Sands Waikato planning events to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week

Shontelle Lavinia, 36, with her sons Jayden Campbell, 15 (left), and Cole Campbell, 4, holding a scan photo and memory rocks.

Waikato landmarks will light up pink and blue to commemorate Baby Loss Awareness Week.

Hamilton’s Victoria Bridge and Te Aroha’s Clock Tower are two of many landmarks throughout the country set to honour bereaved parents, whanau, and their babies this week.

Shontelle Lavinia, of Hamilton, a 36-year-old mum of two boys, knows this heartbreak having experienced the loss of her son Brody at 16 weeks’ gestation in April 2012.

More than a decade on, she still remembers the world-shattering words said during an ultrasound.

“Those words never leave you, hearing ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no heartbeat’ felt surreal, you think, ‘no this can’t be happening, this isn’t how it’s meant to be’,” she says.

“And then afterwards trying to find a new normal when you’re still meant to be pregnant, navigating how life continues on even though you’ve experienced the most heartbreaking thing.”

That’s where charity organisations such as Sands Waikato come in.

As volunteers and bereaved parents themselves, they support families who have experienced the death of a baby at any age or gestation.

They do so by providing online and in-person support, resources and memory boxes for the Waikato Hospital to give to families experiencing a loss. Each box is filled with memory-making keepsakes, as well as loss and grief support pamphlets and information.

“When I discovered Sands, I felt less alone in my grief as I could talk to people who had been through the same thing and were feeling the same way,” says Shontelle.

“As it’s not just about the initial loss, it’s also about a lifetime of things you’ll never get to experience with your baby such as their first word, birthdays, starting school, seeing them grow up.”

Shontelle has since joined the team of five volunteers at Sands Waikato to help others just as she received help herself.

For Baby Loss Awareness Week, Sands Waikato will host a memorial walk at Taitua Arboretum in Hamilton on Saturday, October 14, at 2pm, where they will hide “say my name” rocks in the hope those who find them will speak those babies’ names aloud.

There will be an additional candlelit service at Seddon Park Funeral Home in Hamilton on Sunday, October 15, at 6.45pm, where Sands Waikato will be participating in the Global Wave of Light.

The annual event begins in New Zealand and kicks off a continuous wave of light worldwide for 24 hours at 7pm in each time zone.

To find out more information about Sands Waikato or its events, go to its Facebook page facebook.com/SandsWaikato.

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