Noelle Moore’s baby girl Finley was born on July 25, 2013. Finley never left the hospital, having suffered severe medical complications during birth. She died three weeks later, leaving Moore devastated and lost, searching for a way to live in a world she never imagined inhabiting.
“You never think something like this is going to happen to you,” Moore said. “It’s not even in your brain functionality. I never experienced such deep emotions. I knew grief when my dad had died, but when she died it was a completely different feeling.”
One in four women experiences the loss of a baby through stillbirth, miscarriage, or infant death. But bereaved parenting is a form of parenting that gets little attention, and bereaved parents often feel left out of conversations about parental love, longing, hopes, coping. Moore knew almost immediately that parenting Finley meant helping others in her name.
“Just because your child died doesn’t mean you’re not his or her mom or his or her father. You have an opportunity to honor and remember them for the remainder of your life.”
“The only rationality I could come to for her death was that I had to make meaning out of it,” Moore said. She struggled to find a support system that acknowledged and accounted for the depth of a bereaved mother’s loss. Counseling needed to be part of it, Moore knew, but she also needed help with funeral arrangements, paying bills, buying groceries, “I very clearly saw the large gap between hospital and home,” she said, “and I knew I had to step into that.”
In 2014, she launched The Finley Project to provide a holistic healing process for people who experience infant loss. The Finley Project helps with funeral arrangements, bill paying, housekeeping, meals and counseling. Bereaved moms are assigned a volunteer support coordinator to help them find support groups and one-on-one counseling.
“We hear a lot of moms say, ‘Thank you for creating a sense of community. I feel less alone,’” said Moore.
And Moore feels less alone too.
“One of the things that encourages me and our families is that you’re always a parent,” Moore continued. “Just because your child died doesn’t mean you’re not his or her mom or his or her father. You have an opportunity to honor and remember them for the remainder of your life.”