I’m pleased to share that we have been recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization.  This is a huge milestone and provides what we need to continue moving forward in working with our supporters to help these families who can now write off their tax-exempt donations while helping the Tangerine Owl Project. Its opening doors for us, and we cannot be more thrilled.  To celebrate, we’ve now put our “donate now” button up on the website (www.tangerineowl.org). 🙂 One more goal checked off our list!  WOOHOO!

We are looking forward to many new and exciting things happening so we will be posting more soon!  So exciting and thank you to all our readers who have offered input and feedback and support so far.  You are the best!

You know you’re gold when the people you have had the pleasure of meeting in all pathways of life come together to support you.  This week, I had a minimal ask, but one that’s super important to me, and one that has the potential to have a great deal of impact.  This week, I’ve reached out to people in my home state to help request an official proclamation of a preeclampsia awareness day to be passed in the cities they live & work in.

I have received an enormous amount of willingness to help thus far, and it has motivated me more than ever before knowing that this means something to future women, babies and families, having to deal with this condition. All it took was me asking. That means (in today’s terms): #winning.

THANK YOU to everyone I’ve annoyed already this week. I love you all.I am thankful and cannot do it without you.

Do you remember the time that you were at your worst? When you thought there was no more reason to attempt anything resembling a “normal” life?  Do you remember feeling like you would never be able to crawl back out of the darkness and you didn’t even really want to try?  How the pain and loss you felt overwhelmed you (and THAT is an understatement), and you couldn’t figure out how to get out of bed in the morning.  It hurt to breathe, it hurt to cry, it hurt everywhere. Perhaps flashbacks were going through your head, perhaps you were feeling guilt in addition to the anger and sadness and desperately trying to find a way to turn back time so that something, anything would be different.

Hearing that “it gets better” doesn’t help when you can’t find your way through the next 10 minutes, so what about the right now, for those in this moment of blackness? Being able to let yourself process is the only way to muddle through these extraordinarily complicated feelings.   What helped you process all your emotions?

Seeing as how I am facilitating a support group for bereaved parents now, I decided to go check out an established group to help gain some insight to them and what they may look like in practice. You see, after the loss of Delilah, I didn’t see myself as a group share kind of person.  Its not something I believed would make me feel better, I thought it would only serve as reminder that life was cruel to many parents, which is more depressing when you’re still trying to process everything you’ve just gone through. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I attended.

In sitting in and sharing with this group, the support that was provided to these women was palpable. Its hard to describe, but it was there. I wasn’t afraid to share now that I’m a few years out from my loss; I’m still not one who would find solace in group support in this type of atmosphere, because I prefer individual interactions, but I didn’t find it depressing at all either.  What I found was a group of women who laughed, ranted, and cried, sometimes together, sometimes individually but all in a place they felt safe. Through all of this I was reminded why I volunteered to be a group facilitator, and the proof that this is what some grieving parents need to make it through their dark times and better days.  Unlike the people who will come to my group, I will not be sharing a whole lot in this role, because this time it’s not about me. Instead, I’ll be making sure the group takes the shape of whatever these women need at that point in time.

Most days I look at myself and see/feel that I have become a relatively well-adjusted mother dealing with loss.  It doesn’t mean that I still don’t experience various moments of sadness and really feel the hole in our family (and my heart) from our missing daughter.  I know this.  I wonder how I was able to navigate through the grief so “easily”, I wonder why my days now are spent in relative happiness or contentment with life….  I wonder if you resent me for it.  I wonder if I am missing something here when I’m told that the other shoe will drop and maybe I just haven’t had it hit me in that big all out world ending type of way that brings me to my knees and makes me want to lock myself in a closet all day and bawl.  I just don’t see myself going there.  I’ve been able to process most of my feelings (and continue to do so whenever they surface), I’ve been able to lean on those closest to me at times where I needed to have her acknowledged.  I remember my days with her and the few times that I actually got to hold her with fondness, even when the end result is so tragic. I know I am changed from the experience, and that the catharsis of working with other families experiencing loss is not a tool to wallow in mine, but one to honor her.

Am i not crediting my grief enough? Am I just lucky that I was able to cope with all of this and found the support that made it work for me?  How does this look to others?  Do I put them at ease knowing that there is a way through it or do I make them uneasy because how can I sit there and be functioning in life when they can’t even see that life anymore?

I love this quote:

Support the strong, give courage to the timid, remind the indifferent, and warn the opposed.

– Whitney Moore Young

It’s about community, allowing you to draw strength courage and inspiration from those who walk with you, and of course, change the minds of attitudes who need adjusting.  Now, let’s go do that!

I came across the post “A Letter To My Doctor” today found on One Pink Balloon’s blog….. click HERE to read it.

These are some of the very words that I have said and/or felt, and if I haven’t, they are certainly the words of my fellow baby loss mamas.  True, some of it pertains only to the doc, but there is much more that is helpful information for any loving friends and family who are at a loss of what to do/say.

There is no better feedback for anyone looking to support these mothers than what is here.  So please, I beg you – read, understand what you can, and share.

Look for the sunlight