Peek Inside: Introduction to Mending Invisible Wings
Why Birth Healing?
When this beautiful and perfect baby came through his mother’s sacred passage, he simply never took a breath. The sun was shining through the window, and mama was looking at me, asking if he was going to be all right. And we called out to him, who had to be so hastily named for a medic’s paperwork. We called, but he was as ethereal as the early morning sunbeams – we could not catch him before he went.
He was stunningly beautiful, yet so distant, and he simply never took a breath. Never opened his sweet, puffy little eyes.
With this, each of our lives was forever changed. The parents were devastated, as were their families. Dreams gone, baby gone, forever.
Never before had I experienced such complete and total grief. Each of us had an intense need for tender space. We – the mama, her husband, her family and friends, and I – journey through grief, together and separately, through many intimate conversations, over weeks and months, and more time after that. We simply journey together.
Truly, it was this experience and the many conversations following, that I felt called down the path of Birth Healing.
The birth healing process is slow, is forever. This baby will always be missed and will remain in our hearts always. Some days are still tremendously difficult, while others are full of smiles and true laughter, and sometimes emotions just bubble up out of the depths, unexpectedly. It is a process of opening, remembering, releasing, honoring, forgiving, and continuing along.
As a childbirth educator and doula, I am honored to walk with women and witness their births, and occasionally, to accompany them, or act as a subtle guide, along their grieving path and birth healing journey as they explore the tapestry of loss. ~ Mary Burgess
Time does not heal these wounds, not at all. What time gives us is an ability to cycle through all of our emotions: anger, grief, pain, disbelief, guilt, etc. What heals is a lot of really, really hard work and perseverance. It takes our willingness to feel all of our grief manifestations fully, without rushing, allowing them to surprise us at different moments. Only through living through our waves of grief, just as our contraction waves in labor, can we be transformed into our new selves, whole in a new way. ~ Anna Morin
Excerpts from Mending Invisible Wings, p. 12. ©2009
When this beautiful and perfect baby came through his mother’s sacred passage, he simply never took a breath. The sun was shining through the window, and mama was looking at me, asking if he was going to be all right. And we called out to him, who had to be so hastily named for a medic’s paperwork. We called, but he was as ethereal as the early morning sunbeams – we could not catch him before he went.
He was stunningly beautiful, yet so distant, and he simply never took a breath. Never opened his sweet, puffy little eyes.
With this, each of our lives was forever changed. The parents were devastated, as were their families. Dreams gone, baby gone, forever.
Never before had I experienced such complete and total grief. Each of us had an intense need for tender space. We – the mama, her husband, her family and friends, and I – journey through grief, together and separately, through many intimate conversations, over weeks and months, and more time after that. We simply journey together.
Truly, it was this experience and the many conversations following, that I felt called down the path of Birth Healing.
The birth healing process is slow, is forever. This baby will always be missed and will remain in our hearts always. Some days are still tremendously difficult, while others are full of smiles and true laughter, and sometimes emotions just bubble up out of the depths, unexpectedly. It is a process of opening, remembering, releasing, honoring, forgiving, and continuing along.
As a childbirth educator and doula, I am honored to walk with women and witness their births, and occasionally, to accompany them, or act as a subtle guide, along their grieving path and birth healing journey as they explore the tapestry of loss. ~ Mary Burgess
Time does not heal these wounds, not at all. What time gives us is an ability to cycle through all of our emotions: anger, grief, pain, disbelief, guilt, etc. What heals is a lot of really, really hard work and perseverance. It takes our willingness to feel all of our grief manifestations fully, without rushing, allowing them to surprise us at different moments. Only through living through our waves of grief, just as our contraction waves in labor, can we be transformed into our new selves, whole in a new way. ~ Anna Morin
Excerpts from Mending Invisible Wings, p. 12. ©2009