Meet the volunteers who bring love to grieving parents with 'angel gowns'
PENNSAUKEN — They are tiny, with intricate details that make them beautiful. Each one is made with love, and each one is unique.
In those ways, the angel gowns in Jean Lee's garage are like the babies who will receive them: babies whose lives were all too short, babies lost to miscarriage, stillborn or who died shortly after being born. Babies whose parents named them, loved them and grieved for them.
The angel gowns help those families remember and honor them, too.
Lee is retired now, but during her 46 years as a labor and delivery nurse, she saw the joy of new parents welcoming babies into the world. But she never forgot the devastation of parents whose babies didn't make it.
"People don't know how hard (nurses) work in the hospital to help parents who are going through this," she said.
"Parents want any evidence that their baby existed, that they lived and were loved."
An out-of-state friend of Lee wrote a Facebook post about angel gowns, a phrase she hadn't heard, but once she knew what it meant, she posted her own plea, looking for donated wedding gowns and people capable of sewing the tiny wraps and dresses for babies.
"And it just exploded," she said.
She posted in community groups, and before long her own Angel Gown Sewers page had dozens of members from all over South Jersey.
Ann Coyle, manager of the perinatal bereavement program at Virtua Health in New Jersey, also reached out: She had about 100 donated gowns in a storage closet at her Voorhees office, waiting for someone to cut them and create angel gowns from the remnants.
"Jean created a lively group," said Coyle, who had heard at a medical conference of a program in Texas that created the gowns.
"The patterns look simple, but I don't sew," she admitted.
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Lee called herself "a very basic sewer," and said members of her Facebook group can work much faster than she can. So while she's sewn eight gowns herself, she's decided to let others take over that work, and now acts as a conduit between donors, sewers and hospitals.
She takes the gowns and removes the crinoline and tulle, which are too rough for babies' fragile skin. She washes them in her washing machine (and was surprised to find that the gentle cycle is just fine for the job: "Brides pay so much to have their gowns cleaned and preserved and they can just run them through the washer!"), then hangs them on clothing racks she bought herself.
"These are a gift from a bride and (creator) to a family," Lee said. She's donated the gowns to hospitals in South Jersey, Central New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Volunteers take whatever materials, beading, lace, embroidery, buttons and any other decorative implements from the dresses and fashion tiny gowns for babies that died at or near full term. Boys' gowns are made with elements like little bowties or vests. For tiny preemies or babies who've been lost to miscarriage, sewers make wraps that can envelope the little ones without damaging their extremely fragile skin. All of the gowns are made with Velcro closures on the back, making them easier to wrap babies in them.
Coyle, a nurse for 38 years, said most hospitals have nurses who help families through the loss of a child, but she believes she's the only one whose entire job is dedicated to it in South Jersey. She spent most of her career as a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse.
She meets with families at all three of Virtua's delivering hospitals, offering counseling, resources, support and follow-up care for at least a year after a loss.
In addition, hospitals including Virtua offer more tangible things to help families through the grieving process: memory boxes with "everything that's touched their baby": blankets and measuring tape, knit caps and the like. Boxes also include footprints in clay or ink, photographs, cards and other personal items. Families can use the angel gowns for burial, or they can preserve them as keepsakes.
Coyle has been recognized as Johnson & Johnson's Amazing Nurses (2012) for her work, which she said she "feels blessed to have."
"I handle every single baby I ever touched the same way: I cuddle them and talk with them and say their names," she said. "It's not my job to make it better (for grieving parents). I just try to do everything I can to make it normal for them, to walk with them and help them get through this."
The care doesn't end when mothers leave the hospital, Coyle noted. Mothers who are fortunate enough to have another child after losing one are celebrated along with their "rainbow babies," acknowledging joy after profound sorrow and loss.
For those mothers whose loss is not followed by another baby, Coyle said, there is support from "a whole system" of doctors, nurses and counselors, and part of that is educating others about how to help grieving parents.
"I think 98 percent of what is said to grieving people, even if it comes from a place of love, isn't helpful," Coyle said. "People just need to say, 'I'm sorry this happened, I love you and I am here for you.' It's even all right to say, 'I don't know what to say,' or 'I know there are no words.'"
Women who go into the hospital pregnant and come out without a child face a gaping hole in their lives, she added.
"As a parent, you have a child and you're proud. You get to hear their name throughout their lives," she said. "But most people are afraid to even mention a (lost) baby's name to the parents because they think it will remind them of their loss. But they will think of this baby every day of their lives. They might cry or be sad, but they're also proud to hear their baby's name said out loud."
Coyle knows that loss in her own family: Her mother, pregnant with twins, lost one of them and rarely spoke about it, a common way of dealing with the loss of a baby in the past. Her sister, the surviving twin, also lost a full-term baby, and when she did, their mother urged her to bury the baby quickly and get on with her life, as she'd been expected to do.
"From all our mothers and grandmothers who never got to know their babies ... they were just taken from the room, sometimes without ever being held," Coyle said. "All these things we do now are honoring the wishes of women in the past."
Sometimes it's hard for mothers and fathers to process the loss, and Coyle said everyone handles it differently. Some want to hold their baby, some don't. Some want photographs or keepsakes. Coyle said she tries to create good, loving memories, offering parents a chance to hold their babies, have photographs and prints taken, allow siblings and other family to meet them. But she doesn't push, either.
For Christy Graham, memories of her daughter Harper still carry emotional weight, but it's a weight she welcomes.
Harper was born via Caesarian section on Dec. 15, 2017, at just 29.5 weeks. Her tiny lungs couldn't hold air; her heart became enlarged and she died on Dec. 17.
Her husband and son, then 6, were able to say goodbye to Harper as well.
"She is definitely still with us," said Graham, an instructional coach in Collingswood schools who lives in Marlton. "There are lots of ups and downs. Grief is not linear."
She remembers the difficult days returning home without a baby. Still on maternity leave, she recalled, her body looked like she'd just had a baby; her husband returned to work and her son went to school.
"It felt like there should be a baby to take care of," she said, her voice full of emotion. "But there was no baby."
But the kindnesses of doctors and nurses at Virtua won't ever be forgotten, either, she said: medical professionals who jumped immediately into action to save Harper; the doctor who returned from home after her shift to manually pump oxygen into Harper's lungs so Graham and her husband, a teacher and baseball coach at Cherokee High School, could hold her while she was alive; and Coyle's support, and the keepsake box and angel gown for Harper.
"They're little things, but they're monumental in the moment," Graham said. "We were in shock; it was the worst day of our lives, but they knew what to do. I would never have thought to have her picture taken. They had this beautiful little gown to put on my little girl. And later on, it's all you have and it's something to cling to. I have a whole box of pictures and memories and I am eternally grateful."
Graham and her husband had another daughter last year.
"We have Emery, our little rainbow," she said. "Our son Kellen is our sunshine, and Harper is our angel."
MORE INFORMATION
A GoFundMe page has been set up to buy supplies: www.gofundme.com/f/angel-gown-sewers
Phaedra Trethan has been a reporter and editor in South Jersey since 2007 and has covered Camden since 2015. She's called South Jersey home since 1971. Contact her with feedback, news tips or questions at ptrethan@gannettnj.com, on Twitter @By_Phaedra, or by phone at 856.486-2417.