BANGOR, Maine — For seven years, local residents Erin and Scott Hatch tried to get pregnant. When they finally got the news they were expecting, they were ecstatic.
“It was really an exciting time, especially because we were expecting twins,” Scott Hatch said Saturday just before the Empty Arms Remembrance Walk at Mount Hope Cemetery.
The couple lost the twins, Mason and Marshall, in March and joined Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Empty Arms support group shortly afterward.
“Erin delivered at 20 weeks, and there was nothing we could do,” her husband said. “It’s probably the hardest thing that can happen to anybody.”
“We think about our boys every second of every day,” Erin Hatch, an occupational therapist, said.
The Empty Arms support group is filled with people who understand the pain of losing a child, said walk organizer Jaime Pangburn of Eddington, who lost her daughter, Jenovieve, in 2007. She said the support group gives parents a safe place to talk about their loss.
“For me — and I think I speak for everyone in the Empty Arms support group — when we’re able to help someone start the grieving process, it helps to heal us too,” Pangburn said. “So many people believe, ‘I’m never going to laugh again. I’m never going to smile again.’ It’s going to take time, but you will laugh again, you will smile again.”
Ornville residents Danielle and Eric Bubar said they felt talking about the lost of their son, Waylen, was “taboo” until they became part of the support group. He was born at 34 weeks, weighing only 2 pounds, 7 ounces and lived seven week at EMMC’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He died shortly after being sent home.
“You don’t realize how many NICU babies there are and how many don’t survive,” Danielle Bubar said while writing the name of her son on one balloon and her friend’s two lost children on others. “He spent most of his life in the hospital.”
There is a special spot in the cemetery that is home to the Empty Arms Memorial Garden, which Pangburn described as a butterfly garden with a granite bench for parents and loved ones to gather and remember those who died.
“We’re here to remember the babies we hold in our hearts but not in our arms,” Pangburn said just before unveiling a granite memorial, situated beside the bench, that had 13 metal butterfly plaques with names of the lost children engraved upon them.
Live Painted Lady butterflies were given to participants, who released them just before the 1-mile walk through Bangor’s historic cemetery started.
The Empty Arms support group is filled with couples who have lost a child or children. Many of these couples also have had successfully births, which gives the Hatches hope for their future.
“We still have the drive for having a family,” Scott Hatch said. “The support group has been really good. It’s given us a lot of inspiration and hope for us that we’ll be that lucky, too.”
Those who are interested in learning more can go to the Empty Arms Remembrance Walk Facebook page or visit emhsfoundation.org.