October 9-15 is Infant loss Awareness Week.
An estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies results in a miscarriage, 1 in 148 babies are stillborn, and 3 in 1000 die shortly after birth. This translates to affecting an average of 500,000 pregnancies every year. This is a week to reflect on these families and try to promote wareness and look for answers.
On October 15th, at 7pm, light a candle in rememberance of these babies and thier families.
Continue reading Pregnancy Loss Awareness Week: October 9 – 15
So yesterday I called the Calgary Pregnancy and Infant Loss Dept of the Calgary Health Region to try to find out why we haven’t heard from them.
It turns out that the Hospital forgot to tell them that we had a miscarriage. Then we went in and talked to them, but they still forgot to add us to the mailing list! So, we have missed two memorial services because they dropped the ball.
We also were not on the list for their next group. The only reason that we have not missed the group was that it turns out that they have not run a group in about a year. According to Caring Beyond, there are approximately 1800 miscarriages and 200 babies who die shortly after birth, yet the Pregnancy and Infant Loss group can not find enough of them to get together a group… I wonder how many other parents are sitting there alone hoping for a group to be put together?
I wouldn’t be so pissed, except that I have heard from people who have managed to find groups that it can be quite helpful if you can get it.
Now the current provincial government has decided to totally overhaul the provincial health care system because their last attempt is crap. Any guesses on if anything will improve? Here in Calgary, we have over a million people and 3 hospitals. There are actually posters showing a happy nurse helping someone on a bed in the hallway saying that even if you are left in the hallways, we will give you great service! I call bullshit.
Continue reading Turns out the Health Region really did drop the ball again…
Paula wrote a poem named ‘My Baby Boy Kye’ on AuthSpot.It has been about 6 months now since Kye died. Things are getting better. Slowly.
One thing that seems to be constant is the shitty service of the Calgary Health Region. My latest beef is with the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Program (http://www.calgaryhealthregion.ca/programs/infantloss/)…
Within a few weeks of Kye’s death, we were looking for resources to help deal with it. The Pregnancy & Infant Loss Program says that they offer periodic groups so that you can connect with other people going through this, so I said “please sign us up”. Six months later, and they still have not called. I tried calling them, but of course, no answer. Apparently, despite the fact that there are something like 1800 miscarriages in Calgary every year, the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Program can not figure out how to get a group of us together.
I wouldn’t be so annoyed if they had just said “nope, we don’t run groups” instead of taking our names and then not doing anything.
They also run several memorial services throughout the year. First of all, I have to admit that it pisses me off that they run different ones for if your baby was more than or less than 20 weeks. That seems pretty ignorant for people who are supposed to specialize in this…
Secondly, we had said that we were interested in attending the next memorial. You guessed it. I just found out that even though we went in and talked to them about the loss etc, we were not told when the memorial was. I just found out that it was last weekend. I am pretty upset.
When we are going through hell and yelling for help, why is it so hard to get any?
Whenever I start telling people about what happened, I always get this surprised “Oh, that shouldn’t have happened”. I hear that a lot. They screw things up a lot. At this point, it happens so often that I am just getting totally fed up with the entire system!
And my wife’s doctor is baffled at why I have so much resentment towards them… Not that he has actually talked to us…
Continue reading The health region comes through again. Well, just kidding…
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