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Simplified: A new children's book written by Evermore Blooms Founder Chelsey Schnell will publish next week. The hope is it'll be a resource for families to open up conversations about siblings who died during pregnancy.
Why it matters
- An estimated 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to statistics from Mayo Clinic, and it's likely the number is higher because miscarriage can happen before a person knows they're pregnant.
- Schnell founded Evermore Blooms after her own experience with loss, and since 2020, the nonprofit has sent more than 1,000 flower bouquets to grieving moms across the country.
- The children's book, called "Still Blooming: A Hopeful Promise for Families After the Loss of a Sibling During Pregnancy," will provide an additional resource to those parents who are faced with explaining to their living children why they won't get to meet their anticipated sibling.
- The book uses the analogy of a seed growing into a flower. Some seeds, through no fault of anyone involved, simply don't bloom the way we expect them to, Schnell said.
"There's a hopeful promise," she said, noting that the book draws on her own Christian faith and aims to be inclusive to all readers. "While we didn't get to see our seed bloom, they are being taken care of by a Gardener that knows what they need to grow and bloom."
Tell me more
"Still Blooming" came about through a connection one Evermore Blooms board member had to a professional publisher.
- Schnell said she was approached about writing a book, and she knew she wanted to focus on answering a question she gets asked frequently in her work with Evermore:
"How do you have the conversation with your children who are here about your children in heaven?" she said.
It's a complex topic, even for adults to understand, but once she found the analogy of a seed growing into a flower, she knew exactly what the book needed to be.
Schnell wrote the book, but she did it with the entire Evermore community in mind.
"It's not my book," she said. "It belongs to all of these families, and it was written for all of our babies."
What happens next?
The book officially comes out Tuesday, Oct. 21 during a launch party at Wynn + Wonder in Tea. It'll be an open house-style event from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. with an author reading at 6:30 p.m. Adults and children are welcome.
- It'll be available for purchase at starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday at evermoreblooms.org. In the months to follow, it'll also be available for purchase on Amazon and at local retailers.
