Minnesota stylist embraced by salon community after pregnancy loss

COLD SPRING, Minn. (OSV News) -- At 19 weeks into her pregnancy, Maria Heinen's water broke. At the hospital, doctors advised no intervention could be done to save the baby's life until 23 weeks. Looking for answers and for hope, a visit to another hospital advised they could provide support to the baby at 22 weeks.

Until then, Heinen was placed on bedrest to wait.

That meant putting her work at Styles Plus Salon and Spa in Cold Spring on hold. 

Twenty-one weeks and five days into her pregnancy journey, she went into labor. Her husband, Nick, accompanied her to the hospital. Hours later, Jack Joseph Heinen was born and shortly after, died. Instead of feeling hopeful and excited, Maria Heinen felt helpless.

"When you find out you're pregnant, you think you're going to have this beautiful baby you'll bring home with you, and you'll see him grow up and run and play. Then you hear the doctor tell you, 'Say your goodbyes, because he's too young for us to step in,'" Heinen said. "I didn't know where to go from there."

Heinen, who attends Immaculate Conception Parish in Rockville, recalled something she had heard in a podcast about the Blessed Virgin Mary -- Mary is a mother, and she, too, has a mother's intuition -- she anticipates what her child may need or encounter and provides, protects and guides her child.

"I just started to pray to Mary -- 'You know what to do, I don't. Mary, guide me,'" Heinen recalled in an interview with The Central Minnesota Catholic, magazine of the Diocese of St. Cloud.
In her grief, she turned to Mary as a funeral was planned and Jack was buried. She turned to Mary when well-meaning people tried to find the right words of support but ended up saying things that felt hurtful or frustrating. Heinen turned to Mary when the quiet of her home reminded her of the sounds she was missing because Jack was not there.

Mary knew just what Heinen needed -- to return to her routine with her salon family. As she headed back to work, Heinen placed a rosary with Jack's picture in her pocket to keep herself connected to him and to Mary.

Her clients came to her to prepare for their own momentous events -- weddings, funerals, their children's graduations -- for over 10 years. Her salon chair was where they shared their stories.

"When I came back to work, people would ask questions. No one asked in a nosy way, but because they genuinely cared. (The experience of losing Jack) became easier to talk about because I didn't feel like I was being judged," Heinen said. "People opened up to me about losing a child, and I knew that they knew what was going on in my heart. I didn't have to explain myself to them.

"A lot of people hadn't really talked about the baby they had lost, so we celebrated their baby together -- the baby who had been celebrated by their mother in secret because she didn't know how to talk about it."

Heinen began to find peace by sharing the story of her and Nick's first baby, Kelly, who she lost through miscarriage, and sharing Jack's story with those who sat in her salon chair.

Heinen continues the ritual of shared storytelling while she works in the salon. There, she shared her third pregnancy with her clients, many of whom are now friends, and speaks to them about her now 5-month-old, Simon. All the while, she holds her rosary in her pocket and Kelly and Jack in her heart.