Navigating Baby Loss

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The diagnosis. The quiet in the room. And then all the questions that came after. What if he was wrong? What if I chose differently? What if it was something I did?

If you’ve ever replayed the decisions around your baby’s death over and over, this conversation is for you.

My guest today is Sabrina Fletcher, a TFMR bereavement doula. In 2018, at her 11-to-14-week scan, Sabrina learned that her very wanted second baby was very sick. Living outside Mexico City, she faced strict legal timelines, a second opinion that didn’t even look at her scans, and a bus ride across the state line where she wondered, “Am I a criminal?”

Her loss looks different from stillbirth. But the guilt, the “what ifs,” the people who tried to tell her what her loss meant, and the fear of forgetting her baby? You’ll recognize all of it. Sabrina now supports families through TFMR with small groups, one-on-one sessions, her podcast Our TFMR Stories, and her membership, The TFMR Support Sanctuary.

A note before you listen: this episode talks about termination for medical reasons, prenatal diagnosis, and the decisions around it.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

•  Why the moment of diagnosis can feel just like hearing “there’s no heartbeat”
• The “what if” questions that haunt so many loss moms, and why they don’t mean you did something wrong.
• How false urgency rushes families through decisions about their baby, and what Sabrina wishes she’d been given time for
• What happens when a baby suddenly becomes “products of conception,” and why your words matter more than theirs
• Why other people’s explanations (“God needed another angel,” “at least you have one already”) can hurt so much
• Postpartum with no baby in your arms, and the basic needs that still deserve to be met
• The dream Sabrina had about her daughter, and the message she still holds onto
• Why you never forget your baby, even years later

Connect with Sabrina Fletcher

• •Website: https://www.thetfmrdoula.com/ (group dates, one-on-one sessions, her blog, free downloads)
•  Free self-care guide and Facebook group: available through www.thetfmrdoula.com
• Podcast: Our TFMR Stories [LINK]
• Membership: The TFMR Support Sanctuary at https://www.thetfmrdoula.com/
• Instagram: @thetfmrdoula

Resources mentioned

Return to Zero: HOPE, founded by Kiley Hanish https://rtzhope.org/

Where to start with me

If this episode brought up guilt you’ve been holding by yourself, the 3-Day Experience is a safe place to start. It’s three live sessions with me, one each day, plus a workbook for whatever comes up. We name what you’re feeling, look at the toll it’s been taking, and on Day 3 I teach you the three-step tool I use myself when the guilt spiral starts. You keep all three recordings.

Learn more: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

More ways to stay connected

• Always Loved Club, my monthly membership for loss moms: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/club
• Instagram: @navigatingbabyloss

The 3-Day Experience for Moms After Baby Loss is a live workshop for moms who are grieving their baby. Over three days together, we look at how you're really doing, what this loss has touched in your life, and what to actually do when the guilt spiral starts. You'll get the live sessions, the recordings to keep, and a workbook to go with it. $27. Find it at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

October is here. Your phone is full of candles, footprints, and pink and blue ribbons before you're even out of bed. Part of you is so grateful the world is finally saying our babies out loud. And part of you wants to throw that phone across the room.

If that's you, you're not ungrateful. You're a mom whose body remembers the hardest day of her life.

In this episode, I talk about getting through Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in a way that works for you, not for your feed. I share what my first October after my loss was like, why this month can quietly turn into a guilt month, and a simple way to decide ahead of time what you want October to look like. We also look past October to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, so you don't have to brace for impact from now until January.

In this episode:

•  Why a month meant for moms like you can still make you feel worse, and why both things can be true at once
• How comparison sneaks in when everyone is posting, and the voice that says "if I really loved my baby, I'd be doing more"
• The three lanes for October: all in, on the sidelines, or sitting it out (and why none of them is better)
• The one question that helps you pick your lane
• Four easy ways to protect your heart on social media, without cutting anyone off
• Why the all-in mom should bring someone with her, and what that does for the people who love you
• Thought switching for the guilt that shows up at 6:58 PM on October 15th
• How to look ahead at the holiday season so it doesn't catch you off guard

Mentioned in this episode:

• Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month (October)
• Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and the Wave of Light: October 15th, 7:00 PM in your own time zone

A loving invitation:

If you'd like some company through October and the months that follow, I'd love for you to come into the Always Loved Club. It's our monthly membership, a place where you can talk about your baby as much as you want and nobody flinches. Inside, there's a mini training on this exact topic, getting through October and the holiday season after loss, and you'll get access to it right away. No pressure at all. The door is open when you're ready.

Join here: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/club

Stay connected:

• Website: https://navigatingbabyloss.com
• Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• Listen to this episode: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/post/october-after-stillbirth-144

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

She did everything right. Her body still couldn't keep her baby inside. Sound familiar?

In this episode I'm sitting down with Jodi Klaristenfeld, founder of Flourish and a preemie and NICU parent coach. Jodi's daughter Jenna was born at 28 weeks after preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome nearly took both of their lives. Jodi met her daughter three days after the birth, and Jenna spent 77 days in the NICU before coming home.

Jodi's baby lived. And she still grieves the birth she dreamed of, the first days she didn't get, the moment she was too scared to hold her own daughter. If you've ever thought "but at least she got to bring her baby home," this conversation might surprise you. The guilt, the self-blame, the way we rationalize our own symptoms, the birthday that is also an anniversary of trauma... so much of it is the same road.

In this conversation, you'll hear:

• Why Jodi kept telling herself the bloody nose, the swelling, the orange urine were "just pregnancy," and what that has to do with how we're raised not to bother anyone
• The moment her OB told her mom, "If I don't take the baby now, I'm going to lose them both"
• What it was like to not want to walk through the NICU doors, and why there was nothing wrong with her for feeling that way
• The guilt she still feels, seven years later, about being too scared to hold her daughter that first day
• How her husband pushed her to see her baby and to pump when she wasn't ready, and why she's grateful now (I had the same experience with mine)
• Why "your body is rejecting the pregnancy" is such a heavy thing to be told, and the truth about what did and didn't cause it
• What people don't understand about a baby's birthday after a traumatic birth
• How to answer "but look at her, she's fine now" when you are not fine inside
• Why you can be grateful and sad at the same time, and why one never cancels out the other
• The choice Jodi eventually made, and why it took months to make it

Find Jodi here- https://www.FLRRiSH.com, https://www.instagram.com/flrrish

Read the full blog post here: 

The 3-Day Experience for Moms After Baby Loss is a live workshop for moms who are grieving their baby. Over three days together, we look at how you're really doing, what this loss has touched in your life, and what to actually do when the guilt spiral starts. You'll get the live sessions, the recordings to keep, and a workbook to go with it. $27. Find it at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

What happens to the grief you never let yourself feel? What does it cost you, years down the road, to just "keep going" like everyone told you to?

I'm back after a little break I didn't really plan on. My dad passed away a few weeks ago, and in cleaning out his house with my sister, I've been uncovering something I never fully understood as a kid. My parents lost their first baby during birth, decades before I lost my twins. And the life they built afterward, the fear, the resentment, the debt, the silence, all of it traces back to a grief they were never allowed to put down.

This episode is my dad's story. But if you've ever been told to move on, to be strong, to put this behind you, it's your story too. Because I've now lived this from both sides. As the child of parents who never healed, and as a grieving mom who made a different choice. I want you to hear what I saw, and why it matters so much for where you are right now.

What you'll learn:

• Why grief doesn't go away when you ignore it — it just waits, and comes back through other losses
• The quiet ways unhealed grief can shape an entire life: the debt, the strained marriage, the fear of the world
• What my parents' silence around their lost baby taught me about what happens when you "just keep going"
• Why my mom could never tell me it would be okay — and what that revealed
• The secret my dad carried to his deathbed about the day they brought their baby home
• What it actually means to choose differently: to let go of guilt and resentment without letting go of your baby
• Why grief showing up again years later doesn't mean you're back at square one
• How honoring your baby now can change the story your family lives for generations

[Read the full blog post here: LINK]

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

You laughed for the first time in what feels like forever… and then the panic hit. Who am I to laugh when my baby died?

If that's you, you're not alone, and you're definitely not the first mom to feel it. In this episode, Jennifer gets honest about the guilt that floods in right after a laugh, a smile, a single good moment. She remembers it from her own life: laughing at something her husband said, and then freezing in shame, certain that joy somehow meant she was forgetting her twin daughters.

Here's what she wants you to know- the laugh was never the problem. It's the story your brain tells you afterward. This episode is about gently loosening the grip of that guilt, and learning that you can carry your baby with you into joy instead of leaving them behind in your pain.

What you'll learn:

• Why that wave of panic shows up the second you catch yourself laughing, and why it isn't a sign that something's wrong with you
• The quiet belief that grief is the proof of how much you loved your baby (and why it keeps you stuck)
• How "guilt becomes your job" when there's no baby to care for, and what to do with that
• Why being miserable forever was never actually honoring your babies' memory
• The difference between leaving your baby behind and bringing your baby's love with you
• A simple sentence you can say out loud the next time the guilt tries to flood in
• How Jennifer uses neuro-linguistic programming to talk back to the cruel thoughts instead of just believing them
• Why laughing at 7pm on a Wednesday is actually a really good sign
• The permission you've probably been waiting for someone to give you

Read the full blog post here

Want to go deeper on releasing the guilt spiral? Jennifer walks you through her three steps inside my 3-Day Experience for Moms After Baby Loss: navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

You weren't being too sensitive. They were being thoughtless. Those are not the same thing.

You know the comment. The one your sister said at brunch. The one your best friend sent over text. "You can always try again." "At least you know you can get pregnant." "Maybe by this time next year you'll have your baby." When it comes from a stranger, you can write it off. But when it comes from someone your own age, someone who knew your baby, someone who was supposed to be in your corner, that's a different kind of wound.

In this episode, I'm talking about why those comments hit the way they do, and why it has nothing to do with you needing thicker skin. We'll get into the second sentence hiding underneath the words, the freeze response that keeps you from saying anything in the moment, and why your baby was never a rough draft or a practice round. I'm also sharing what someone said to me after I lost my girls, and how it quietly changed the way I let people in.

What you'll learn:

• Why a comment from your sister or best friend cuts so much deeper than one from a stranger at Target
• The unspoken second sentence underneath "next year you'll have your baby"  and why you're not imagining it
• Why your body freezes when someone says the wrong thing, and why that's survival, not weakness
• How to stop carrying shame about the things you didn't say in the moment
• Why your baby is not a stepping stone, a placeholder, or a first draft — and never will be
• How to hold two true things at once: they meant well, and it still hurt
• Three things you can actually do this week when someone wounds you this way
• Why you don't owe anyone a graceful response or an explanation
• How to make peace with the fact that some people will never fully understand, and why that's okay

Read the full blog post here: 

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

What if the most exhausted you've ever been isn't from the loss itself — but from mothering your living children while grieving the baby you didn't get to bring home?

If you've come home from the hospital to a house full of little ones who still need you — needing breakfast, needing rides to school, needing your lap — you already know this kind of tired. The kind sleep doesn't fix. The kind that makes you feel like a zombie reading bedtime stories with your mouth while your brain is somewhere else entirely.

In this episode, I'm taking you back to my kitchen — to my five-year-old in his Batman pajamas asking me a question I couldn't even hear. To the moment I realized I had nothing left. And to everything I want you to know if that's where you are right now.

What you'll learn:

• Why the exhaustion of grieving while parenting is its own specific, lonely kind of tired — and why no one warns you about it
• The "two jobs" you're doing every single day (and the second one is the one that's really eating you alive)
• Why snapping at your kids doesn't make you a bad mom — and what it actually means about how much you love them
• What your living children will really remember from this season (it's not what your guilt is telling you)
• How to drop the bar for what counts as "being a good mom" right now — all the way to the floor
• A simple practice for when the guilt starts spiraling after a hard moment with your kids
• Why the baby you lost is already part of the way you mother every other child you have
• The truth about whether you're "ruining" your kids by being sad (spoiler: you're not)

If guilt is the heaviest thing you're carrying right now, my free workshop Practical Ways to Release Guilt and Navigate Grief After Baby Loss was built for exactly this. You can register at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

Read the full blog post here: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/post/parenting-after-stillbirth-exhaustion-guilt

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

You are a mother. Full stop.

If you've ever hesitated when someone asks how many kids you have… if you've sat at a baby shower feeling like a fraud… if you've questioned whether you really get to claim the word "mother" - this episode is for you.

Your baby made you a mother. Loss didn't change that. Time doesn't change that. Silence from the people around you doesn't change that. And this is the episode to keep in your back pocket for the days when you need someone to remind you.

What you'll learn:

• Why you became a mother the moment you saw that positive pregnancy test — and nothing has taken that away
• How to answer those impossible doctor's office questions without it breaking you open every single time
• What to do when a friend says "just wait until you're a mother…" and you feel the floor drop out
• Why the guilt around claiming your motherhood is so common — and why you don't have to carry it
• How to honor your motherhood on Mother's Day in small, real ways that feel like yours
• Why saying your baby's name out loud is one of the most motherly things you can do
• The truth about what motherhood actually is — and why it was never about logistics in the first place
• Why you don't need anyone's permission to claim the mother you already are

Read the full blog post here: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/post/still-a-mother-after-stillbirth-138

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

Are you already dreading Mother's Day? You are not alone — and you are not doing grief wrong.

If your chest gets tight just thinking about Mother's Day... if you're already noticing the ads, the brunch promos, the "best mom ever" posts, and your body is bracing weeks before the day even arrives — this episode is for you. That heaviness has a name. It's anticipatory grief. And it's so much more common than anyone tells you.

In this episode, I'm not going to try to fix Mother's Day or hand you a list of ways to "get through it." I'm just going to sit with you in the truth of it — share my own first Mother's Day after losing my twins, and give you permission to feel exactly what you're feeling.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• Why the weeks leading up to Mother's Day often feel heavier than the day itself- and what anticipatory grief actually is
• The story of my first Mother's Day after losing my twin daughters, and the conflicted feelings I never expected to have
• Why you can feel like a mother and feel completely inadequate at the same time- and why both are valid
• The guilt that creeps in when you don't want to celebrate a day that's "supposed to be beautiful"
• What to do when your family wants brunch, your friends send cheerful texts, and your partner has no idea what you need
• Why feeling alone in a room full of people who love you is one of the loneliest parts of this day
• Permission to say the things you're already thinking - "I hate this day. I wish I could skip it. I don't feel like a mom."
• How to start deciding what this day looks like for you- not for everyone else
• Why planning ahead for hard days is a game changer (and not the same as "powering through")

Read the full blog post here: https://navigatingbabyloss.com/post/mothers-day-after-stillbirth-dread-137

If you want gentle, bite-sized support for moments exactly like this, the Stillbirth Roadmap Experience is open to you. Ten days of lessons delivered straight to your inbox, plus a personal call with me at the end. You can find it at navigatingbabyloss.com/roadmap.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Send Jen a Text Message

Grief after stillbirth doesn't just live inside you — it can quietly settle between you and your partner, too. And if you've ever looked at him and wondered how he can just go to work and act like everything is normal... you're not alone.

In this episode, Jennifer sits down with Miranda Bayard Clark, a licensed therapist turned coach and founder of the Baby Ready Blueprint. Miranda helps couples prepare their relationship for the realities of parenthood — and today, she's getting real about what loss does to a relationship, why partners grieve so differently, and how resentment can build without either of you realizing it.

This conversation is for the mom who feels like she's carrying her grief alone — and the one who's wondering what it would even look like to feel like a team again.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why partners almost always grieve differently after loss — and why that doesn't mean he doesn't care
• How resentment quietly builds when needs go unspoken, and what to do when you notice it happening
• Why trying again — whether naturally or through IVF — can bring up so much more than just hope
• The one conversation Miranda says every couple should have before moving forward after a loss
• What it actually means to ask for what you need, even when you're afraid of what he might say
• Why men tend to jump into "fix it" mode — and the simple language shift that can change everything
• What "score keeping" in your relationship really signals, and why it's worth paying attention to
• How the stories we tell ourselves in silence can quietly become resentment over time
• Miranda's Baby Ready Blueprint and her upcoming Us Before Baby course — and who they're really for

Miranda's Links:

www.loveafterlullabies.com

@mirandaforcouples

@loveafterlullabies

Read the full blog post here: LINK

The 3-Day Experience for Moms After Baby Loss is a live workshop for moms who are grieving their baby. Over three days together, we look at how you're really doing, what this loss has touched in your life, and what to actually do when the guilt spiral starts. You'll get the live sessions, the recordings to keep, and a workbook to go with it. $27. Find it at navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.navigatingbabyloss.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA