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
E 18: Doing Right By Grief (ft. Miscarriage Mumma Support)
Welcome to episode 18!
We welcome back Sophie from Miscarriage Mumma Support to talk about ... grief.
Our conversations take on a reflective quality, encouraging listeners to peer into the corners of their own hearts that may harbor unprocessed grief. We underscore the necessity of sitting with our sadness and allow ourselves to be consumed by the full spectrum of our emotions. The journey we invite you to join is not just one of passive listening but an active pursuit of healing, as we navigate the tumultuous seas of love, loss, and the enduring power of naming our pain. With each story and insight shared, we hope to forge a path that leads to a more nurturing, understanding society for us all.
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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References:
All There Is (Anderson Cooper podcast)
TMDs E14: The Unspoken Agony of Life after Multiple Miscarriages (ft. Miscarriage Mumma Support)
TMDs E17: When Grief Becomes a Catalyst for Parental Health Advocacy (ft. Liz O'Donnell)
Grief is dealing with it. Dealing with it is looking at it head on and allowing yourself to see all those emotions, to see all of those scary things and to move forward and walk through it.
Speaker 3: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. Welcome to another episode of the Miscarriage Dads podcast. My name is Kelly and I am your host, and my name is Chris and I am your co-host, and we are delighted to welcome back one of our favorite guests on the podcast, sophie from the Miscarriage Mama Support. Sophie, how are you doing? And thank you for joining us for a part two of Thanks for having me back it's, it's great.
Speaker 3:We've been looking forward to this day.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, this is basically like a friday night out for me, so the conversation.
Speaker 3:We're just going to jump right into it the conversation we're just going to jump right into it. The conversation that we're going to have today is based off of something that you said the last time you were on here, towards the end of that first conversation. So if this is your first time listening to this podcast, we'll definitely put the links in the description to the first conversation that Chris and I had with Sophie. You can hear her introduction there, so I'm not going to ask her to rehearse that again, but we were talking the last time, sophie, and then you made a comment.
Speaker 4:People associate grief to not necessarily a tangible thing, but a physical being as well, as you are the ones that kind of have that feeling in the physical sense. So I think people don't attribute, maybe, grief to miscarriage and loss in that way. So it's almost a bit like, like you said, there's like that shame or people just aren't talking about it. But then as soon as you kind of open up conversations, there's just loads of people around you that actually have experienced similar, but just nobody talks about it you that actually have experienced similar, but just nobody talks about it.
Speaker 3:So the way that the person him or herself grieves, as well as the way that people outside of that experience perceive the validity of that grief, that was something that I remember was striking to both Chris and I in that conversation. So we're going to use that to talk about the broader topic of grief, because we think that there is just so much to discover and the paradigm that you offered. So I guess I'll start with you, Chris. Did you experience something to the effect of what Sophie mentioned, or that sense of because there was no physical baby? How did that play into your grief? How did that play into how people perceived your grief?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for me and I don't want to blame anyone for this, I don't want to blame my family in particular, because I'm going to bring it in that direction but it's really more the silence that's around it. I feel like if we had the baby and then the baby passed or something like that, I think there might have been more thought that was placed in it, especially when we get around like Mother's Day, father's Day these are dates that still affect both me and Amber and there's not a lot of oh, thinking about you, especially today, or just extra prayers for you, something like that, something in those lines. And, of course, that's not to say that my family has not been supportive or that they have not been helpful. It's just, again, things that we just don't talk about and I don't want to say at least from my side, because I know how much my family does love me. I don't want to say that this is like a show of them not supporting me or being insensitive, but it's almost like, in a sense, it's just not thought of as much. And again, I'm not putting blame on them, I'm not angry at them for that or anything.
Speaker 1:How do you handle something like that? How is that something that you bring up, especially when it was a situation where the child was in front of your face? I think if I lost one of my kids now again because they're here in that physical space, there would be more thought that's placed into that. But when it's something like a miscarriage and it really might be just because on their side and again, speaking for my family, it might be just because this isn't something that we experience on a regular basis. Now I think there are some people in my family that probably have gone through miscarriage and simply haven't brought it up and simply haven't talked about it, because it is also one of those things that a lot of people don't like to bring up when it happens. So there could be some of that that's at play as well.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I'm speaking for my family. I can't speak for everyone else, because I know I know for a fact that there are plenty of people that are out there that do not perceive miscarriage as a full-on child loss and treat it as such and treat people as if they should not feel any kind of pain or should not have any kind of grief or loss or any kind of scarring from that loss, and that is a huge problem. Again, my family isn't that way and I'm blessed in that way, but I know that there are plenty of people that are affected in that way. Sophie, what?
Speaker 3:about you. How did others perceive your grief when they found out about your miscarriage? Because we remember some of the crazy things that you said were said to you right, so there's obviously that side of it which is a clear indicator of how little they even think or thought about. You know your right to grieve a miscarriage. So, aside from those really extreme things, do you have any other experience where, because it was a miscarriage and not, for instance, a stillbirth or a postnatal death, that your grief was sort of questioned?
Speaker 4:Even from the first miscarriage, I think, it became very apparent to me that a lot of the people around me not all the people, but most of the people around me, not all the people, but most of the people around me hadn't kind of been in that situation before. They'd had no experience of miscarriage before and it was very much a dismissed kind of experience. So, you know, some of my friends were like oh, you just kind of have to get on with it, or you just have to do this or you just have to do that.
Speaker 4:And I remember someone saying to me you can't cry forever about it, you, you just have to do this or you just have to do that. And I remember someone saying to me you can't cry forever about it. You know we need to move on at some point and I think very quickly. I just learned that the people I thought I could rely on just really didn't have the space to maybe understand it or want to kind of learn to understand it, and it just took a long time for me to accept the fact that it is actually okay to grieve, regardless of other people's perceptions. And, um, we don't have a particularly tight family unit. I'm very close to my brother and he was amazing that the whole way through and my sister-in-law and a few friends who have got who were really really good and I don't think they necessarily understood it, but they kind of just allowed me that space to talk if I wanted to.
Speaker 4:But I think it's that thing of you're almost grieving a void, aren't you? And if, because there's no identity to the baby, so they can't say whether it's what gender it is or there's not always a name that people can necessarily say, oh, their baby, this like it's such a tricky one, because I just think people don't deem it as a baby most of the time anyway, let alone something with an identity that they can then kind of use to grieve as that tool. But yeah, I think I don't know if I just had a bit of a, maybe the relationships around me weren't as strong as I thought they were and then it took for something big for me to kind of really re-evaluate where I was putting my time and energy. Anyway, I think at times like that you tend to learn who your support network is pretty quickly, don don't you? But I don't feel like I feel like my experience was very much dismissed by most people around me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's the aspect of what we've said so far. It has everything to do with, I think, as a global well, I can't even say a global society, because I think this characterizes mostly Western industrialized society.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Where the attitude towards grief has become in itself even industrialized, if I can say it in that way. It is very process oriented and it's sort of like we we can't devote too much time to it because it it it starts to produce these comments right, this, this attitude of like, well, you can't stay in this muck and mire forever. You know, you gotta, you gotta move on, right. So there's this, there's this, this aspect of moving on and getting over it, and and there's the discomfort that people feel, and even oneself feels, when you sort of and and in that moment of grief and I've been listening to several conversations in preparation for for this conversation that we're having, and something that keeps popping up is that there was a point where grief was sort of this public thing where people were expected to even grieve for at least an entire year.
Speaker 3:You know there are other civilizations that grief, and grief rituals, is like a core part of how they process through these difficult moments. So somebody publicly grieving, in fact you would even invite your community members to come and grieve alongside you. So public weeping and that kind of stuff, you know the public mourners and whatnot, and we've lost that Now I don't, I don't expect you know what I mean. Like for me to, to, to call or set it up in my agenda like on Tuesday at 7 PM, I'm just going to go ahead and you know what I mean. Like it's not that, but there's. The general attitude towards grief has become so detached from what I think is the value of grieving. So I guess that's my next question Is there or not even is there for you both, what is the value that you can find in fully submerging yourself and the grieving process?
Speaker 4:I think it's just that. Just go back to what you were saying. I think we have just lost that nurturing aspect. We've almost become, I think, life's very fast-paced. We see all the good things on social media that people want to share and you don't necessarily see or hear a lot of negative anymore because everyone's competing to be the best on social media and I've got the best of this and I've been doing this when in reality their lives probably aren't really like that.
Speaker 4:So we've just lost that ability to be nurturing humans, I think. And it's just that we don't really connect to people, because most of the time we'll send a message, as opposed to ringing people, or don't want to sound like a my age, but you know, like you would play outside with your friends, or, but people just don't do that anymore. Or like kids don't go out and play with their friends anymore and you know everything's 100 miles an hour all the time for everyone, when actually like what would happen if we just slow down and allowed people to be people and have those like instinctual feelings and just allow people to be people for a little while?
Speaker 3:In essence what you're saying, sophie. That's precisely part of the nature of grief, right, precisely part of the nature of grief. Right, If we are, if you're experiencing grief. If I'm experiencing grief, that's because my life was going at 100 miles per hour and then it suddenly stopped. It wasn't a gradual stop, it wasn't a planned thing. It was going at 100 miles per hour and then suddenly hitting a brick wall.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Boom, sudden impact, and now everything about how my life was prior to this event has completely changed. Yeah, so you just get slapped in the face don't you with this?
Speaker 4:like, like you said, the brakes just slam on. You're not prepared for it. Then you've got people saying I think we're very practical, aren't we that? We all know that in a textbook it says five stages of grief are X, Y and Z, and these are the steps you'll follow. So you're having a bit of a bad day and the system says, oh, you're in there, the angry phase. But really it's like I don't know, do you guys have tombolas? Is that like a really British thing, Tombolas? So like it's like you have all these emotions, you're like throwing them in there and you just get them slung out at any kind of random way. So that now you're thinking there's something wrong with me because I can't even grieve, right, when actually it's just we are really like this, this like we're like little robots, aren't we, when we're just following the notions of what someone somewhere has decided that society should be, and it's, yeah, it's just such a strange place to be Cause. Then you're like I just started to reevaluate all of my priorities after.
Speaker 4:And I was like hey, I don't need to be anyone for anyone else. I just kind of need to be there for myself now so I can actually just survive.
Speaker 3:Just want to survive this, and then yeah yeah, I want us to sit on the grieving a miscarriage aspect and unpeel that more. Because when a woman miscarries when you had your miscarriage, when my wife did Chris for you, when Amber did it happened early on you didn't have any physical symptoms of a pregnancy yet, right Like to, and what I mean by that is you weren't showing yeah maybe it was even before you started having morning sickness.
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't know, because I don't think Michelle, like that happened for for Michelle. So it was all this internal thing that was going on in my head At whatever phase or stage that it happened. There was nothing physical. I was having this conversation with someone not too long ago and we both have a similar experience is that in one of our miscarriages, my wife had sent me a 34, I think, second clip of the monitor where she was having an ultrasound and there's this fish-like blob with a heartbeat. And we both this guy and I, this father and I we both made the same comment in our respective context. We said we made the rookie mistake to give our little pile of cell a name, and then it all went down the drain.
Speaker 3:So hold on, give me a second. My bosses are. My bosses are coming in to check on me. What happened, buddy, you can get a second. My bosses are. My bosses are coming in to check on me. What happened, buddy, you can get a snack. So to our audience who are listening to this, we all three of us are in full parent mode right now, full parent mode. My oldest boss just came and asked me if I can, if he can have a snack. So I granted him a snack. Uh, before we hit record, sophie, there might be a chance that your boss yeah may make an appearance, and chris has just uprooted his entire studio to be with his boss listen.
Speaker 1:But I've been staying muted because one of the bosses needs constant um nursery rhymes. So like I don't want us to get closed down on youtube and the other one has already asked me for snacks, so like yeah, yeah, we're on it today.
Speaker 3:We're on it today yeah, we're in full parent mode.
Speaker 4:It's a lot.
Speaker 3:So we both said that we made the rookie mistake of giving our unborn child a name so early on in the process, and then he and his wife experienced a miscarriage Michelle and I, in our context, we experienced a miscarriage. So that was like the closest thing, the closest experience to me, having something that I can call concrete and tangible, because I still have that 34 second clip.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right Aside from that, like there is, there was nothing.
Speaker 1:and if so, if, if I can't, if I can't, kelly because I think, in everything that you just said, in the language that you used, I feel like it brings more validity to the loss, because when we think about loss and we think about you know because I mean that's what this conversation is right Having grief around miscarriage and the misconception that people that have had miscarriages should not grieve as much as people who have lost children that have been born or still born whatever Obviously not downplaying that, because that is also terrible, but normally when that happens, your life changes, the way that you go about life changes, and I'm sitting here listening to you talk and, like you and this other dad said well, this was a rookie mistake that I named my baby at this early stage. How is that a mistake?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's precisely the point.
Speaker 1:That's precisely the point.
Speaker 1:That's normal. That's what you're supposed to do. You have to now rationalize and start thinking in this different way. Because of your loss, your life is different now. The way that you talk about and think about having children is completely different now and instead of being able to go through that process with nothing but joy and expectancy, now you're hesitant to even give your child a name. Now, like even in some of the words you just said this pile of cells, that's your child, that's your baby.
Speaker 1:But in order now to protect yourself, you have to move forward in this way because of the grief that you have place of hurt. So where they will normally counter here or swing here, they might end up coming short because they're afraid of getting hit in this spot and afraid of being hurt again. And this is where you are. But how can people say that this is not a legitimate loss when it has drastically changed our lives in such a way that we can't even look at something as joyous as a pregnancy from the very beginning as something that is joyful? It's stress now and it's protection of our emotions that comes from trauma. That comes from trauma that comes from loss.
Speaker 3:The reason why I bring this up is because so here we are, the three of us. We're all miscarriage bitten. What was it like after for you, sophie, after whichever of your miscarriages? If you were working, did you have to go right back into work? And if you went right back into work, did you have to go right back into work? And if you went right back into work, could you have taken any type of bereavement leave? And if you tried to take bereavement leave, what was that process like? Because there is nothing physical, there's nothing concrete.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I was self-employed at the time, so I ran doggy daycare, which was such a fun job, um, so it's a little bit different in the sense that I was my own boss, um, but equally very hard, because I had a business to run and obviously if I wasn't there, my customers would have found somebody else to do that job instead. Um, so I the first loss I, similarly to you, I we named that baby and then we never did it again and then we had a scan picture for that baby as well. But I went back to work two days later and I just started to really struggle and I had a girl that worked for me at the time who was really great, but she was very much into like animals, not people, um, and I mean, animals are great, aren't they? For when you're feeling a little bit rubbish because they're so basic and they just they just live off animal instinct, don't they? And they're just very nurturing, I think.
Speaker 4:So I was lucky in the sense I worked with animals, not people, so they were great. But I just really then struggled and had to cut my business right back and after the fourth loss, cut the business back, so I was working bare minimum and then just closed the business down because I didn't have any kind of space to grieve, because I was trying to manage a business and worrying about things that at the time I thought were very important, like money I mean, we all need money to pay the bills and stuff but it just was taking over the fact that I needed time to just feel. So it wasn't that I couldn't take time off, but because I was running my own business, I just didn't have the space to do that at all and ultimately I ended up losing or shutting the business down because I just had to, at some point, cave.
Speaker 3:But isn't that the point though? So this is probably impossible to do, right, but bear with me for a second. Can we try to imagine a culture, a way of living where Sophie, who has now experienced four devastating miscarriages Well, not even four. Sophie, who's experienced one and runs a doggy care business, would not have to worry about her customers going to find business elsewhere, but her customers would know that she experienced this loss, would validate the grief that is preventing her, in this, in that moment, from running her business and providing the white glove level care that she is accustomed to and has made her endearing to so many dog owners, and would actually find some way, shape or form, for them to come together and afford Sophie the space that she needs in order to go through whatever process she needs to go through so that she can come back in a better way, in a healthier way, having processed her grief without having to worry about the financial toll? Right, I mean, I know that sounds almost utopian.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But isn't that precisely what we're talking about? But isn't that precisely what we're talking about?
Speaker 4:It is the attitude towards grief on an individual level on a much wider scale truly impacts every single area of our lives or the life of the person who is grieving in that moment right.
Speaker 4:There was a recent debate on because I think in the UK they're encouraging companies to give 10 days leave for people who have experienced miscarriage. So there was a debate on telly, and I don't normally watch I don't watch a lot of telly anyway, but I certainly don't watch anything news-related normally, and a lot of the people who were talking started with. I've not experienced some miscarriage, but you know, at some point we have to move on and blah, blah and I was just like. You can get someone to come back to work the next day, the next week, but ultimately their mental health will decline. So they'll be off in six months for months on end because you haven't given them the space so surely just for the mental wellbeing and to get the most out of your workforce, allowing them that time short term, really, you're going to have like a bit more of a long-term gain, because otherwise you just drive people into a bit of a mental health crisis, don't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, because I think it really goes into what you're talking when you were asking, uh, that word you were using earlier, uh, kelly of value, you know, and how western society truly has shifted our value away from community, um, and into this entire selfish idea. That's really all about money, you know, um, and it is even seeped into religion. Like you know, I'm a christian, so, looking at christianity, we always call jesus christ our lord and personal savior. Well, he saved everybody. The whole idea was for us to be in community. That's the point is, you know, we're in this community together as a church, right, but we have become so selfish in that we must all be able to live the dream.
Speaker 1:And there's this book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and he talks about this idea of the dream and how pretty much the idea that the reason that there is racism in these kinds of things is because of the dream. People have a dream of wanting the white picket fence and all this kind of stuff, and they're willing to get that dream at the expense of other people's bodies In that book it was at the expense of Black bodies, but here I feel like in talking about grief it's the same thing, because they want us. We're in this place where our ideals are built on being able to live the dream of having a nice car and having a nice house. We're at the point where we're so selfish we're willing to get there at the expense of other people's sanity, at other people's minds, other people's bodies, literally, and women's bodies, I mean. This is what we're talking about, right, in terms of miscarriage. The fact is, it's not profitable for people to take time over something like this. We need people. Your bosses need people. Your company owners need people to continue to work so that they can continue to make the money, so that they can continue to live their dream.
Speaker 1:And, of course, sophie, for you being able to experience and say, hey, I had a company, but after this happened to me, I realized that wait a minute, my value shouldn't even be there. My value can't be there because, as a human being, how can I live the dream if my body is literally ejecting what I have been dreaming about in terms of being able to have children, being able to have a family? What good is a house if I don't have my family here? And when we get on this whole thing of just being selfish and just looking out for ourselves. No longer do we look at human beings as human beings. But it's a situation where either you can serve me or you cannot. And if you can't serve me, then you are of no use to me and I must push you to the side and find someone else who can serve me so that I can be the one to move forward.
Speaker 1:But, like you were saying, kelly, if we looked at it as each person is valuable and it is more valuable to have community than to live the quote unquote dream, if the dream was more about us being able to survive as a community versus us being able to survive and thrive individually, it would be so much better for us. You know, that's why we have all these problems with health care today and all this kind of foolishness, because we want to be able to live our dreams separately instead of as a community. You know, and I think that what we're talking about it is just that. So you can't have the space to grieve because it's about being an individual, just that. So you can't have the space to grieve because it's about being an individual. But if we were thinking about it as a community, any loss that you would have would break my heart. It would mean something more to me, because now a part of my community is hurting. So of course I would come together and do whatever I can to support you, because you are a part of me.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about community, we're thinking that all of us are one together. So if you're hurting, I'm hurting, so I've got to be able to lift you up because you're hurting. Oh, my goodness, you lost a child, you were pregnant and all the joy that you had, that we had collectively, is now gone. So we collectively are hurting. So we collectively must lift you up, because helping you also helps me. But we don't have that. We don't think like that. That's not a part of it. Like I said, even down to our religion, we don't think like that. It's a problem, and that's why we have these situations and we have to talk about these things today and even bring awareness to a situation like this, because we don't have that. We're selfish people. We are to a situation like this because we don't have that.
Speaker 3:We're selfish people. We are, we're selfish. I was recently having a conversation on the podcast with Liz O'Donnell.
Speaker 2:My employer revoking my family leave because I couldn't provide a birth certificate for my daughter, and I'm only caring for myself. So no baby, no leave.
Speaker 3:You're joking.
Speaker 2:I wish I was a first grade teacher in Washington DC, where I have been living for a very long time now. That is exactly what happened.
Speaker 3:Because you couldn't produce a birth certificate, because your baby who was fine and suddenly was not was born still, your employer revoked. You said yes, yep.
Speaker 2:Canceled Immediately canceled my pre-approved leave. The words that were in those emails. Sometimes I still look at them. I don't know why. I should really stop doing that, but it lights a fire in me. And it did light a fire in me in. I mean, this was only a week or two after Aaliyah had died as well. The language that was used towards me in terms of invalidating the fact that I did deliver a four pound child I think about it all the time, all the time. And that person didn't need to use those words. A policy. I've since gotten the policy changed but, at the time.
Speaker 2:A policy is a policy, but we make a choice to use the words that we do in these sensitive situations and to make me feel, you know, my motherhood invalidated and that my child wasn't even really a baby, was just, you know. I mean a week after.
Speaker 3:I am tempted to ask you what those words were. And if it's too, if it's too much, please do not share.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it was. It was basically just. You know, if you don't have a birth certificate, you know, oh well, no baby, no, leave. You don't have a baby to care for You're. You're only caring for yourself, so you don't get this you're only caring for yourself, so you don't get this.
Speaker 3:So anyone who is accustomed to this platform and this podcast and is also following us on social media knows that I take hold on my. My boss is coming to check on my work again. Yes, when we finish, I'll fix your race. Car poppy is. Are you still watching Cars? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Employee parent. Life is real. It is real. It's real, these streets, you know.
Speaker 4:Maintenance caterer yeah.
Speaker 3:I have work to do. When I finish as a podcaster, I have to be a mechanic for his race car. Gotta do it, gotta do it, gotta do it. Yeah, I got it, I got to do. It Makes sense so. So anyone who follows us on social media knows that I end up taking clips of my conversations with guests and then I post them as reels, and I also do the same thing on YouTube, right? So just put them up as a YouTube shorts. Let me tell you that I took that particular clip of Liz talking about how her employer former employer uh rejected her leave and the horrendous things that were exchanged by this employer, former employer, via email, and I posted that short 50-something second video.
Speaker 3:Some of the comments that I got from people who came across that short was just so head-scratching and disappointing. One in particular stands out, and I don't typically like to put people on blast like that, and I'm not going to put the person's name on blast, although by quoting the comic, you can just find the real or the short and then see who it is but this individual Find the real or the short and then see who it is, but this individual happened to say something to the effect of. Why would she want to take maternity leave? She should be taking bereavement instead of maternity leave. So basically her story is incongruent. And then he said at the end of this is the final sentence of his post, of his comment I call bullshit on her and I'm like my guy number one you're missing the whole point he missed entirely the whole point and see, this is what I'm talking about, exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:And and people will? People will literally stand on quote-unquote faith and say this is why I feel how I feel homie like I'm, like so angry.
Speaker 3:We first acknowledge the fact that this woman child died by a full term child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bro, and she had to go into labor. She went through the entire process of welcoming a life into the world, although that life had been cut short in the womb. So let's talk about that, all right. Let's talk about how she went her entire pregnancy without any issues. And then, right before, like the final payoff, my guy and my lady, everything came undone. And so, as as as an employer, as an employer who has an employee who goes through something like that, does it really matter?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The technicality of the leave? Does it does? Do you have to make a big deal about that?
Speaker 3:and for this individual who wrote that comment, does that even matter enough for you to craft an entire response to 50 something second short video to be like and conclude I call bullshit on her experience just because she talked about having a pre-approved maternity leave that was then overturned because she couldn't produce a birth certificate, which is the reason why her former employer canceled her pre-approved maternity leave because she couldn't produce a birth certificate because her child had died. Man, I like, aren't there many more issues to be outraged at than the technicality of the leave? And it's just like, how could people be so blind it's not and so ignorant it's just so flat out insensitive.
Speaker 1:It's not even being blind, you're just being disgusting. You're being a disgusting person for the sake of being disgusting, like to use that language with someone who has lost a child. How dare you, how dare you and I don't know the person's name that said that, but how dare you say that to someone? How dare you type the words and come up with the idea that you could say something so vile and disgusting and purposely uncaring, because it's something that you haven't experienced, because it's something that you don't understand. And it is people like that that, as far as I'm concerned, should be searched out. You should be fired from your job. You deserve to be dragged in the mud for the disgusting things that you could come out your mouth and say someone.
Speaker 1:This woman went through labor and had a full child that she should have been able to hold in her hands. This child is gone, no longer breathing. This is the problem that we have in the world today, the reason that we have all these conflicts all over the world, where people are getting shot, children getting killed in schools, and yet people are able to get away with not caring and people are able to. I'm sorry I'm going off a little bit, but it's because I'm angry at the insensitivity and cruelty of the world and how people choose to be cruel. People choose to be cruel. They do these things on purpose and then they're cowards because they want to hide behind.
Speaker 1:I would dare that person to come and say that to her face. But how cowardly of this person to say that. Just type their little words. They probably didn't even use their real name. They probably didn't even put their picture up and if they did, I dare them to do that in front of someone. I dare them to say that in front of someone's face. But the audacity and the cowardness and the nastiness of people, it's it's just very lucky isn't it that he is able to even not have to understand it.
Speaker 4:But then it also says a lot about a character when because I heard, I saw the clip and I was, it played on my mind for days because I just thought, as if that's not hard enough to go through your employers, then just add in the extra little knife in the back and like I say, what does it matter what the leave is?
Speaker 4:She needs the leave regardless. So just leave it there and you deal with that on your, your internal systems or whatever you have to do. Just leave her alone. Send a bit of empathy and compassion and acknowledgement for her loss and do all that other stuff for your ends and just leave her alone. But then for some I think I'm assuming maybe it was on Instagram that the comment was there, because I think I read something and I then couldn't work out the viewpoint of the person and I was like this is so wild. I actually don't really understand what they're trying to say, because I couldn't get around my head or my head around the fact that someone would watch someone and hear someone's pain and then just be such a horrible person.
Speaker 3:I know you wanted to say something horrible person.
Speaker 4:So then like, what are you getting from that? What are you getting from giving your crappy little viewpoint? That is one very naive and just not necessary. Like my parents always told me, if you've got nothing nice to say, just don't say anything. There's like dignity in not bringing other people down. Like, what are you getting from that?
Speaker 1:People need to shut up. People need to shut up. What are you getting from that? People need to shut up.
Speaker 3:People need to shut up, the way people, the way our attitude towards grief really shape and impact our behavior and our response to someone who is grieving, and the fact that something is so awkward, the fact that somebody would think that it is OK for them to draw that conclusion. Whatever your conclusion is, that conclusion, whatever your conclusion is. And then to conclude your conclusion on a 50 something second video and say, as a result of my deep dive into what really went on in this woman's story, I call bullshit on her because of the inconsistency. It's like that has everything to do with how uncomfortable that person whether he was aware of it or not how uncomfortable he was witnessing on screen the grief of this woman who was talking about such a painful thing that happened to her. And that level of discomfort just leads people to say and think all sorts of crazy things.
Speaker 3:Grief is such a universal experience. Yes, if you have not grieved, you have not lived. If you've not grieved, you have not lived is because you have not yet had the privilege of loving someone or something which makes you not a human. Yeah, because grief. So, before I even say what I was gonna say, I'll ask you both this question sophie, how do you define grief?
Speaker 4:I always say and I bang on about it so much on the social media platforms but it's just allowing yourself to sit and we all feel uncomfortable sometimes but it's just sitting in those uncomfortable moments, acknowledging it, just allowing yourself to be, and I think grief I mean it's like a whirlwind, isn't it? You're, you think you're at a certain you're kind of getting a little bit better, as it were, and then it just hits you again. But it's learning to just get comfortable with those different emotions and acknowledging that it's completely okay. So I think, for me, I would just define grief as just sitting with all of the uncomfortable emotions, all of the good emotions and just acknowledging how you feel and allowing yourself to just feel however you need to in that moment um, I and this is going to sound insensitive at first, but just follow me Grief is dealing with it.
Speaker 1:It's dealing with it. You know it's funny because, in terms of what we just talked about, you know everyone's an expert until they go through it, right, and people are always telling you, well, just deal with it, just deal with it, just deal with it. They're not telling you to deal with it. What they're really telling you is to ignore it and they're telling you to stuff it down, and they're telling you to put it to the side and don't deal with it. That's what makes those words cowardly. Dealing with it is looking at it head on and allowing yourself, like you said, sophie, to see all those emotions, to see all of those scary things and to move forward and walk through it.
Speaker 1:There's a book that I just listened to. It's called the Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters. If Evan ever listens to this, he probably won't, but that was incredible, my gosh, what a book, wow, um, but there's this character named tau, and tau goes through all sorts of stuff. I won't go through the book here, um, but he uh ends up becoming, uh, this soldier is. Is this fantasy book? Um, so, um, it's, he, he's uh, lost his father. He's, he's going through now as this soldier and there is this place that is almost like an underworld called Issyogo, and he is able to go there when he goes there as a person. When you go to this place called Issyogo, there are demons that exist and these demons come and attack you. Now you don't actually die, but they have the ability to literally rip you apart, have the ability to literally rip you apart, and he goes to Issyogo and he fights these demons in order for him to be able to train so he can get stronger mentally in the real world. And he gets torn to pieces every time he goes in there, but then when he wakes up, he's better mentally in terms of how he fights.
Speaker 1:That is how I look at it, because you are literally going up against some of the scariest things in your life, because you have to sit there and say, in our case, with miscarriage, I lost a child. I have to accept that I lost a child. I then have to allow the waves of emotions to hit. Maybe one day it's anger and that anger is going to rip me up and tear me apart. The difference between us and the story is. I'm not fighting it. I'm allowing it to tear me up. One day it might be just overwhelming sadness Again. I'm allowing that emotion to come and I'm allowing it to take me Because at the end of this, of me dealing with this, I will be stronger.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean that I want to go through it again. I'm going to avoid it as much as possible. That doesn't mean that I'm going to come out of the under end and be like well, I am, oh, I'm just fine. Now I'm able to move on. No, I might never be okay again, but the fact is I dealt with it. The fact is I allowed myself to go through it and now that makes me an emotionally more healthy person because I am now willing to allow those things to come over me instead of stuffing them down.
Speaker 1:We all know stuffing things down only works for so long. I mean, it's the easiest example in the world. But when we talk about stuffing things in boxes, boxes can only hold things in for so long. But if we allow those emotions to overcome us like they should, I mean it's a ride and it's not a fun one. There are going to be times where, for our religious folk out there, you question God or whoever it is that you worship. It happens. But when you come out on the other end, you are stronger for it, and it's also understanding what strength looks like, but you're stronger for it. But for me, grief is truly dealing with it, and dealing with it for however long it takes, because it's going to be different for each person, but that's what it is for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You know, like I said, I've been listening to some conversations. There's this great podcast, you know, since we're name dropping famous people. There's this great podcast by Anderson Cooper. It's called All there Is and he has this conversation with Stephen Colbert. If any of them ever listen to this conversation which probably they never will that dialogue between the two of them has now become so instrumental for me, in the way that I think about grief, that I am indebted to them until the day I die. That is just how powerful conversation it is.
Speaker 3:And what's been interesting, what's been happening to me listening to that one particular conversation I've listened to now almost three or four times. Listen to now almost three or four times. And because it's so rich, it allowed me and this is a full-on confession, it allowed me to finally bring fully to the surface the grief that I have been stuffing Chris about my little blob with a heartbeat that I made the quote unquote rookie mistake and giving a name. I have been in this space of just completely feeling the hurt on a daily basis ever since I've listened to that conversation and since I've been listening to it, I have been grieving that I would never be a girl dad, because that little blob was going to be my daughter and her name was going to be Kelly Rose, and I had all sorts of ideas and all sorts of plans. Guys, I would have been the most intolerable human being in the history of humanity had I had a daughter, you wouldn't be able to talk to me, you wouldn't be able to approach me, you wouldn't be able listen. I would have been so out of pocket because I would have had a daughter and I would have trained my daughter to make sure that her love and loyalty and devotion would be to me and to me alone, and all the little boys, her brothers included, would not be worthy to walk on the same ground as her. She would have had a palace all to herself.
Speaker 3:So I am now in this phase of grieving in chunks and also the whole, the totality of this loss. And it's every time that I come across a father and a daughter, or I watch a movie where there's a father and a daughter, or I read something that seems like it's a daughter to a father, a father to a daughter. I began to grieve that again, and the grief takes another, and you know what that's made me realize? All I saw was a blob with a heartbeat that looked like a fish, and all the love that I had inside of me was concentrated into that little blob. And the fact that I will never get to express that love to my little blob leads me to this my definition of grief, which is grief is the language of love.
Speaker 3:When we're talking about grief, we're talking about the love that has been left dangling, unfulfilled, unfinished, and that's just the nature of that love. It's just going to stay there, static. It's not going to evolve, it's not going to go anywhere either. It is there Because all of that love was supposed to be channeled towards someone, in our case, and because that channel was cut short by whatever reasons, then that grief has also remained right there, static. So that's how I'm defining grief for me. I never realized how much love I had in my heart, and I still have, because my grief is my grief is still there. It hurts.
Speaker 4:I think that's just brought a whole different perspective of the definition of grief that I hadn't even ever considered. Thank you very much for that, because it's not even something that kind of yeah, that was powerful, really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny, um, in terms of everything that you've been saying, kelly, it made me think about Regina King, um, because her son died by suicide not too long ago and she just now started talking about it and some of the things that grief has taught her.
Speaker 1:One of the things that she said, which I was like whoa, was she came to the place where she said that she accepted his decision and I was like, wow, I don't get that. But it comes from what Kelly was saying in terms of understanding that love that you have and having that love frozen. I think there's a piece of that that gives us a chance to examine it, to fully understand it, to know, yeah, that it is frozen and that it's not going to go anywhere, but getting to a place and I don't even want to say getting to a place where you're able to be okay with it, but getting to a place where you understand that that's not going anywhere, that that's not going anywhere, that that love is going to sit, and, man, that was meaningful. That was meaningful, man, that was really meaningful what you said, and I thank you for even sharing that moment, because that is hard, that's really hard, bro. That's really hard.
Speaker 3:I think this is a good place to land our plane and to bring our conversation to a close.
Speaker 3:I would encourage everyone and challenge us, the three of us, to think deeply about areas of our lives and experiences that we've had, not just relating to miscarriage.
Speaker 3:I'm just talking about a survey of our lives period, things that we've ignored, things that we have yet to grieve, and, based on everything that we've just said, even though we've been talking about miscarriage and what have you based on everything that we've said, how can we take time to heal those places? By fully leaning into grieving those things, without trying to justify why it hurts and why it doesn't hurt, without any type of judgment, labels, and just grieving it and and just really sitting, like you said, chris, not fighting it, not fighting the emotions, not fighting the, the thoughts and the feelings, just being totally consumed by them. So I encourage those who are listening and I challenge us, myself included, to really dig deep and find those other pockets of places in our stories where maybe we completely skipped over the grieving process. And how can we go back there for, as difficult as it is, walking into that room, shutting the door behind us and being fully present in that space for whatever it's worth. So that's our challenge. Thank you you.
