PREGNANCY AND INFANT LOSS CEREMONIES & DOULA SUPPORT

 
 

After-Death Ceremony & Ritual Guidance

My role as a Ceremony & Ritual Practice Guide is to educate, empower and be of service to families to exercise their innate right to care for their own baby in the minutes, hours and days after death. This is a free service for families experiencing pregnancy or infant loss in a hospital setting or home birth.

Please contact me at 250-919-2289 (no texts please).

I can support and assist you by holding space; remaining in a state of grounded neutrality as you process the emotional energy of loss whether in the hospital, home or at the funeral home.  Guidance includes:

  • Consultation sessions.  I am available to visit you at home or in the hospital & take the time you need to explore the options open to you. I am available to be on call.

  • Planning rituals or ceremonies before a medical procedure. 

  • Guiding naming ceremonies, family unity rituals, and many other grief & remembrance rituals. 

  • Guiding Bathing/purification rituals including anointing, dressing and/or shrouding.

  • Guiding rituals & ceremony to prepare you to release your baby to the hospital staff or funeral home.

My Commitment to You

To help you create ceremony & ritual that honours your baby & reflects your wish to remember and grieve as you choose.

To always work with you in the strictest confidence.

Be sensitive to your culture, beliefs and philosophies.

By carefully listening to your feelings and wishes, I will gently offer options to consider with an understanding that it is so hard to make decisions.

Work closely with your medical team or Funeral Director; should you have one.

I will always practice with sensitivity, integrity & gentle support.

And finally…never say to you… “at least.”

Families have unique needs when experiencing pregnancy or infant loss. I will walk that extra mile with you dedicating support, compassion & a calming presence in this unfolding grief journey. You and your family will be my priority.  

Remembrance Ceremonies

Saying farewell to the tiniest of lives is an extremely difficult thing to do. I can help you honour the stillness, loss, disappointment, heartache, distress; what’s soulful. I often see hope emerge as people realize how ceremony & ritual can create a space for healing and connection as they bear the weight of this tragic loss.

Each life is precious, no matter how soon it ends. Together, we can create ceremony where it is possible for you to share all the ways in which your baby was an individual; the effect your child has had in your lives, changing those around you forever in just a short space of time.

Ceremony helps make the invisible visible.

Ceremony helps to express and honour the emotions that come with your loss.

Ceremony helps continue the relationship with your child.

The arrangements that you choose to make to mark your baby’s death through ceremony and ritual are very personal. You may have important family traditions that you would like observed. It may be important to share stories about your pregnancy, the dreams you had and the future you envisioned with this new life. Your ceremony can include a naming ritual/blessing for your baby or a ritual symbolizing letting go. In the midst of sacred space you can encompass ritual elements such as water; music, or meditation.

 

I invite you to listen to my podcast interviews about my After-Death Ceremony & Ritual Guidance and Remembrance Ceremonies with Spirit Baby Radio Podcast - February 19, 2021 Episode 107 or the Beyond the Loss Podcast- November 22, 2021 Episode 5 Season 2.

 

An honorarium is accepted; but not expected for Remembrance Ceremonies. If you require more information, please enquire about a suggested honorarium amount range that is sustainable for your family. Honorariums exchanged for ceremony creation, officiating , grief support sessions or vigil keeper services are in accordance with time spent and are in keeping with the fair business practice of fair compensation for services rendered. E-Transfer, personal cheques or cash are used for honorarium transactions. 

No grieving parent/s of a pregnancy or infant loss will be turned away due to circumstances of financial hardship.

ONLINE guidance, consultation and composition services are available for After-Death Rituals, Remembrance Ceremonies, Home Vigils and Home Funeral ceremony scripts.

 

Infant & Pregnancy Loss

Doula Support

Infant and Pregnancy Loss Doula Support is available for creating birthing plans for loss, companioning for pre/during/post birth of an unexpected or expected loss; including Stillbirth, Miscarriage, TFMR or Abortion procedures.

A Grief Support Session Package is available. These three one hour on-line or phone sessions, will cover the topics of Active Mourning, Family Bereavement, and Returning to Work After Loss. A resource package is included for each session. An honorarium range that is sustainable for your family, is accepted for these Grief Support sessions.

Please contact me for more information.