For about a week after my colleague Leslie Forman and I redesigned this site and redirected its message, I sat still, anxious to officially announce it. Why the hesitation? Oh, because grief advocacy is vulnerable work. The front-facing reframe—that my strongest voice is derived from my greatest loss—asks me to remain open and hopefully reach a growing audience. But that is the entire point now—to help others on similar journeys—so the day I felt as ready as I ever would, I told you all about it.

Within 24 hours, I heard from Valerie Meek, who directs Pregnancy After Loss Support and who lost her son, Patrick, during her pregnancy last year. Just like that, she validated the vulnerability.

Since they launched last June, I’ve leaned on and recommended the PALS community. Lindsey Henke founded it after losing her first daughter, Nora, following a full-term and routine pregnancy, and to fill a void she felt as she carried her second daughter, born healthy last year. In Henke’s words, PALS’ mission is:

“To provide peer to peer support services and professional resources for the mom who is pregnant again after loss, supporting her in choosing hope over fear while also nurturing her grief. We want her to know she is a courageous mama no matter what her birth outcome, stage of pregnancy after loss, or way of birthing. We are here to support her on her journey when no one else is.”

PALS is volunteer-run in order to help moms like Valerie and Lindsey, moms like me, moms, perhaps, like you. When they invited me to be a monthly contributor, I couldn’t have said “YES!” any faster or more full-heartedly. I am honored to share my first post for PALS, where I examine the terminology we use (or don’t use) when we talk about loss and trying again.

I hope you’ll explore the site as a whole or pass it along to someone in need of this kind of solidarity. The magazine covers everything from trying to conceive to physical and emotional health for moms as well as a section dedicated to fathers’ perspectives. Additional resources include support groups, a moving love letter series, and training programs for health care professionals (coming this fall). As I’ve written about before, pregnancy after loss cannot be the same as pregnancy before it. I’m grateful a resource exists to reflect that hope and that fear, that healing that will always have roots in loss.

And remember my site designer, Leslie? Well, she is also re-presenting her platform to ensure that her work aligns with helping others. Her latest case study? This very website! As Leslie put it to me that day we got started, “How might a writer wrap a soft (virtual) blanket around the people who most need her story?” I’m humbled that we figured out a way to do just that.

Brave empathy, as I’m calling it, works.