Since St. Andrew’s feast day, November 30th, I have been following the writings of Matuska Anna, an Orthodox Priest’s wife and mother of five children. Her blog came to my attention through another blog that read. Her blog is an interesting mix of all sorts of things and she has a section of help for women, and men, who have lost children due to miscarriage. You see Matuska Anna lost a child some time ago and then on St. Andrew’s Day she lost another one. She has been writing about this since.
The amazing thing to me is she is still carrying the child and will go to hospital tomorrow to “deliver” her baby. Some of what she has been writing about are the preparations she and her husband have been taking prior to the “birth” that will take place tomorrow (Monday). She has made a little dress and a small hat and a box has been obtained for the burial. I find this entire this very courageous and I commend her for writing about it. Maybe what she is writing will help another who is going through a similar situation.
As someone who has studied the psychological arts I know how important it is to grieve. Saying goodbye is never easy and even harder I would guess, when it is a child that died whilst you were carrying it. I have read stories of people, who years later, have regrets of not seeing their child prior to the burial and other such things. I think this family is doing the right thing.
Years ago I was listening to a Roman Catholic couple on a podcast. They were going through a similar situation, their second miscarriage, and how they had dealt with the previous one. They named the child and speak of the child as part of the family. The other children know about both of them and speak about them as part of the family. I find this a very healthy thing to do. Death is part of life and shielding children from it makes it harder for them to deal with.
To Matuska Anna and Father, if you read these words know that I will be holding your family in prayer tomorrow and in the days to come. I would ask any of you who read this to say a little prayer for this family and for all families who have lost a child, for whatever reason.
(Matuska is used in Slavic Churches as a title for the wife of the Priest)
this is an interesting story.I would like to tell you a child that goes to full term and is born dead is considered a still birth but a miscarriage is when you lose the baby before its birth and this usually happens in the first three months.
i had an aunt who had 4 still births before her daughter was born,but she was determined to have a child.