Monday, July 02, 2012

Have we cracked the nod?

I've just had such an exciting phone-call. Many of you who have been reading this blog for a few years will know that G and I run a support group for parents who have lost a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death, based in Cape Town, but for all South Africans. For a long time, we pushed on doors at various maternity hospitals and wards, to publicise our work, to no avail. We had several positive meetings with various people, but since then, we've heard nothing at all.

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing, as I doubt we could have coped with much more than we were doing at the time. On average though, we get about 4 or 5 contacts a month, several of whom take it no further - just needing to know that there is someone there if they need it. However, we've been having about one meeting a month of late, so things are slowly picking up.

Which leads me to the phone call I've just had. I don't usually answer my phone for numbers I don't recognise, but for some reason tonight I decided to answer. On the phone was a trauma counsellor who works for Discovery, wanting to know whether he could refer someone to us!! I'll skip the bit about the woman involved, and jump straight to the bit I found exciting. I asked him how he got our number, and he said he's not sure. He didn't know of anyone offering a support group for stillbirth, so he contacted a friend at Cape Town municipality, who then contacted someone else, who then contacted someone else, who just 'happened' to have our number (not even our website url or email!).

Now I ask you - if that isn't Providence, then what is?

So - it seems that news of our small support group and the work we do is slowly starting to filter around the city. This thrills me beyond words! Not because I want to be famous for anything, but because it means that the men and women who are in deep distress can be reached, and comforted, and given hope. I'm not expecting much to change in the immediate future, really, because our experience is that Saffa's don't like to talk about death, or about losing a child.

Yet, just knowing that the right people out there are becoming aware of us, and can refer others to us, means that I know that our work of bringing hope and support and comfort to these very broken people will increase, and that excites me intensely.

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