Archives for June 2014

Stillbirthday is so entirely excited to announce that we are officially creating an app!

ALL advertisement & sponsorship inquiries need to know how you can be part of this while promoting your organization and work here at stillbirthday!

Take a peek at what it’s looking like:

Functionality:

1.  A database collection of care providers and their basic contact info.
2.  A database collection of bereaved individuals/families and basic contact info.
3. Search for and return a list of care providers matching search criteria.
4. Plotting care providers on a map of the world.
5. Showing bereaved individuals which care providers are currently online.
6. Provide a private chat/communication channel between both parties.

To Include:

As a doula: birth plans for each gestation.  Photos of what to expect at each gestation at birth.  NICU resources, national  probono resources for clients (photographers, NICU photographers).  Questions for clients to ask at each gestation regarding ability to take baby home/burial info.  List of major perinatal diagnoses and complications of birth.  Quick chat window for doulas that other SBD can log into, and be notified if there is a pending post/question.

As a mom or loved one: explanations of all birth methods, including for example D&C or D&E and step by step what to expect (both for clients and as a doula)
Quick links to parent resources (the SBD for parents section stuff)
Quick link to SBD doulas, maybe with a location circle (range where we serve)

And, the SBD CONNECT app will have full functionality to grow and serve even better as we continue to grow.

Access:

The first example that comes to mind for the power of such an app is this:
A mother attends her regularly scheduled ultrasound appointment, alone.  At the appointment, she learns that her baby is not alive, and there she is, alone, and devastated.  She may have a pregnancy app on her smartphone, one that gives her updates about the gestational growth of her baby by week, and tips for full term live childbirth.  The app doesn’t talk about the possibility of loss.  There she is, alone, with only her phone.  Maybe then, or maybe later, she will uninstall the app.  If then, while still in the app store, there can be an opportunity for her to find stillbirthday.  To find hope, dignity, and healing.

The SBD CONNECT app will be available for all Android and Apple devices.

CONNECT with us about our APP!

We’ll be announcing even more details about the app as they emerge, but right now I want to offer a tremendous THANK YOU to the SBD doula class of April 2014 – our current session – for their creativity to generate such an opportunity for connection as this, for their brainstorming and collaboration to grow the momentum for it to become created, and, for their networking and sharing the idea with their loved ones.  Ultimately, it is a bereaved father, the husband of a soon-to-be SBD doula, who is creating the stillbirthday CONNECT app!

Do you have an idea you’d like to see included in this new and extremely valuable way to get connected prior to, during or after birth in any trimester?  Use the form and tell us about it.

Help stillbirthday CONNECT!

Even with the tremendous generosity of Gil himself in creating, launching and maintaining our app, the reality of it isn’t free.  We need to raise $5,000 to make the stillbirthday CONNECT app a real, functioning part of our growing support and ability to serve every family.  Because one of our longstanding statements is this:

Every mother has the right to choose to have a doula.  Every, mother.  For birth, in any trimester.

Those who give at:

• {Level 01} $5 increments each will be entered into one surprise giveaway item.
• {Level 02} $50 level will be announced, with a business or blog link if you have one, on our facebook page.
• {Level 03} $100 level can hold a business logo or personal photo here on the page.
• {Level 04} $250 level can hold a business logo or personal photo on the right sidebar of our website for 3 months.
• {Level 05} $500 level can hold a business logo or personal photo on the right sidebar of our website for 6 months.

All financial supporters will have first access to our news, updates, contribution ideas and more via email.  This is an incredible advertisement opportunity for you!

{Level One}

[wp_cart_button name=”SBD Advertising Level One” price=”5.00″]

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{Level Two}

[wp_cart_button name=”SBD Advertising Level Two” price=”50.00″]

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{Level Three}

Gil shares in his own words:

A man can be many important things in this life…hard-working provider, loving husband, and attentive father. Society generally supports and even encourages these roles among men. But one role most men are never prepared for and one that society almost completely ignores, is that of a bereaved father.

Losing a child is something no one should ever have to experience, but too many couples do go through this terrible tragedy. Until it visits you personally, understanding how life-changing infant loss can be, is something few can fathom. After our first son was born in 2004, we experienced our first miscarriage in 2006. This was to be our first of four miscarriages that would forever change the course of our lives.

Like most families that go through a miscarriage, we assumed this was just one of those rarely spoken of ‘risks’ involved in pregnancy. It was certainly not surprising to me personally, since I had experienced the loss of my unborn sister before my only brother was born, so miscarriage was something I had worked through as a young boy. But my role had changed dramatically. I was no longer an observer, someone connected to the event but still on the outside of the ‘inner-circle’. Now I was on the inside and it was different.

We conceived again in 2008 and our second healthy boy was brought into this world. Then our fourth pregnancy in early 2010 ended in a miscarriage when our 12 week ultrasound revealed no fetal heartbeat. This one hit harder. We were shocked and disappointed beyond belief. Not again. We recovered and tried again later in 2010. Another miscarriage. And another in the summer of 2011.

In the midst of these losses, we found strength in each other and in the hope that because we are children of a risen Savior, these deaths were not forever, were not the final word on the lives of our four children we would never hold in our arms in this lifetime. We know that we will be reunited in eternity with our dear children and despite the pain and questions we were experiencing then, our Lord had a purpose for all of this. Out of the struggle of our miscarriages and efforts to comfort one another and find answers, we began to find that purpose. Marcia was moved to start a local support group for pregnancy and early infant loss and with the help of her friend Amanda, One Moment was born. Death and pain gave birth to life and comfort.

Our pregnancy journey was not to end there, and in the summer of 2012, after much holistic effort to bring Marcia to optimum health, we conceived again. This time was different, we both felt it, though careful to keep our emotions in check. In June of 2013, our perfect and healthy little girl, our rainbow baby, was born. It was time to be a daddy to another of my precious children.

Through this terrible, beautiful journey, I was called upon to be a comforter, encourager, friend, companion, helper, lover, confidant, and defender to my precious wife. This journey served to knit us closer like no other life experience in our eleven years of marriage.
It has deepened both of our faiths and shown us a side of ourselves we had not met yet. Our journey through multiple-child losses has awakened a desire to support and care for others that have or will travel this dark and desolate road. We have come through ‘the other side’ and we can now better walk with those that are still traveling, knowing that there is ‘the other side’.

Thank You to:

• Toby (level one)
• Natalie Welanetz (level one)