Surrogate Grief

Surrogate Grief Dave Roberts 38:51

In this episode of the Teaching Journeys Podcast ,Dave speaks with Kelila Green Siciliano about a rarely discussed topic, the Grief involved in losing a child one carries as a surrogate mother. We discuss what surrogacy involves and the work her organization Oursand Yrs, does to help families who have experienced pregnancy loss.

Kelila’s Bio

Kelila Green Siciliano is a mom, a surrogate, a pregnancy loss survivor, the founder of OursAndYRS: A Pregnancy Loss Survival Toolkit, a speaker, and the host of the podcast, “Pushing Through Loss”. Kelila speaks about her experience with surrogacy, pregnancy loss, and creating her survival toolkit in order to help her audience feel empowered to use their own struggles to work with them and not push against them. Kelila been on stages from CA to PA doing both all women musical productions and speaking gigs for most of my life. I am, unabashedly, obsessed with Disney!Her family currently has 4 cats, 1 dog, 1 gerbil, and 5 chickens.You can contact Kelila on Facebook, on Instagram under her company name, OursandYRs and Linkedin.

The Teaching Journeys Podcast is available on your favorite podcast platforms. To find out more about Dave, you can go to bootsyandangel.com and psychologyprofessorandminister.com

Dave Roberts LMSW, Author, Podcaster

David J. Roberts, LMSW, became a parent who experienced the death of a child, when his daughter Jeannine died of cancer on 3/1/03 at the age of 18. He is a retired addiction professional and an adjunct professor in the psychology child life department at Utica University in Utica, New York. Dave also teaches psychology classes at Pratt MWP School of Art and Design. He is the host of The Teaching Journeys Podcast, which can be found on Apple, Spotify and other podcast platforms.

Dave has presented workshops at national conferences of The Compassionate Friends as well as for the Bereaved Parents of the USA. He was also a keynote speaker at the 2011 and 2015 national gatherings of the Bereaved Parents of the USA. Dave also co-presented a workshop titled “Helping Faculty After Traumatic Loss” for the Parkland, Florida community in May of 2018, in the aftermath of the mass shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School.

Roberts has been a past HuffPost contributor and has contributed articles to Medium, Open to Hope Foundation, Mindfulness and Grief, Thrive Global, and the Recovering the Self Journal. He has also appeared on numerous podcasts, as well as Open to Hope Television. In 2021,he co-authored and published a book with Reverend Patty Furino titled, When The Psychology Professor Met The Minister.