Nestled in rural Medford, Wis., is a center of hope and healing called Abiding Care. Director Carrie Kraucyk is an expert and innovator in rural pregnancy center care, having served in her role there for 12 years. Kraucyk recently added a new client appointment type at Abiding Care: a prospective miscarriage appointment.
Miscarriage, usually defined as a pregnancy loss between 0-20 weeks gestation, occurs in approximately 1 to 5 known pregnancies. Anecdotally, many pregnancy centers have started to recognize an increased miscarriage rate among their clients.
“There’s been months when we had more miscarriage than we’ve had viable pregnancies,” Kraucyk explained.
When a suspected first-trimester miscarriage occurs for a current pregnancy center client, many centers refer her to the nearest emergency room, but that’s not the best place for women who aren’t experiencing an emergency. A miscarriage can become an emergency with infection or hemorrhaging but usually doesn’t start out as one. ERs often either treat the miscarriage as an emergency, rushing moms into a D&C surgery for removal, giving them no options for home-delivery or for claiming remains after surgery, or, in the other extreme, they send them home with no instructions.
This expanded service offering from Abiding Care began when a mom unexpectedly pregnant in her forties and fearful she may be miscarrying called her local hospital but was told to stay home since she wasn’t symptomatic of infection and “let nature take its course.”
“There wasn’t an appointment to go in and just talk to a nurse and have them explain to her what to expect, how to prepare, the dos and don’ts,” Kraucyk said. “She was trying to figure out what to do.”
That’s when someone suggested going to Abiding Care for an ultrasound.
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At first, the staff at Abiding Care weren’t sure what to do themselves, but they started researching.
The mom felt like she got much more help from Abiding Care than the hospital. She felt heard and prayed for. This inspired Abiding Care to develop an official appointment category for women suspecting miscarriage.
Women can come pick up delivery supplies at the pregnancy help centers or have a full ultrasound and nurse appointment. Even though nurses can’t confirm miscarriage, they can educate a woman on what to ask her doctor and how to prepare if she does end up miscarrying.
Abiding Care created a pamphlet that assures her “Your Grief Matters” in a culture that often disenfranchises reproductive griefs by not recognizing them.
“This is one of the consistent things that we heard - that their grief didn’t seem to matter to anybody,” Kraucyk said, “whether it was the medical community or even friends and family [who say] 'Oh, you can have another one.’”
In addition to the ultrasound and education appointment, Abiding Care hands moms who would like one a Comfort Care Bag. This includes a Miscarriage Home Delivery Kit from pregnancy loss ministry Heaven’s Gain, which is a delivery aid with various items to assist a mom in measuring blood loss and catching her baby, so that the baby can then be buried or cremated. The Comfort Care Bag also has additional comfort items such as a mug and postpartum tea, pads, a book, and more. Kraucyk has started working with a local cemetery to procure a burial plot or memorial garden as well.
Abiding Care doesn’t just offer this new service for existing clients; they have decided to also take on new clients just for this need. And it makes perfect sense when a woman faces a pregnancy loss that she could turn to a pregnancy center.
Kraucyk explained how many women leave medical providers with more questions than answers.
“This is an opportunity we are missing out on,” she said. “If we are fighting so hard for women who are aborting to get them (after) care, why would we not then do the same thing for women who are miscarrying through no fault of their own?”
Abiding Care nurses ask permission or determine whether the mom is ready for a full kit demonstration, and they are willing to take phone calls from the mom when she has more questions or allow her to come into the center another time. Kraucyk says they see at least one client a month for the new miscarriage service but have had some months where it’s five or six.
“This [new service] has been the number one thing that donors have, one, thanked me for doing, and secondly, it’s the thing I’ve gotten the most stories on,” Kraucyk said.
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The praise for this program inspired Kraucyk to also offer an aftercare miscarriage support group that donors can purchase access for and send to friends and family far away who are needing support after their loss.
Many centers are afraid to care for miscarrying women because miscarriage cannot be medically diagnosed, but Kraucyk explains that it’s okay educate a mom on miscarriage when it is suspected.
Far from skepticism in Abiding Care’s case, the center’s medical director was so ecstatic about the program that she wanted the other pregnancy centers where she also serves as medical director to also implement this program.
Offering a service to educate on miscarriage and offer these appointments, particularly since the medical community isn’t offering this type of care, is one more way that Abiding Care is truly caring - abiding with women regardless of pregnancy outcome.
