Balloon Release video

Last week at this time we gathered together to remember and celebrate our children as a community. Since then, I've been hard at work creating a video out of the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful images our photographer captured for us. I'm excited to announce that the video is finally complete. Follow the link below to experience the evening with us again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMFhIfn7IgA


To everyone who participated, thank you. It was an honor.
peace,
Stephanie

Sweet Pea Project's 1st Annual Balloon Release

Last night was the Sweet Pea Project's First Annual Balloon Release. It is hard to capture the evening in words. It was beautiful, a little sad, inspiring, humbling and an absolute honor. We invited the community to gather together to remember their children and celebrate their short but precious lives.

Over two hundred people gathered on the grassy field to fill balloons with love letters and send them floating up into the air. It is difficult to describe the way it felt to see so many people there. From an event planner's perspective, it was wonderful to see the community participating like that. But knowing that each person was there because a baby that they love had died... my heart just broke over and over again.

The day before the event was cold and rainy, and we were so worried that our plans would be ruined by the weather. Thankfully, Friday was sunny with a blue sky full of puffy white clouds. It was windy, and a little chilly, but nobody seemed to mind. As we read each child's name aloud and released their balloons, the sun shone brightly through the trees and we all stood in awe as the wind picked up each balloon and carried it directly into the most amazing patch of golden light I have ever seen.

It was perfect.

To everyone who participated:
It was an incredible honor to be able to share the evening with you in memory of your children. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

I am lucky enough to have a professional photographer for a brother, and he has given me over 900 images from last night. I am in the process of editing them now, but thought I'd share a few with you here. And so I will leave you with a little taste of the beauty that was the Sweet Pea Project's First Annual Balloon Release.

The field filled with families who had set this evening aside to remember, honor and celebrate the little ones they love and miss.

Families remembering together, writing notes to their children, brothers and sisters.



The notes were written on paper
embedded with wildflower seeds.

Notes were inserted into biodegradable balloons. When the balloons burst, the earth will reclaim them and wildflowers will sprout from the love letters we wrote to our children.

Singer/songwriter Bobbi Carmitchell
provided beautiful music.



Listening to music and
waiting to release the balloons.

Families released balloons
as their child's name was read.



The wind carried the balloons into
a patch of glowing golden light.



And the sky was filled with balloons.



And it was all for them.

Images courtesy of
Fine Art Photographer
Christopher J. Kulfan

Oct 15 Give Away!

Sweet Pea Project will be giving away a copy of Still. on October 15 in honor of Remembrance Day. To enter this random drawing please email the word REMEMBRANCE to Stephanie@sweetpeaproject before midnight on Friday. Please be sure to include your mailing address in case you are selected. The winner will be announced on Still.'s Facebook page on Saturday. (You do not need to belong to facebook to view this page.) The winner will also be notified via email. Thank you to everyone who participates, I hope tomorrow is a gentle day of remembrance for each of you.
peace
Stephanie

October

It happened last year, too. Breast cancer got all the attention, with people wearing ribbons and doing 5Ks and posting their bra colors on Facebook. This year it's something about purses. I don't know. Breast cancer is without a doubt an extremely worthy cause, but it seems like we are inundated with breast cancer information at every turn.

Did you know that approximately 1,003,000 pregnancies end with the death of a baby annually and 27,500 babies born alive each year die before their 2nd birthday? With numbers that high you'd think it would get more attention, but the media shies away from dead babies. It is unsettling to think about. And we don't have a sexy catch phrase like Save The TaTas or Feel Your Boobies.

October is Infant and Child Death Awareness Month. (Okay, so technically it was passed as National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month- but that phrasing is completely unacceptable. Instead of me getting into a rant about that, you should check out Dr. Joanne Cacciatore's blog: Becoming. Along with Kara LC Jones, she has written a perfectly put explanation of why this language is inappropriate.)

Anyway, I guess my point is that tons of people don pink ribbons this month, put pink ribbon bumper stickers on their car and participate in Breast Cancer events- regardless of whether or not they themselves have suffered from this terrible disease. They do it because they know that it could happen to them or someone they love. And that is beautiful. But it shouldn't stop with cancer.

More than 15% of all pregnant moms in this country do not get to bring their babies home. One of those moms could be someone you love. All I ask is that you remember that this is their month, too.

The Imago Project

Welcome to October. A month that is designated as a time to raise awareness and remember all the precious babies who have died. Sweet Pea Project kicked off the month with our first ever fundraising event and will hold an eco-friendly balloon release on the 15th, but that still leaves quite a few days in the month. Catherine Bayly, mother to Sophie and creator of the poetry blog The Lifespan of Butterflies, has an idea for what you can do with those days: The Imago Project.

The Imago Project began as Catherine's challenge to herself, to write a poem or piece of prose every day this month. I am excited to be participating in her project, challenging myself to create a piece of artwork or writing each day during the month of October. This month is a particularly busy one for me, and so I am glad for the "assignment" of this project to give me permission to stop, quiet my mind, explore what I find in the silence and create something with what I discover there.

October 1st is an annual bad day for me, the anniversary of my father's death. But I am focusing on reclaiming bad days for hope and positivity this year, so what a perfect day to start this project. While my youngest napped, my 2 1/2 year old and I sat down with some crayons and pencils to draw pictures of sycamore leaves and talk about his grandpa. The next day I went hiking and did some photography. And late last night I wrote a Tanka.

nearly four years since
i saw you, held you, kissed you
but i know your soul
and feel your spirit with me
madeline, you were not lost

Maybe a month long challenge like this is too overwhelming for you to accept at this time, but perhaps you might consider trying for one a week or maybe just one piece for the entire month. Even if nothing comes out of it, carving out some time to quiet your mind and sit with your emotions can be a beautiful thing. And if you find the space allows you to create something you'd like to share, I would be honored to add it to the Beauty In The Breakdown's Community Gallery. I hope this month is a peaceful one for you. A creative one, too.


peace,
Stephanie

Kids Cookie Creation Station

Attention Lancaster, PA residents (or those of you within driving distance!)

Sweet Pea Project's KIDS COOKIE CREATION STATION opens tonight! We've got cookies from local bakeries and more toppings than you will know what to do with! $2.00 gets you a delicious cookie and all the toppings you can cram on it. Chocolate chips, caramal, candy corn, marshmellow, sour gummi octopus... the list goes on and on. So indulge your sweet tooth and support an important cause. 100% of the proceeds benefit Sweet Pea Project.

Event Dates & Hours
Friday, October 1st from 5pm until 8pm
Saturday, October 2nd from 10am until 6pm
Sunday, October 3rd from 11am until 5pm

Kids Cookie Creation Station is being held at Mulberry Art Studios as part of Lancaster's Fall Art Walk. Mulberry Art Studios is located in downtown Lancaster at 21 North Mulberry Street and offers free parking in their private lot.

For more information about this event please visit www.sweetpeaproject.org/cookie

Hope to see you there!!!

Walk to Remember

Share of Lancaster asked me to be the speaker at their Annual Walk To Remember today. I was a little nervous about speaking at such an emotional event, but I was honored to have a chance to speak to other grieving parents about my experience and the ways in which I continue to parent my daughter by mothering her memory.

For those of you who were unable to attend, here is the speech:

I am here to speak to you today because I am one of you, a parent to a baby who is deeply loved and desperately missed. I wish I wasn't. I wish none of us were. I wish there was no reason to have an event like this, that the bench over there was just a nice place to sit, and that we were all gathered here today simply because it is a nice day and we wanted to play at the park with our children. In this daydream of mine I would be here playing with a pretty little three and a half year old girl. Pushing her on the swing. Watching her chase her little brothers around. I can almost see her there, with pigtails in her hair and summer freckles on her nose.

Madeline was my first child and is my only daughter. She was stillborn on January 5th, 2007, after 41 weeks of happy, healthy pregnancy. When I went past my due date we met with my doctor, who gave us the option of induction. After an exam, though, we decided against it. My bishop score was low, and the chance of complications arising during labor was high. We wanted to do what was best for our baby and my body, so we went home to wait. She died two days later, still nestled inside of my body, while I was asleep in bed. We never found out why.

The next day or two are sort of a blur. A sad, numb, unbelievable blur. I remember holding Madeline, staring down at her pretty little face. She really was so pretty. I sat there staring at her, just marveling at the tiny perfection of her fingers, her nose. She had high cheekbones like me. She had odd little elf ears like me too. She was undeniably mine, and I was so in love with her.

My husband and I spent a few hours with her before saying our goodbyes. There are no words that can express what that moment is like, the moment when you hand your child to the nurse and watch her walk out of the room with your baby knowing that she will not ever be bringing her back. It felt like most of me left with her. I was certain I was going to die. I was almost hoping I would. I just couldn't imagine what life was going to be like without her.

I had kept a journal throughout my pregnancy, and continued after Madeline's death. When I sat down to write about that day, one of the last lines I wrote was, "and that was it. then she was gone."

At the time it really felt that final. But since then I have come to realize that my relationship with Madeline did not die when she did, and my job as her mother did not end either. No, I do not nurse her, change her diapers, or wipe her runny nose- but I have spent the past three and a half years mothering her memory. It is, as heARTist Kara LC Jones calls it, a different kind of parenting. Continued parenting.

You are doing it right now. By coming here today you are actively parenting your child. You set this day aside for your child, made him or her your priority today. Maybe this is the only time that you do something like this, if so that is completely okay. I have very good friends who love and miss their children desperately, but who are simply not comfortable speaking openly about their loss or doing things publicly for their child. That doesn’t mean that they have forgotten their children, that their pain is not as great or that they are getting over it. Not at all. Every mother has her own style of parenting, and continued parenting is no different. With my living children I practice attachment parenting. I safely co-slept with them as infants, I nursed exclusively, I wore them in a wrap or carrier constantly. So it seems to make sense that I have been so very involved in mothering Madeline's memory. It was the kind of mom that I was wired to be to her, whether she was here in body or in spirit.

After I found out I was pregnant with Madeline, I immediately began rearranging my life for her. I cut back on my hours at work, I adjusted my diet, I started doing yoga more frequently. Our spare bedroom, which had been part storage part art studio, became the baby’s room. It filled up fast. She was the first grandchild on both sides of the family and everyone was so excited for her to arrive. I quit my job the week before my due date to be a stay at home mom. When I came home from the hospital without her, I literally had absolutely no purpose. Not only did I lose my daughter, I lost myself. I had already transformed into a mother, and what good is a mother without a child? I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat on my couch in the dark for days feeling lost and alone. Even once the deep depression had lifted, I still felt so lost and unsure. I didn’t know where I fit in. I couldn’t face my friends with children, especially the ones I had met while pregnant, it hurt too much to see them living the life I had dreamed up for Madeline and me. And I couldn’t just go back to hanging around my childless friends like nothing had ever happened. I was different. I had grown life inside of my body, given birth. I was changed. I was a mother.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I allowed myself to just be where I was. I cried freely. I screamed freely too. I spent days eating nothing but cheerios and string cheese. I turned off the ringer on my phone. I smashed clay pots in my driveway. I played African drums. I painted and wrote like a woman possessed. And I was honest with myself. Sometimes I was too honest for others to handle, too raw. At first I didn’t care if I made them uncomfortable, at times I even prided myself on it, but that was just part of my grieving process. Eventually, I found a way to integrate the new me into the world in a way where I didn’t have to hide Madeline, but I also didn’t have to brandish her like a weapon. Instead, I took the ugly, tangled mess of my grief and sculpted it into something beautiful and hopeful and kind. It grew very organically. My artwork, which I had never intended to share and had created only because I didn’t know what else to do with myself, found its way onto the walls of a gallery. The exhibit became a community outreach project when I opened it up to anyone who had created art in response to a primary loss. That opened doors for me to speak at hospitals, first about my experience and my artwork, and then about the needs of bereaved parents. Then came the founding of the Sweet Pea Project, which I created as my gift to Madeline on her 2nd birthday, and the publication of my book, Still: a collection of honest artwork and writings from the heart of a grieving mother. Before long, the photo album with the little green sweet peas on it- the one that I couldn’t stand to look at because it would never hold pictures of first smiles, first teeth, first steps- before long that album was full. There were newspaper clippings, photographs from the art exhibit, photographs from the garden her Daddy works so hard on. Photographs of the candle we lit for the Wave of Light, and from Share’s Walk to Remember. Photographs of her name written on beaches around the world. Photographs of her little brothers having picnics at her tree and construction paper birthday cards that they have made for her. That is how I know that I don’t have to worry about living without her, because she is still very much a part of my family and my life.

Moms tend to become friends with other moms of children around the same age as their own. The majority of my mom friends have two and a half year old boys right now, or little ones who just turned a year. Or children who would have been three, but have been gone for that many years instead. I am at a place now where I am comfortable with who I am, a mother to children both living and dead. If someone sees me with my two little boys and asks if I would like to try for a daughter, I usually reply that maybe I’ll have another child someday, but that I already have a daughter. Sometimes I just leave it as that, other times I explain that she died. But these conversations don’t flood me with anxiety the way they used to. Madeline is my daughter and I am proud of her. Proud and grateful. After all, she is the one who first made me a mother, and that is all I ever wanted to be. I am madly in love with each of my children, but ask anyone, there is always a special place for the first born in a mother’s heart.

Looking back: a journal entry from September 20, 2007

Sometimes I like to go back and read from the black journal that I wrote in every day during that first dark year without Madeline. It helps me to see how far I really have come, especially on days where I don't necessarily feel like I've made too much progress. I was doing that very thing earlier today, and I came across this journal entry that I wrote almost exactly three years ago. This entry did not get included in Still. but I think many parents would be able to relate to it, especially those who are anticipating the arrival of their rainbow babies.
So here it is...

September 20, 2007
Madeline's room is blue. The green is gone. The bears are gone. She is gone. I know it is a healthy step in the right direction, but then why does it feel so wrong? I felt good while I was working on it. Taking her stuff down was hard, but I did it gradually. Putting Ben's stuff up felt good. I felt like I was proving to myself that I believed in him. That I believe he will come home and live in this room, sleep in this crib, watch this mobile spin. I felt like I was accomplishing something, and it was encouraging. But then when I was done, I looked around the room and all of a sudden the realization of what I had just done came crashing down on me. I had just removed my daughter from her room, and given it to someone else. I felt like I had kicked her out. I laid down on the floor and cried and cried and cried. I felt guilty, I felt angry, I felt robbed. I want to have a room for Ben, I really do... but I want to have a room for Madeline, too. I want to NEED a room for Madeline. I WANT MADELINE. I really don't feel like I am being too greedy with my requests, all I want is to have BOTH of my children here with me. Why is that too much to ask?

Support Us While You Shop!

Every year you tell yourself that you are going to get your holiday shopping out of the way early this year. How often does that really end up happening? Well this year you have an added incentive to actually follow through with it because when you shop from Thirty-One's online catalog this fall, 15% of your total purchase will be donated to Sweet Pea Project! You know you are going to end up buying a lot of this stuff anyway, why not skip the hassle of rushing to the mall at the last minute and shop with ease from your computer- all the while supporting the vision of an important cause. So pick up some gifts, and maybe something for yourself while you're at it, and feel good about the fact that your purchase just helped offer comfort, support and gentle guidance to a newly bereaved mother.

Please feel free to grab the flier below and share it with friends, family and co-workers.

Use this direct link to view the online catalog for

Sweet Pea Project's Fundraiser through Thirty-One:
http://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/eventhome.aspx?eventId=E282157&from=MYEVENTS

This fundraiser was organized by Sweet Pea Project board member Simone L. Lee.
Please do not hesitate to contact her with any questions you may have at
Simone@sweetpeaproject.org.

Thank you for supporting the Sweet Pea Project, I hope you are having a beautiful day.
peace,
Stephanie Cole

Introducing Sweet Pea Project's Founding Board of Directors!

A note from the founder:

When the Sweet Pea Project first began it was just me. I collected blankets from friends and family members and drove to my local hospitals to donate them. I am amazed (and touched and grateful!) by how much the project has grown in less than two years time. I now gratefully accept donations from all over the world, and over 650 Sweet Pea Project blankets have been donated across the country. I have written a book which has been added to the donation program and the website has become a comforting and resourceful place for grieving parents to visit. To make sure the Sweet Pea Project continues to expand to meet the needs of bereaved parents, I have decided to ask Beth Gauthier, Nicole Spadea Jackson and Simone L. Lee to join me as members of the founding board of directors for the Sweet Pea Project. Each one is a dear friend and an incredible mother, and I know that together we will be able to do amazing things for our community. I feel as though I am watching a beautiful dream unfold before my eyes and I am so excited to see what we will be able to accomplish next. Please join me in welcoming Beth, Nicole and Simone and take a moment to visit www.sweetpeaproject.org/board to read a brief bio about each new member of the Sweet Pea Project team. Thank you for your continued support of my project, it means so very much to me.
peace,
Stephanie


--
Stephanie Paige Cole
Sweet Pea Project
www.sweetpeaproject.org