This nail art commemorates the 'invisible loss of miscarriages'

When Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day comes this Monday, Oct. 15, it will be just one more day in which many parents will struggle with a grief that others can’t grasp. Nail artist Sara Peterson has found a way to remember the baby she lost last year: by painting her unborn son’s ultrasound on her nail.

She also found it helped others learn about what an impact miscarriage can have.

“I don’t know what it means for other mothers, but for me, it made me so happy to look down and see my baby and have him with me for a little while,” Peterson told Babble of the nail she hand-painted last October to look like the black-and-white ultrasound image. “People would see it and ask what it was, and that allowed me to share about him and spread awareness for miscarriage.”

Ultrasound nails aren’t a completely new trend. For years, moms-to-be have been getting tiny replicas of their scans on nails to use as pregnancy announcements and to wear to their baby showers. Peterson’s tribute was instead part of a way to move on with her art after her loss.

“I lost all inspiration as I struggled with the grief,” she wrote on Instagram last year. “I learned how to love him and his brief life and move forward with renewed hope. I love you jelly bean, and seeing you on my nails makes me smile.”

Others who want to commemorate their loss — or their solidarity with others who experienced it — don’t have to turn to this rather clinical style of imagery to do so. They can also go subtle and paint their nails pink and blue in any design. Or they can have their nails decorated with a blue-and-pink ribbon for the day.

Peterson now runs the site Invisibaby.com, which sells T-shirts that proudly declare their wearers “Invisible Mother,” “Invisidad,” “Mother of Angels,” and the like.

“Grieving in secret makes the grief worse,” she writes on her site. “It adds a sense of shame. But if we start to share and help others understand what we feel and how they can provide support, we may create an environment that welcomes grieving mothers and acknowledges the babies they lost.”

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