In honor of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, the East Alabama Birth Village is sponsoring Birth Stories of Loss, a gathering for mothers and fathers whose babies were born still, or lost after birth.
The meeting will coincide with Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on Oct. 15.
"Talking about birth in our culture is something we don't do very often, as well as we don't talk about death, it's just something our society doesn't talk about often," said Ashley Lovell, cofounder of East Alabama Birth Village. "These parents have given birth and they need to be able to tell those stories. They need to be free to do that in an environment that's comfortable."
The East Alabama Birth Village opened in April 2014, and holds monthly birth story gatherings. This is the first time they will be having birth stories of loss.
Unique to this gathering, they will also be partnering with Auburn University Marriage and Family Therapy Center so that they can have at least one and possibly two therapists available at the gathering from Auburn University.
"We see individual families and couples for a range of different things that might be going on like you know, marriage problems or depression, those kinds of things," said Leah Albers, graduate student in marriage and family therapy and intern therapist at Auburn University Marriage and Family Therapy Center.
At the birth stories of loss gathering, Albers will be one of the therapists available.
"My roll is going to be more to talk about topics related to grief and just explain how therapy could be helpful for what these women might be experiencing," Albers said.
Lovell said that part of the reason that they started East Alabama Birth Village was to create a community support group for women in their childbearing years.
Lovell has gone through the community in search of a variety of resources that can help these women and their families.
One of these women is Lisa Horstkamp, Opelika resident, who lost her son.
Horstkamp has attended some of the East Alabama Birth Village meetings, and is also the leader of a breast-feeding support group. She plans to attend the birth stories of loss gathering Wednesday.
"A lot of times it becomes so taboo to speak of when you lose a child and it becomes a thing that is hidden and not spoken of even between family and relatives," Horstkamp said. "Nobody speaks about it anymore and it's hoped to be forgotten, (but) those children are never forgotten in their mother's heart. The birth is never forgotten in the mother's heart."
Horstkamp said she wants to go to the meeting so that they can raise awareness. She said it is a way to connect with others that have been in the same situations.
"Some people have gone on to have more children, some people haven't," Horstkamp said. "Connecting with those other moms is a way for us to know that someone else has gone through what we've gone through."
The gathering will take place at the Frank Brown Recreation Center room F and G, from 6-7:30 p.m.
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