See me: A father’s perspective on stillbirth

18193164_10155009105641609_6530091996103817843_o-400x400

As we enter Advent, the season of waiting for the Christ child, Presbyterian Outlook is sharing the stories of parents who bear the grief of infertility, pregnancy loss and infant loss. As a part of this series,  Presbyterian Outlook graciously asked Patrick to write a reflection on stillbirth from a father’s perspective.

“More than anything, please see me. See a father. Because maybe if you take the time to see me, you’ll see them too. You’ll see Ezra. You’ll see Leo. You’ll see all of my children.

You’ll see love.”

You can read the full article here – 

 


Visit Presbyterian Outlook or http://pres-outlook.org/ to also find the other articles featured in this moving and much-needed series highlighting the stories of other parents who have also faced grief –

 

There is a reflection on infertility and the struggle to conceive;

“Struggling to Conceive,” written by Jena Hernandez

http://pres-outlook.org/2017/11/struggling-to-conceive/

Another woman shares the story of her miscarriage, which led her to organize a support group for others who have endured the grief of miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss;

“Volume two,” written by Kristin Willitt

http://pres-outlook.org/2017/11/volume-two/

There is the story of a family who bravely carried their son to term, knowing that he would die shortly after birth;

“Parenting Silas,” written by Courtney Fields Connelly

http://pres-outlook.org/2017/11/parenting-silas/

And finally, there is the story of a family who lost their beloved daughter to the senselessness of SIDs at 5 months old.

“Difficult Roads,” written by Jen Drinkall

http://pres-outlook.org/2017/11/difficult-roads/

Though society has too often stigmatized and silenced these stories, I am encouraged to see that more and more people are shattering that silence and speaking out. May the sharing of these stories bring others healing and peace.

 

 


As we start the next step in the journey to create our family, we are facing new challenges. We anticipate that the adoption process will cost somewhere around $40,000. Though our adoption agency is a nonprofit organization, these costs go to pay for the legal expenses, the counseling that the agency provides for the birth mother and her family, some of the birth mother’s medical bills and living expenses, etc.

If you would like to help us offset some of the costs, you can support our adoption journey here –

https://www.youcaring.com/jennaandpatrickheery-1026485

10389992_10152601391556609_7728869783893224198_n

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s