Paving the PATH FORWARD

By Melissa Rubalcaba Riske

By definition, advocacy is to speak for others. As a child, Ashley Tabata remembers helping her uncle as he spoke up for those suffering from the AIDS epidemic and today the Geneva resident finds herself in the role of advocate for parents who, like her, experienced perinatal loss.

“The loss of my daughter forever changed me,” Tabata said.

In pregnancy, there are questions at every turn, but when parents shift from asking what color to paint the baby’s room to facing a health crisis, there is little to help prepare for that moment. In many medical facilities, there is no one to support the parents’ emotional needs.

Tabata vividly remembers the pregnant emergency room doctor who delivered the news that her daughter no longer had a heartbeat. She was in her second trimester of pregnancy and remembers the sudden rush of emotions she felt when she received the news. She looks back on the day she delivered Harper Janette in 2019 and while there were many caring nurses and doctors, she wished she had more.

Today she is just a few months away from completing a Master of Social Work program and working on becoming a perinatal social worker specializing in perinatal loss, pregnancy after loss and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Through the loss of her daughter and her own healing journey, she found the calling to be an advocate for others.

“I am very mindful and honored when someone allows for me to be a part of their healing journey,” Tabata said. “We need to create safe spaces for someone grieving an unbearable loss and to honor their human experience.”

In addition to finding opportunities to help others in a clinical setting, Tabata said she plans to integrate perinatal support with her yoga practice, My Inner Peace Wellness. For years she has taught yoga classes, including pre-natal, post-natal and even yoga for children. Tabata said yoga and therapy can offer the opportunity for the body to release trauma.

“It’s OK to explore ways to allow grief and gratitude to co-exist,” Tabata said. “There is a lot of emotions that can come with this journey.”

While many medical facilities provide staff training on pregnancy loss, Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove has included personnel dedicated to perinatal support for more than 30 years. Today, Jessica Kincaid, a registered nurse, is the perinatal support service coordinator at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, a facility whose primary responsibility is providing support to parents in a pregnancy crisis.

“I have a unique position and not all hospitals have a person dedicated to helping patients with perinatal crisis,” Kincaid said.

Perinatal support refers to the care before a pregnancy, the duration of pregnancy and postpartum. Kincaid has cared for patients with highrisk pregnancy, those who’ve had losses early in the pregnancy as well as supported families who’ve lost a child in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Kincaid first spoke to Jennie Goosby when, at 23 weeks into her pregnancy, she went to the Downers Grove hospital and began experiencing health problems. Goosby and her husband, Tony Bakken, had planned to deliver their first child at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, but they didn’t expect that would happen at 26 weeks and six days into the pregnancy.

Their daughter, Charlotte, was born Aug. 4, 2022. She died a few hours later.

Goosby recalled how Kincaid was the first person she cried with following the death of her daughter.

“I remember she talked us through what we needed to deal with that day, what could wait,” Goosby said. “She saw the humanity.”

While each person faces the loss of a child in their own way, Kincaid said one thing she has learned in her role is that time and again, parents want to be able to talk about it.

Kincaid’s role doesn’t end once a patient is discharged from the hospital. She continues to meet each month with families experiencing loss through the Advocate Health Care’s Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support program, which provides resources including opportunities for parents to meet in discussion groups.

The support group meets monthly at the hospital. Kincaid said it recognizes pregnancy loss at any stage, including those that occur just a few weeks into the pregnancy. Additionally, Kincaid has organized remembrance events, as well as events to mark Mother’s and Father’s Day.

The labor and delivery nurse said she feels honored to be a part of the families and their journeys. She said her favorite part of the role is when she meets or learns about rainbow babies, a term used to describe a child born following a couple’s prior loss.

“Those are happy days,” Kincaid said.

She understands there is no expiration on grief, so the Share support group welcomes members, including those who were not patients of the hospital, to attend the group as long as needed. Some have been a part of the group for years, she said.

For Goosby and Bakken, the support group has been a way to share their feelings, to talk openly and to glean advice from other members. Bakken said talking with the group has helped him validate emotions, like when he didn’t want to let go of an object he had bought for his daughter.

The couple said it’s important that they talk about their daughter, to remember her and recognize she existed.

“I feel I have to be vocal to help other people, so they don’t feel alone,” Goosby said.