Is your precious little one(s) in heaven? Do your loving arms feel the ache to hold and cradle your baby(ies)? We are so deeply sorry…the gravity of your loss is tremendous. Our hearts go out to you and we ache for your loss. You and your baby are at the heart of why we exist as an organization. We are here to love you through this pain and offer comfort, a listening ear and to be a light in this dark storm.

 

If you have found out that your baby or infant has a condition or injury they can not survive and you must plan to say goodbye one day, please reach out to us as soon as possible! We have important literature and resources we want to provide you in our GRACE Care Package with time sensitive items.

 

The materials will help you navigate the many questions and decisions you will face when experiencing a molar or ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, late term loss or an infant loss. We hope you will feel informed, empowered, and supported so you can go through this without all the regrets and know that help is just a phone call or email away. You can order yours by simply calling or emailing us directly. If you are close to a distribution center in Minnesota or South Carolina then you can pick one up in-person or it can be shipped to you anywhere in the United States.

 

We want you to know you are not alone as you face the path in front of you which is much different than the one you had imagined and planned. Your baby’s life, no matter how brief on earth, is so very important and you have found a safe place to grieve, connect with other grieving parents, heal and receive strength for this difficult journey.

We look forward to talking with you and helping in practical and meaningful ways. Please reach out by phone, or email when you need support or resources. We have an online support group on Tuesday evenings that you can join from anywhere. In Minnesota, we have support groups in Rogers and Coon Rapids that you can attend in-person.

 

We have a variety of volunteer opportunities that can be very healing to do in memory of your baby(ies). Fill out our volunteer form to begin your journey with us!

 

If you are a grieving dad or grieving couple in need of spiritual guidance and prayer, you can schedule an appointment with Pastor Stephen McVicar who heads up our Pastoral Care Department. Meetings are provided on Zoom or in-person (when possible). Please email him here.

 

 

It can be very difficult when someone close to you is grieving the loss of a baby. Often, you are grieving with them and wonder how to support them as they mourn their loss. It can be hard to find the right words. Here is a list of things to say and do that are helpful as you prepare to reach out to your bereaved friend or family member. Depending on how close you are to the person grieving and how well you know them, you may decide between giving them time and space to heal or offering a practical helping hand. It’s normal to feel helpless though. Your friend or family member must now find a new normal. This simply means that life as they knew it has changed because of this and the death of their baby will affect them. They can’t help but be changed by this experience. Be encouraged and have hope though! They will come through and your love and support will make all the difference in the world in their healing process.

We are sorry for your loss, for this is our loss also. Grief’s ripple affect goes far and wide from the epicenter of the home of the parents who’s baby died. Friends and family all feel the shock waves and each person will be affected and will grieve in their own way. It is important to give the parents your listening ear, to not try to fix or make things better with platitudes and to let them know you care and will never forget their baby. It is common for the grieving parents to distance themselves for a time while they go through deep grief. Just keep sending loving messages by text, by snail mail, by voicemail and through the occasional visit. Doing something is more often better than doing nothing at all.

You can show your support through giving them the gift of a GRACE Care Package. We are also just a phone call away. We take the time to listen and can help answer questions you may have.

Missing GRACE Foundation aids care professionals in helping their clients and patients before, during and after experiencing a pregnancy or infant loss. We help ensure the moms, dads and their families have the timely resources and support to grieve well and with hope. Our goal is to provide parents with the tools that will help them create healing memories during their brief time with their baby; ensuring they they are aware of options for what they can do during that time so they will look back without regrets.

We supply care professionals and hospitals with GRACE Care Packages. These are a resource created specifically to comfort, guide and assist parents who receive a poor pregnancy diagnosis (i.e. a baby with Potter’s Syndrome, Trisomy, or Anencephally), or who have a miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal loss.

Parents who have received the GRACE Care Packages often send letters of appreciation and describe how invaluable it was to receive such a timely resource filled with so many helpful items. They say it was "priceless." They share how the literature in the GRACE Resource Folder was key for them in making the difficult decisions they faced. The items of comfort like the bear, the GRACE Memorial Candle and the figurine are proudly on display in their home curio cabinet and fireplace mantle. They sleep with their baby’s handmade blanket. The memorial bracelet is worn proudly on their wrist and they enjoy when people ask…because it allows them the opportunity to share about their baby and keep their memory alive.

Missing GRACE Foundation is here to listen and offer a safe outlet for families who are grieving. They can call or email for support and can attend one of our support groups or memorial events. We are also here to do the same for you! If you are needing to process and consult with someone after working with a client or patient who has suffered a loss, please give us a call!

 

We offer classes which include "Best Practices of Care for Perinatal Loss," "Subsequent Pregnancy Care and Beyond," and "Care for the Caregiver." Candy McVicar, the co-founder and Executive Director of Missing GRACE Foundation has more than 10 years of experience working in hospitals with parents as a grief doula, photographer and grief support specialist. She has been facilitating grief support groups for more than 21 years and lectured at hospitals across the nation. She is an author and co-authored "The 5 Love Languages® for Grieving Parents: Holding on to Love After You've Lost a Baby" with New York Times Best Selling author, Dr. Gary Chapman. 

Struggling to get pregnant or maintaining a pregnancy can feel like riding a roller coaster. Each month, so much weighs on whether you achieve your hopes of having a baby. This is true whether trying to conceive or while pregnant hoping you make it to the end with that much anticipated baby in your arms. Infertility can be a lonely and frustrating struggle. Often you can have feelings of jealousy when you hear of friends around you who are pregnant or just had a baby. The people close to you may not know how to show support. Missing GRACE Foundation can be that safe place to express your feelings concerning your struggle to have a baby. We offer a listening ear as well as provide practical resources to help you as you make decisions about fertility care.

FertilityCare ~ FertilityCare Centers of America is a dynamic, growing group of affiliated centers that provide professional instruction in the Creighton Model FertilityCare System which features the new women’s health science, NaPro TECHNOLOGY.

Pope Paul VI Institute ~ Founded in 1985 by Thomas W. Hilgers, MD, is internationally recognized for its outstanding achievements in the field of natural fertility regulation and reproductive medicine – 30 years of scientific research and educational program development; allied health professional education programs for couples and professionals. 

NaPro TECHNOLOGY ~ (Natural Procreative Technology) is a new women’s health science that monitors and maintains a woman’s reproductive and gynecological health. It provides medical and surgical treatments that cooperate completely with the reproductive system. This is the first women’s health science to network family planning with reproductive health monitoring and maintenance. It is a fertility-care based medical approach rather than a fertility-control approach to family planning and gynecological health. NaPro TECHNOLOGY uses the Creighton Model FertilityCare System biomarkers to monitor easily and objectively the occurrence of various hormonal events during the menstrual cycle. NaProtracking provides valid information that can be interpreted by a woman and by physicians who are specifically trained in this system.

Unlike common suppressive or destructive approaches, NaProTECHNOLOGY works cooperatively with the procreative and gynecologic systems. When these systems function abnormally, NaProTECHNOLOGY identifies the problems and cooperates with the menstrual and fertility cycles that correct the condition, maintain the human ecology, and sustain the procreative potential. Women now have an opportunity to know and understand the causes of the symptoms from which they suffer.

Are you pursuing adoption? Missing GRACE Foundation can be of help to you in offering support during the process. We would like to help connect you with other adoptive parents who can listen, offer suggestions and share their experience and knowledge with you. Please call or email us so we can help make that connection for you.

 

Have you perhaps experienced a failed adoption? We are deeply sorry and we want you to know that you are not alone. The hopes you had for raising your much planned for child have disappeared. You have experienced a loss of a child because they are not a part of your life. The roller coaster of emotions is so hard. Deciding what to do next can be daunting and it's easy to feel stuck or trapped. We have been there and know this pain. It's okay to take a break from it all and invest in you and your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of your marriage. 

 

Have you already experienced grief either through infertility or through having a pregnancy loss or did the baby you were going to adopt die during the pregnancy? That's so incredibly sad and painful. Trying to build your dream family has been filled with layers of hurt and disappointment. We want to help you heal from the pain and offer resources that will give you hope and comfort. We are available to help... please reach out when you are ready.

 

Adoptive Families Circle ~ Find friendship and support in an adoption community from Adoptive Families magazine. Join groups, share photos and stories, get answers, and connect with families like yours. Includes online support groups and forums for those facing adoption challenges including failed adoption as well as information and resources for pursuing adoption.

The National Adoption Clearinghouse ~ A comprehensive, resource on all aspects of adoption that is always made current and up-to-date.

New Life Family Services ~ New Life is one of the few pregnancy centers in America, and the only one in Minnesota, that incorporates both pregnancy services and licensed adoption services.

Missing GRACE Foundation offers educational literature and classes for care professionals to help grow bereavement programs and improve standards of care for perinatal loss in hospitals, clinics and crisis pregnancy centers.

Founder and Executive Director, Candy McVicar is a speaker, author, educator, grief coach, and grieving parent advocate. She has worked in hospitals more than 10 years providing services to newly bereaved parents. She developed a Crisis Care Team program and trained volunteers to assist parents during their tender time of "hello and goodbye" to their baby; spanning the time from labor, delivery and the days after birth, providing professional photography and videography, memorial service planning and care for the grieving parents and family members. 

To request Candy as a speaker, please send an email with the details of your event.

Missing GRACE Foundation provides grief resources designed and packaged with care to guide, support, and comfort parents before, during and after experiencing a pregnancy or infant loss. These materials and resources have been developed by grieving parents for grieving parents. You will find that each item in the package has a specific purpose which has been chosen based on many years of first-hand experience working directly with parents in the hospital and in facilitating grief support groups.

 

GRACE Care Packages can be ordered by phone or by email and can be shipped anywhere in the United States or picked up at a distribution center in Minnesota or South Carolina.

 

We have GRACE Care Packages that are made specific to the gestation and the gender of the baby with items helpful for before, during and just after birth, a "Tailor-made" package, and package called "Solace" for mothers in the first year without their precious baby(ies).

 

A GRACE Support Group is a safe place to find community with others who have experienced a pregnancy or infant loss. The groups are open to the grieving parents and grandparents who are looking to work through grief in healthy ways, and to commemorate their precious babies who left this world too soon.

GRACE Support Groups meet either once a month or twice a month for 2 hours at each meeting. Meetings start with introductions and include a time of open discussion and sharing of individual stories. Members have an opportunity to share any recent challenges they are working through or are anticipating as well as any areas of progress they have made in their journey. The facilitators at times hand out materials related to the member's needs and requests (i.e. marital issues, strained family and friend relationships, and difficult days on the calendar such as anniversaries, due dates and holidays.) 

Our support groups meet in-person in Minnesota and remotely using Zoom. If you would like to start a GRACE Support Group in your area, please email us! Training is provided.

 

 

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day with the purpose of promoting support, education and awareness nationwide and internationally. Missing GRACE Foundation gives families opportunities to come together for support and to commemorate their babies and offers an annual event for this purpose. Please check back as the date approaches for more information and to register.

Helpful website dedicated to October 15th and pregnancy and infant loss awareness:

Remembering Our Babies ~ The Official Site of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day was created to provide support, education and awareness for those who are suffering or may know someone who has suffered a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy,  a stillbirth, or the loss of an infant.

What are Hope & Hearts Events? 
The first Hope & Hearts Run/Walk was held in Minnesota in 2005. April and Dan Wurst and Candy and Steve McVicar founded Hope & Hearts Run and began hosting the event in honor of their daughters, Kaila and Grace, who were both stillborn due to cord issues at 38 and 33 weeks gestation respectively. Proceeds from all Hope & Hearts Run/Walks benefit the Missing GRACE Foundation.

The banner of a Hope & Hearts event is “Remembering & Saving Lives of Babies.”

Would you like to create an event in honor of your baby that will help provide resources and support for families in your community who have experienced a pregnancy or infant loss, and will fund programs that prevent further loss for others? We invite you to partner with Missing GRACE Foundation, a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit, to create a Hope & Hearts event in your area!

 

Hope & Hearts is about hope for the future through education and research and supporting the hearts of families who have lost to move forward. Help make a difference and join us as we…Run. Walk. Give Families Hope!

If you would like to organize a fundraiser that is a memorial event, your baby’s name can be included in the title example: “Baby Rose’s Hope & Hearts Bike Across America.” Some great Hope & Hearts events to organize are: sporting events like golf tournaments, marathons, duathelons and triathlons.

Please contact us to discuss your ideas! We look forward to honoring your baby together and bringing needed resources and support to your local hospitals, clinics and community.

 

 

Annually in December on the eve of the second Tuesday of the month, Missing GRACE Foundation offers a gathering for bereaved families to remember their babies. We understand that the holidays can be a difficult time after experiencing a loss. We have dinner and provide supplies for making memorial ornaments for babies in Heaven.