Pam spends long weeks in bed, reliving her daughter's death and birth over and over, and wondering constantly what she might have done to cause Abrianna to die. As Pam begins to make her way out into public, she has to confront her loss over and over, as people who saw her when she was pregnant ask her about her baby. I didn't know. As Pam and Tom struggle through their grief, they look for support, but there is little available. They immediately become close.
Many women experiencing pregnancy loss go through the same thing.
Part of getting through the loss is finding ways to memorialize the child. Jessica Hall keeps a memory box full of mementos, including a quilt she was piecing together when her daughter died. Pam and Tom create a memorial in their backyard, and also have Abrianna's name placed on a memorial wall in Tucson dedicated to the children who have died, regardless of how they died. Pam Magi, perinatal bereavement coordinator at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, New York, has also seen that parents always remember their losses. She runs a number of support groups for parents in different stages of grief, and her hospital has set up a walkway, with bricks engraved with the names of children who've died.