Stephanie Nalley, SBD, Chaplain
Stillbirthday Palliative Birth Center
I need your support. I need you to tell everyone you know that I need their support. Stillbirthday is breaking ground on something enormous, and I can’t do it alone.
I need you to be a part of this.
I want to open the very first Palliative Birth Center. Let me share my vision with you:
Stillbirthday Palliative Birth Center
and Family Centered Infant Burial Meadow
A facility that provides holistic prenatal, palliative, birth, and farewell care, including:
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clinical pregnancy tests
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4D ultrasounds
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urgent care: particularly for threatened miscarriage
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physician and nurse consultation
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factual information on prenatal development
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prenatal vitamins
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Love Cupboard support for tangible maternity and newborn items
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optimal pregnancy health education including nutrition and fitness
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individualized, palliative approach to difficult or fatal diagnosis
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referrals to select perinatologists and genetic counselors who support our vision
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birth preparation including meeting your stillborn baby
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labor & delivery care including specialized birth requests, additional family involvement
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immediate neonatal care: particularly for fatal diagnosis but including memory making
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surgical support including medically assisted birth, and organ and tissue donation options
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birth certificate in accordance with Missouri law
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immediate postpartum care, including lactation
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bereavement support including farewell planning
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family centered next step planning and arrangements including natural burial on our grounds, by our SBD Chaplains
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additional respite care beyond 24 hour postpartum
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referrals for additional bereavement support
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follow-up postpartum assessment(s)
Stillbirthday Palliative Birth Center affirms:
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The religious, cultural and ethnic background of mothers and fathers impacts the experience of pregnancy.
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The religious, cultural and ethnic background of mothers and fathers impacts the experience of pregnancy and infant loss.
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The right to plan an out-of-hospital birth including miscarriage, stillbirth, and fatal diagnosis.
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Researchers are only just beginning to document the vast physical, social and psychospiritual health benefits of physiological birth, and that a palliative approach to pregnancy and infant loss best mirrors this.
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The value of interdisciplinary prenatal, palliative and bereavement care.
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The documented value of palliative care, and of hospice settings, in other end-of-life experiences, which will be mirrored in our Palliative Birth Center.
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Political issues such as statistics of midwife attended, out of hospital stillbirth should not inhibit the right to holistic, palliative, out of hospital birth decisions.
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The right to create family-centered farewell plans, including natural burial (at our property), in accordance with state and local laws.
How you can help:
In short, we need a whole lot of prayers, and we need a whole lot of money. Please, consider how you can help. Please email Heidi.Faith@stillbirthday.info to get involved. It would be an honor to have one or more primary financial founders who would be instrumental in providing the support that so many families deserve. If you would consider becoming a large financial founder, you would be establishing a living legacy that would impact the world in a much needed, tremendously significant way.
This is just a sample birth center floor plan. Here is the online source for this sample photo.
You can contribute to the development of our Palliative Birth Center in any amount:
You can send your thoughts, letters of encouragement, written prayers, and/or financial support to:
The M0M Center
101 W. Washington Street
Kearney MO 64060
With checks payable to:
Christian Childbirth Services LLC
The M0M Center is a refuge to give birth to healing. It is the first piece to this Palliative Birth Center vision.
The M0M Center began in a 600 square foot facility and after the first year we relocated to a space that is more than double the size to make room for our growing ministries and services.
The M0M Center on facebook
The M0M Center website
Thank you!
Below is a list of people and organizations who have supported our vision by contributing
toward the development of the Stillbirthday Palliative Birth Center:
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Dr. Julie Wood
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Northland Cathedral
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Blessing God’s Way
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Kristin Young and family
Heidi Faith, SBD Founder
Heidi Faith is the founder of stillbirthday, a mother of five children including her fourth child born in the first trimester, a professionally trained and certified doula and birth educator, and through stillbirthday, a global trainer in birth & bereavement doula support. I am available to provide support in births of any trimester. Please email me at heidi.faith@stillbirthday.info. Please include your phone number and I will respond as immediately as I can. I offer phone support as well as birth plan building, support during the birth, keepsake building, and long term support referrals.
Because I am the founder of stillbirthday, I receive requests for support from many, many families, virtually every day. Please know that every broken hearted mother means a great deal to me and I will support you as best I am able. I personally recommend Megan McFarland’s loving doula support as well – she is the first SBD doula to come alongside me in the Kansas City area. Many doulas from our area have also listed with stillbirthday but who have not yet taken our SBD training. These doulas offer you support in the capacity of love and compassion and I encourage you to email everyone on the list with your need – we will all give as we are able.
The stillbirthday paradigm maintains that every SBD doula has the right to autonomy and to maintain his or her own personal convictions while still serving those whose circumstances may find themselves outside of those convictions. We believe this approach is not only possible, but is essential to the health of each doula and to his or her construct of service. As such, while I am the founder of stillbirthday and maintain this safe place for each doula to determine their own moral construct, it is important that this same provision be made for me to authentically serve as well. As a doula, my moral construct mirrors that which I embody in my personal journey, and that is one that maintains the biblical God as the centerpiece of my decisions and my path. I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit for discernment, direction and provision. I believe in the power of prayer, the power of miracles, and the power of hope. But I also believe in the need of acceptance, of relinquishing the hope of a miracle to embrace instead the moment when reality begets such a turn. I believe always in facilitating and aiming toward the least amount of room for regret as it is a mighty force to reckon with. These beliefs are emphasized most strongly in support prior to birth. I also believe in the mighty power of redemption, of healing, of mercy and of a hope renewed. These latter beliefs are often emphasized most strongly in support after birth or in reflection of circumstances through the process of a person’s redefinition of self and of life. This is the uncompromising premise from which I serve as an individual.
Stillbirthday holds space for those to join our family who do not espouse anything similar whatsoever or who espouse entirely opposing beliefs. My primary objective cannot be to proselytize but to surrender this rather compulsive and often fear-based urge for the greater certainty that our paradigm matters and is flat needed. I believe that the structure of the stillbirthday family is such that does in fact mirror the overall objective that is not only pleasing to God, but is necessary to serve our hurting world. We are each drawn here to serve, and so we learn to serve well.
