E14: Suffering In Silence ft. Ross Knight (part 2)

Today I conclude my conversation with Ross Knight, a pastor and husband, who learns, painfully and honestly, that trying to be “the strong one” can become a way of disappearing from your own grief. We talk about miscarriage from a father’s perspective, the invisible pressure to keep functioning, and the moment he realizes he has been so focused on his wife’s trauma that he never stopped to ask himself a basic question: how am I doing?

We walk through the realities of IVF and male infertility, including genetic testing and a chromosomal translocation that makes the odds of a healthy pregnancy brutally small. Alongside the science is the emotional fallout: guilt, shame, and the craving to regain control by fixing everything fast. We also get into why so many couples suffer in silence after pregnancy loss, especially when you’re trying to protect your partner, your privacy, or your community role. When he finally shares publicly, the flood of responses becomes proof of something many grieving dads need to hear: you are not alone, and connection is not weakness.

Faith is part of this story too, not as a neat explanation, but as wrestling, surrender, and the long work of relinquishing what you cannot control. The turning point comes with a hard, hopeful pivot toward adoption, and he shares why adoption is not a consolation prize but a real path into parenthood, love, and purpose.

If you know someone navigating miscarriage, infertility, IVF loss, or adoption after baby loss, share this conversation with them. 

Subscribe to Dad Always, leave a review, and tell us: what helped you most when you finally stopped suffering in silence?

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Transcript

Trying To Hold It Together

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Everything I was doing was attempting to be there for my wife and attempting to help her, even though most of what I'm doing is getting in the way of her being able to, you know, go through her process and her emotions. But I was not focusing on myself. Like I don't want to say that that my wife never asked me how I was doing or was checking on me. It's just that I never really took the time to even consider, consider how I was doing. I just remember thinking, how am I doing? Like I'm, it was something I had, something that I'm having to figure out and kind of kind of understand. I mean, obviously I cried, I balled my eyes out the day that we, you know, both day, you know, the day that we found out the news and also the day that, you know, we had the DNC and all those things. You know, I I definitely, definitely had my own tears. But everything for me, like I knew how much I knew how much we wanted to have it have a family. I knew how much my my my wife deserved to have her child, that this was what she was, what she wanted. This was everything was focused there, that I wasn't really doing much for myself in in in that respect either. And so it helped it helped me, it challenged me first off to start thinking about that and and and you know, make sure I'm make sure I'm coping okay my myself, make sure that I'm not, you know, silently resenting my wife or not care, like, you know, with some made-up thought that she's not thinking about me. It helped me not bury down my own emotions so that I could kind of cope with what was taking place too.

Welcome To Dad Always

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Hi, I'm Kelly Shafi. And welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss.

Miscarriage Without Telling Anyone

SPEAKER_02 2:09

The next part was is when we did get that genetic testing again, we found out that there was a genetic issue, again, coming from my end. And we would have seen that had that test happened initially. They told us, they told us that only one of the embryos had even a 50% chance. And even with that, it was there was risk that we could have, you know, this the same issue. It was the and it happened to be the least healthy of them. So what the issue was is I have this thing that they called translocation, something, something. And essentially, it just means it's like your chromosomes kind of get out of whack, sort of a thing. And so it's hard, it's hard to get into the to the science of it all, but what I understood is that basically to to dumb it down is that one of these embryos even has a chance, and unfortunately, it's the least healthy of all the f of all the five five embryos. We just said, you know what, we we had a little bit more of a realistic view of what this could happen, but we decided to go forward with it anyways. We're like, well, you know what, we're always gonna wonder if we don't pursue it, and uh so we went through the process again, and actually uh my my wife uh took the test and it came out that she was pregnant again. But this time it wasn't as like clear as day, like you know, it it looked, you know, like the line looked a little bit like it wasn't as solid as it once was, and sure on the in the second test it didn't look as didn't look as good, and sure enough, she found out that it was it had not been successful. Well, I mean it had been successful briefly and then was was not successful. And in that situation, she didn't have a DNC but had to pass the thought again naturally, sort of a thing. And and that did happen at school. And she had again, when I say my wife is as tough as nails, and the life that she's been through just growing up and and she's seen a lot of stuff. Her her faith and her resolve is so awe-inspiring to me. She doesn't it's not that she doesn't have her bad days because she does when when she goes through these things, but the strength that she shows is just incredible. This happened, I think we were a little bit more mentally prepared the second time than we were the we were the first time. Because the first time, I mean, there was just celebration, but we got but the hard part, but this second time we're not telling anybody. We're not we're not sharing what's going on because we don't want to go through what we went through the last time by by oversharing what had taken place. And so, but we were still suffering. Like again, life's still happening, church stuff is still happening, we're still spending time with people. I remember I had a young adult vespers that was going on, and my wife wasn't really in the mood to go. I needed to be around people, so I chose to go. It wasn't something that we were hosting, and and I remember we're giving prayer requests, and I remember thinking, I want this community of people to know what we're going through, and yet I can't tell, I can't tell anybody that we have been really, really in the throes of it here. So, like this idea, we've been suffering in silence. And so we got to, we'd already been through the the the the second miscarriage, but we were coming up on the we were coming up on the one year mark of what the first when the when the first baby would have been one years old, you know, essentially. And we got to that date, and my wife talked to me and she said, Hey, can we she, this is what she told me, she said, can we go? Sorry, this was the one year from her due date, is what it is what it was. She goes, can we, can we go somewhere? And and and I don't really want to be home. So think about it, it's kind of like a similar plan to what I had already come up with the day after. Yeah. But now we're a year later, and this is what she's asking for.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah.

Due Date Anniversary And The Pivot

SPEAKER_02 6:05

So we went to uh so she took off a day of work. Um, I took off a day off that day, and we went up to Asheville, North Carolina, drove up there and sipped some, sipped some some hot beverages up in the uh looking. We were over at the Grove Park, and we can't afford to stay in the Grove Park in, but we can go and sip coffee looking out over the mountains on their on their balcony there. And we had a little heart to heart with each other where we talked about what we wanted to do. And then, so it's interesting, you know, at this point we've been trying, trying for a while. We'd spent about two years in two years then in two-year process of IVF and miscarriages, a year of trying before that. So we're like three, we're like three years into it. We're at about like five, five or six years in marriage at this point. And I think it was five about five years of marriage at that point. And we said, well, there's something that we haven't really considered. We can, you know, we can tr we can keep trying, we can still do all this stuff and you know, recognize that our our percentages are low, that we'll be able to make make this thing happen, or we can see if the Lord has a different plan for us. And so that's when we kind of made a decision that we were gonna look, we were gonna look into adoption and see if that was something that we wanted to do. That was kind of a turning point for us that day. We took a picture up there in the in the mountains. I still have that. And you know, this is the part that has me a little misty because it was something that the Lord had clearly had been present in that conversation with us. Because we were both, I felt like we were both so beaten down that we were open, we weren't like we weren't necessarily like throw throwing our own will around. We were letting God reveal his will to us. I don't regret any of the decisions that we made as far as going forward with IVF or any of the the steps that we took to get to that point. Long expensive journey, the financial expense, certainly, but also like the emotional expense that we that we put out there uh over the those years of of trying all these things. And then Lord said, Hey, you know, what about adoption? I remember thinking about that, and I I think part of I think part of us had like some sort of like feeling like, well, people aren't gonna really think that those are actually your kids if you adopt. But then I kind of had this thought. I said, But listen, I know lots of people who have adopted. We had people in our in our church in our church in Spartanburg who adopted. I had I had people in my previous church in Boone that I mean, they'd adopted like like five kids at that point through fostering to adopt. And so they're and I never once had I looked at any of those families and thought anything different about those parents than those who had had kids naturally.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Sure.

Sharing Publicly Ends Silent Suffering

SPEAKER_02 9:08

So like I think we started to become aware of our own chip on our shoulder of like thinking, is anyone really, is anybody really uh, you know, looking at us and viewing us as actual parents? We we came back home and I and I remember we were like, all right, we felt like this peace that, all right, God's going to be there with us. He's gonna be there through through this whole thing. But then there was one other step that I remember thinking, man, I'm not saying this is the step for every person, but for us it was healthy. I know for actually like myself, it was healthy, is that we came home and I and I talked to to Megan about it because I wouldn't do this without her permission. I said, hey, Megan, I was like, you know, what we've been through, I am just tired of being silent about it. I'm tired of hurting and and not being able to tell anybody. And I was like, what do you think if what do you think if we just put it out there? This is what we're going through, you know, we don't have it all figured out yet, but this is what we're going through. And we just put put it out there, sort of a thing. And and she probably was, I don't think it's something that she would have done on her own, but she was suddenly was also very supportive of that. And so I made this little post, you know, tag, you know, tagged Megan in it, showed the picture of us on top of the mountain where we had just been that day. I just put it out there. I'm here to tell you, you know, you you know when you make a post and like it just kind of goes like suddenly everybody sees it. Like you don't know, you're like, you're like, what am I doing wrong on all my other posts? Like I do this and like it get like five likes, and then suddenly this is like you know, hundreds sort of a thing. Like what what about this algorithm is like this suddenly made it to everybody's screen, sort of a thing. So I I put it out there, and I mean, we got flooded, flooded with comments, well-wishes, well-wishers, and not only that, uh both private and public messages from people who were going through the exact same thing or been through that before, or who had, you know, when you're no matter what grief you're going through, I think we have this thing where we think we're the only one. For like, like, like I do believe that everybody's situation is unique to a degree, but I think in some ways, especially when we're talking to God about it, it's like, I'm I'm the exception, Lord. I am the I am the unique thing that you've never seen this before. Like, I have this completely unique issue that nobody has ever ever seen before. And Lord, you have not dealt with this one just yet, you know. Like on some level, I feel like we're all, we think we're the most unique individual out there. As I, you know, listen, just as a even as a pastor and meeting all these different, you know, young adults and and and young people as they're coping with their issues and things like that, coming to that realization that we're not as unique as we think we are, like we're not as alone in what we're going through as we think we are, I think is an important step in our spiritual journey, also, is to recognize that although what you're going through is challenging, not trying to minimize what you're going through, but to recognize that it's not as unique as we think it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Because there are, I mean, again, the thing that I learn every single day is that like what people are wearing when they're dressed in their Sabbath best or their Sunday best, but like when people come to church, they're dressed up and they're all looking their best. Hidden is a lot of brokenness that's out there. And so, anyways, we shared that, and I've never gotten a larger response to that. And so, anyways, uh I I thought I I've never felt more affirmed in sh, you know, saying, all right, I'm not done suffering, but I'm done suffering in silence, if that makes sense. Doesn't mean we have to, doesn't mean that every that's not that was our that was our thing. Not that not everybody else. You people are welcome to share as much as they feel comfortable with. And I'm not saying that we shared everything, but what I am saying is that we put it out there that, hey, we're hurting right now.

Why Men Hide Their Grief

SPEAKER_00 13:16

So I I love the I love the arc of your story and the way where it's landed, uh, and this decision that you and Megan made to pivot to adoption, which is certainly something that people who have gone through similar journey, a similar journey as you and Megan have gone through, it's certainly a very possible landing place for them, also. I want to go back to several things that you've said. And I've been taking notes as I'm listening to you talk. And the suffering piece, the suffering and silence piece, I think it's something that is so common between, like you just said, between people who are suffering, period. I think a moment of real hardship in someone's life does uh instigate that sort of narrative in your psyche to isolate you from the rest of the world as a way of protecting yourself. And also, I think it's just the nature of suffering, period, which is the reason why connection is so important. Very early in your story, you share that you, because of the family things that were going on at the time, you and Megan decided that you weren't going to share anything with anyone. But you did also share that you were at that vespers and you wanted to let the people know that something was happening, like you were carrying this burden, but you couldn't. Let's remove for a second the the dynamic between you as a spiritual leader and your people from your congregation? Let's remove that dynamic because I think it's a very important dynamic. But let's let's remove that off the table. What else do you think prevented you from just shouting it literally from the mountaintop? This is what's happening with me right now. Why couldn't you say anything? What mechanisms, internal mechanisms, do you think prevented you from opening up?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

That's a that's a good question. I don't know if I have the perfect answer for you as to as to why that was. I think probably some of it had to do with context. Like, for instance, I I could I I remember I was actually putting together a sermon where we were talking about, you know, you know, sharing, you know, our difficulties and and you know, n having everything not be like not everything be perfect, and yet still finding the ability to to praise the Lord. And so I remember putting together this sermon where I had the perfect opportunity to share what was going on, and I chickened out, like straight up chickened out to to talk to the to talk to the church about it, and for instance. And I remember I actually asked um a friend of mine couple to come up and share their story because he had just lost his job. He wasn't even in that in a in a place where he was really all that bummed about it. He was like, oh, it was, you know, I lost my job, but I actually wanted to because I want to go do other things anyway. So, you know, but I don't even know if I've even told him that. Like I I invited somebody else to tell their story because I was too chicken to tell my story. And honestly, maybe it had something to do with the fact that, you know, I'm dealing with everybody else's problems. It's my job to deal with other people's problems rather than to face my own realities. And so feeling like I couldn't share something that was imperfect about myself or in my situation, that maybe on some level that was that was the case, that I just couldn't couldn't get it out there to to some. But I know I had the internal desire to do so. Like I did have the internal desire to share with other people. And I and I had is I don't want to say that I hadn't shared with anybody. Like, you know, there was a there was a gap between that time where I had not chosen to to tell our family and when we had this vespers at our church. But the thing is, is like that's my like my family is my family, but our but our our community, you know, at the time, I mean the young adults that I was working with were had become like family to us, you know. And I was and I was holding, I'm asking them to share, and yet I'm holding back myself, sort of a thing. So yeah, I mean I I think I think it's probably multi-layered as to why I I couldn't share it with people. And some of it too is that maybe I was at a place where I could be transparent, but it's also not just my news to share. So, like everything we were sharing had to be something that my wife and I were supportive of each other sharing. So, you know, having those moments, we we had to be able to get together in where we were in what we felt was it was good to share or not to share, sort of a thing.

Guilt, Shame, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I couldn't agree more. And I think the reason why I am highlighting this aspect of your story is because precisely of how complex and layered the issue is, and and your response reveals all of those complexities because how do you navigate all of that, right? To make the right decision about what to share, who to share with, when to share. Like you just said, it's not just your story to share, and also you are experiencing it in a way that is different than your wife. How do you then go about it? The point is eventually you both got to a point where you did share and you both agreed to share. And that sharing at that time seemed to have been more in alignment with your own processes. It took into account both your needs and her needs. And it happened in a moment where what resulted afterwards has been, like you said, the most response that you've gotten out of something that you've shared publicly and resonated with so many people. And I know that's one of the difficulties that I had to navigate as well in the midst of my own experience. And there was a lot of guilt about whether or not I should, I shouldn't, why didn't I? To this day, there are times that I think about my circumstances where my wife asked me to not share any of the times that she was pregnant when we had the losses. And I felt hindered. I felt boxed in. I felt like a lifeline had been taken from me. I didn't feel in control of my own situation, of my own story, and I wanted to feel in control, especially in a moment where there was not much that I could control. That leads me to the other question that I want to ask you. The test revealed that these genetic part, the sperm count, like all of this was happening on your end, and your wife was fine. We talked about the an easy way to easy way to understand that too is so there's very there's very little sperm.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Very little, like handful of sperm. And then out of those, out of those, that handful, which is you're supposed to have millions, and you have a handful. And then out of that handful, you had like a one in a hundred chance that that one, if it made it through and did everything correctly, then would also result in a result in a miscarriage sort of thing. So when I say like we had a very small chance at pregnancy. Yeah. It was like an it's a chance to even get to that point. And then that then then even if that chance uh miraculously happened, then you have a you have another very, very low chance that you're going to be via that it's going to be viably stable and not end in disaster. So it was like something on top of something, essentially, is is what we had to what we had to to to realize essentially.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Yeah. Thank you for that clarity. I'm wondering if this resonates with you. As a man, were you dealing with, maybe subconsciously, if you will, were you dealing with some sense of guilt and shame as a result of that?

SPEAKER_02 22:40

I think certainly there was an element of that. I think it would have been worse. I think it probably would have been worse if my wife wasn't so, you know, was somebody who was so supportive of me. Like she made sure that she let me know that she's not blaming. Like the pain that she was experiencing was not due to it being on my end, if that makes sense. Like she was never looking at me being like, oh, I married the wrong guy. You know, that was that was not what she was what was COVID with. So I think, I think she certainly was helpful and supportive in that way to make me not feel so horrible. It it was, I did, but I did have to have kind of one of those things where I'm like, I have to remind myself, this is something outside of my control. Like if this was a decision that I had made that had led to this, I think I probably would have had more guilt, if that makes sense. But I did, I did kind of rationalize that I'm like, you know, I can only control what I can control. And this was something that was outside of my control. I was assured it wasn't like these health factors or these uh health factors. You always think, oh, maybe if I was a few, a few pounds lighter, or if I'm I'm I'm this or I'm that. You know, this was something, this was something that was an issue that I had no control over. So I think the only thing I was really having to do, like, I mean again through the whole process is learn to be able to relinquish control because I'm in new territory, I'm in new territory. I'm in a I'm in a situation where I don't have, I don't, I'm not in control other than how I'm responding. So sometimes I responded great, and probably some other times I, you know, was a little over the top and you know, not allowing my wife to to experience her emotions because I'm trying to fix the whole situation. So I did feel guilty in the sense that I'm wanting to fix it because I feel like it, I feel like in some way it is my fault, but I wasn't like suffering into a like a bout of personal depression because I honestly I wasn't dealing with it on my, I wasn't dealing with my own feelings about about this loss myself. I was more focused on my wife's, my wife's grieving than anything.

Faith And Wrestling With God

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Faith is obviously a part of who you are. And throughout our conversation, you've shared about how you've relied on prayer, you've relied on on your faith to help you through this journey that you are on. There will be those who perhaps hear this conversation and and are thinking, I mean, dang, you know, here here is this pastor, here's this guy who, you know, as close to God or closer to God than I am, and supposedly doing all of the right things. And I think these types of situations tend to pluck at the string of what is one of the most powerful and basic and common questions that we ask as humans, period. This whole notion of why do horrible things happen to great people. And as you're going through this, can you give some expression to what your own wrestling match with God had been and how faith was a helpful thing, a helpful coping for you during this period?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Well, again, coming back to, you know, what I was, what I'm being challenged in is again, I I just wasn't really letting myself focus on myself so much. And so, like, say if I go to go to God with that, you know, rationale, like, Lord, you know, I'm doing all the right things. When you're when you're self-aware to your own imperfections, you recognize you you recognize that we don't deserve a whole lot of good things in this world, quite frankly. You know, I I can't if if God sees truly sees all the horrible things I've done, the horrible thoughts that I've had, you know, I can't sit here and and and and look up to God and say, hey, I'm so good, you should, I should get this good thing. But where I but to in some semblance of that rationale, I think part of me can look at my my wife, who I'd come home from things and and she'd be up in up in her bedroom, up in the bedroom, journaling and praying and pleading with God in those moments. There was a several times where I walk upstairs and she's crying and she's kneeling down and she's praying actively quietly about this. I only thing I could think to do was to kneel down beside her. I knew exactly what she was praying over. And so I just, but I also didn't want to, didn't want to invade that spiritual space that she was in with the Lord either. So I was trying not to hover in those in those moments either. But there was moments where I'm talking to God, I'm saying, God, can you not see my wife suffering right here? Can you not can you not see? Yeah, I know what I'm guilty of, but can you see what she is doing right now? So yeah, if if I'm having one of those moments with the Lord where I'm saying, can you not see what I can see right now? I mean, it's it's super silly. Like when you think, poor sky, I can see everything. Like when we I say this in a in a sermon, I'm like, it's just super lame for us to go to God and be like, I'm giving him new information when I'm praying, you know, like I'm educating God on what's happening. Just kind of a silly thought. But what we are doing when we're praying is we're relinquishing to God. I'm not giving him new information. I am relinquishing and handing over something to him. And so, yeah, if I had to have one of those rational moments with them, like, oh Lord, you see it, you can see her, you see her heart, you know, you know the pure pureness that exists there. Let's, let's, let's fix this. And so, yeah, that that I certainly had those appeals, but it wasn't for myself, it was for my wife.

Advice For Dads After Loss

SPEAKER_00 28:34

So, the moment where your sister-in-law finally awakens your awareness to your own sense of uh loss and grief, did that ignite sort of a retroactive repassage through everything? But this time you really checking in on yourself and thinking about your own experience. And if that's the case, what did that produce?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Well, yes. I mean, to answer your question, you know, I I wish it I wish I could give you like that. It was like, oh, I had this epiphany, and then I just suddenly it was self-care, and I'm going, I'm talking to a professional, and I'm I'm I'm coping. I'm I'm going to my senior pastor and talking to him about what's going on. I mean, we talked about things, but it wasn't like I don't know that I ever had that defining epiphany moment where like suddenly I'm focusing a hundred percent on myself. What I did do is become aware that I was hurting as well, that I wasn't past it personally. So like I did become self-aware to to know that while I'm trying to deal with my wife's trauma, that I'm I'm traumatized as well in some way. So being self-aware is certainly, even if I'm not directly addressing it, being aware that it exists was something that was helpful. And I did have one friend who, you know, we get together from time to time. He's like, he's like the one one guy that I didn't feel like I had to be his pastor. It was just a buddy of mine that we would get together and we'd talk, he'd talk about things going on, I'd talk about things going on while we're while we're doing a sport or something like that. And so I did have that, I will say. And and that was helpful. That was certainly helpful. But I think probably the most healthy thing in that moment when my sister-in-law asked me that question was becoming self-aware that I had not dealt with something personally or that I was even struggling to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

So as we start to land the plane, I want us to, well, I'm offering you an opportunity to, with everything that you've just revealed and everything that you've just put on the table, envision a person, a man who has just gone through his own journey of loss for whatever reason. And similar to you, what kicked in naturally for him was let me maybe not even consciously, right? So giving voice to the subconscious second nature. This horrible thing happened. I'm just going to defer my own thing, and my main goal is how can I be supportive to my partner? How would you help this person who is hearing this conversation come to that self-awareness by giving him a thing or two to be mindful of, to, to make sure he does so that he doesn't stuff his stuff down so far that he loses touch with it.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. You know, number one, I think in every situation, I don't know, I don't know if you're like me or the people that I've come in contact with when it's like it's like when you're working with your own your own kids and you're teaching them, you're teaching them things, like there are things you'll give them all the right information, you'll tell them all the right things, they'll nod their heads and they'll be like, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense, but nothing teaches them like the experience of going through it. So I think number one, the only way for somebody to be able to, you know, hear my experience and learn from it is a willingness and an openness to internalize the advice that's given. If you don't have that respect, or if you don't have that desire to grow or to get over the idea that you're not unique, you're not fully unique, if that makes sense. Sorry. We are unique, don't get me wrong. You are unique, but at the same time, we we can grow and learn with each other from others, others' experience. So if you have somebody who's open, open to grow in that area, then the things that I certainly, if so, somebody is pursuing me, asking me for help, because if they're not doing that, chances are they're gonna have to learn the hard way, just like we all go through, sort of thing. Because you can prep for it until it happens. Uh until it until like it's like you can prep to be a dad, but until it happens, you really have no clue. So, anyways, back to the original question, though, if somebody is listening to that, those pearls of something that we can help, is that number one, it's difficult to it's difficult to help somebody become healthy when you're not healthy yourself. So I think think allowing space, not in the sense of abandoning your wife or abandoning abandoning your spouse in that moment, that's not what I'm suggesting. But you have to allow your spouse to tell you what she needs. And you can certainly, you know, your spouse, you you can recognize signs of whatever she's going through, if it's if it's healthy or if it's unhealthy, but you especially will be able to recognize those things if you are trying to become healthy yourself. So dealing with your your own trauma. So meaning, like if if if your spouse is going through this situation, there's nothing you can do that you're gonna solve it on your first day, like post that issue. You know, you're you're no one's gonna be good on that first day or the second day, sort of a thing. As much as we would like it to happen, it's not it's not gonna be that way. I'm not saying every every woman or male handles a situation ident uh identically, but what I would say is that however they're handling it, however they're coping with it, some of them may throw themselves back into work, some of them may need a couple days in bed, some of them may have somewhere in between that, but they're they're coping with it somehow. And but none of those people are just, hey, I'm I'm cool, I'm okay. And so you got to embrace that. And so I would say as well, start on yourself too. Like while your wife's having her time alone, whether it's out jogging, whether it's working, whether it's whatever, while she's having her moments to to grieve, you need to allow yourself the space to grieve as well. And also give yourself the grace to to grieve and not be okay. And and be and and also share that, share that with like a lot of times. I think the the husband thinks they can't share that they're hurting too, because it's like in some way you're thinking, oh, I can never be hurting as much as she's hurting right now. So I shouldn't share that I'm hurting. I just need to let her, you know, and I just gotta be there for her. I understand that, that, uh, but I I understand the desire to do that, but I also would say that she may feel more together with you if you are willing to open yourself up to say, hey, I'm hurting too, and I don't have an answer and I I don't know what to do. Like her knowing that you feel in despair also is a even even though you know it stinks to be lost, there is is some sort of a peace in knowing that at least you're lost together, a sort of a misery loves company.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

I mean, that's that's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

And so, you know, if I'm just acting like I got it all together, she's probably she might be potentially wondering, well, I'm I'm suffering over here. How is he just keeping it all together right now? What what's wrong with him that he can keep things together right now? A sort of a thing. So again, I'm not trying to speak for for the spouse. I can only speak for my my myself and what I think if I could go back and do things differently, I would have certainly sought better help for myself and not tried to just fix things. Like I wouldn't have tried to sign us up to go camping like a, you know, a day after that DNC. I wouldn't have tried to do certain things with the effort of just making of like making everybody okay now, sort of a thing, because you may get to the point where you've gotten your wife okay, but then you're you're gonna come to a realization that you're not okay. And that's that's not healthy.

Adoption Hope And Closing Support

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I can't thank you enough for sharing your story with us. We're obviously not here to solve anyone else's situation or to to answer anyone else's question. It's a matter of acknowledging that when you're experiencing baby loss, you're in foreign territory, and there is no compass, there's no roadmap, there is no GPS, there is no prior precedent that helps you navigate it perfectly. You do the best that you can, you reflect on it and share what you've learned from your own experience to at least help set somebody else who will go through the same thing to avoid certain things, but they're also going to have to navigate their own their own journey. So I thank you for Can I Can I share just one small extra detail too?

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Not every story ends perfectly, and not every story ends up, you know, in the, you know, the quote unquote, you know, like rom-com movie finish where you have a happy ending and all those things. But what I would tell you is that back to that that heart to heart we have with the Lord up in the mountains, when we felt that peace and going towards adoption as a another option now, I have to tell you what I what I want people to know is that like if someone who's gone through what we went through and recognizes even like some people they go through these loss and then they they are like, you know, they can still have a baby, they can always they can try again and they can, you know, for us, it was pretty much determined, hey, it's it's really, really it would be an incredible miracle for you to be able to have a have a child. You know, and listen, if my wife and I had that miracle one day somehow, that you know, a one in a hundred to then one in another hundred after that, that we had had that natural, but that would be a wonderful, wonderful miracle. But I am here to tell you that adopting our two little girls, I can't imagine loving those two girls anymore as if they were they were naturally born to us or not. Spring, we we brought home, but we brought home both of those girls basically from from birth. Um again, we're we're just in it. We were just selected for adoption only last month after waiting for over a year. And then prior to that, we had waited 10 months after we had finished the adoption process and everything. So years in the making, all this all these things happen. But I do want to tell if if if adoption ends up being the the option that the Lord leads you to in parenthood, I want to tell you that there is it is just as, if not more, fulfilling, different in a different way, that it still is it's parenthood. It starts a little different, and yet it's still, and and then there are different pieces to it, like there are traumas that even these babies have before before they even make it into your arms. And yet it's it's something that you can adopt from scripture as well, is that uh not to play on words there, but that God created an adoption also, as he adopted us as sinners into his family. Uh he's he's called us to that as well. And so if there is somebody out there thinking about adoption, it's a daunting task. It's a it can seem so expensive that you're like, no, I could never could never afford that or even try to do that. It has been a real blessing in my family in my wife and I's uh life. And it is something that I certainly would encourage, not just not just uh couples who are thinking about adopting because they can't have children, but because there are so many babies out there, so many kids, older kids even that are looking to be adopted. There are more kids out there waiting to be adopted than there are adopting parents out there. And so if you're thinking about that, I can't tell you enough how what a blessing it has been for us, and that the Lord blessed us with two beautiful girls. And if we did have another kid, I want to tell you, it would not make me feel any different about um the adopted girls that we have in our family.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Thank you for listening today. This marks the end of this week's episode. If you or another dad you know are looking for assistance navigating baby loss, I'm offering a free 30-minute virtual meeting to explore support options. Visit the Dad Always website to request your private conversation, and also download the Dad Always survive guide to serve as a companion for navigating the first moments after baby loss. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met, and the ones whose time with us was all too brief.