Geelong Cemeteries Trust (GCT) held its annual ceremony to mark International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day at Geelong Memorial Park on Saturday evening.
The ceremony, attended by around 25 family members affected by pregnancy and infant loss, as well as representatives from GCT, Hope Bereavement Care, Barwon Health and St John of God Hospital, was held at the park’s special pregnancy and infant loss memorial garden.
GCT deputy CEO operations manager Frank de Groot said the ceremony was a special moment for everyone involved.
“The ceremony this year was excellent, a place where family members could mingle together and share their grief,” Mr de Groot said.
“When we had the couple of minutes of silence you could see the floating candles on the little lily pads we had all laid down moving around on the water.
“The frogs were croaking in the background, it was a very special evening.”
Every year, over 112,000 Australians suffer the loss of a child by miscarriage, stillbirth, or lose their child in the first 128 days after birth.
The pregnancy and infant loss memorial garden, completed last year, was the final milestone in the establishment of GCT’s Pregnancy Loss Program, which was developed to provide a free service to families who had suffered the loss of a baby under 20 weeks gestation.
“Families can ask us to hang up a metal leaf on one of the metal trees we have in the garden,” Mr de Groot said.
“That can have anything on it, from just a word or a name to a poem, and that leaf will hang in perpetuity.
“It’s quite a unique area, with the running water. It becomes a sacred place, or a special place for a lot of families.”
