LAKE SAINT LOUIS (March 1, 2010) — Families grieving the loss of a pregnancy or infant in the western portion of our community now have a Share support group option that is closer to home. Gentle Flutters Share of St. Joseph Hospital West is a new group that meets on the 4th Wednesday of each month from 7-8:30 p.m., at the Elks Lodge located at 541 2nd Street in Troy.
Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc. is a national organization aimed at providing grief support for families at the time of/or following the death of a baby. Sadly, there is plenty of need for Share services in our community. Each year, between 200 and 300 women suffer miscarriages, stillbirths, or infant deaths at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake Saint Louis. According to Lisa Zorn, RN, who serves as the hospital’s Share Grief Coordinator, roughly one third of those families request Share support services and follow-up care. “I call them to talk, and to see what I can do to help them,” she says. “Share is here to make sure each grieving family knows that someone else acknowledges their child’s existence, and also to give them a glimmer of hope that the pain will get softer.” Besides offering emotional support, Zorn’s services can range from funeral planning to finding ways to create special memories for families when they know in advance that their baby will not survive long after birth.
A key service that Share offers to grieving families in the program is an ongoing support group of other parents who understand what they are going through. Until recently, St. Joseph Hospital West patients were technically served by the National Share Support Group, located at SSM St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles, because the Lake Saint Louis hospital has never had a chapter of its own. That is not a problem, Zorn explains, except for the fact that you have to have your own Share chapter in order to have your own support group. “When we tell grieving parents from Lincoln or Warren County that they can go to a support group meeting, but it’s in downtown St. Charles, they’re just not as likely to take advantage of that service because it’s too far away,” she explains.
The lack of pregnancy and infant loss support groups in the western portion of the community was something that Bryan and Melissa Wengler noticed as well. The Wenglers, who live in Lincoln County, lost their twins due to pregnancy complications in 2008. They delivered the babies at a hospital that does not have a Share group. In May 2009, they started their own infant loss support group called Gentle Flutters, as a way to not only deal with their own loss, but also to reach out to other grieving parents who lived near them. “I realized that there was just nothing like that available near us,” says Wengler. The group meets monthly in Troy. However, because Gentle Flutters was not affiliated with Share, it’s members did not have access to all the extra resources that Share provides.
As fate would have it, Melissa Wengler and Lisa Zorn met at a Share event, and ideas about sharing their efforts to help grieving families began to flutter between them. They realized that by collaborating, they could better serve the communities of Western St. Charles, Lincoln, and Warren Counties. So SSM St. Joseph Hospital West has opened its own chapter of Share, and the support group, now known as Gentle Flutters Share of St. Joseph Hospital West, is run by the Wenglers in the same Troy location. The support group is open to all individuals who are grieving the loss of a pregnancy or infant family member, even if they have not been previously helped by Share. “It’s so exciting that this support group is more accessible to families who live further west,” says Zorn. “This is really going to benefit the families that we serve.”
Local Share Support Group Meetings
Gentle Flutters Share of St. Joseph Hospital West
Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7-8:30 p.m.
Elks Lodge
541 2nd Street in Troy, MO
National Share Support Group (St. Joseph Health Center)
Second Tuesday of each month, 7-8:30 p.m.
402 Jackson Street, St. Charles 63301