I have never met any person who has not been touched by baby loss. Women who have been pregnant and have lost a baby are most often tended to only as grieving women. But their bodies experience many of the same physical discomforts as other postpartum women and these physical reminders of their lost babies further add to the pain of their loss.
After nurturing women through the discomforts of pregnancy with Earth Mama, we realized that a woman's need for physical and emotional comfort was even greater after miscarriage or baby loss. The healing products from Earth Mama developed into Healing Hearts Baby Loss Comfort because there is a sad necessity for physical healing. And from that the Healing Hearts Baby Loss Comfort site developed to offer a space for parents to grieve and find resources and community.
We just launched the newly redesigned Healing Hearts website, and it’s truly been a labor of love for the entire team of people working on this project. For months, we have had meeting after meeting, pondered our intention, told our painful stories, cried many tears, and worked as a group to offer a unique perspective to support grieving women.
During the long hours of focusing on and clarifying our desired mission, it became clear to us that it was important to use images of the healing plants of my garden to visually communicate our message. We felt strongly that these images needed to represent the healing power of the earth, compassion, spirituality and most importantly, the rock solid strength that women possess at their core.
Over the course of several months, I took lots and lots of pictures. The garden is where I go to heal, and it’s the source of the earth’s healing gifts. Each photo has significant meaning for me, and it's own story: the violet plants whose leaves are shaped like hearts given to me by a dear friend, the red glass heart hanging from the rose trellis, a souvenir from a glorious vacation with our children. An image to communicate loving arms that protect women when they need to cry from a bird bath long ago nicknamed Mrs. Crying Pants. And the forget-me-nots that reseed themselves every spring into a blue cloud across the yard to represent the earth and the constant renewal of life.
We wanted the element of water to honor the emotion and tears that can’t be assuaged with platitudes. Fire to symbolize a trust in life’s journey and memorial to lost love. And the heart stones collected over the years resting atop the Buddha statue to remind women of their strength. Women are fragile. But women are, like nature, very, very strong.