Creating Memories and Saying Goodbye to Your Baby

by Jenny Coffey

Here is a list of ideas to help you as you create memories and say good-bye to your child.

• Have molds taken of your child’s hand/foot so that you can have a three-dimensional memento of him/her.
• Make and keep a grief journal.
• Send out birth/death announcements.
• Find a keepsake box, and fill it with items (such as gown, diaper, lock of hair, blood pressure band, etc.) that remind you of your child and/or are filled with his/her things.
• Make a shadow box filled with the things that touched your child (i.e. outfit, stuffed animal, ID bracelet, etc.).
• Have some flowers from the funeral freeze dried and placed in a glass frame or use it as potpourri.
• When you receive a plant at your child’s funeral, plant it and keep it alive in his/her spirit.
• Donate money to an organization related to the circumstances surrounding your child’s life/death.
• Buy a brick in your city's square and have it engraved with your child's name.
• Have a holiday ornament personalized with your baby's name and birth/death date.
• Plant a rosebush or tree in honor of your child.
• Create a scrapbook for your child full of pictures, sonogram photos, letters you have written, etc.
• Find an organization that makes clothing and burial items for small premature babies who have died. Offer to help make these items for distribution to the hospital.
• Go online and find a place to memorialize your baby, there are a lot of web sites that have "memorial gardens" online.
• Have a painting or sketch made of your child's face. There are many items of these artists online or you can find someone local to do it.
• Write a poem about your child and have it published online or in your local newspaper, grief support newsletter, or arts publication.
• Do a cross-stitch featuring your child's name, birth and death date.
• Buy a necklace or bracelet with your child's birthstone on it or a grieving bracelet.
• Have a money clip engraved with your child's name birth/death date on it for dad to wear.
• Buy books and dedicate them in memory of your child and donate them to local library or hospitals.
• Send out anniversary of birthday announcements.
• Have a bear or quilt made out of your baby's blanket and/or clothes.
• Buy and name a star from the International Star Registry, so that you can see it shining.
• Light a candle on special days and let it burn. Blow it out to symbolize letting go and remember its warmth and glow.
• If you were not able to obtain a birth certificate, make one with counted cross-stitch or obtain a "Recognition of Life" Certificate.
• Have your child's name inscribed in the Book of Life in the Church of the Holy Innocents, located in New York City. A Shrine in the church is dedicated to children who have died unborn. When you send your child's name and birth date, you will receive a certificate and pictures of the Shrine.

Submitted by Jenny Coffey. Jenny lost her first child at 36-weeks-gestation to a cord accident and has since gone on to have two successful subsequent pregnancies. She works very hard in a nonprofit organization to help bereaved parents and spends time on the Internet helping others as best she can.

Copyright © Jenny Coffey. Permission to republish granted to Pregnancy.org, LLC.