THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507240028
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
In the last four years, Lisa and Henry Cross of Virginia Beach have buried two babies, both born too soon to live on their own.
Amber never even took a breath of life; David died within hours of his birth.
Heartsick with grief, the couple laid their children to rest, side-by-side, in a Chesapeake cemetery.
But it was a third baby that Lisa, 29, worried about; a son she never got to see, never got to hold.
He didn't have a grave. He didn't even have a name.
She called the baby she miscarried last year after 17 weeks of pregnancy, ``my forgotten one.''
After Lisa lost the baby at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in April 1994, the Crosses never thought about what would happen to his remains. Like most couples devastated by miscarriage, they left the arrangements to Lisa's doctors and hospital officials.
Usually, Sentara, like most hospitals across the country, cremated these miscarried fetuses and stillborn infants en masse at no charge to patients, said Ann Prescott, a perinatal bereavement counselor. The cremated ashes were then disposed of along with other ``products of conception.''
``We tried to treat these babies with respect,'' explained Prescott, who works with grief-stricken couples and heads a support group called Empty Arms. ``But there wasn't any reason to hold on to the ashes because we couldn't give them back to the parents.''
But last year, Prescott and Sentara's director of chaplaincy, Segar Gravatt, heard of a memorial program for stillborn infants and miscarried fetuses that had been started on the West Coast.
They brought the concept back to Hampton Roads, and in January, Sentara and Woodlawn Memorial Gardens in Norfolk established one of the few memorials in the country for miscarried and stillborn children.
``Having a place like this makes such a difference in the grief process,'' Prescott explained. ``It helps them heal . . . . by giving them something tangible to hang on to and lets others know that this is a person who deserves to be remembered.''
Lisa still cries when she talks about the son she miscarried. ``I think about him every day,'' she said. ``One day you're pregnant, and the next you're not. It feels like your insides have been ripped out. But from the moment I was pregnant, that baby was a part of my life. You can't act like it didn't happen, because it did.''
In recent years, counselors like Prescott have begun to change the way the health-care industry treats these devastated couples and their ``products of conception.''
Instead of urging women to get on with their lives after miscarriages and act as though the pregnancy never happened, counselors now encourage them to name these lost babies, hold them and keep mementos such as pictures, blankets, tiny caps and footprints.
But the families also need a place where they can keep the memories of that child alive.
Hence, The Circle of Love.
Woodlawn donated the quiet, secluded spot in the middle of a rotary at the end of a cul-de-sac, not far from Newtown Road. A granite bench off to the side provides a place for visitors to sit. A bronze plaque dedicates the spot to ``the loving memory of the precious little lives who were carried with hope, born in silence, and remembered with love, always.''
Now, instead of quietly disposing of cremated ashes, Sentara officials plant them among the variegated holly and pastel Indian hawthorn bushes that surround the plot. A private memorial service is held every three months for family members.
By participating in a service, with friends and family nearby, couples are better able to cope with their grief because they can finally acknowledge the lost child, Prescott said.
After losing a baby, some couples do opt to make their own arrangements. But few have the money or adequate insurance to pay for funeral expenses. Even if they have life insurance, few companies cover funerals for stillborn or miscarried fetuses.
``From the beginning of their pregnancies, these women bond with what they consider to be their children,'' Prescott said. ``They make plans . . . they imagine that baby's whole life. But for other people that baby is just an idea. When they lose it, no one acknowledges it; no one talks about it.
``Even in the state's eyes, it's as if that individual didn't exist. They don't get a birth certificate; they don't get a death certificate. It's termed `a fetal death.' That's just another way society tells these couples that they never had a child.''
Still childless, the Crosses have not given up hope of having a family. But they admit they've been shaken by their losses. They have attended meetings of the Empty Arms group since 1991, when they lost their first child, Amber.
But it wasn't until Lisa learned about The Circle of Love that she felt she could truly grieve for all of her children.
``It was like a major weight had been taken off my shoulders,'' she said. ``I was feeling so guilty. It was like Amber and David's little brother didn't ever exist.''
Now, in the evenings sometimes, when the loss becomes overwhelming, the Crosses ride their bikes to Woodlawn and spend time at the circle, holding hands and remembering the son they never got to know.
``Finally, we have a place to come and remember,'' Lisa said. ``It feels good to know he's here, and we can come and sit and be near him. Now, he's not left out.''
Her husband added: ``Here, he's still a part of us.'' MEMO: GETTING COUNSELING
For more information on the Empty Arms support group or private
counseling, call Ann Prescott at 545-2667.
[For a related story, see page B2 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: A rubbing of the plaque at The Circle of Love.
by CNB