Nicole Havenstrite was finally ready to share her story. It’s been a couple years since she realized that the baby she was carrying inside her wasn’t going to join her family in this world. She grieved that loss, all the while feeling as if the emotions she was experiencing were somehow unnatural.
So, she typed up a post destined for her Facebook page – laying bare her feelings for anyone who was willing to listen. As it turns out, there were many. Friends, but also friends of friends who Nicole didn’t know. People seeking her advice about how to help a friend who’s going through the same loss. That one post on her personal page built something of a loose-knit community, but there was the potential for more.
‘I just need someone to understand what I’m feeling’
Nicole and her husband Shane were on a fishing trip to Lake Michigan in 2021, and at one point, she remembered that she hadn’t taken an anti-nausea medicine prescribed during her pregnancy. However, she wasn’t feeling sick, which she says was odd. Instead of feeling fortunate that she wasn’t nauseous, she felt something wasn’t right.
“I think there was a feeling in my gut, in the middle of vacation, that I don’t think this is right,” Nicole says.
When they returned home to West Union, Nicole went to see her doctor at Gundersen Palmer Lutheran Hospital, who suggested she get an ultrasound as a precaution. During the procedure, she could see on the technician’s face – as hard as he tried to remain neutral, Nicole says – that the news wasn’t good. Her baby – a boy she was going to name Oliver – she was told, had no heartbeat.
Several options for how to proceed were presented, but ultimately, Nicole chose to have surgery in La Crosse to complete her pregnancy.
“We chose the surgery route, mainly because mentally, I knew he was there, but without a heartbeat. My body and mind were holding on to him. Surgery was a difficult choice but necessary,” she says. “We got through surgery, and waking up from surgery was probably the worst part because that was the first moment I didn’t have my baby anymore after holding onto him and loving him. He was suddenly gone.”
The following weeks and months involved therapy, exercise and other ways to try to cope with her grief. But what Nicole found particularly helpful – in addition to close friends – were support groups on Facebook. She spoke with women from all over the country who experienced what she did and felt what she was feeling.
“I just need someone to understand what I’m feeling because of that feeling of grief and loss, but also feeling that it’s not your fault, but feeling like, did I do something?” she says. “It was overwhelming.”
After talking privately with women in the support groups, Nicole decided she wanted to share her loss with her friends on Facebook, so she posted about it. Slowly, other women began sending her private messages telling her they understood her grief and sharing their own stories with her. She was taken aback by how many people reached out.
“There were so many private messages that had gone on, and there are so many women who are silent, and they don’t have a spot to talk about it,” Nicole says. “You can hear that they want to share their babies’ stories but mentally could not. So, how do we help them?”
A place to heal
For the next couple years, Nicole found ways to distract herself. She took part in community events. She kept busy running her West Union business, Euphoria Coffee. She was even fortunate enough to welcome a baby boy, Levi. But none of that replaced the loss she still felt after her miscarriage.
Over coffee one day with her friend Lindsey Sorensen, she decided it was time to step forward to create a support group for women in and around the area.
“Essentially, what it came down to was, (she) wanted the support group, wanted to make sure women knew they had a place to go if they needed it,” says Sorensen, who had her own loss. “That’s the hardest part. It’s so common, but it’s also been made to feel so taboo.”
That led to the creation of her Facebook group, “Friends of Ollie.” The name is a nod to her baby Oliver, and the group’s logo incorporates symbols to include all women who’ve suffered a loss of this kind. The group’s goal is to give women a place to share – either using their names or anonymously.
But Nicole wanted to reach even more women, so she approached Bethany Hanson, a certified lactation consultant at Gundersen Palmer Lutheran, and asked if she’d partner with her to provide resources for women – which includes a book Nicole read, The Miscarriage Map; handmade fabric burial bassinet made locally by Lynn Lauer, owner of One Block Over; and a personally written letter she penned.
It was a natural partnership. Hanson meets with all the women experiencing a miscarriage who come through the doors at Gundersen Palmer Lutheran, and she continues those relationships with follow-up phone calls and visits. She provides the packets of information that are required by the hospital, but now, the keepsakes from Friends of Ollie are a part of the package.
Palmer prepared for the hard times
This collaboration fits in well with the work Hanson has done to earn a certificate through the Perinatal Bereavement Program, which is a training series intended to assist healthcare providers in helping women who’ve experienced not only infant loss, but other grief points like unplanned cesarean sections, unsuccessful breastfeeding and more.
“If we’re providing OB care, we have to do all of this, too,” Hanson says. “If you don’t take care of it at the time, it leads to trauma down the road and it just resurfaces, and it can affect their life, long term.”
The course showed Hanson the different ways she can help families during this time, as well as provided an overview of how people of various cultures and religions navigate infant loss – something especially useful given the hospital’s location in a racially diverse area of northeast Iowa.
That kind of training, Hanson says, isn’t prevalent in small, rural hospitals, and it was something she felt was lacking in her own department. So, she made it a goal of hers to become familiar with the bereavement process as much as she is the birthing process.
“We can’t just be in the business of having babies,” she says. “We have to be in the business of all of it.”
A lasting impact
Nicole started Friends of Ollie in October, and so far, the group consists for 29 women – most of whom live near West Union, though it’s open to anyone. There are a number of posts, with comments from women who shared similar experiences.
“To know there’s another woman who felt that was huge,” she says of her own experience. “I thought I was alone, but now we can lean on each other”
The group hopes to host face-to-face events at some point, which might include memorial walks or vigils, especially around hard dates like Mother’s Day.
“It’s really just a connection piece for women,” Nicole says. “It’s such a tragedy, but how do we gain something positive out of it? This was the positive puzzle piece to it.”