Andrea Gressman

For as long as I can remember I have been a verbal processor.  Since I was a small girl I remember my chosen method of processing has been the written word. That is where I feel most comfortable with my own "voice".  For those of you who have followed us as family over the past decade or longer you know that while I was battling cancer I wrote almost every single day. It was how I could connect with God and how I could cope with the battle I was in. It was also the one way I knew that I could leave a piece of myself here for my husband and my children if God decided to call me home.  If you were following us two years ago you know when I gave birth to my sweet Kanton Jasper, who was born sleeping, that I spent a great deal of time writing about my grief and how I was processing it. Again, it helped me process along with preserved his memory.  Writing is just what I have been able to do to help me cope with the things that life throws at me.  In fact, I feel so m...

Having a stillborn is difficult on so many levels. A pastor sent us a sympathy card and in it he said in all the years he has been doing funerals that the stillbirths were always the hardest for him. One minute you think everything is fine and then it's just not. One minute you are experiencing one of the most joyful experiences of your life - you are preparing to have a child. Then the next minute you are discovering your child has died. As if that isn't horrible enough, you then have to decide when you want to allow them to induce your labor so you can deliver your lifeless child. My words from that day:  "There is a really unfair process to having a stillborn baby. You find out your child is gone - there is no longer a heartbeat - but then you have to go through the labor and delivery of the baby. the only word I can use to describe this is that it is just cruel." I knew this was coming. Although this was my first stillbirth, I have miscarried before and ...