Author(s): Rachel Stanfield-Porter

Miscarriage

Small Miracles is a landmark self-help book offering practical counselling and inspiring consolation for anyone coping with the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or prematurity and related issues such as infertility.

Based on the grief counselling and support services offered by the Bonnie Babes Foundation for over 15 years, Small Miracles contains the very moving stories of women (including author Rachel Stanfield-Porter), who have experienced the traumatic loss of baby and how they coped with this very private tragedy, rebuilt their lives and restored their hopes. We have a word, orphan, to describe someone who has lost their parents; but there s no word for parents who have lost their child. There is only grief. It is an unnamed, unspoken tragedy that touches all families in some way. The fact is that one in every four pregnancies ends in a loss. The human reality of this shocking statistic, is that 50,000 babies die every year. Even more perplexing is the fact that this figure hasn t changed in Australasia for the last 60 years. Advances in medical technology to significantly reduce this figure are as much as a priority as the need to address our collective emotional response to the loss of a baby. It is still not talked about much, or enough, even among friends and family. The loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth and prematurity is a subject so often swept under the carpet in that reserved, stoic way that we have. Each person reacts differently. Men try to get on with things like work, and women hold their feelings deep and close. Sometimes it's the other way around. Friends don t know what to say, or how to react. The line between immense heartbreak and the greatest possible joy is so thin. What do you say and how do you, and your family, remember, cope and recover -- and find the courage to try again for another baby or accept it is not to be. These untold stories of these parents and the little babies that do survive traumatic pregnancies and prematurity are the real small miracles that provide the most wonderful tales of love and purpose imaginable.

Here are some of those Small Miracles -- compelling, uplifting, sad and intensely human, Best of all, they are stories of healing and hope.