Welcome to episode 1 of The Miscarriage Dads!
Together with Chris, we dive into the very personal stories of our early pregnancy losses and the profound effect they had on us as fathers. Our conversation takes an emotional turn as we reminisce about the heart-wrenching moments of our miscarriages, the isolation that fatherhood can bring in these situations, and the societal expectations that shape our response to such a tragic event.
As fathers, we experienced the pain of not just losing a child but also being sidelined from the grieving process. We discuss the anguish of being unable to protect and provide in the face of such a tragedy, the guilt associated with these traditional roles, and the emotional attachment we had for our unborn child. We delve into the emotions and feelings that arise in fathers when they feel helpless, emphasizing on the importance of normalizing the conversation around the impact on fathers and how this can be an opportunity to redefine the traditional roles of fathers.
Our chat goes beyond sharing our personal experiences. We reflect on the importance of a robust support system for fathers too, highlighting the value of creating safe spaces for men to express their grief and find solace in shared experiences. We invite you to join us in this conversation, share your stories, and let others know they are not alone. After all, your story matters, and we are here to listen.
Follow on IG @themiscarriagedad
Email themiscarriagedad@gmail.com
Make sure you subscribe!
Write us a review!
Best,
Kelly & Chris
Welcome to episode 1 of The Miscarriage Dads!
Together with Chris, we dive into the very personal stories of our early pregnancy losses and the profound effect they had on us as fathers. Our conversation takes an emotional turn as we reminisce about the heart-wrenching moments of our miscarriages, the isolation that fatherhood can bring in these situations, and the societal expectations that shape our response to such a tragic event.
As fathers, we experienced the pain of not just losing a child but also being sidelined from the grieving process. We discuss the anguish of being unable to protect and provide in the face of such a tragedy, the guilt associated with these traditional roles, and the emotional attachment we had for our unborn child. We delve into the emotions and feelings that arise in fathers when they feel helpless, emphasizing on the importance of normalizing the conversation around the impact on fathers and how this can be an opportunity to redefine the traditional roles of fathers.
Our chat goes beyond sharing our personal experiences. We reflect on the importance of a robust support system for fathers too, highlighting the value of creating safe spaces for men to express their grief and find solace in shared experiences. We invite you to join us in this conversation, share your stories, and let others know they are not alone. After all, your story matters, and we are here to listen.
Follow on IG @themiscarriagedad
Email themiscarriagedad@gmail.com
Make sure you subscribe!
Write us a review!
Best,
Kelly & Chris
When did it become real to you that it wasn't just Amber who lost her baby? Chris lost his baby.
Speaker 2:When she passed the baby which this isn't something that people talk about with miscarriages it wasn't something that I knew until it happened. That's how much it's not talked about. Like the doctors didn't even describe to her what was going to happen. She just woke up one night and was just having pains like contractions, Like she went. She went into labor and woke me up because she wasn't so much pain. We both went and sat on the toilet. You know she's, I didn't. She sat on the toilet and she went into labor to pass that baby.
Speaker 1:This is the miscarriage dads podcast, a podcast humanizing the experience of miscarriage by normalizing dads openly talking about its impact on us as men and fathers and father's. Welcome to this first episode of the miscarriage dads podcast. My name is Kelly and I'm your host, and I am here with my co-host, chris. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, my guy?
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, how you doing. I'm Chris, just just glad to be here, man, Just glad to be here and glad to share this time with you all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. So we are so excited to launch this podcast about what is really something that you and I have experienced, which is the reason why we bonded over not just our common experiences, but this platform and this podcast, and the reason why you've decided to hop on and be my co-host as we embark on this journey. We're two dads who have experienced early pregnancy loss come together to share our stories and hopefully that frees up other men and fathers who have also experienced this devastating event to join this movement, to open up, share their stories so that we can start generating change in the spaces that we are targeting to generate change in. So I'm excited about episode one of miscarriage dads podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too, man.
Speaker 2:I really think you know, when we were sitting down and talking about it, man, just the excitement, I don't want to even say the nervousness, but the excitement over knowing that is needed.
Speaker 2:And the what word am I looking for? I guess anxiousness to get this thing rolling and getting it started. Because you know, just from our conversation talking about our experiences with miscarriages, even because we haven't even fully explored both of our stories, even just a little bit, that we've done in private has been incredible. So I'm excited to share our stories because that's the whole thing, right, like you were saying, we're trying to open this platform so that the conversation can get started amongst us as men, talking about deep pain that we do, that we don't normally get to talk about. And even if you know you're listening to the podcast and you never actually end up talking to someone else about it, hey, while you're riding in your car or you're just sitting on your couch or you're just laying in your bed, not sure what to do, at least you can get some kind of release in some kind of way. I mean, please talk to somebody.
Speaker 1:Talk to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, facts, facts. We're here, you know, but at least we can get something percolating in your brain so that you can deal with that trauma. That's the point.
Speaker 1:So, since we are going to begin sharing our stories I was telling you off air I want to start us off by by relaxing, by getting loose right. So we're dads after all, and I think one of the best superpowers that we have as dads is the ability to tell jokes that only other dads understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:So we're not making light of the topic that we're going to talk about. We're just showing you that we are real dudes who enjoy real dad jokes. Yes, so this week, my friend, our common friend, amanda, she sent me this thing on Instagram and it's from this account called Stand Up T-Rex.
Speaker 2:Of course, of course she said it to you. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:I don't know who runs this account. Consider this free promo, but go and subscribe to Stand Up T-Rex. It's Stand Up Dot T-Rex. This is one of their jokes. Did you hear about the lady who crashed her car while listening to Adele last night? No, she was rolling in the Jeep.
Speaker 2:That's so ridiculous.
Speaker 1:She was rolling in the Jeep.
Speaker 2:She was rolling in the Jeep. Rolling in the Jeep oh man, I got tears coming out my eyes Yo. It's so stupid All right.
Speaker 1:Here's another one. What do you get when you cross a policeman with a skunk? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Law and order. Oh my God, that smell.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're so bad, but we're so good. They're so bad that they're so good.
Speaker 2:But it was worse and I should say worse. But what's the latest is imagining a dinosaur just telling the joke in a mic Like bro that's so stupid.
Speaker 1:Let's give people a sense of how you and I connected to begin this podcast, to begin this project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. Me and Kelly. We've been friends for years, going way back to our graduate days in college, and we were, just as a matter of fact, I was asleep at the time- I was laying in the bed. Yeah, I was knocking out having good sleep and then I wake up to hear my wife, amber, talking to you on the phone. You know.
Speaker 1:Which is appropriate, by the way. This is just putting that out there.
Speaker 2:Right, it's the morning. It's like what was it like 10 am or something like that, completely appropriate time, something like that. Yeah right, you know. So it's the morning, you know you guys are talking or whatever like that, and then I wake up and Amber, she's like they, like Kelly, wants to talk to you, and I was like, oh OK, word, cool, so we start talking. Come to find out, you guys have been talking about miscarriages and those kinds of things that I, you know, I had no idea you know, and especially when you shared with me that you had experienced miscarriages too, I was like yo yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, when you came with the idea, you were like let's do a podcast. You know, and again, it was just because we just started talking and we hadn't even gotten into stories. We had just shared with you that we had one, because that's all we've had. We've had one, we've had one, and the fact that you had multiple, that was all we shared, and just we just shared the fact that we hadn't really shared it with a lot of people and really talked about it or talked it out. And that was enough for us to Connect over something completely new, not just know, college days and having fun a lot kind of stuff, but now over this new pain that we haven't really I shouldn't say haven't really dealt with, because we have Just not in the the best way, I guess, as we're going to get into with how guys deal with these kinds of things, right, but just even knowing that you've been through it was a huge connection point and just that little bit of sharing that we did both of us Well, I mean, you came with the idea of the podcast, but both of us were like, yeah, yeah, we got it, we got to do it.
Speaker 2:You said, let's do it. I was like yo, I am down. So I mean that's how it went on.
Speaker 1:My end, you know, yeah, yeah, so just to fill in the the context on my end. I, like you said, this is something that came from my multiple experiences of Early pregnancy laws, aka miscarriage and I just felt like I needed to do something about it, because I already have another platform about fatherhood and it just felt like I needed to specifically do this. And so then the name the miscarriage dad just kept bouncing around in my head and One day in fact, I think was the day before I spoke with Amber I just decided let me just pull the trigger. And so I did all of the artwork and all of that jazz and back and forth, back and forth, and I just launched the Instagram page and I posted it on my other two IG accounts the welcome to fatherhood account and my personal personal account and People just started responding oh, this is amazing, oh this is great, oh, this is perfect.
Speaker 1:And Amber being one of those people, and she just simply wrote you should talk to Chris, which caught me off guard because I'm like, why do I need to talk to Chris? You know what I mean. So I reached out to her and I said, hey, what's going on, like, why do I need to talk to Chris? And that's when she told me that you guys had experienced the miscarriage and I had recently found out, a little before that, that you guys had welcomed your second child. Yeah, so I was just like, oh man, like here's my buddy who experienced this, and had I not put this out there, I would have never known. Yeah, and I think that's the point, right that we're trying to address. Unless someone starts talking about it, then you will really never know how many people in your close circle even have also gone through something similar and are also dealing with their own thing and you just don't know about it. She and I got on the phone and we started talking and that's when she was telling me and she was telling me how much has impacted you.
Speaker 1:But then you were asleep and then you woke up and I was like, give that man the phone. And so she gave you the phone and you know we started talking and and yeah, you're right, it was just like I am going to start this podcast, I've already launched this platform and you were just like I am so on board, anything I can do, like I am there, and so that's when we started talking about hey, you want to come on as a co-host, because I'm kind of considering that and you were like I'm game. And here we are celebrating episode one of this podcast that we both are invested in for the long haul and, like you said to me before, we even hit record, even if it's one and a half person that listens to this, we've done our job. Yeah, we've broke the barrier. We have broken the barrier, and so I'm so excited about you being here on this journey with me and and I'm, we're ready to go.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you want to share your story first, or begin sharing your story first, or if you want to Pluck into my story, so I'll follow your lead, my guy. Yeah, whichever one, whichever way you want to go.
Speaker 2:So for me, we had a child first. Goodness, sorry my words when we had Chris, we were just leaving college Graduate school, very specifically and it was just this amazing thing. We just knew that it was, he was gonna be a boy. We knew what we were gonna name, all sorts of stuff, and he came out exactly the way that we wanted. And when we had him, when we first found out that he was, you know, the amber was pregnant we never once thought about a miscarriage. I shouldn't say never once, or we never once.
Speaker 2:Yeah amber thought about it. I was like, oh, I'm not even Considering this well, share.
Speaker 1:Okay, so share that, that piece of the story, because I remember when you shared it with me privately, I was surprised by that. So to say something that I don't think it's not breaking news, you and Amber, just like me and my wife, we never you never went into Trying to start your family, thinking about, oh yeah, this thing can happen to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never thought about it, Never crossed my mind. Just one of those things where, you know, I don't want to just think, I don't want to say, just thinking positively. You know, you know, as a Christian personally, when I expect everyone to be Christian, by the way, it is whatever is whatever. But as a Christian personally, I'm looking at it as a blessing, you know, and blessings don't go bad right. So I'm just, I'm on a high, I'm getting ready to have a kid and I, like I said, both of us we just knew it was gonna be a boy. And then, when we found out it was a boy, even better. You know, it just felt like things were gonna go well.
Speaker 2:Like I said, amber was worried from time to time. We actually did have a little bit of a scare, but that turned out fine as well. And I would say, even with that scare, even though it was the first time I'd considered the possibility in my mind, I still felt like everything was gonna be okay. You know what? My son is six years old now and it's just been this beautiful experience. So, a few years after Chris was born, I'd say he was about four or five. I can't remember exactly how old he was right now. This happened about a year ago, but his birthday is in December. That throws everything off.
Speaker 2:So we first found out that amber was pregnant a second time for me it was the same thing Just never considered it. We've been trying for a little while. We very specifically wanted to have a girl. So when she was pregnant again, I just knew things were going back and going the way I wanted to go. Things were going back and going the way they should go again because blessings don't go bad right and I just knew Things were going to be fine. I'm planning what my little girl's room is gonna look like. I'm planning what I'm gonna call her. I'm already thinking in my head yeah, I'm gonna call her baby girl, you know.
Speaker 2:And as her nickname it was. That was just already. Like I'd even seen, or I don't even know if it was a girl or not, like yeah yeah this was gonna happen.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm we buying her dresses, I'm we buying her dolls, because I'm big into toys. So I'm always buying Chris toys, and now that have Randall. I haven't started buying his toys yet, but oh, oh, it's coming. It's coming. That's my thing, you know. So I'm thinking about the dolls I'm gonna buy. You know, I'm figuring out the collectible dolls that I can get for her that she can play with, because I was always a pet peeve of mine. You're not supposed to like the collectible toys.
Speaker 1:They're toys, come on, they're toys right they're meant to be played with. I don't care. If you can't play with them, then don't buy them right.
Speaker 2:What's the point? That's the point, right. But these are the all the things I'm imagining, the things I'm expecting. We had a name. Her name was supposed to be Anika, and Amber the whole time Was way more hesitant about it than I was.
Speaker 1:Do you have a sense of what made her hesitate or what made her feel so hesitant?
Speaker 2:It's one of those things that only a mother can explain, understood, you know. All I know was she kept telling me that she had a feeling for me. I Just saw all the signs of things go off. She was eating like peanut butter jelly sandwiches and hot. Now she was adding the hot sauce on the peanut butter jelly sandwiches. Like these are two separate things Because, you know, pregnancy food can get weird. But she loved peanut butter jelly sandwiches and she loved hot sauce. Okay, and I remember in the room that's Randall's room now it was used to be our office there was just a bottle of hot sauce. She just left in there because you know, it's cove it she working home. She was putting hot sauce on chips. Like it was like yo, you had you putting hot sauce on hot chips. What is this? You know it's gotta be, I see her right, right, for some reason.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden it stopped and she just said Babe, I don't know, I don't, I'm not feeling this anymore. You know, like I'm not, I'm worried. You know, I feel like the baby is not there and I was like. You know, it was so early in the pregnancy. Of course she's not at the point where she's feeling flutters. We don't know the sex. We haven't even gone to the hospital to get the first heartbeat yet. So I, you know I'm ready to go, I'm cool, I'm telling her baby, I'm not gonna worry about like the baby's fine. You know you can't feel the baby right now anyway. So of course I'm just being positive, just thinking about it.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm going to bed every night praying over the baby, knowing the guy's answer my prayers. Yeah, again, not trying to convert you what, I'm just telling you my story. Then on that third month, um, amber had to go in to the og, to the obi's office, you know, to get the heartbeat and all that kind of stuff. I couldn't go um because I couldn't go inside. So Both me and Amber are like you know what, I can just stay home, I'll stay home with Chris. So this is because we can't go inside. Anyway, there's no need in getting him up early, getting him dressed, getting in the car and all kind of stuff. You just go, we'll FaceTime, you know. So you can FaceTime me the heartbeat and all that kind of stuff and we'll, we'll just be, I'll wait Chris up because he will sleep at the time.
Speaker 1:Um is this during uh COVID year, like 2020?
Speaker 2:this, yeah, this, this is 2021 2020 um February of 2021. Okay.
Speaker 1:And I don't know that's not 21 stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, still still heavy restrictions, heavy restrictions. Um, man, this is. You know, I haven't revisited this a lot. Um, yeah, that's why we're doing, that's why we're doing this right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, feel free to pause whenever you need to pause, and you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, thanks man, um, so, you know, wake up that morning and amber kisses me goodbye, and everything gets in the car. Uh, now where we live, her OB is, uh, almost an hour away. Um, because of where we used to live, it was a lot closer. We used to live, it was only about 30 to 45 minutes away, uh, but because of where we live now it is a lot further. So she drove out, um, chris was still sleeping the bed, so I kind of fell back asleep.
Speaker 2:Then she FaceTime and woke up and you know um, it's funny because I remember trying to wake Chris up because we were getting ready to see the heartbeat and um, you know, uh, amber turns the phone around and I can hear a doctor talking, but I'm, you know, listening to the sounds. I thought I heard a heartbeat. Um, obviously I didn't. And, uh, the doctor, just she, she, just I mean it. It felt a little cold the way she handled it, um, but she was just like no, there's, you know, there's no heartbeat or anything, um, and at that moment I just felt, I felt like a failure, um, because I wasn't there. You know um, now, if something we talked about, something we agreed upon, um, but in that moment, like I felt like I had left her all alone. Um, and it's funny, my son never. He was just knocked out. He never woke up. So I just stopped trying to wake him up, um, and I'm I'm still really glad that he never woke up. Um, you know, he was just sleeping on the bed next to me, um, and I I just remember Amber just started breaking down On the phone, just breaking down in tears, um, to the point where she just hung up, and I just sat there in silence for a minute, not knowing what to do.
Speaker 2:At that time we only had one car, so it's not like I could hop in the car, get Chris up and just drive out there and be with her. She had taken the only car and so she drove back, but she didn't come all the way home. She ended up going over to her friend's house because she just couldn't take the drive home, and she was telling me later that they had put her in a room and she was just sitting there all by herself. And then the doctors came in and they were just going through the motions. Like you know, this has happened. I mean, I'm sure it's happened a lot, but it's just that bedside manner that you expect. You know. I think I'm still a little angry about that, but you know, just telling her. Oh, you know, you make your appointment here so that either you can take the, they can suck the baby out, or, you know, you can just pass it naturally.
Speaker 2:But the whole time I just felt helpless. Like I said, I felt really guilty for not being able to be there. Honestly, talking about it now I still feel guilty, you know, because I'm a husband and my job is to protect my wife from all harm. And even though I couldn't protect her from losing her child, I could have at least protected her from the doctors or I at least could have been there to hold her, to drive home. I knew that there was nothing I could necessarily do to cheer her up, but just to be there, you know, and I couldn't be. And I remember calling family, just letting them know, because we had told we didn't tell everyone, we'd only told a few people in the family, but even so, just a hard phone call to make. And during the whole time, even me and myself I'm just going through the motions because again I'm in the mode of I've got to be strong because my wife lost the baby, you know.
Speaker 1:Did you ever consider it from your experience? Your wife lost the baby. Did you ever say I lost the baby too?
Speaker 2:No, and that's why I said it like that, because even though that was my baby too, you know, you get into the mode and you start thinking, you know, I don't deserve to be sad because I wasn't carrying the child. You know, I was, like you know, helping with nesting. But we had even gotten very far, like you know, we were still talking colors about the room. Like I said, we didn't even know the sex of the child was yet. I have no idea if the child was a boy or a girl. No idea, we hadn't got that far, we just talked about where the baby was going to be. We can only talked about you know what kind of things that we were going to try to do around the house. So we hadn't bought anything, but it was just all of those plans, you know, just being gone. But for me I felt like I was on the outside of it, and it's nothing that she did, nothing that she said, nothing that my family said to make me feel like I was on the outside of it. I think I kind of put myself on the outside because you know, I'm the husband, that's what I'm supposed to do. She is hurting, you know, she has lost the child. Like I said, you know, it was in her body, not mine.
Speaker 2:You know and I think it's that discounting of what fatherhood means when your wife is pregnant, because I didn't understand at the time that as soon as she was pregnant, I was a father and maybe this is something good for some people that might be listening to, because there I'm sure that there are some people out there who have had miscarriages and have not had a child after, or or had miscarriages and didn't have a child before.
Speaker 2:You're still a father. As soon as your wife told you that she was pregnant and you were having kids, or your girlfriend or whoever even if it was just a one night stand, and that person said I'm pregnant, you became a father and you might not have actually got the chance to see your child or hold your child, but you were a father for that time because of all the thoughts and the plans and the care and the love that you immediately have. The reason you know that we as dads become, or husbands become, so protective over our wives when they become pregnant is because they are caring our child, and that's not something that I thought about a lot at all. To be frank. It's not really something I thought about until we started getting ready for this podcast.
Speaker 1:Let me. Let me ask you this question. So you guys had told some family members and now you have to make this painful call to the family members that you had told previously about Amber's pregnancy to now tell them and update them that you have lost the baby. Yeah, what was their attitude towards you? And by attitude I mean what was their response towards you? How did they? Did they try to offer words of support and that to you, or was it more asking about Amber's well-being and you were just kind of like in the periphery of all of that concern?
Speaker 2:I would say, out of everyone that really asked about me very specifically, it was my dad. But that makes sense, right, because you know he's a father he's never had, he's never experienced in his carriage, but he is still my father. You know he's got three kids, me and my two sisters. So he was like you know, are you okay, like, and my mom asked to to a degree, but same kind of thing, just more thinking about Amber, you know, and you know, and of course I don't hold any of this against anybody, right right and it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not about that, right, right? I think the reason why I asked that question is because it goes along with something that you said a little while ago and that you kind of put yourself outside, and, as you said that I was thinking, nothing happens in a vacuum, you didn't choose to put yourself outside. I have a theory, I have my own reasons why. I think you were set up to make that decision from the time that you guys had Chris, and that's something that we can talk about throughout the course of this journey that we're starting on. I don't believe that this is something that you just decided out of the nothing, all of a sudden. I personally believe that, from the perspective of first time parents, the way that the role definition starts to come into focus as you and Amber went to the doctor's appointments, and the language that was used towards her versus the language that was applied to you, and another thing that you said a little while ago is that, as a husband, my job is to protect my wife from, and so these are the categories that we, as men, we have been taught to function within, and I'm not saying that they're bad and I'm not saying that they're good. I'm just naming the category. The category is to protect, provide the two basic pillars. And so, outside of that, when something plays on one of those two categories, one of those two pillars, and it challenges that, and by that I mean a situation like you just explained, where you couldn't protect, where you couldn't provide, because she was an hour away, she took the only car. You were home. You made logical decisions, reasonable. Both of you made those decisions together that she was gonna go and you were gonna stay.
Speaker 1:Now the circumstances played out in that you weren't there to do the things that you it's within your nature to do. It puts you at a place of crisis. Because who is Chris in this moment? Because Chris is not able to protect, chris is not able to provide. And so whoever Chris is, whatever Chris's perception of who Chris is, is not a moment of crisis.
Speaker 1:And so I've tried to think about those things and ask the question what other categories can I form in conjunction with protect, provide? What other major meta category can I put together to help me gain some balance for the moments in life, like experiencing this devastation, where I'm not able to do A protect, I'm not able to do B provide, but I have C. So what is C? What can I define C as? So that's the way my mind works.
Speaker 1:So I say all that to say none of the things that you're saying happen individually from other tentacles of other like in the background type stuff that is influencing the way that you made decisions and you responded and your feelings of guilt and those deeply rooted feelings that you expressed, because the same thing is true for my story and you'll see that once we get to talking about what happened to me in the ways that I felt. So I empathize 100% with the feelings that you had, because I also found myself in this moment of crisis. Who is Kelly in this moment where I can't protect and I can't provide for my wife?
Speaker 2:And that's hard. That's hard when you're asking that like is there even a word for it? I don't know. Yeah, you know, I don't know. And I think that's why we're trying to go in this journey is to figure out what is that supposed to be, what is that supposed to look like or how do you describe it, because we're coming to a place of understanding, coming to a place where we're now able to look back and not just analyze because I feel like analyze can be a really cold word but you're able to look back and empathize with yourself and really figure out what your feelings were back then, so that you can understand and add it to who you are now and how you're gonna react with things in the future. And, like you said, what do you call that? What does that look like? It's an added job that we just don't have a title for yet.
Speaker 2:But I completely understand because it's lonely it's very lonely and I don't think, and obviously this is not a bashing woman's session, right.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's something the same way. The same way I couldn't describe the feeling of what she lost, because that's something only a mother could describe. I think it's the same way with men, with husbands, in the weight that we carry for our family. It is very lonely because in the quote, unquote hierarchy of the family, some serious air quotes here I know you can't see them in the pot if you're listening but some serious air quotes here with hierarchy I'm using that word very loosely more so based on the structure of society and what we're trying to actually change. But looking at it in the sense of you've got the kids, you've got the mom and then you've got the dad, and the dad is supposed to be the end, all be all of everything, right, the decision maker, the one who is supposed to carry the family to success. The family succeeds, all the praise goes to the dad. If the family fails, all of the mire and disgust and disappointment all falls on the dad, and that is a huge weight to carry in this society.
Speaker 2:I think that's why it's very healthy that we start trying to change that dynamic and look at things differently, because as men we need that. But it is a lot to carry and when you fail or you perceive yourself as failing, it's heavy. It's heavy. You look at your wife and even though she doesn't look at you differently like I know for a fact Amber doesn't look at me differently I know that because in her mind, we went through this together. In my mind, even though I know we went through it together, like you said, because of this preconditioning that exists, I still feel like I failed her. Yes, and it's hard for that feeling to just go away. There's some times that I look at her and I'm just like man, I wasn't there. That thought just pops up. I wasn't there.
Speaker 1:Nah, dude, listen 100%. So I guess we should have said this, or I should have said this upfront. The purpose of this podcast can be summarized as this is a space, this is a project, this is a platform, this is a movement that we're initiating to humanize the experience of miscarriage and to normalize fathers like you and I openly talking about our experience and how miscarriage or early pregnancy laws impacts us. And those two words are important to me to humanize and to normalize, because part of being human is having emotions and defining who you are and falling into definitions. I mean, we're at a place in society, in human history now, where folks have taken it upon themselves to express a variety of different expressions that define who they think their authentic self is, for better or worse. This is where we are as a society today, and so it's baffling that, in this space of childbearing, conception and fertility or infertility and everything that comes attached to a man and a woman trying to conceive and trying to get a baby, and this small slice of the possible events that could happen, where a pregnancy terminates itself before the 20 weeks, which is technically what a miscarriage is the way that that can impact not just the mother but the father, on the father's perspective, from his and from your experience and my experience from our vantage point there is. So the ball has been heavily dropped, yeah, yeah, and I believe that there are a variety of reasons that are constantly at work making sure that that ball stays dropped. And so I was not surprised to hear that and I'm so thankful that your dad checked in on you. Hey, son, are you okay? How are you doing? Whether or not he went through it, he had, not just because he's your father, but maybe primarily because he's your father and he cares about his son who's hurt. Hey, let me check in on you and the other folks who also pseudo checked in on you, like you said, is not to hold it against anybody, but to me that's also part of the conditioning that doesn't only happen to me and you right, that made you feel like you put yourself on the outside. But it's also these deeply rooted assumptions that we all carry. We all carry that informs how we respond and react in different circumstances.
Speaker 1:And the fact that people were asking you kind of secondhandedly hey, are you kind of assuming I know you're okay because implication, you're not the carrier, but how is she doing? Because if anyone is feeling this more intensely, more personally, more intimately, it's amber, and that is true, with the exception of the word more, because she's feeling it personally and intensely, 100%. So are you based off of everything that you said at the beginning, all of the planning on buying the collectible dolls, the colors, the dreams and conceptions that you were as this child was growing in amber? This child was growing in your imagination and the place where it's, it's, that child was growing in the womb of your emotions. Man, yeah, that's that's where that, for us as fathers, that child that we do not have the physical attachment to but we do have an Emotional attachment to that child is growing in the womb of our emotions. Yeah, and our conception and our perception of what life is gonna be like with this child. And so, again, in an era of people who want to highlight emotional intelligence and and Identifying, you know truly what you're feeling and expressing and all of that stuff, to not see that is A place where where the ball drops.
Speaker 1:But I'm sorry, brah, I Interrupted you.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to know, bro, everything you said was this 100% on point, man, and it just brings some thoughts of of, of thinking about what I lost, you know Of, like you said, those plans, the future. I remember sitting there and seeing that hot sauce bottle in the office.
Speaker 2:I was in a moment like man, I just I didn't want to touch it. I Just remember sitting there just looking at it, like the reason that that bottle was there was because my wife was having cravings, because, you know, my child was alive. And now my child is gone and All I know is maybe the baby, maybe maybe our child would have like, would have liked spicy food, you know, you know, and that hurt. Yeah, the baby was supposed to be born around my birthday, in November. So, man, every, every birthday for me now is different, because it wasn't just supposed to be my birthday, you know what, it wasn't supposed to be the same day or anything, but it was supposed to be close. So every November, it, it, it's, it's, it hurts, it hurts, and I had to come to the realization that I lost a child. Was it's interesting? Because Amber was feeling, you know she wouldn't for, for I don't want to say a few days, no, no, no, maybe it was one or two days. You know how everything runs together. Yeah, she would. She wouldn't refer to the baby as a baby in four minute, she would just say it, you know wow
Speaker 2:and she would just say I just need to get that, I just need to get it out of me, I just need to pass it and I'll be okay. And I remember, just sitting there with the couch, she was laying on the couch and she was like I just want to get rid of it and I just, I just told I said baby, it wasn't, it, wasn't it it. I was like you lost your child, you lost your baby, hmm. And I just remember she just started breaking down and it was amazing because it just so happened that her sister was coming and Literally after I said that she started breaking down, her sister rang the doorbell and Came inside. Now you know forever, and sister lives an hour and a half away, hmm, so for her to come at that exact moment was just incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I had to come to that realization myself, because even in that moment where I'm telling my wife you lost your baby, that hasn't sunk in yet for me at that point.
Speaker 1:I. What moment did it second for you? When did you? When did it become real to you that it wasn't just Amber who lost her baby?
Speaker 2:Chris lost his baby when she passed the baby which this isn't something that people talk about with miscarriages it wasn't something that I knew until it happened. That's how much it's not talked about. Like the doctors didn't even describe to her what was going to happen in terms of passing a baby, passing a miss. Even at this early stage, I'm assuming it happened at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she just woke up one night and was just having pains like contractions. Like she went, she went into labor and Walked me up because she wasn't so much pain. We both went and sat on the toilet. You know she's I didn't see. You sat on the toilet and she went into labor to pass that baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again that's not something that people talk about. I don't know why when you have a miscarriage, the baby doesn't just disappear. I know, like I said, I knew about them. Possibly you know going in and, like you know, excavating everything themselves as doctors, but when they talk, about.
Speaker 1:That's called a DNC. Yes, yes, a DNC.
Speaker 2:But when you talk about doing it, naturally, it's something else. It's something else. Yeah, yes, something else. And yeah, again the Again. Oh, yes, son, yes, you can Sorry about that, guys, no no apologies needed.
Speaker 1:This was, this is perfect. This is perfect, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's beat it. That for the second.
Speaker 1:We're real dads bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, facts, I Love it. I love it. Yes, sir, 100% yeah, we are real dads, all right, we're taking care of kids right now. Y'all even know. Wait, yes, you do.
Speaker 1:This was great.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, but it was just, it was difficult, man. That was difficult because, again, it's one of those moments where there's so much that's going on in your mind like wait a minute, I thought, like I Thought the baby, it was supposed to dissipate, maybe a little bit of blood would pass, but that that that baby came out there. Now, the baby was so small, you know, because we hadn't even had even developed in for those full three months, that it just looked like a chunk of stuff came out, chunk of blood or whatever it came out.
Speaker 1:How? What was that in life for you, bro? And when, watching your wife Going through this thing because now you're there. Yeah, you're there, you are physically there.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And she is going through this painful experience that she can only go through by herself, in terms of the physical Pain that she's feeling and all of the other stuff that only she's feeling in her body at that moment. But in comparison to Getting the news that there was no heartbeat and you guys were and I were away from each other, now you're going through another, another intense moment that kind of closes that chapter Mm-hmm, that chunk of the chapter. But now you're there. Yeah, I'm assuming you're still feeling like I still can't do anything for her.
Speaker 2:It's. It felt the same. I might as well have been an hour away. All I could do was hold her hand. It's all I could do. I couldn't make her more comfortable. I couldn't pull it out myself. I Couldn't knock her out or do something to take the pain on myself. All I could do was hold her hand and I just kept thinking I didn't know, oh, she was going to go into labor, like that's supposed to be something that's reserved for life. That's what I thought. But that's not what was happening. Her body was literally purging our child because it was dead and man. After she was done. Both of us just stood there and just we just look down and just look to see if we could even see, see what our baby looked like, because we knew and in this, this, the Try to find the right word the messed up thing I snive in really a good word for it but just to see, see your child in a toilet bowl and Then just flush it like you talking some real stuff right now, bro.
Speaker 1:I mean there's no, there's no sugarcoating it, there's no there's. You're talking some real stuff right now. This is the reality that you lived and there's no good feelings about that.
Speaker 2:No, it was the worst day of my life. It was the worst day of my life. It was the worst day of my life. And man, I've had some hard days, but that day I would. I, I wish so badly I could erase. You know, it's funny, you, you look at your life and you see the mistakes that you make and all that kind of stuff. After a certain point, especially after you have kids, you look back and say you know what, if I had to go back in time, I wouldn't do anything differently because I've got my kid and if I change anything I wouldn't have my kid. But when you think about that and you think about the things that you could change so that that moment didn't happen, there's nothing I wouldn't give for that moment not to happen. It's traumatic, it's it is painful, it's maddening, because Everything is telling you that life should be here and it's death. It's a lot.
Speaker 1:Thank you for Opening up and reliving the worst day of your life and and you the way that you've expressed and shared your story. I Feel like you brought me into that bathroom with you and Amber there, because your boy was there too, in my own bathroom With my wife. What you're expressing is something that is. I Know intimately what that moment is like, because I have that moment.
Speaker 2:I've lived that moment also and this is why I'm glad we're doing this, because just being able to tell my story is a lot. There's a lot. I don't even have like the worst story out there. I know there's a lot of people that have gone through it and you know you've gone through it more than once. But, like you said, just to be able to get the story out there and then know that I'm not the only one who's been through it, to know that, even though we don't have it there, even though we don't see it, we actually there's, actually we actually have a brotherhood Because of what we've been through.
Speaker 2:I don't want to compare it to like war or anything like that, but you know you watch a show like like a band of brothers on HBO. Well, great show, you know, but understanding that the reason that they're even a band of brothers is because of the things they go through. We have that same bond. You know, of Losing our children and I know, you know there's a lot of debate on, you know where life starts and blah, blah, blah, whatever. When you have decided to keep your child and you have decided that you want to see your child come to full term, because I'm I I'm not an abortion guy, but I'm not. I'm not a. What's the political term?
Speaker 1:Entire abortion is pro yeah, pro life, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't get into the political things, okay. So no judgment to those of you who I've had abortions, that's none of my business. What. Whatever, you're a human being. You're having a human experience.
Speaker 2:But when you decide to have a child and you decide that you want to see this child Fully, progress and come into the world, regardless of what stage that child is, that that's your child, that's your baby, and To lose your child, to lose your baby, is it is traumatizing. So there's a trauma, a shared trauma that we have, and it's important, especially as men, especially now that we recognize that we all have this bond. Because of this trauma, it is important that we tell our stories and get it out, because a it gives us an opportunity To be able to process what happened. To be able to because, again, even even telling my story now, there are things that I'm realizing I haven't processed, things that I haven't really thought about. But being able to process and get it out with someone else who's been through the same thing, now you have the chance to be held, if that makes sense now you have the chance to be supported by someone else who understands. One of the things that happened with my wife was she had family members that had had Abortions not abortions, I'm sorry had that had miscarriages. So because of that, there is a support network, because, again, women are a lot more open with these things Not to say that you know, they talk about it all the time or something like that but there's just this understanding when they come together especially when Amber was going around her family after the miscarriage just this understanding, this extra care because they have been through it.
Speaker 2:We as men don't do that because we haven't shared. Like you said, kelly, if it wasn't for the fact that you had started this already and if it wasn't for Amber reaching out, we never would have had this discussion. Facts, never would have had the discussion. We would have seen each other, we've been like, oh, what's up and everything. We would have talked about our two children that are alive. Facts and we never would have brought up the fact that we had miscarriages.
Speaker 2:So there's no chance for us to support each other, there's no chance for even just to have a glance and a nod, to look at each other and know, man, we've been there, we've been through it. You know, for those of us that have been lucky enough to have kids either before or after. There's a different way that you look at your children and you know I Apologized of those of you who might be listening that have not had the chance yet. I'm sorry and but just know that we know what it feels like to suffer that loss, to suffer the trauma of losing your future before it's even started. But that's why we need to do this, because we've got it. We have to find a way to be able to find support, because we're not finding it everywhere else, but this gives us a chance to be able to support each other.
Speaker 1:What I want to do is I want to give both you and I a chance to reflect on this conversation today so that the next time we come together, we can Talk about aspects of what you share, because there's certain aspects that I think warrant to have a More in-depth conversation, like we're having now, about your experience. I just wanted to give you the space to, to tell, to talk about what your experience was. So, now that you have shared your story in this way, you real you're realizing that there are things that you haven't processed yet. I'm inviting you to take a major step back objectively.
Speaker 1:Look at what this past Hour, and whatever minutes has been of you talking about, the majority of which of you talking about your, your story. So look at that objectively and out of body experience, if you will. What does it mean for you? What it, what was the experience like? Rather, what was that experience like for you to be able to talk about your story? What are, what are you feeling in the moment? What are you thinking about in the moment? What has this past hour mean to you?
Speaker 2:It's like going back and To the scene of a crime, because, I Don't know, you ever watch like a movie. I can't think of any specific examples right now where someone goes back to the scene of the crime or they go back To a place where something terrible happened in their life and they're just looking around and all of a sudden, like you see, like a ghostly couch or something pop up and they're showing the memory.
Speaker 1:Of what?
Speaker 2:took place and they're walking around in it like.
Speaker 2:That's what it feels like telling the story, because Even while I'm telling the story, I'm standing outside and looking at and describing things that are happening, you know, and as I'm describing it, those memories are coming back like ghosts, as these, and when we think about ghosts, we think of these figures of the past that are just unsettling. Even if it is Something as nice or not, it's unsettling. You know that, that feeling of Bringing back to life Something that you know should be dead and you want to stay dead. So going over that and talking about that again it brings up a little bit of drama, but at the same time it's nice, because there are certain pieces that I recognize now that didn't recognize before, and there are certain aspects of things and feelings that were happening that I was feeling that I can put words to now that I couldn't put words to at the time, and that comes from that ability to stand outside of it and look at it.
Speaker 2:I don't think I mean it's all.
Speaker 2:It's only been a couple years. I don't think I've become that much wiser or something like that. You know, like I'm some like old sage that's read all the wisdom books and now I can like go back and, you know, put things on it, but just being able to Look at myself and say, oh, this is what I was feeling right there, oh, this is what I was experiencing at that moment, yeah, yeah, and realizing I didn't think about it while I was going through it, because I was just going through it, you know but to be able to step back and put a label on it out on top of that. It's almost like when you watch a movie and you have someone who is dealing with a ghost and the ghost wants to be set free. You know, I feel like I was able to set some of those things free, some of those unresolved pieces of me free, because I was able to go back and see them, if that makes sense and I know it's not complete, but pieces of it are coming off and it feels great, feels great.
Speaker 1:It feels great. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to open up and relive and explore and allow me to Direct your focus on different things about your experience during this past hour and change that that we've been in conversation. What I want to do is I want us to, I want us to just stop right here because Understanding that it takes a lot of energy to talk about your story and to and to relive it and all of that stuff, so we don't want to overdo it, but definitely when we pick up the conversation again, like I said, I wanted to talk about some aspects of your experience that we're gonna focus in more on to Bring to light some of these bigger concepts that that we've been talking about During this time. So I'm gonna give you the the final word, anything that you want to say last before we, before we conclude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I just in just encouraging everyone to just to be able to do the same thing. You know, again, that's what the podcast is for. I hope that if you've listened to this, of course, that you listen to us more, but also that you take the time to do what I did and I hope that my words and me being able to describe how I'm feeling now after going through it Gives you the encouragement to be able to share with someone else, and I would encourage you to share with someone that has been through it, just because there's that, that understanding that I guess I said that, like I'll talk about early, that brotherhood. That's there I feel I'm feeling really good. I'm excited for this podcast, even more so now, yeah, but I'm excited to hear your story, kelly, because I'm excited for you to be able to go through the same things with me, man and I. Like I said, I my hope is that this feels like it starts something for everyone.
Speaker 1:That's my hope if you are listening to us. We thank you for going through this with us. I know it can be very difficult. It can trigger Some of your own memories and your own experience and that's okay. If you've needed to take a break or several breaks or just like hell not listening to this thing, that's okay too. Hopefully you do come back to it and find Value and meaning and what we're doing here.
Speaker 1:We would deeply appreciate it if you left us a review, if you subscribe to the podcast, if you also share it, like Chris said, with someone who has gone through this experience. Heck, maybe this is a conversation starter for you to Identify yourself. And here's the other part. Maybe you don't know someone who's been through it, but if you're open about listening to this podcast, you have identified yourself as someone who is safe and open and willing to be a Reference person for somebody who is going through it or who has gone through it and has been looking to talk to somebody about it. You have just put yourself out in the open and say you can talk to me because I I listen to this podcast about these dads who have experienced this and they're pretty awesome. So do that.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean like share it with people within your network, leave us a review, send us your comments. You can always reach out to us at the miscarriage dad at gmailcom. You can follow the miscarriage dad Instagram account. Again, my name is Kelly and his name is Chris, and so we will tune in and we'll talk to you, guys. You.