The Mourning Forecast

Susan McElroy is the incredible woman behind Mourning Forecast. She is also someone I get to call my dearest friend. We have done a few photo sessions with her such as maternity pictures, back to school and even gender reveals of the twins. I knew Susan volunteered at the hospital to support grieving parents through photography,  but never did I imagine my family would one day be in the front of her lens, grieving.

After finding out we had lost our baby at our 14week appointment we ended up at the hospital to induce after a failed attempt to have the baby at home. Since we didn’t know the gender, we didn’t have a  name, but I told Stephen I wanted to refer to the baby as “our glory child”. The nurses asked if we had a name and I told them “Glory” but I was saddened that I didn’t have a middle name. I prayed that I could know the gender of our baby once they were here and that a middle name would come to me.

A Back Story:
Susan has made all my babies a baby blanket. When we found out we were pregnant with our 4th baby I knew that I wanted to wait till birth to know the gender. As I was planning a gender neutral nursery I decided to do a theme of honey bees 

 I sent Susan a picture of a crocheted blanket shaped like honey combs, and she IMMEDIATELY got to work on it. She would send me pictures of the progress, and I would smile with excitement. Dreaming of covering up my sweet baby in it, and then continuing to use it into their toddler stage, like my other kids had.

Fast forward to Glory making her arrival into my hands after just 16 short weeks of pregnancy, and we were very confident she was a girl. Susan came in to take pictures and she immediately spoke to her.

“Hi Glory, you are such a beautiful baby, and I’m so glad I get to meet you. I didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl, so I’ve just been calling you honey bee since I started working on your blanket.”

It sounds dramatic, but in that moment time slowed down. “Bee… That’s it, that’s her middle name. Her name is Glory Bee”. I thought to myself.

Unknown to my sweet friend, she had just answered prayers within her first 30 seconds of being in the room. She was also the first person to talk to Glory. If I’m honest it took me by surprise at first, and I wasn’t sure how to process the way it made me feel. We have been raising our kids together for 6 years and I realized as she had been making my baby a blanket she had day dreamed of the days with this baby too. She had given her a nickname of Honey Bee and was preparing a spot in her heart. I realized what I was feeling was validation. Susan’s presence and her actions were validating for me, and I can’t express how empowering that is for a mother going through a miscarriage.

She proceeded to take out her camera and I was able to experience Susan’s gift of bereavement photography first hand.

We take pictures of things that matter to us, and moments we want to remember clearly even when they blur in our minds. The two hours we had with our Glory Bee are the only memories I will ever have of her and I’m so glad to have them captured. It was empowering and validating; a reassurance that my miscarriage mattered and her life counted. Glory was very tiny but she was worthy of being photographed and to be remembered. Having her pictures gave me the strength to hand her over in our final goodbyes knowing I never had to worry about forgetting the details of her face or how she fit in my palm. Those captured memories are something I can choose to hang on my wall with her siblings, or in the deepest part of my dresser drawer to grab in my waves of grief. Either way, they are a vessel of healing and something I greatly cherish.