I would like to welcome you to the Infants Remembered In Silence, Inc. (IRIS) website. I can only assume that you are visiting us because a time of great joy and celebration has turned to unspeakable sadness and sorrow. You or someone very special and dear to you has suffered a tremendous loss, the death a child.

I would like to extend my heartfelt sympathy to you and your family. I remember the pain all too well, for I have also experienced the death of a child. Following his full term stillbirth in 1985, I worked with many people to develop what we consider to be an exceptional program to assist bereaved parents. After much research and thought IRIS was founded in 1987 with the specific goal of assisting parents who experience the death of a child.

It is important for all of us to remember that grief is a normal human response. It is an emotional suffering caused by a great loss. It is often described as a deep overwhelming sadness; it describes the internal thoughts and feeling we experience when someone we love dies. Mourning is taking the internal experience of grief and expressing it outside of ourselves. In other words, to express and physically show the grief by crying, sighing, screaming, etc. While there is no set timeframe for grieving, be assured that it will last much longer then you expect; for most parents this will be years. Parents will never go back to being the same person. Their lives changed when they became pregnant and changed again when the child died. It is also important to remember that the length of a pregnancy has no bearing on the depth of the parent's grief.

Over the years IRIS has expanded, thanks to parents who have been willing to share their stories, ideas and suggestions, and by parents who have invited IRIS into their lives through the IRIS advocate program. Today, we offer many services that are uniquely available only through IRIS. As you visit the numerous pages within this site, we hope that you will learn more about IRIS and will be willing to share your story about your precious child.

Grieving is not about forgetting... It is about remembering!

Sincerely,

Diana and the members of the IRIS Board of Directors

Diana Kelley IRIS Executive Director

IRIS Board of Directors