Welcome to stillbirthday.  Read below for our password.

Heidi Faith’s story

This place is where I come to mourn my fourth child, born via natural miscarriage on April 19, 2011.

I saw his lifeless body, bobbing on the ultrasound monitor.  I was terrified.  I searched, frantically.

I peered into the screen, praying, more deeply than I ever have in my life.

“Please God, speak life back into him.  Please, God.  I know You can do this…”

It was the most intense request, the biggest miracle, the deepest I have ever pressed into God.

When the ultrasound machine was shut off, and all I could see was blackness, I was encountering a spiritual experience that would change the course of the rest of my life.

Why wouldn’t God perform this miracle?

Why has my baby died?

I was having a holy encounter.  A supernatural experience.

I was deeply, profoundly vulnerable, as my entire being was overcome by the vastness and weight of what I was experiencing.

A doctor entered into the room, and attempted to break through this sacred space.

She tried to cut through with slicing words.

The very first thing I heard from another human being, in my most vulnerable, spiritual encounter, was

“Call it whatever you want: products of conception, the potential for life, but…” as she clasped her hands firmly on my trembling shoulders she continued, “we need to get that debris out of there.”

Take Your Shoes Off

Stillbirthday is not just another website on the internet.

It is a place that holds life.  We at stillbirthday speak life.  We at stillbirthday honor life.  We at stillbirthday mourn life.

Our stories are password protected here.

Our stories are password protected, because our stories share our interpretations of our experiences.  Our stories are a first hand account of possibly our darkest of days, our most traumatic days, and we share our most intimate of thoughts and feelings as we reflect on the life, and death, of our children.

As you step into a story, it is like you are stepping into the room in which a mother first discovers her lifeless child.

Whatever her interpretation, whatever her beliefs, whatever her reaction, whatever her words,

you are walking on holy ground.

Take your shoes off.

Show respect.

Show reverence.

Show compassion.

Entering in the password is intented to slow you down.

It’s intended to get your spirit right.  Your mind right.  Get your soul right, before entering.

The Rights of the Bereaved

Every bereaved person has a right to an authentic mourning.

Every bereaved person has a right to interpret his or her experiences in his or her own way.

Every bereaved person has a right to their feelings shifting and their perception changing through the course of their healing journey.

Every bereaved person has a right to discover how to nurture and discipline their grief for their own greatest healing.

Every bereaved person has a right to bring a flicker of light, of hope, of healing, to another bereaved person as they may be in the darkest days of their life.

Every bereaved person even has a right to make mistakes, to stumble, to not have a smooth, linear grief, but to recognize their own accountability within their own experience with grace and the accountability of others within their own experience with mercy.

Every bereaved person has a right to explore healing options, resources and expressions, free from the condemnation of others.

I implore you, to read our stories, read our experiences, with an awe and an admiration for the courage, the raw heartbreak, the discoveries, the grief and the healing, these, our stillbirthday families, pilgrimage on and sojourn through.

I invite you, to consider sharing your story.

Thank you, for visiting stillbirthday.  May you find a flicker of light if even in your darkest hour here.

Related: be a part of Debris Day!

The Stillbirthday Password

The ONLY reason to read a story that is password protected at stillbirthday is to be loved and give love.  While stillbirthday cannot provide legal protection for bereaved authors, anyone who uses any story published here, outside of these standards may be subject to the author possibly pursuing legal action under the anti-circumvention law, misusing the electronic password barrier.  This might include republishing a story in part or in entirety with re-interpretation, publishing the password without this notice, or in any way using a bereaved authors own healing journey in a way intended to cause emotional harm to that author or any other bereaved person who potentially may interpret their own experiences in a similar way.

Anything ever contributed to stillbirthday may be password protected, if the contributer desires for it to be.

By entering in our password to access what a member of our stillbirthday family has contributed here, you are agreeing to these terms and agreeing to abide by these expectations.  It should be considered that by proceeding with using the password you are in agreement of the above.  Finally, the password is stillbirthday