What is Evie's Network?
Evie's Network is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women who have suffered the tragedy of stillbirth. Stillbirth continues to be a silent sorrow suffered by about 25,000 women a year in the United States. And though the medical and counseling professions have improved their care in the last 30 years, these women remain largely ignored by American culture and society. Our culture offers little meaningful support for a family who has suffered a stillbirth; as a result many women and their husband/partners feel isolated and unable to share their grief.
The Network is a web-based peer counseling service that connects women one-on-one with others who have suffered a stillbirth, so they can correspond with someone who has a similar experience and story. There is no other healing like the communication between two people who have been through the same trauma. And there is no other network set up quite like this for private one-on-one pairing of mothers of stillborns.
The web site also offers extensive information on stillbirth for women, and those who love them, to better understand what to do when this happens and how to start healing. Evie's Network centers primarily on what to do when a stillbirth occurs, how to deal with unexpected realities, and how to begin the healing process. This web site is not about prevention or research for a cure. Other sites for those issues are:
http://www.stillnomore.org/
http://www.stillbirthalliance.org/
http://www.wisc.edu/wissp/
http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/188_1121.asp
Evie's Network is a tax-exempt non-profit organization under IRS Code section 501c3, based and incorporated in Richmond, VA. Founder & Executive Director: Virginia Bertholet. Please contact info@eviesnetwork.com for more information on the organization.
Who is Evie?
Evie is the daughter of Founder Virginia Bertholet, the second of two stillbirths she has had. Evie was delivered at 36 weeks in 2000, due to a placenta abruption. Virginia's first stillborn is a son named Bigelow, lost in 1995 at 28 weeks due to severe toxemia. She and her husband, Paul, have no other children.
Why was Evie's Network created?
Pregnancy and birth are a beautiful and wondrous part of life. But Virginia realized through her own experiences that there was little support available for women who suffer a stillbirth - both in the hospital and in our society as a whole. Our culture has trouble dealing with death in general, and much more so the death of an infant.
Stillbirth is a private tragedy with such finality that Virginia found the solace she needed was with other women who shared her experience. She discovered an "underground" network of women who talked openly with each other about stillbirth. She wanted to make this healing community available to every woman who goes through this heartbreak.
Why is Evie's Network only about stillbirth?
With all the right intentions, many health care and counseling services group stillbirth with miscarriage and neo-natal death. And although they are as tragic, they are different physical and emotional experiences, many times happening for different reasons than a stillbirth. Stillbirth is a unique physical trauma, for the mother most often goes through labor and vaginal delivery of a dead infant who has died in utero or during labor and delivery.
How do I navigate this web site?
There are 6 sections always noted in the navigator in the upper left corner:
- Home - home page
- Guide to Evie's Network - the page you're on now with basic information on the site
- Network sign up - the page for getting connected to another woman LINK to that page
- How to Mourn - how to express your grief
- Help Yourself - what you can do to help yourself through this tragedy
- Help Someone - what you can do to help someone who is going though this
- Donate - to make a monetary donation to Evie's Network LINK to that page
Each informational section is divided by those questions most people ask and those you want to ask but haven't known whom to go to for help. Most answers offer links to other sites for further information on a topic.
How can I volunteer?
Evie's Network would love your help. Are you someone who has lost a child to stillbirth and can help someone going through it now?
Sign up with our peer network.
Are you a health care or counseling professional who has research or input that you would like to contribute? An organization or company that has a service you want to share with our audience?
Contact info@eviesnetwork.com
What are some tips for helping the woman with whom I am matched?
You know how it feels - you understand the sorrow, the loneliness, even the physical pain. You will be matched with someone that has a similar experience as you, and you will be able to connect on a level that no one else can with you.
- Tell your story.
- Listen carefully to her story.
- Don't be afraid to tell details no one else wants to hear.
- Share information - do you know a lot about your cause that you can share?
- Keep her information confidential, as she should with yours.
How can I donate?
Help Evie's Network continue to help these women and those who love them by donating today.
Click here to donate.
How can I get a printed version of this web site for myself or to give to someone?
At the top right of each page of this web site, you will find the word "Print." Simply click on "print" to send a printer friendly version of each page to your desktop printer.
Dedication:
This site is dedicated to my grandmother, Virginia Worthington Warner, whose first child was a stillborn in 1925. She told me about her baby when I was a little girl though I wasn't sure what it all meant at the time. Now, much later after my own losses, I realize she was trying to tell me her story and keep the memory of her baby alive. This web site is all about giving that opportunity to all women who have suffered a stillbirth. I hope this site helps you to heal as much as it has helped me to heal by creating it.