Newsletter September 2009
Welcome to the September edition of our quarterly newsletter.
If you would like support during a subsequent pregnancy, please contact us for the date of the next meeting.
Support Group Meetings
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the September Kirkcaldy meeting will be held in the Parentcraft Room within Forth Park Hospital. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Committee
It is with much regret that we say goodbye to Fiona and Karen from the committee. Fiona and Karen have been committee members for some time and their contribution will be sadly missed. We thank them for all their hard work – Karen for her continual input with the baby garden in St Andrews and Fiona for her excellent secretarial skills and hospitality.
We would like to welcome Nichola and Susan to the committee, and Nichola has volunteered to take on the role of Secretary. However, we would still welcome more volunteers on the committee – meetings are held at 7pm on a Monday in Kirkcaldy. If you are interested in joining us, please contact us in the usual ways.
New Arrivals
Huge congratulations to:
Claire and Grant on the birth of Harry Joseph on 7th September. A beautiful baby brother to Jake, Josh and the late Jessica.
Services of Remembrance and Thanksgiving on Sunday 23rd August
The night our darling Alfie died both my aunt and my best friend named a star in his memory.
Consequently this year’s august memorial service had an extra special resonance for us. The August service is my favourite, if one can say that about a memorial service, however one must be allowed preferences regardless of the situation and mine is very definitely the August memorial.
As I said, this year’s service was important for us as the theme was stars, and for yet another year both Mark and Jo brought together a very special, poignant and thoughtful service. The participation point of the ceremony was so beautiful - Rob made us a wonderful copper tree, on which we placed white stars with our messages of love to our own wee stars, we then took as a memento a star light catcher. Mark's words once again brought tears to our eyes – his depth of compassion and empathy goes on and on....... he always seems to know just the right things to say.
Lastly, I felt the love, warmth and friendship from all the other parents who come together to share with love, pride, sadness and joy our darling children – THANKS to our sands family without the last 21 months would have been even harder. These services punctuate our year, as a little island where we can be ourselves – parents, grandparents and family who can take a few hours to dedicate our thoughts completely to our wee ones.
Many thanks again to Mark , Jo and Rob
Clare
The Christmas service will be held on 13th December at 2pm in the Education Centre at Queen Margaret Hospital.
Lights of Love
Forth Valley Sands will be hosting the first Scottish Lights of Love Service on Friday 11th December at 7.30pm in St Mary's Church in the centre of Stirling. The event is open to all, and if you are interested in attending, please contact us so that we can let Forth Valley know.
Scottish Network Day 2010
We will be hosting the Scottish Network Day next year – more details in the next newsletter.
Baby Gardens
The flower vases are now in place and we hope that you are pleased with them. Unfortunately, no progress has been made on the baby garden in Dunfermline Cemetery – following a meeting with Bereavement Services it was agreed that the whole area should be redesigned and at present we are waiting for them to get back to us with suggestions as to what we can do there.
A small group have been working on Hayfield Cemetery which has seen a big improvement on the tidiness of the area.
We are still waiting for an update on the replacement statue for Dunfermline Crematorium.
We have somebody new doing our inscriptions and hope to see a big improvement in the quality of service.
Fundraising
The Walkie Talkies raised over £1600 by completing the West Highland Way.
Karen raised £86.57 by holding a number of coffee mornings at her work.
Neil raised over £1500 by running the Edinburgh Marathon.
Susanraised £200 by taking part in the Sponsored Swim, and the Fraser Family raised £99.20.
Many thanks to all who have taken part in fundraising for us – your fantastic efforts are hugely appreciated.
Donations
We have received:
£500 from Inverkeithing & Dalgety Bay Rotary club
£200 from Kirkcaldy Rotary club
Our very grateful thanks go to all who make donations to us.
Awareness Month
Thank you to all those who helped at the stalls at Asda in Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline. We raised £84.74 and £86.61 respectively, and hopefully raised our profile as well.
Balloon Release
The annual balloon release took place on Sunday 14th June at Lochore Meadows as part of our Awareness Month campaign. Balloons were released in memory of our babies, with personal messages attached. The event was well attended, around 100 people enjoyed their picnics and strawberries and cream in the sunshine. Unfortunately at 2pm when the balloons were scheduled to be released it started to rain, so the release was delayed until after the thunder and lightning .However the weather and technical difficulties failed to spoil the event, which was a great success raising around £150.
Why 17? Scottish Parliament Launch
The Why 17? Launch at the Scottish Parliament will take place on November 16th 2009. Jo-Anna will be representing Fife Sands, and we would urge you to lobby our local MSPs to attend. To find out who your MSPs are, go to www.theyworkforyou.com. A draft of a letter which may be amended is included with this newsletter. We would also urge you to sign the ePetition which can be found by following this link
http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/viewpetition.asp?PetitionID42
Please forward to anyone else you think may have an interest in our plea to saving babies lives. Thank you
Fife Constabulary Unsung Heroes Awards Ceremony
2009 marks the Diamond Anniversary of Fife Constabulary and as part of the 60th Anniversary celebrations, the Force hosted the ‘Unsung Heroes Award Ceremony’ to recognise and celebrate those invaluable contributions. The ‘Unsung Heroes’ are individuals nominated by Fife Constabulary staff, who represent the truest spirit of community values so often seen but rarely recognised. Fife Sands was nominated by Sgt Sean FitzGerald and Jo and I attended the awards ceremony which was held at the Glen Pavilion, Dunfermline on Thursday 17th September 2009. We were welcomed by the Chief Constable and awards were presented to the ‘Unsung Heroes’ by Barbara Dickson, Val McDairmid, Lord Lieutenant Margaret Dean to name a few. We sat and listened to the stories of the ‘Unsung Heroes’ as they were being presented with their award. Over the year there will be a charitable focus with donations being made to Fife Sands and 6 other local charities nominated by Fife Constabulary staff.
Our thanks to Sean for nominating Fife Sands and for an enjoyable evening.
Kathryn
"Unexplained” Stillbirth
Christine and Jo attended a slide show and talk given by Allan Howatson on 1st September in Glasgow. Allan is a Pathologist in Glasgow and he explained how the number of unexplained stillbirths can be greatly reduced by changing the categorisation currently used. The Aberdeen method does not allow pathologists to record problems/conditions identified in the placenta and umbilical cord. Many of the causes identified are recurring, yet parents are not advised of this as there is nowhere to record them on the Post Mortem. It is hoped that the new categorisation will be adopted next year, greatly reducing the number of unexplained stillbirths, and perhaps reducing the number of families that have recurrent losses.
Footprints
Tiny feet
That should be taking baby steps
Instead left
Giant Footprints
Embedded in my heart.
Matching Feet
Now walking, take their baby steps
Alone.
They should have walked together
But only one will blaze a trail
His trailhead marked by
Giant Footprints
Left there by his stillborn twin:
Buried wombmate memories that linger deep within.
By Elizabeth Pector.
Jared Scott and Bryan Samuel , identical twin boys, were born by urgent Caesarean at 33 weeks gestation in February, 1997, five hours after Bryan was found dead on a "routine" ultrasound.
Footprints was written in fall 1998, when Jared was learning to walk.