Bear Love for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. October 15th is particularly notable as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Recognized in the U.S., several provinces across Canada and I believe also a few other countries around the world.

This is kind of a spur of the moment idea that came to me...

In honor of October 15th, my province now officially recognizing October 15th as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day and the fact my daughter, better known as "Babybear", was due to be born in October 2005 (she died in July at 26 weeks gestation), I've decided to spread some Bear Love.



Isn't he adorable?

Now he just needs a name. I'm open to suggestions!

I put these bears in the memory boxes I make to donate to the hospital, though I haven't made one for a while.

My idea (with a little help from YaYa in fine-tuning my original idea):

This little bear would like to travel around blogville spreading love. Because it is October, I think we should spread the love among bereaved parents who have suffered a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or a loss shortly after birth.

How it will work:

He will travel from October 15, 2009 - October 15, 2010. Although, he may change his mind and decide to travel forever. :)

He will be sent from one Blogger to another. Each blogger who gets him will take a photo (or many photos) of his "traveling adventure" ... the photos can be of the blogger holding him, or the bear with something that meaningful .. that reminds you of your baby/babies... Their headstones or a photo of them or whatever you feel comfortable taking a photo of. It is recommended, however, that you blur out any last names from photos for privacy and safety reasons.

Each blogger will send the photos via email to me, along with description of photo and/or a story told by the bear and /or a letter to Bear from them. Bloggers may post about him on their own blogs but must send me the link to that post. Bloggers must send me a link to their blog whether or not they post a post about the bear. The reason for this is so that when I post about the bear's adventures, I can link to your blog.

Each blogger will keep him for no more than 1 week, and then pass him along to the next blogger.

Each blogger, should they choose, may send their own personal cards or other items to the next blogger to keep. The bear, however, must continue to travel.

The bear is no bigger than my palm, so should not cost too much to mail around. However, due to cost of international shipping, perhaps we should keep this bear traveling in Canada and the US.

Every so often, I will post an update on the bear's travels, with the photos/stories (I may even create a blog just for him.)

Who will get the bear?

* You must be a blogger.
* You must be a bereaved parent via pregnancy or infant loss
* You must live in either Canada or the US.
* You must be willing to mail the bear to another blogger after your visit.
* You must love bears.

Further guidelines will be announced later.

Now before this little bear goes on his adventure... we need to sort out a few wrinkles in his travel plan. And he'd like your help in solving these few problems...

1. What is his name? The poor guy doesn't have a name! (Give your suggestions here and next week I will post a poll with some of the suggestions and see which name is chosen.)

2. My first thought was to send him around to all my bloggy friends who are bereaved parents. But then I realized that some of my bloggy friends don't know each other. So we have 3 options of how to work this.

Option 1: If you want to partake in Bear Love, you can send me an email and I will pass along your address to the person who will send the bear to you. This option may be the most complicated.

Option 2: You will send the bear to someone you know in blogville. This means that not everyone I know will get a visit from the bear, but many other people will.

Option 3: I can post a Mr. Linky or similar thing and if you wish to partake you will post a link to your blog, and the person who has the bear will click the name that comes immediately AFTER theirs, and email that person to say they have the bear and will be sending it to them and inquire their mailing addresses. If you do not hear from that person within a set amount of time, you may move to the next person on the list. This option will allow anyone who is interested in Bear Love to participate.

Please answer the poll below and the option with the most responses will be the way we do this.



3. If you have any suggestions for a blog name if I start one for this adventure, let me know! Again, I will do a poll later to choose the best name.


Looking forward to all your ideas and suggestions!

Edit: just as I was about to post this, I thought of a name for the bear! He has some patches on his body and so I thought "Patches" would be a good name... for he will be patching up the tears in your heart.... what do you think!? Still open to suggestions...