Be There and Pray for Them

Sharon Wilson shares insights and resources for supporting friends in their grief after pregnancy loss.

Spring is a time of life and new birth, but unfortunately it can also be a reminder of life lost. A friend recently asked me about what to do for someone who lost a pregnancy.

“Be there and pray for them,” is all I could find to say.

Then I remembered that years ago I had the opportunity to interview two women who felt a call on their heart to create a Catholic Miscarriage and support website. What follows is part of that interview.

When a miscarriage happens, couples are often unprepared for the misfortune and when you are in a medical situation, the people with answers are not always readily available. 

When John and Sara Rogers, members of St. Joseph’s in West St. Paul, suffered a miscarriage in 2008, there was little information on the internet to draw from when looking for support and education on the Catholic teachings and spiritual support for couples experiencing this type of a loss. When they searched for “catholic miscarriage” there were plenty of books to buy, articles to read, and forums to browse, but there was no information on what was considered proper—or even just acceptable—procedures for handling the baby’s death within the Catholic Church’s teachings.

When her friend Jessica Shurts and her husband lost their baby in 2012, the situation was not much better. Turning to the most easily accessible port for information—the internet, they sadly found very little. “I was lucky,” Shurts shares, “I had Sara to go to and she had already done the research and was able to share it with me.” This attitude that no one should have to face this alone is what spurred the two to reach out and help others.

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By some sort of providence, Sara found herself on medical bed rest with time on her hands. The idea then formed that with her “down time” she, with the help of Jessica and others, they could create that much-needed resource as a website. “I did come across an Orthodox Christian blog that had compiled a lot of information, and they graciously allowed us to use their content as a starting point for the website.” 

The process has been ongoing. “Sometimes people came to us with ideas on what to include on the website.” Rogers adds. They also went looking to others for assistance. The National Catholic Bioethics Center was very helpful in educating on some difficult bioethics issues.

CatholicMiscarriageSupport.com does offer support information on the practical physical process of a miscarriage and resources for medical information, but more importantly it also provides the spiritual and emotional support that goes along with suffering such a loss. “There is a lot of misconception and confusion about what the Catholic Church teaches and what prayers and liturgies can or should be done when you have a miscarriage. Even the priests sometimes need to research what is done in certain circumstances,“ Rogers said. “The website has all of those resources in one place.” 

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