I met Dr. Jessica Zucker this past March at BinderCon L.A. We attended the panel on Death and Loss because we each lost pregnancies in 2012. So, you could say I’ve known her since then—in the way you only know someone, even a deep version of yourself, once you suffer losses like these. Once you hold your first child stillborn in your arms, as I did. Once you deliver your daughter much too soon at home, as Jessica did. Until you stand back up, empty, and find a way to continue on with lives that have forever changed.

I also knew her by happening upon personal essays about her experience, as she happened upon mine. “I’ve written my way through my healing,” she told me recently, and I felt that glory of recognition, as I’ve been doing the same. Our healing paths finally crossed and I am so grateful.

I felt a similar glory of recognition this past week, when Jessica launched her beautiful line of Pregnancy Loss Cards. There, written in soft lines and colors, were the words I had longed to hear after I lost my son at 24 weeks and, five months later, a subsequent pregnancy at 10 weeks. I didn’t want to hear what I actually did: “There are no words,” “At least you can get pregnant,” and, “You are young, you will have more children.” Or, as Jessica heard, “Be grateful for the child you do have.” Or, as we both heard time and time and time again, “Everything happens for a reason.” As Jessica reminds, “Fuck: ‘Everything happens for a reason.'”

Three and a half years later, I am still shocked that any of these are acceptable words of comfort for people who have lost their children—the most unacceptable reordering of the natural world I know. Thankfully, Jessica is helping to find words of comfort for parents like us. As she says of the inspiration for her cards, “I just want them available so that people can no longer say they don’t exist, or ‘I don’t know what to say.'” The cards also include a Baby Loss/Stillbirth Announcement, something I would have considered sending for Lorenzo had I known about it.

That’s the thing about baby loss. You don’t prepare for it as you prepare for the baby. You don’t know about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep unless someone tells you about it while there is still time. You don’t assume you can still send an announcement. You don’t know about all the support and stories that are out there, waiting to welcome you to what writer and loss mom Katie Coyle calls our “Dark Sisterhood.” You don’t know how to be a dark sister, a childless mother, a mother of two, one living… until you are.

It’s with heartfelt intention that Jessica has launched her cards in October, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. “This is our month,” she says, “our day,” of October 15 in particular, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. If you know someone who has lost, consider sending a card. As we loss moms remind people all the time, you do not cause us pain by reminding us of our losses. We are always thinking of our babies. We feel better, in fact, when they are acknowledged.

Thank you, Jessica, for acknowledging what can so easily remain unseen if we don’t talk about it, don’t ask about it, don’t do something as simple as signing a card. Thank you for knowing what to say, though I am so, so sorry that you do.