• Theresa Vigour, Writer

    Mourning Sarah

    blue and yellow cover of book, Mourning Sarah: A case for testing Group B Strep, by Theresa Vigour.

    “The author is an eloquent writer and does a remarkable job of making her story come alive with detail and honesty. . . . This is a very powerful read, sure to evoke an emotional response.

    Giliad A. Gross, M.D.,

    Doody’s Book Review Service

     

    “Vigour does a magnificent job of describing her feelings during the whole process and of relaying how unique the loss of a baby is because it differs from the death of any other family member. . . This is one of the most touching and well-written books I have read. I highly recommend this book.”

    Patti Brown,

    Gift From Within

     

    “Mourning Sarah is an astonishing and frightening book about how medical practice ineffectively copes with the birth experience. . . . I was absolutely entranced with the book. . . . Vigour’s book also underlies the necessity for a paradigm shift in how medical practitioners deal with the birthing experience. . . . Vigour has given the reader a gift.”

    Humane Medicine Health Care Journal

  • About

    Books—and humor—have always sustained me.

    Why I wrote Mourning Sarah

    I didn’t intend to make a study of grief until my newborn daughter died of group B strep, a preventable infection. At the time, GBS was the leading cause of newborn deaths. Four hundred thousand babies died over two decades before guidelines were issued for testing and treating. I was part of a ground-up movement of angry, grieving parents who stormed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to initiate guidelines.

     

    Additionally, when my daughter died, the medical community did not think that the death of an infant, newborn, stillborn, or miscarriage was anything to grieve. And there were almost no books about surviving the death of a child so young. Yet my grief was severe, unlike what I experienced after my father and three of my brothers died. None of my friends had buried newborns, so I sought solace in books. Mourning Sarah is the book I would like to have read when I felt alone with my grief.

    My experience

    ​I have published in newspapers and magazines, won essay awards, and taught writing in schools, workshops, and community groups. Additionally, I taught English and literature and writing in college for twenty years. I have a degree in journalism, a master’s in English, and a master of fine arts in creative nonfiction writing.

     

    I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, the oldest of eight children and the only girl. My husband and I raised three daughters.

     

    After I was widowed and began Internet dating, the endeavor became, irresistibly, the subject of my book-in-progress. When I’m not writing from my home in north Mississippi, or checking my Internet dating sites for “likes,” “winks,” “smiles,” and messages, I am a competitive race walker, hiker, sailor, and kayaker.

  • Contact

    Invite me to speak to your grief group or

    your writers’ group. I bring compassion,

    information, and humor.
     

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