcome guest in times like these. Not her fault, but it is what it is. She can, however, water the plants and collect the mail for her mother, who is on the front lines comforting and caring for the family members in crisis.

I'm so sorry you thought of us when your friend's newborn died this week.  I'm sorry for your friends and their lost child most of all, but I'm sad for you, and for us, too, that we are now experts at this.  But fear not, you contacted the right people.  We can help you help them.

Amanda, you are correct. People say just about the stupidest things to hurt a babylost parent's feeling. One of my cousin had a baby and it is struggling as well, but still alive. Almost everyday, she posts about how God is good and it's because she still has her baby. By definition does that make God bad because we don't have ours? Or how she knows that God exists because of her miracle baby... God doesn't exist because yours and mine are dead? What stupid sentiments to prove that He exists or not.

Wonderful word wandering Julia. It has always been biology for me. The God thing the afterlife etc.-just don't work for me. Though I love the song, food, and tradition of my Judaism I am not religious. I think even if I was it just wouldn't matter it would always be biology. It's tangible, it makes sense-things just went terribly wrong from the get go. baby taz was born full term-incredibly easy birth with undiagnosed trisomy 13 (yes doctor incompetence). 1-20-25,000 live births. Wow think about the statistics there. Statistics don't matter when it happens to you.

I don't have any great insight on this subject but I just wanted to let you know that this post really struck a chord with me. As a longtime believer in randomness above all it's nice to know other folks see things similarly.

Recently, reviewing my blog stats I came across a link back to a christian infertility forum, and a discussion about me and my blog. The general consensus seemed to be pity for me and my lack of faith, and more specifically the women were concerned that my not "knowing Jesus" meant that my grief was "true", and if only I could "know Jesus", "recognise the signs" he was sending me I would be comforted.