Getting the story straight

Women's College Hospital has been a Toronto institution for more than a century, with its philosophy of women caring for women. The hospital has long been known for its maternity care, & some of the best high-risk ob-gyns in the city practiced there. Over the 25 years I've lived in this area, there has been much debate about the future of the hospital; for a time, it was merged with another hospital in the city. More recently, the hospital regained its independence & women-centred mandate. The decision was made to close its in-patient wards and become an "ambulatory care centre" (continuing to specialize in women's health care). There was much to-do made over the recent closing of the maternity ward & its move to new, state of the art facilities at another city hospital, including a page one story in the Toronto Star about the last baby born in the old place, early on the morning of Sept. 12th.

Except -- as I discovered when I opened my copy of the Star on Sunday morning -- the newspaper's reporting was inaccurate -- and not by accident. The "last baby born at Women's College," noted with much fanfare, was actually not the last.

As a bereaved parent myself, you can imagine how I felt when I read that the last baby to be born at the hospital died shortly after his birth.

The reporter knew the truth -- but bowed to the request of the hospital's obstetrics & gynecology chief, who did not want to impose on the family in their grief.

“At the time of the move, the family was grieving acutely and we did not think it would be appropriate to approach them to gauge their interest in speaking to the media,” she said.

“I didn't want to get into reporting on a dead baby and thought the parents had suffered enough without having everyone in the city knowing what had happened to their baby,” the reporter is quoted saying, by way of explanation.

The parents themselves have said they probably would not have been able to handle the media attention at the time, and appreciated the doctor's efforts to protect them from the media.

But when they found out about what had happened, they e-mailed the Star's Public Editor, asking that the record be corrected and that their son be rightfully recognized as the last baby born at the historic hospital.

As a journalist by training, the mother of a stillborn daughter, and a longtime volunteer facilitator for a pregnancy & infant loss support group, I recognize all the conflicting impulses at work here.

"I didn't want to get into reporting on a dead baby." Reporters are supposed to report the facts, no matter how unpleasant they may be. Every day, we read the most horrific details of murders, sexual assaults. But a dead baby? Well, that's the ultimate squirm-inducer. It only confirms just how taboo the subject of death -- and a dead infant most of all -- still is in our society.

"I thought the parents had suffered enough."

"We did not think it would be appropriate."

The main problem here, as I see it, is that both the doctor and the reporter -- both trained to analyze facts, ask questions and investigate -- made the error of assuming too much, instead of doing what they had been trained to do.

The doctor erred in assuming that she knew how the parents would react, what their wishes would be and what they felt would be appropriate. (Just as, in the past, doctors assumed that parents would not want to see or hold their dead or dying baby and whisked the body away for burial in a mass grave.)

The reporter erred in several respects -- by also assuming what the parents' wishes would be, by assuming that they wouldn't want people to know what had happened to their baby, by giving into his instincts to shy away from a taboo subject, instead of doing his job and reporting the truth. As the Public Editor pointed out, he also erred by assuming that a gravely ill newborn would not cry, & that thus, his lead sentence (referrring to the last newborn baby's cry heard at the hospital) was technically correct (it wasn't).

I am very glad that the parents, whatever their initial inclination might have been (were they consulted in the first place...), have come forward to correct the public record, to speak out about their experience & to express their pride in their son.

And I am glad that the Star has recognized and called attention to its error (although I do notice that while the doctor says in the article that she now regrets any distress this may have caused the family, nowhere does the Star actually say that it regrets, apologizes for or is sorry for its error...).

I know how difficult it is for people to hear & read about these things. Once, I too would have shyed away from the topic of miscarriage, stillbirth & infant death. But if you think it's difficult to read about it, or report about, or to know the right thing to do or say when faced with a loved one's pain, all I can say is, just try living with it....

I know how difficult it is to speak out publicly about our children, to face the scrutiny of others (among our family and friends, let alone in one of the country's largest newspapers). I'm guilty of staying silent myself, more often than not. As this story shows, it's all too easy for others who haven't walked in our shoes to assume they know what's best for us and how we want to be treated -- and for those assumptions, however well-meaning they might be, to be incorrect, resulting in even more pain for us.

But if more of us spoke out about our experiences, our feelings, our wishes -- and if more media told the truth about pregnancy and infant loss -- how common it is, how devastating it is, how others can help (and hurt) -- we might be able to make things a little bit better all round.

The Public Editor didn't note (& probably doesn't know) that October (which comes Friday!) is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in many jurisdictions, with October 15th recognized in many places as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. This day is not currently recognized in my province of Ontario (and this story most definitely drives home the need for greater awareness...!) -- but there is a drive under way to remedy that. Click here to find out how you can help!

Perfect Moment Monday: Peggy's Cove Piper

(OK, so it's Tuesday, but who cares?)

I'm back! (Did you notice I was gone?) Dh & I were away last week on our much-anticipated Nova Scotia vacation, & we had an absolutely fabulous time. I had hoped to write up my 30 Posts in 30 Days entries & have them queued up to post automatically while we were gone, but ran out of time. The 30 Posts series will resume shortly, although it may be more like 30 Posts in 45 Days, lol.

Anyway -- our vacation was filled with memorable moments, but there is one in particular that I automatically identified as a blogworthy Perfect Moment.

A week ago Sunday, dh & I made the 43 km (about 25 miles) drive from Halifax out to Peggy's Cove, which is a tiny, rustic, 200-year-old fishing village (pop. 35) on the Atlantic Ocean. (SwissAir Flight 111 crashed in the waters nearby in 1998, & there is a memorial to the victims just outside of town.) The village, and the red & white lighthouse on St. Margaret's Bay (built in 1868), is one of the most photographed & instantly recognizable sights in Canada. I've seen that lighthouse a million times in photos & on television... and when we rounded the bend in the road & I saw it (and the broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean beyond it) for the first time in "real life," I actually started crying. I think dh & I instantly fell in love with the place. (In fact, we loved it so much, we went back again on Friday, the day before our holiday ended.)

We parked our rental car in the big parking lot near the restaurant & gift shop, & made our way up to the lighthouse & onto the rocks beyond to gaze at the ocean. It was still relatively early, & there were only about a dozen people on the rocks (although before long, a half-dozen tour buses would roll in).



It had drizzled for most of the way from the city, and there was a light fog, but it could have been much worse. Hurricane Igor was brewing in the Atlantic, and while he was still hundreds of miles away (& would ultimately pass by Nova Scotia -- hitting the province of Newfoundland instead), he was already making his presence felt in the winds, the whitecaps out on the ocean, and some rather spectacular waves crashing on the rocks below us. I remember thinking that I would almost rather see this place in this sort of weather than on a clear, sunny, calm day. It just seemed right, somehow. We heeded the posted signs (see below) and stayed well away from the black rocks on the water's edge, marvelling at the beauty of the water and the granite rocks, worn over many centuries by glaciers, the weather and the waves.





And then, off in the distance, I heard a sound. The unmistakable wail of bagpipes. It was eerie and beautiful and entirely in keeping with the character of the place and the weather. "Now THIS is a perfect moment," I remember thinking. When we started walking back to the parking lot, we saw that it was a young girl, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a kilt. Her instrument case was open beside her, with a hand-lettered sign propped up inside: "COLLEGE OR BUST."



I grinned and tossed a toonie (two-dollar coin) into the case. She totally made my day.

You can find more Perfect Moments at Weebles Wobblog.

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 20: A hobby of yours

I first heard about scrapbooking from my mother in the late 1990s, I think. I used to keep scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings, ticket stubs & programs from events I'd attended. I've always loved taking photos (meticulously labelled & put into photo albums -- although I'm several years behind on that at the moment...!), writing and recording family history, and I've always had a passion for pretty coloured paper & pens, lol. ; )

My mom knew this, & told me that the daughter of a friend of hers was selling supplies through home parties to make these amazing photo albums. She gave me one of her brochures (it was Creative Memories) & I tucked it away, thinking I should really look into this sometime.

In the spring of 2001, I stumbled onto a copy of Scrapbooks Etc. on the newsstand. This took what I'd seen in the brochure my mom had given to a whole new level. I was intrigued. This was something I knew I'd like to do. But where to buy supplies? How to get started? I find I feel most comfortable trying new things when someone shows me what to do. In April 2002, I wound up taking a one-night introductory course at the local community centre, hosted by a local Creative Memories representative.

Around that time, I was at the meeting of our pregnancy loss support group. We were having a "memento sharing" evening, where we talk about how to preserve our memories of our babies & share the keepsakes that we have. I mentioned scrapbooking & that I'd heard there were actually entire stores in the States that were devoted to this hobby. "There's one in [neighbouring town]," one of the other women told me. Really??!

I'll never forget the first time I walked into that store. It was an overwhelming, amazing experience -- like a kid being let loose in a candy store. ; ) I wound up going to a "crop" there a few months later, & although I have been in a bit of a slump recently, I have been scrapbooking ever since then.

On the face of it, scrapbooking may seem like a strange sort of hobby for a childless woman. It's such a mommy-dominated hobby, and if you look at any of the scrapbooking magazines or websites, cute kids predominate in the layouts that are shared. I've definitely felt left out sometiems at crops when the women around me talk nonstop about their kids (& sometimes ignore me after I say I don't have any). I've actually had people ask me why I scrapbook if I don't have kids, & if I don't have kids, then what do I scrapbook? (!)

My original idea was that I was going to make a scrapbook for Katie. But I knew I needed some pratice first (because this, of all albums, must be PERFECT, right??). Katie's album is still untouched, but I have completed several albums of baby & toddler photos for our two nephews, & a big fat album as a graduation gift for Parent's Neighbours' Daughter. (You can always scrapbook other people's kids if you don't have your own, lol.)

But of course, there is so much else you can scrapbook besides kids -- friends, holidays, your wedding, yourself. I know many people who have started a "Book of Me" as a diversion from scrapbooking their kids. Last fall, I started doing a "Book of Us," covering our days at school, our wedding, & then one spread for each year we've been married, including the best photos of us & journalling about the main things that happened to us that year & how we spent our anniversary. The idea was that I would have the album finished in time for our 25th anniversary. Our anniversary was in July, & I'm still finishing the wedding pages. Oh well!

For about two years, I actually got together with a group of friends from our pregnancy loss group one evening a month to scrapbook. We took turns hosting & providing snacks & drinks. I was the only one who didn't have a living child, but we all shared the bond of loss & enjoyed each other's company. Some of us were more into scrapbooking than others, of course, and eventually, a few people moved away, a few had subsequent babies & got busy, & gradually, our group disbanded. We still see each other & connect on Facebook, & I still consider those women some of my dearest friends. : )

Scrapbooking is a great way to capture your memories, preserve your family stories, show off some of your favourite photos, & indulge your creative spirit. Playing with pretty paper and glue makes me feel like I'm back in grade school sometimes. It can sometimes be frustrating when what lands on the page doesn't match the image in my head, but it's also satisfying to finish a spread, or an entire album. : )

The layout above is one of the wedding pages from our anniversary album.

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 19: A talent of yours

Talent, eh? Let me think. I used to play piano, but I can't say I'm fabulously talented in that way. I can carry a tune, but there a lot of people who sing better than me. I am a fairly good cook, but I'm no gourmet & I'm not passionate about it. I am not in the LEAST bit athletically talented.

Writing has always been something I enjoyed doing, & I even found a way to make a living doing it (although perhaps not writing novels as I had dreamed). Doing things like blogging & scrapbooking help give me the creative satisfaction that my job sometimes lacks.

I will say that I am a pretty good proofreader. I can spot a typo at 20 paces, lol. I sometimes even circle typos that I find in books in red pen. I can't help myself. ; )

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 18: My Wedding

We got married on July 6, 1985. (Yes, we just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!) I had such a fabulous time planning my wedding. : ) The minister told me she'd never seen such an organized bride. For at least a year afterwards, I still devoured bridal magazines. It was hard to turn off the faucet once it had been turned on. And this was long, long before the days of "A Wedding Story," "Say Yes to the Dress," etc.

("A Wedding Story" became my guilty pleasure, my flight from reality, during the months that I was home from work after Katie's stillbirth. I couldn't touch "A Baby Story" with a 10-foot pole, but "A Wedding Story," I could handle.)

In the time since I had graduated high school, my parents had moved -- twice. The second move came just before I arrived home with a graduate diploma in my hand & wedding plans on the brain. Dh & I spent most of our engagement apart, me in Manitoba living with Mom & Dad and working on the weekly newspaper, & he in Toronto with his dad & brother, starting a (brief-lived) job with an insurance company. We were both so broke, I didn't actually get an engagement ring until just a few months before our wedding -- in fact, I picked the set myself on a shopping trip to the city (much to the amusement of the sales clerk, who enquired, "And is there a groom to go with the ring?"), & brought him back to the store to buy it. The limit on his credit card was too low to pay for it -- debit hadn't been invented yet -- and we weren't sure the store would take a personal cheque from out of province -- so our rings were paid for with traveller's cheques. : )

So -- where to have the wedding? We decided that, practically speaking, it should probably be either in the town where my parents now lived, or in the city. Unfortunately, the minister at my mother's church was decidedly unhelpful. He told me his preference would be that we find a church where we were going to be living, become members & show our commitment to that congregation, & then get married from there. (My mother, who had already volunteered many hours in this parish in the year since moving there, was not impressed.)
So the city it was. : ) (More & better accommodations for our many out of town guests there, anyway.) We checked out a couple of different reception venues, but I think it was my idea that we should have the entire wedding on the campus of the university where we had met, & where I had lived in residence for four years. It was "home" to me as much as any other place I'd lived in my life before that. We met with the chaplain at the Anglican-affiiliated college chapel, & SHE said, "I'd be happy to marry you." She even recommended an Engaged Encounter weekend retreat for us that we could attend on a weekend when dh was visiting, in lieu of regular premarital classes.
(I told dh he had to tell his (very Catholic) Italian father that we would be married by a female priest. I wanted to be absolutely sure this would be OK with him. So I wasn't prepared for FIL's reaction when we walked into the chapel for the rehearsal: "The priest is a woman??" Fortunately, he was OK with it. Surprised, but OK.)
We booked the reception for one of the rooms (normally part of the cafeteria) in the student union building. (The photographer for the student newspaper took our wedding photos, & the guy who'd done my hair for most of the time I'd lived on campus did my hair.) We didn't know until the day itself that the floor-length windows actually slid open. They were surrounded by shrubbery, & it felt like an outdoor wedding.
We had chicken cordon bleu with potatos rissole & mixed vegetables for dinner, and fresh strawberries for dessert. Our colour scheme was "dusty rose" (all the rage in 1985), grey & white. We had pink & white carnations on the tables with white tablecloths & pink napkins. My bridesmaids -- my sister (maid of honour), my best friend from childhood & my best friend from university -- wore dusty rose dresses & carried arm bouquets of white roses. My bouquet was a cascade of pink & white roses. (The florist was a friend of my aunt's who gave us a good deal.) The guys wore dark grey morning coats with light grey vests underneath & pinstriped grey pants.
I had had an image in my head of my dream dress, fuelled by browsing countless bridal magazines. (I had actually seen one I fell in love with, but it was well over $1,000 dollars, which seemed like a horrendous amount of money to me then.) It would be white or slightly off white, ballerina length (no train), plain satin or taffeta with a scooped neckline & short sleeves, and a fingertip veil. The dress I wound up with had a huge long train with a veil that completely covered the train. The appliques on the veil matched the appliques on the dress. I'd only tried on about four dresses, but we looked at it & even though it looked nothing like the dress of my dreams, we knew it was "the one." And the price was right. The dress was $298 and the veil was $99. Seemed ridiculous that the veil cost 1/3 as much as the dress, but what the heck. ; )
My bridesmaid/best friend from childhood was also getting married that summer, & we spent the May long weekend visiting her parents & baking her mom's fruitcake, which we froze, then cut, wrapped & served at my wdding. We rented a fake cake from Safeway to have at the reception (I bought the topper).
I can't remember how many people we invited, but the only people from dh's list who made the trip were his dad, brother & two cousins who were in the wedding party. We wound up with 126 people, all from my side. And it felt like they were all looking at me when the doors to the chapel swung open & I walked in with my father. I took a deep breath -- at the exact moment the photographer took a photo (ugh).
Our wedding service was from the Book of Alternate Services, which the minister preferred over the beautiful old Book of Common Prayer. Both my godmothers did Bible readings. We entered to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" & left to "Trumpet Voluntary," which Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer had used as the processional for their wedding a few years earlier. My bridesmaid's sister, who has a beautiful, trained voice, sang "O Perfect Love" & "The Wedding Song (There is Love)" (which it seemed no 1970s or early 1980s wedding could be without).
I was fine until, exiting the chapel & forming a reception line, I noticed all my bridesmaids & my parents wiping their eyes. Then I started crying too.
We took photos in front of the beautiful old administration building, across the road from the student union building where the reception was being held. It was a hot, hot day, & the sun was so bright, you can see us all squinting in many of the photos. There was some kind of conference going on in the student union building that was just letting out. "Look, it's a wedding!" I heard people say. Out came THEIR cameras, & they started snapping too. It's funny to think that my wedding is in some stranger's vacation album.
Our first dance was to "You & I" by Eddie Rabbitt & Crystal Gayle (which, in retrospect, seemed strangely prophetic, with lyrics that repeat the phrase "Just you & I..." over & over again). The evening whizzed by, too fast. Dh & I tossed the bouquet & garter & left (almost unnoticed by the time we made our way out the door), & drove away in his rental car (nothing fancy), my veil flapping in the breeze. I could hear Billy Idol singing "Mony Mony" as we did. ; )
We spent the night downtown at at the city's best hotel. The next day we went back to the hotel where most of the guests were staying, picked up dh's family & then drove out to my parents. Traditionally, Ukrainian weddings are followed by a "day after" gathering, & my parents invited a whole bunch of people to come, eat, visit some more & watch us open our wedding gifts (although, true to Ukrainian & Italian tradition, most of the gifts were received were cash & cheques).
We left the next day on our honeymoon -- a week in Calgary (during Stampede time!), Banff & Jasper -- before flying to Toronto to start our new life together.

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 17: An art piece

I have to admit that I don't know a whole lot about art, but I do appreciate a nice painting. I tend to be more traditionalist than modern in my tastes. I enjoy visiting art galleries occasionally, & I feel very lucky, living where I do, to have access to two great ones: the Art Gallery of Ontario and the McMichael Gallery, which features work by Canadian artists exclusively and is home to the country's finest collection of Group of Seven artwork, which often featured Canadian landscapes.

I don't have a particular favourite Group of Seven painting, but this is one that caught my eye while scanning images on Google (!). It's called Red Maple by A.Y. Jackson.

30 Posts in 30 Days: Day 16: A song that makes you cry (or nearly)

I could think of several items for this category. Hymns from church -- traditional hymns, the ones I heard as a I child (& can often still sing without looking at the hymn book), very often make me choke up to the point that I can't sing anymore, just mouth the words.

All I need to do is hear the opening notes of Tara's Theme, the theme song from "Gone With the Wind" -- as I did yesterday, when Turner Classic Movies showed a promo for an upcoming showing of the movie (one of my all-time favourites) -- & I am reaching for the Kleenex box.

On our upcoming trip, dh & I are planning to spend some time in Cape Breton Island, a hotbed of Celtic music, which often has the power to move me to tears. Maybe it speaks to my Scots-Irish genes. Maybe it's the connection to my childhood. Which may seem odd, because I grew up on the Canadian Prairies -- but, until I was 14, we had but ONE television channel -- the CBC (something kids today, or those, like dh, who grew up closer to the border & American TV stations, find incomprehensible). And so I grew up listening to a healthy dose of "Don Messer's Jubilee" and "Singalong Jubilee" and "The Irish Rovers" -- with singers like Catherine McKinnon & John Allen Cameron.

One of the office towers close to where I work regularly has lunchtime concerts and, a few years ago, I stumbled onto a concert by Men of the Deeps -- a group of singing coal miners from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, whom I'd seen before on television with another East Coast music legend, Rita MacNeil. Listening to these these big, burly men -- all retired or working Nova Scotian coal miners -- wearing helmets and work shirts and singing in perfect harmony -- touched something deep within me. Tears rolled down my face. They've been back a couple of times since then, & I always carve time out of my busy day to get away to see them. And I always cry.

Here's an amateur video of them with the Cape Breton Symphony, singing one of Rita MacNeil's songs, Working Man. They've often performed it with her (& there are videos of that, too), but this was the only video I could find of them singing it themselves, as I saw them (although they didn't have an orchestra with them then -- & to be honest, & no offense to the orchestra, but I think the orchestra actually detracts from the beauty of their voices a bit...!).




The Men of the Deeps sing another Rita MacNeil song that was also recorded by another wonderful Celtic group, The Rankin Family. It too moves me to tears -- not only because of the beauty of their voices and harmonies, but just read the lyrics (beautiful, but like salt in an infertile's wounded heart)...!:

When the waves roll on over the waters
And the ocean cries
We look to our sons and daughters
To explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again

When the light goes dark with the forces of creation
Across a stormy sky
We look to reincarnation to explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again

We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again.

Here's a video of the Rankins' version of the song (made all the more poignant by the presence of John Morris Rankin, killed in a car accident on a slippery coastal road in January 2000):