The Miscarriage Dads Podcast
A podcast dedicated to humanizing the experience of miscarriage, and normalizing dads openly talking about its impact on us as men and fathers.
The Miscarriage Dads Podcast
E12: Deciding to Try for Another Child in the Aftermath of Miscarriage (part 2)
Welcome to episode 12!
Have you ever stood at life's crossroads, the weight of loss in one hand and the possibility of new beginnings in the other? In this episode I share how I navigated the tumultuous journey of deciding whether to expand our family after the heartache of miscarriage. This episode isn't just about recounting my own story; it offers an intimate and rare glimpse into the often unspoken male perspective on loss and the longing for fatherhood.
With raw emotion and vulnerability, I open a window revealing how my wife and I wrestled with the echoes of miscarriage, questioning the completeness of our family and the depths of our responsibilities as we pondered the risks and rewards of trying once more.
This isn't just my journey—it's a chapter many have walked but few have voiced, until now.
Thank you for tuning in to find solace, gain understanding, and embark on your healing journey with us!
Sincerely,
Kelly & Chris
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Email themiscarriagedad@gmail.com
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Whatever your decision is as you approach this conversation, as you approach this decision to try again or to not try again, whichever way you and your partner decide to go after this loss, there are going to be implications, and it is important I think it is important for you to approach this conversation and to make whatever decision that you are ultimately going to make with a more settled sense of self. This is the Miss Carriage Dads Podcast, a podcast humanizing the experience of Miss Carriage by normalizing dads, openly talking about its impact on us as men and fathers. Welcome to this episode of the Miss Carriage Dads Podcast. My name is Kelly and I am your host, so we've been talking about the topic of how to have the conversation with your significant other after you've experienced loss to Miss Carriage, and so last week, chris and I spent some time kind of doing an overview of the topic. Some of the issues that we perceive are in the background and influencing the way we think about having this conversation, and so today, since I am by myself and Chris is not here, I figured that I would talk to you specifically about my experience with having this conversation with my wife after we had experienced at least three of our four Miss Carriages. So maybe that's not a context that is the same for everybody else who's listening to this episode, and by that I mean maybe you are thinking about how to have this conversation after just one. Excuse me, I did not mean to say that. Maybe you're thinking about having this conversation after having your first loss, and maybe that is your only loss.
Speaker 1:In my case, my wife and I, we experienced four separate Miss Carriages enroute to two children, and each one sort of built on the other in terms of how I began to think about these things and in my experience of being in the trenches of figuring out how to not just make sense of what we were experiencing, what I was experiencing but also how to move forward in the best and most responsible way. So let me just pick up from where this conversation became more important for me, and by important I mean rather more difficult for me to have after three Miss Carriages and I'm going to say that this was most likely the after the third Miss Carriage. Particularly after the third Miss Carriage and I've spoken about this on the podcast before and sharing my story that third Miss Carriage was, for me, the most traumatic, because not only did it happen at home. All of the visual and all of the implications of that. It rattled me, it shook me to my core and it led me to asking a series of questions to myself. I started thinking and examining my own motives for wanting to pursue having another child, and so that's where I'll begin.
Speaker 1:Before I even got to the point of talking to my wife about trying again In fact spoiler alert I did not want to continue trying again there was a part of me that, because of this series of questions and conversations that I was having inside my own head with myself, there was a part of me that did not want to try again and have another child. There was a part of me that had started questioning why I was not satisfied with my living child already. There was a part of me that questioned if, if, I was being responsible, and what did that even mean for me to want to have another child or for me to even entertain the possibility of trying again? Knowing the things that we knew, knowing the things that I knew at that time, as a result of my experience and our experience, I think it's important to say also that in my wife's mind and this is something that I came to find out later. After the fact, in my wife's mind there was no doubt that she wanted to try again, because for her she always felt like there was that, that she had one more in her. She probably didn't say it in those exact words, but she that that was the sense she felt that there was. There was one more member to our family, there was one more piece to our puzzle that felt incomplete, and that's a word that she and I kept coming back to way after the fact. It just we just kept coming back to that word incomplete. Me, on the other hand, it took me a while to get there, and, and even though I ultimately did get there, it still took me a long time to work through my own thinking and my own emotions with why I was feeling the the ways that I was feeling about the prospect of trying again. So one of the first questions that I asked myself was this question about satisfaction, and satisfaction with regards to already being a father to a living child. We had already experienced two miscarriages before my oldest son, juki, was born, and I always tell the story, so I just say it again briefly Uh, when me and my wife were courting each other and we had started having conversations about, uh, being together and family and how many children we want.
Speaker 1:You know those type of conversations. I came into the relationship with the idea that, for sure, we were going to have three kids, that that was my magic number. She has her own feelings and her own background history why she wanted to at least have more than one child. So that conversation, before we even got married, was very illuminating and it was not a difficult conversation to have at all because we both came from the same, a similar place, rather knowing that we wanted to have multiple children. And then I started working in a pediatric setting, in an acute pediatric setting, and I realized, oh man, you know what, this is not a cakewalk at all. So I just, uh, I modified my number and I remember having this conversation with her and I was like you know what I think two children is is perfect. I think that is perfect. Uh, two was her magic number, again, more than one, but definitely two. That was the magic number. So we settled on you know what Two children and we'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And then, after the first two losses that we had, my eyes were opened even more to the reality of how much needs to go absolutely right for just one life to be generated, for that life that is generated to then make it full term, and after that life goes full term, for that life to enter into the world in a healthy state, and then all of the other chaos agents that we have to hold at bay to preserve that life, and so far and so forth. So once Juki came into the world again, at a time where the world was just going up in flames due to COVID and protests and all of that jazz, I was convinced one child, that was enough. In fact that was more than enough. So I went from three to two, to one. But then again, because my wife, she felt very strongly about wanting to give our, our child a sibling, so we went back to two and we settled on two and that was that.
Speaker 1:So after we had our third miscarriage, I went right back to that place of questioning, you know, is it really worthwhile to try again for a second child? Why did I think it was worthwhile? Why did I think it was worthwhile to try again, knowing very well that, you know, we did try after Juki and it ended up. We ended up in the same place that we were before Juki, and I thought that once we had Juki, all of the wrongs had been righted and everything that had led to, or that might have led to, the first two miscarriages, now that we had a healthy child, a living child, that magically everything would just go away and we would never find ourselves in this position again of experiencing a miscarriage. And obviously that was not the case and we had another miscarriage, and that third one being the most traumatic one.
Speaker 1:I now had to sit with myself asking this question why did I think it was worthwhile to even try again? And then the questions started to evolve into what is it about my son that I'm not satisfied with? What does it say about me as a father that I don't feel satisfied with? Just being a father to him? And as I was asking the question, I was also very aware that that was not the fact at all. The fact of the matter is, I love being a father to my son, and Juki is just the fulfillment, the most beautiful being who has ever entered into my life, because he changed everything about me.
Speaker 1:I discovered new facets about me because of my son, some of the most disturbing. Some of the most troubling, some of the most uncomfortable realizations about myself that I've had to face came as a result of Juki entering into my life and challenging who I was at that time and challenging me to be a better person, a better man, a better father to and for him I was saying this to my wife the other day, in fact that there's a part of me that feels bad, that his little brother, eden, has a much more refined version of me than he did. But Eden would not have this benefit, eden would not have this version of me, had Juki not kicked it off. And so everything that I am today, fundamentally who I am as a father and who I am as a man, particularly now, four years into being a father to him is because of him. It's because of my son. It's because of that Tuesday morning when, when I held him, or that Tuesday afternoon, rather, when I held him for the first time and I saw him and I gave him my index finger and he grabbed it and he stopped crying. That moment changed my life.
Speaker 1:So here I am in this, in this moment of questioning, and I'm asking myself the question why do I not feel satisfied with just being a father to him. What does it say about me that I'm looking for something else? Why am I looking for something else? Why would I even entertain wanting to be a father to another child? Does that have anything to do with me not loving my son? Is that an indictment on on our relationship in some way shape or form? Am I thinking that there is something better out there, there is someone better out there, and why is my son not the better thing? Why? And so I started asking all of these why questions? And again, the fact of the matter is none of those questions were an actual reflection of the reality that I deeply love my son, my firstborn, and wanting to or entertaining the thought of trying again after that miscarriage had nothing to do with whether or not I loved him. It had nothing to do with the amount of love that I have for him. It had nothing to do with the quality of love that I have for him.
Speaker 1:There was something inside of me at that moment that was scared, that was broken, that was trying to make sense of something really horrific that had just gone down and I was trying to figure out how to cope with it, and I felt vulnerable and I felt exposed and I felt I felt like it was my fault. I felt it was my fault that I was the one who caused my wife to experience this horrific trauma, and so I was blaming myself, I was beating myself up we all know we are our own worst enemy and I was heaping all sorts of in a way. In a way, it felt like I was trying to recreate for myself, within myself, what I perceived to be the level of the intensity of the trauma that my wife felt in her body. Psychologically. I was trying to create something. I was trying to put myself in a place where I could psychologically experience what I perceived my wife experienced physically. And it's only in back, reflecting on this period, that I'm able to make this connection.
Speaker 1:So it had nothing to do with my son not being enough, and so I want to pause here and speak to you who have a living child and you've experienced loss to miscarriage and you are beginning to think about wanting to try again, and you're probably asking yourself the same question, or you're probably asking yourself your own series of questions that fall in a nearby arena to these questions that I was asking myself and maybe the question that you're asking yourself circling around your relationship, and what does it mean that you want this thing, even though you already have a living child? And let me just say, if you are anything like me and speaking from my experience, that you're want and desire to want to try again, or even if you don't know that yet, but you're at least entertaining the idea of maybe this is something that I want to try again. It has nothing to do with who you are to your living child. It has nothing to do with your love for your living child. Perhaps it has something to do with a feeling of incompleteness that you are wrestling with, which, again, the same level of questions can be asked why do I feel incomplete? Because that's what I felt, why and that's what I asked, why do I feel incomplete when I have this beautiful child? And that's something that you're just going to have to wrestle through and you're just going to have to figure out on your own with your partner, with with a mental health professional, therapist or or friend or someone who you can process these feelings, this question, with.
Speaker 1:I came to the conclusion that, although I felt incomplete, that although I felt scared, and although I felt like I was starting to entertain the prospect of wanting to try again for another child. It had nothing to do with my living child. I love them beyond measure and I still do. He is perfect. No one else, nothing else, can make him any more perfect than what he already is. This had everything to do with me and very little to nothing at all to do with him, and that's how I parsed things in my own head.
Speaker 1:So now that I got to that point, now that I got to to the point of saying, okay, so this is a me thing, this is not a me and juki thing, this is a me thing, what is it now about me that wants to entertain this idea to try again, knowing very well that trying again can very well end up in another miscarriage? At that point, ironically, the thing that I said it was not about when it came to my son it became very clear that when it came to my relationship and the dynamic with my wife, it took on a very different form, and that is a result of what I said a little while ago that I felt like that last miscarriage, as well as the other two before it, were my fault in some way, shape or form? Was it my sperm that was not healthy enough? Was it because I was not taking better physical care of myself? Is it because of stupid decisions that I made in my 20s? And is it because of the lack of a relationship that I have with my father and the ways that I thought about him? And so now the universe in some way, shape or form is, is orchestrating things to make my fatherhood journey difficult? So all of these meta existential questions I entertained all of them, or at least the ones that I entertain you. Most likely you have your own questions that you're asking that also fall in this meta category. These were some of the questions that I was entertaining.
Speaker 1:And again, this is all before I even started talking to my wife. This is before we even entertained, really, this concept and this conversation of do we even want to try again? So again, let's just put everything together. Now. This is me fresh off of a third miscarriage with a living child, understanding that my wife wants to have another child and so maybe at the time she wasn't like jumping up for the opportunity, you know, to take on the opportunity of trying again. Obviously that was not the case, but I know in the back of my mind that, at least when we last spoke about it, that she wanted to have more than one child. But now we've been having all of these difficulties. So I know that something has to change, but for me for me, I am just becoming more and more convinced that I don't want to keep going through this again.
Speaker 1:Another reason why I didn't want to keep going through this again is because of something that I mentioned in earlier episodes and that every time that we had tried and that my wife was pregnant and we were expecting, I wasn't given the opportunity or the space to say to anyone early on that we were expecting. And so all of the miscarriages, for the most part, that we experienced, I didn't have an outlet, I didn't have a place to or a person to go to and process. And you know just, hey, man, this is what's going on. In the event that something went wrong, that then I can come back to that person and have that person help comfort me. I didn't have that in our journey, not until the very end, where I spoke up for myself and I said hey, I can't keep doing this in secret and in quiet, I just can't. I need you to lift up the restrictions here so that I can talk to somebody in the event that it happens again, so that at least I have an outlet. And by that point my wife was understanding and she empathized with my experience, and she did she. She lifted the restriction, and this was something that I was doing out of respect for her experience and also realizing simultaneously that this was more than just hey, let's just, you know, do this this way.
Speaker 1:There's a more extensive conversation that needs to happen. So I'll pause here also and just say this and bracket this in speaking with your partner in these moments of early pregnancy, before anything happens, you just find out that you're pregnant, depending on what your history has been. So this started for us before we even experienced a miscarriage, with our first pregnancy, straight out the gate. It was we're not going to say anything until X amount of time or until a certain milestone, a certain marker, and obviously we never made it to those milestones or to that marker, because the miscarriages happened pretty early on.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying here is that if you find yourself in the early phases of a pregnancy, especially after a loss to miscarriage and you did decide to try again, were you of the mindset that you weren't going to say anything to anyone out of fear that another miscarriage may happen again, and then because it is uncomfortable to walk the story backwards to people if you tell so many people. So there is an extensive conversation that should happen between you and your partner, where you get to understand your partner's perspective and your partner gets to understand your perspective. Where you get to express your needs, where your partner gets to express their needs, and in this open and transparent conversation where both of you get an opportunity to express not just your perspectives but your needs, then you come up with a plan to move forward. If it's a listen, I still don't want you to say anything to everybody, but I understand that, should something happen, you will need to have an outlet. So it's okay for you to let me know who you're saying this to, so that I'm aware and I'm also prepared and I'm not caught off guard, right? So, however the conversation happens, the point is there is a more extensive conversation that needs to happen so that you get the support that you need, so that your partner gets the support that they need, so that you are both on the same page, so that neither of you is grieving in silence and you feel like a soda bottle that's just been shaken and no one is releasing the tension from the top, which is how I felt until the very end, so at close parenthesis.
Speaker 1:So I'm asking myself all of these questions, and this is happening before my wife and I actually sit down to have the conversation about whether or not we wanted to try again Once. I work through these questions and actually, to say it more fairly, I didn't completely work through these questions. Before we had the conversation, I was still wrestling through these questions. These were questions that I voiced to her, and when we finally started having the conversation, which happened in a series of ongoing conversations, I was voicing to her my concerns about putting her in a situation where something happens to her health, something happens to her body that leaves a permanent damage or that is irreversible in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:I was scared that if my wife were to get pregnant again, that maybe wouldn't end in a miscarriage this time. But what if, while she was given birth, I end up losing my wife? Or what if, as she's given birth now, I have to make a decision between the life of my baby and the life of my wife? Or what if, instead of a miscarriage and we lose a child whom we've never met, we go through a different iteration of baby loss and we start to feel the kicks and I start to see the belly grow and she starts to feel the movements, and I'm talking to the belly and we have a name and we have all of this stuff and then it ends up in a stillbirth or any of the other things that I have seen and I have been seeing in the place that I work the children who are born with all sorts of illnesses and what have you. What if the pursuit of this other child is the beginning of a very, very difficult set of circumstances that this child comes with?
Speaker 1:However this sounds to you, as the listener, you are entitled to interpreting what I'm saying in whatever way you want. What I'm expressing are questions that real questions that I was asking myself and that I conveyed to my wife when we started having these conversations, because these were important questions to me, that I needed to have some way to respond to myself, and I'm not saying that, if you are a parent with a medically complex child, that you're in a or I'm not making any. I'll say it this way I'm not making any judgment on your circumstance if you are a parent with a medically complex child. I'm not making any judgment on you as a parent or a person If you have a child with any type of condition or syndrome, or I'm not making any judgment at all. I'm not saying that your circumstance is worse than mine. Mine circumstance is better than yours. I'm not making any of these claims. What I am saying is these are questions that I was asking myself and that I conveyed to my wife.
Speaker 1:Because these questions were important to me, because, after having gone through three miscarriages, the thought of trying again for another child and it ending in a miscarriage or worse was daunting and I wanted to reach a place of assurance within myself first, and I wanted to understand my own motives and my own intentions. And then I wanted to check in with my wife and I wanted to understand where her head was and what her thought process was and the reasons behind her thought process, so that when we got to the point of making a decision to either try again or not try again, whatever happened, I would be more settled within myself because I would have known that this was not something that we did. This was not a decision that we made without giving it the proper attention, without giving it the proper treatment. I wanted to be responsible. I guess that is the central point, and it's a point that Chris and I made in our last conversation. It's all about being responsible with this decision, and the way that it looks or the way that it is responsible for me differs from how it would look for you.
Speaker 1:But the point is has your approach, have you done your due diligence? As you are entertaining this idea, this thought of trying again after a loss to miscarriage and maybe there's someone listening to this who's like I don't even need to think about it that deeply Like, why are you being so philosophical with it? Like, why are you trying so hard to convince yourself not to X, y and Z Listen. If that's not your mode of operation, then find whatever mode of operation is true to you and your experience and just be responsible, because we assume as parents, we assume a great deal of responsibility when we bring, or when we try to bring, a child into the world, and I don't think that's a decision that should be taken lightly, whether or not you've had a loss to miscarriage, even if this is the first time you're trying this conversation and whatever iteration needs to be approached with a certain level of respect, with a certain level of responsibility, with a certain level of thoughtfulness and with a certain level of humility as well. So here are a couple of takeaways.
Speaker 1:First, I would start by really processing and working through the questions that you are wrestling with, the questions that you are asking yourself, the why questions, why is this important to you? If you're that type of person, obviously, again, if you're not that type of person, you do what is right for you and your situation and your family. If you are more of the explorative person and you're asking yourself these really difficult and challenging questions, I would work through the implications of those questions for you. I would work through the nuances of those questions, either by yourself or with somebody else, because the takeaway from that is whatever your decision is, as you approach this conversation, as you approach this decision to try again or to not try again, whichever way you and your partner decide to go after this loss, there are going to be implications and it is important I think it is important for you to approach this conversation and to make whatever decision that you're ultimately going to make with a more settled sense of self, regardless of what that decision is. So that is why I would start there.
Speaker 1:I would start by exploring those questions. I would start by spending some time in thought and in meditation. If you're a prayer person, then pray about it. If you're a talkative person, talk it out with somebody else, with a trusted confidant if it's not your significant other so that you can get to a sense of being settled within yourself. And then the second thing that I would say, the second and final thing, is aim for clear, transparent, honest, vulnerable conversation and really express the things that are important for you to express and allow yourself to truly get to the heart of what your partner is also expressing to you. Put yourself in your partner's position and ask your partner to put themselves in your position. And in this transference of vulnerability and trust and honesty in conversation, it is my hope that the two of you, in having these conversations, will get to a decision that feels and that is comfortable and the right thing for you and your partner to do.
Speaker 1:So send me what your thoughts are, send me what your feedback is after listening to this episode themiscarriagedad at gmailcom, or you can find us on Instagram at themiscarriagedads. Let me know what you're thinking. Let me know what follow up questions you may have. Let me know what is your process. If you have developed a process for approaching this conversation, I would love to know what your process is. And also, here's a question that I'm going to ask my fellow dads what is your sense, or what was your sense, of your female partner when you wanted to have this conversation?
Speaker 1:So, if you have had this conversation already with your female partner, what was your sense of where she was at going into the conversation and what was surprising to you? What was? What did you discover after having the conversation with her? And if you have not had this conversation yet and you're thinking about it, answer the same question too what is your sense of where she is after the experience that you both are coming out of this loss to miscarriage? Again, send me your feedback themiscarriagedad at gmailcom, or find me and Chris on Instagram at themiscarriagedads. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Chris and I will be back again next week. We are also looking to include the voice of female partners into this series and conversation, so stay tuned for upcoming conversations with people that we are connecting with, with women who we are connecting with, who will share their perspective and their experience and their approach to this topic of having the conversation, of trying again after loss to miscarriage. Take care of yourself and remember that you are not alone in this journey of grief and loss.
