Books to Support Parents on Their Journey after Loss From Pregnancy After Loss Support Contributors

Parents who experience pregnancy, infant, and child loss often feel incredibly alone after their loss and seek out support from others who have also experienced loss. Social media and blogs have helped parents connect and find community. Here at Pregnancy After Loss Support, parents have vulnerably shared their stories, both to heal and to help others feel less alone. Our contributors have also written books for others in the loss community. We have been so fortunate to have so many talented and vulnerable authors in our community, and we’re honored to be able to share their books with you. We hope that you will connect with these stories and feel validated in your journey after loss.

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When your baby dies, you find yourself in a life you never expected. And even though pregnancy and infant loss is common, it’s not common to you. Instead, you feel like a stranger in your own body, surrounded by well-meaning people who often don’t know how to support you.

What you need during this time is not a book offering easy answers. You need a safe place to help you navigate tough issues, such as

• coping with a postpartum body without a baby in your arms
• facing social isolation and grief invalidation
• having faith when you feel let down by God
• dealing with the overwhelming process of making everyday decisions
• learning to move forward after loss, and
• creating a legacy for your child

In Unexpecting, bereaved mom Rachel Lewis is the friend you never hoped to need, walking you through the unique grief of baby loss. When nothing about life after loss makes sense . . . this book will.

Explore Rachel Lewis’ articles at PALS, and read our full review of Unexpecting from Kasey Schultz-Saindon.

Did you or someone you know and love suffer from baby loss via stillbirth – miscarriage, neonatal death or infant loss? If so, this is the book for you! Still Here is the memoir of grieving parents navigating the joys of pregnancy and the extreme lows of (baby) loss. Still Here is a personal testimony from Alishia Anderson of how love, faith, and support can bring you back from the abyss after the loss of your precious baby, into a life of purpose. Alishia wrote this book in hopes to remove the shield of shame, and isolated suffering as well as shed light onto the cloak of secrecy wrapped inside of baby loss. Most importantly, Alishia wrote Still Here as a personal tool to heal her broken heart after suffering the devastating loss of her twenty-eight-week old son, in hopes that her pain and restoration would be the jumpstart to someone else’s recovery after loss. She also delved into the untapped and often forgotten perspective of a grieving father after baby loss from her husband Derrek. It is Alishia’s prayer that Still Here reaches your heart no matter where you are in your grief journey.

Explore Alishia Anderson’s articles at PALS.

About Mine for a Time, from the author, Coretta H. Collins: We were not even trying to get pregnant, yet we were ecstatic about the news. We told our family and friends and made plans to welcome our first little one into the world. Then the unthinkable happened. My baby stopped moving inside of me. We lost our baby and a piece of me died too. These are the kinds of tragedies that you do not think about until it happens. You never want to think about it again, but you can’t help it.

Pregnancy loss and early infant loss are life-altering experiences that you can not prepare for because you do not expect them. The grief seems unbearable but somehow you must overcome it. Through it all, you must persevere and seek to mend the pieces of your broken heart. Writing helped me to put my pieces back together. Through this book may you find understanding, encouragement, empathy, and support. It is for you, the parent grieving through your loss experience. It is for you, the mother, father, sister, brother, cousin, or friend of the grieving parents. This book is for anyone who would like to better understand what a person suffering from pregnancy and early infant loss is going through to better provide substantial and positive support.

Read an excerpt from Mine for a Time, and explore Coretta H. Collins’ articles at PALS.

That Side of Heaven chronicles author Heather Butler’s journey of loss, grief, and healing after multiple miscarriages. With honesty and vulnerability, she addresses many of the fears and questions that emerge after miscarriage. Every raw detail of her story validates the pain of losing a baby, while also attesting to the hope and healing she found in God. At the end of each chapter, you will find the following sections:

• Stories from other loss-mommas
• God’s Promise
• A Prayer
• Gently guided questions with space to write

That Side of Heaven offers a hurting momma comfort and camaraderie, while giving plenty of breathing room and permission to grieve in her own way.

Explore Heather Butler’s articles at PALS.

Twenty-four, fresh out of college, and beginning a career in finance, the moment Leah Mele-Bazaz learned she was pregnant, she thought, I want this baby. Her boyfriend, Gautam, felt the same, and for the next six months, they were ready to move heaven and earth to welcome their daughter into the world.

Then the unthinkable happened. At twenty-six weeks gestation they got the worst news that confirmed her biggest fear: their daughter, Laila, had no detectable heartbeat. The news shattered her, upending her newlywed bliss and sending her into a downward spiral of depression from which she felt she would never recover. But amid this despair, Leah would find lights to guide her out of the darkness: Gautam’s support, a dog from the shelter, her passion for running, and, above all, an unwavering love for Laila.

In her heart-wrenching memoir, LAILA Held for a Moment, Leah Mele-Bazaz shares her experience with the devastation of stillbirth. Her inspiring journey from loss and anguish to newfound hope and healing shows there’s a way to live when our children are no longer with us.

Explore Leah Mele-Bazaz’s articles at PALS.

Pregnancy After Loss Support: Love Letters for Moms Pregnant After Loss, from Lindsey M. Henke and Emily Long, is a simple book of love written for you, a mom pregnant again after loss, from other loss moms at PALS who have been where you are now. In the pages of this book, we share letters of love from our hearts to yours with the hope that, maybe, in the darkest, loneliest hours of grief and fear, you will find a little bit of comfort in the words offered here.

Our deepest desire is for you to know that you are not alone. We are with you. When needed, let us carry your hope for you when it feels impossible to find. Let us wrap you in love and be a light in the darkness as you carry both hope and fear and engage in the most courageous act – to choose for life after you have known death.

Explore Lindsey Henke’s articles at PALS.

Using Scripture and personal narrative, Courageously Expecting empathizes with and empowers women to face a pregnancy after loss with faith and courage, despite inevitable feelings of grief and fear that accompany life after losing a baby.

Pregnancy is widely regarded as the most joyful time in a woman’s life, but for the mother who has experienced pregnancy loss, a subsequent pregnancy can feel like she’s holding her breath and hoping for what she can’t control. In Courageously Expecting, Jenny Albers meets women in this difficult season as someone who has also experienced the worst and cautiously hoped for the best. Through the telling of her own story, Scripture, and heartfelt prayer, she encourages readers to cling to faith in the face of fear and guides them to

• cultivate hope when doubt weighs heavy;
• realize that the past does not dictate the present or the future and that God creates a way in the wilderness of grief and loss;
• flip the script on the what-if, worst-case-scenario narrative in their minds and learn to take their thoughts captive; and
• find the courage to humble themselves and ask for and accept help from others.

Regardless of where readers are on their pregnancy after loss journey, Courageously Expecting is a companion to help them through the days when fear overshadows hope.

Explore Jenny Albers’ articles at PALS.

Anyone who has experienced—or knows someone who has experienced—miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth, or other forms of pregnancy and baby loss should read Expecting Sunshine, including those considering or already pregnant again.

After her son, Zachary, dies in her arms at birth, visual artist and author Alexis Marie Chute disappears into her “Year of Distraction.” She cannot paint or write or tap into the heart of who she used to be, mourning not only for Zachary, but also for the future they might have had together. It is only when Chute learns she is pregnant again that she sets out to find healing and rediscover her identity—just in time, she hopes, to welcome her next child.

In the forty weeks of her pregnancy, Chute grapples with her strained marriage, shaken faith, and medical diagnosis, with profound results.

Glowing with riveting and gorgeous prose, Expecting Sunshine chronicles the anticipation and anxiety of expecting a baby while still grieving for the child that came before—enveloping readers with insightful observations on grief and healing, life and death, and the incredible power of a mother’s love.

Explore Alexis Marie Chute’s articles at PALS.

You’ve got What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but where do you go for a pregnancy guide when you’ve been pregnant before, and didn’t get to come home with a baby? For the nearly 2.6 million women worldwide every year who lose a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, and early neonatal loss, this is the pregnancy guide for you. Joy at the End of the Rainbow: A Guide to Pregnancy After a Loss by Amanda Ross-White gives you a month-by-month survival guide to a pregnancy that is different from the others. If you’re worried and concerned about losing another baby, but also joyful and cautiously excited about what is to come, this book will give you solid medical information tailored to your very real concerns!

Written by a mother who has had both stillborn twins and two successful rainbow pregnancies, with guidance from the latest research on pregnancy after a loss, this guide will help you manage your anxiety as you anticipate the arrival of your rainbow child.

Explore Amanda Ross-White’s articles at PALS.

For a time that should be filled with pure joy and anticipation, pregnancy proves to be a fierce battle between grief and joy after the loss of a child. Celebrating Pregnancy Again follows the author Franchesca Cox’s journey from loss to subsequent pregnancy, with encouragement along the way on how to handle the “new normal” that rocks your world after facing a loss.

From dealing with others in your subsequent pregnancy, to balancing grief along the way, to real-life, tangible ways of celebrating pregnancy, this book offers a unique perspective on pregnancy after loss.

Explore Franchesca Cox’s articles at PALS.

Author Dorienna M. Alfred writes about her book, Pregnant with Promise: Believers, we are not exempt from facing trials. When we face life’s tests, we must decide whether or not we are going to trust God to fulfill His purpose in our lives or become distracted by the challenges we face along the way.

This memoir shares the author’s emotional, physical, and spiritual experience with pregnancy bed rest through journal entries and referenced Biblical scriptures. She spent nearly the entirety of two pregnancies on bed rest, including a total of 18 weeks in the hospital. It is the hope that this memoir will be an encouragement to others who may be experiencing pregnancy bed rest, and to anyone facing a situation that seems insurmountable. The author believes that faith in God is one of the most powerful tools of resilience available to Believers.

Explore Dorienna Alfred’s articles at PALS.

From devastating sorrow to mountain-scaling joy, the road through pregnancy loss and into motherhood is a multi-faceted one. If you have stood at the edge overlooking the bleakness of an infertility diagnosis, if you had the wind knocked out of you by way of a miscarriage, if you ache for a tale of hope, read on. These collected works will connect you to unspoken words, taking you from grief to the other side of heartache by way of the honest truth desperately needed to be said out loud: This happens, it happens often, and it happened to me. From the desk of poetry contest winner and blogger, Joy R. Bickham, comes When Water Turns to Vapor, a collection of melodious and validating prose, painting the picture of her story at each step before and through infertility, loss, pregnancy, and motherhood.

Explore Joy R. Bickham’s articles at PALS.

One day, on a walk with Mommy and Daddy, Rosie and Capi learn all about happy tears and rainbow babies. Set against the backdrop of a rainbow, Happy Tears and Rainbow Babies tells the story of how faith brought healing and hope to one family after the pain and loss of miscarriage. Written from a mother to her children, this beautiful faith-based story engages the reader in a conversation that families everywhere can share and benefit from.

Explore Natasha Carlow’s articles at PALS.

You Are My Rainbow by Mary Kovacs is for any parents that have experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss. This book is also not of a religious nature, and does not refer to the loss as a storm, as some books often do. The birth of a “rainbow baby,” a child born after loss, is a complex and emotional journey. This story depicts the love parents have for their rainbow baby. Though the parents are overjoyed, they still remember and honor their child who passed away. Through their rainbow baby, they remember, love, and honor the sibling that has a place in their hearts forever.

Explore Mary Kovacs’s bump day blog at PALS.

The Baby Before You Died by Katrina Villegas is from a series of children’s books written for families experiencing Termination For Medical Reasons. These books help to explain the death of a baby to an older or younger sibling and are the only children’s books available that are specific to the termination for medical reasons experience, filling a much-needed space. The series includes five books to give families a book that both best fits their circumstances and walks a family through the process of termination for medical reasons. Using age-appropriate, concrete language and correct terminology, these books will help your child understand their experience and work through their own grief. The series includes these five books:

• Our Baby is Going to Die
• Our Baby Died (Labor & Delivery Version)
• Our Baby Died (Surgical Termination Version)
• Remembering Our Baby
• The Baby Before You Died

Read our full review of this series, with more details on each book, and explore Katrina Villegas’ articles at PALS.

If you’d like a printable copy of this list of books from PALS contributors that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below, and it’ll come right to your inbox! Then look out for helpful updates from our newsletter, A Note from Your PALS.

More on this topic:

• Favorite Books to Read to Your Baby Born After Loss
• Books to Guide You Through Pregnancy After Loss
• Finally, a Children’s Book Series for Families Who Have Experienced Termination for Medical Reasons: A Book Review
• 8 Ways to Find Emotional Support After Experiencing Pregnancy or Infant Loss
• 9 Ways to Make Pregnancy after Loss Feel Less Endless
• 6 Ways to Bond With Your Baby Before Birth