"It takes your innocence. Nothing is definite anymore at that point. That's always the thing that people focus on the most, that you'll grow up, get married and have children. It's just a given. When something like that happens, it changes everything. You doubt everything." - Angela Mensing-Farley

Linda Cooper was pregnant with her second child in August 1995 when the unthinkable happened. The baby came into the world with a deafening silence. Cooper's son Benjamin was stillborn at 37 weeks. He did not receive a birth certificate, only a certificate of "fetal demise".

"Even though I am a nurse, I never expected this," Cooper said, as she watcher her children Timmy, 7 and Lindsay, 4, play in her Plainfield home. "When you're pregnant, that's the last thing on your mind."

Cooper joined hospital-run support groups, which helped her deal with the loss of her child. Her husband, Tim, preferred not to share in the group discussion but attended with her for added support.

Even more unexpected was the death of her fourth child, Anthony. He silently entered the world on July 27, 1998.

Cooper said that she knew something was wrong when Anthony did not cry at birth and doctors rushed the infant to intensive care. Anthony was a full-term baby who had only short periods of alertness, Cooper said. Doctors said that he had encephalopathy.

Anthony died at home on Jan. 10, 1999, when he was 5 months old.

After losing her second child, Cooper said that she did not go back to support groups. Nobody, she thought could understand or have experienced what she has gone through.

Scanning the Internet one day, however, Cooper came across the web site for the Mothers In Sympathy and Support Foundation (MISS)., www.misschildren.org, and realized that she was not alone.

"It's amazing how many people have gone through the same thing, and so much more than I have," Cooper said.

Angela Mensing-Farley of Sandwich had one stillborn child and four miscarriages, including one set of twins.

"It takes your innocence. Nothing is definite anymore at that point. That's always the thing that people focus on the most, that you'll grow up, get married and have children. It's just a given. When something like that happens, it changes everything. You doubt everything."

She never joined any support groups, citing disappointment with the focus the groups she visited had on self-pity.

But when Mensing-Farley came across the MISS web site, things changed. The site, she said, was not geared to help mothers feel sorry for themselves. It was geared towards solving the problems.

"MISS has helped me in the respect that, for a long time, I just buried myself in my work and kind of avoided the issue," Mensing-Farley said. "I've actually gone back and gone through the whole process that I needed to go through a long time ago."

The MISS Foundation was created in 1995 by Joanne Cacciatore in Arizona. It includes message boards and chat rooms, recommended reading and informational resources, poetry and suggestions for memorializing children who have passed away. The nonprofit organization seeks grants and donations for its work as a source of support for mothers and a voice for legislative reform.

One issue that MISS has tackled is to require that stillborn infants receive birth certificates, something that is currently only required in Arizona.

The site helped her to such an extent that Mensing-Farley has decided, with Cooper's help, to start the first Illinois MISS support group. She is planning the first meeting for October.

"It's really important to have someone there who can understand where you've been," Mensing-Farley said. "I think a lot of the time you'll get a lot of clichés: 'You're young, you have more kids,' or 'It's God's will, it was meant to be.' When you've lost a child, that pretty much makes you mad. People think that they're saying the right thing and they're not."

Although it is not as personal as a face-to-face encounter in a local support group, finding support through the MISS web site is convenient, anonymous and is available 24 hours a day, Cooper said.

These days Cooper lives with a mixture of emotions. She is due to have her fifth child in February, something she looks forward to and fears at the same time. The Cooper regularly visit their children's graves on the infants' birthdays and Mother's Day and Father's Day.

And while she does not personally know anyone else in the Plainfield area who shares her feelings and experiences, Cooper believes that there are other women in the area like her who could use some support.

The MISS support group is planning its first meeting for 7pm on Oct. 22 at Salem Lutheran Church, 1022 Main Street, in Sandwich. For more information, contact Mensing-Farley at (815) 695-9412 or e-mail her at angie@thefarleys.com

Contact Janet Prasad at (815) 439-7557.

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