Resources for Our Families

Resources for families who deliver their baby in the Birth Center
A founding goal of the Nora Madelyn Fund for Infant and Child Loss is to provide funding for the resources and comfort items used by the Providence Newberg Hospital Birth Center staff in caring for bereaved parents. The hospital’s Perinatal Loss Committee oversees these resources. Nora’s Fund provides to families who experience a loss in the Providence Newberg Birth Center:

  • Financial assistance with funeral, burial or cremation costs
    Thanks to two generous donors, we are able to offer this assistance to all Birth Center loss patients.
  • All families are invited to our Remembrance Ceremony and Remembrance Walk
  • A memory box for items such as a baby’s footprints, a lock of hair and other items
  • Use of a Cuddle Cot to allow a baby to stay with their family in their hospital room
    Thank you to the Peters family, whose generous donation in memory of Carli made the purchase of our first Cuddle Cot possible.
  • Access to memorial photography through Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photographers and photo editing services, or, when that is not available, photographs taken by medical staff
  • The book An Empty Cradle, a Full Heart: Reflections for Mothers and Fathers After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, or Infant Death, as well as a journal, which can be used as a safe place to express thoughts and feelings
  • A loss packet which includes a list of support resources, including referral to the Portland-based pregnancy loss support group, Brief Encounters, and a certificate for a massage or reiki service for mom and partner
    Thank you to Ginger Ross LMT of Metaphysical Massage & Reiki for donating her expertise in honor of Rex and Rogue.
  • Comfort items such as remembering hearts
  • Pamphlets for family members, including grandparents and fathers
  • Spanish language booklets for parents and grandparents
  • The children’s book We Were Gonna Have a Baby, But We Had an Angel Instead, which can be given to siblings to help comfort them in a confusing and sad time
  • Other books on pregnancy loss, grief and healing, made available to families through the fund’s Lending Library, located just outside of the hospital chapel on the 2nd floor of the Providence Newberg Medical Center

Resources for families experiencing early to mid-term losses
Nora’s Fund provides to families who experience a loss in the emergency or short stay departments, as well as patients of our community medical providers:

Other resources
Bereaved Parents of the USA
A national non-profit self-help group that offers support, understanding, compassion and hope especially to the newly bereaved.

Buzzy’s Bees
Buzzy’s Bees is a Portland-based nonprofit organization that pairs grieving families with a professional writer and artist to create a collaborative artistic representation of their child’s life.

Centering Corporation
Education on grief and loss for professionals and the families they serve.

Glow in the Woods
For parents of lost babies and potential of all kinds. In the beginning you stagger, disoriented, through this storm. We want to be a glow through the trees, a golden refuge of log and glass.

HAND: Helping After Neonatal Death
While located in the Bay Area, their Web site offers valuable information for parents, their families and their healthcare providers to help cope with the loss of a baby before, during, or after birth.

Hayden’s Helping Hands
Hayden’s Helping Hands is a non-profit foundation in the Portland area who helps families after the birth of a stillborn baby by paying for a portion or all of their hospital delivery expenses.

M.E.N.D. Miscarriage Support
Mommies Enduring Neonatal Death is a Christian, non-profit organization that reaches out to families who have suffered the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant death.

MISS Foundation
A non-profit, volunteer-based organization committed to providing crisis support and long term aid to families after the death of a child from any cause.

Resolve: The National Infertility Organization
A non-profit organization promoting reproductive health.

Still Standing Magazine
For all who are grieving child loss and infertility.

Cuddle Cot donation from the Peters family
After the passing of their daughter, Carli Nicole Peters, Nick and Kelly Peters donated funds that were gifted to their family to the Nora Madelyn Fund. As a result of this generous donation, the Nora Madelyn Fund purchased a Cuddle Cot to be used by bereaved families in the Providence Newberg Medical Center’s Birth Center. A Cuddle Cot is a cooling system that allows a baby to stay with their family in their hospital room. We greatly appreciate the Peters family’s generosity which allows the Nora Madelyn Fund and Providence Newberg Medical Center’s Perinatal Loss team to further support and assist our families in their time of need. Thank you, Nick and Kelly, for this gift in memory of your beautiful girl!