Latest / For the Love of Hormones- Miscarriage, Hormone Balance, Progesterone, TTC, Cycle Tracking, Conception, Holistic Health / 192 | How Husbands Can Support Their Wives Through Miscarriage: A Husband's Perspective
Transcript
- Bekah: Hey sister, we're coming to you today with a repeat guest. This one's kind of special. I don't know. I mean, he's okay. I'm just kidding. He's actually the best. ⁓ this is the one and only Adam Yan, my wonderful husband. So welcome, honey. Thank you for having me. Yes. So happy to have you on. ⁓ happy to have you on, but but this is kind of a heavier subject. So I'm thankful that you're here ⁓ and willing to kind of share your input. On this topic of miscarriage and how husbands can support their wives. I'd love to go into ⁓ how husbands can support their wives physically, emotionally, and spiritually in this season of loss. because I know coming from the guy's perspective, it's it's a very different perspective than what the girl goes so yeah, I mean, before before we get into that, again, thanks for thanks for being here. I think last time you were here was I don't know, I think we were talking about our healing journey and I guess I guess your your thoughts on that. That was a long time ago. So Yeah, it's been a minute. I had a lot of ums in that episode, so I'm gonna try to not do that again. Yeah. Well, you know, we do have great editing tools these days that sometimes can take that out, but it is it is a good habit. so yeah, let's just dive right into it ⁓ and ⁓ you know, I guess I guess you can kinda go through our first loss. ⁓ Hannah, fifteen weeks ⁓ and I know several years ago. ⁓ and just kind of you can share what your experience was like and maybe share any insight and encouragement you could give to husbands who are like today, this week, this month, you know, going through this loss and what encouragement you would give them. Sure. So I guess we can start with the story ⁓ and then we can go support and that kind of thing. But We were past the big twelve week mark. And I had heard that once you get past twelve weeks, it's smooth sailing. The chances of a miscarriage are extremely low. So I definitely had my guard down. I think we both had our guards down and there hadn't been really any signs of anything amiss or anything funny. And we were really excited to go to our first 4D ultrasound and see the baby in a new way. And then we got to the ultrasound and they did the ultrasound. And there's a lot of quiet and a lot of the technician not talking. And after some time, she said, We can't find a heartbeat. And I am maybe an optimist to a fault at times. I convinced myself at that moment that she just unfortunately it's not a very nice thing to say, but I was trying to convince myself maybe she just doesn't know how to do her job very well. I was holding on to hope that this was just an error and that we were gonna go to a doctor and maybe everything will be fine. So Becca meanwhile was already you were already beginning to to see and to think that this might be legitimate and this might be really a miscarriage. So that car ride, we were in very, very different headspaces. I was refusing to believe that we had a miscarriage and you were already slowly becoming convinced that we had. And then sure enough we got to the doctor's office and they did the ultrasound and it was in fact a miscarriage. And That was when I realized I didn't really know how to process that kind of news. ⁓ I think I considered that it could happen, but I hadn't given it a whole lot of thought. Probably again out of my stubborn optimism, I think would be an appropriate description. And so we went home and we both processed it in very different ways and at very different speeds. So it was several days later we had the delivery. And I think up to that point I had somehow shielded my mind, shielded my heart, and had not allowed myself to ex to fully experience the grief of the miscarriage. And that night in the hospital, as we delivered the baby, it finally set in what we were dealing with. And I think to that point I had somehow shielded my mind, shielded my heart, and had not allowed myself to fully experience grief of the miscarriage. And that night in the hospital, as we delivered the baby, it finally set in what we were dealing with. and what we were experiencing I felt the full weight of the grief all at once. It hit very, very suddenly. and what we were experiencing and I felt the full weight of the grief all at once. It hit very, very suddenly. So quite the experience. Should we go next into what what would you say would be the next topic that you think? Well I'm glad you kinda shared your perspective, ⁓ your story through it all. Because I all the time I'm like, I talk about my story and I've told my story so many times blue in the face that I'm blue in the face about but it's ⁓ it's hard and sad and good to hear from your perspective, like what you went Adam, you ⁓ lost our daughter just as much as I did, you know, and it and you had a different ⁓ with and you wrestled with it differently. so ⁓ let's talk about, you know, the big question that we've gotten from some listeners is ⁓ how do you support your wives in this? ⁓ I mean, looking back, you know, maybe I could share how I felt supported you. Sure. And then ⁓ then you could maybe bring in some encouragement potentially. But I I definitely felt supported by you with ⁓ just your presence, ⁓ just being there. I was grieving. Maybe I don't know. I don't know, physically or emotionally. I felt like I pushed you away a little bit. Maybe just emotionally. but I don't know. I'm thankful that we never we never like fought or argued or got angry at each other or anything allowed it to like divide us. We definitely clung to each other, ⁓ through the process, ⁓ which was which was good. ⁓ ⁓ but what would you say to guys going through it? Because I mean, you know me and I talk to you all the time. So you guys listening to the podcast, like you hear me talk all the time. Adam hears me talk all the time. ⁓ so ⁓ so we have something in common. But ⁓ you know, what would you say to to the to the dad, to the husband going through this, ⁓ and just trying to give him a perspective of like what his wife is going through? That way he can live with her in an understanding way. Let's talk on that first. Okay. So it might be helpful trying to think of how I would think through this. Almost I might talk to the mothers first and then to the dads and give a little bit of space inside my head and then talk to the guys in terms of this might be the difference in perspectives. So I'm sure this isn't news, but the speed at which most guys, as I've heard, and myself included, experience and process a pregnancy is generally slower than than the mom, than the than the mother. The mother is experiencing the baby in a very real and regular and even interrupting her day kind of way, where throughout the day, all the time. She's maybe having to go to the restroom more, or as the pregnancy goes along, you're starting to experience the baby's movement. And there's all sorts of other symptoms throughout, so that you can't forget that you are carrying a baby. And for the guy, you don't think about it most of the time. It's not something on the front of your mind. It comes up when you see your wife or when you are planning, or maybe you're seeing some of the first signs that you can kind of interact with the baby. But it ends up being something you mentally shelf. And it sits somewhere in the back of your head until someone brings it forward. And so in some ways I think that played into my perception of the miscarriage where this thing that I had shelved that I hadn't given my myself really even full breadth of mind to process all the way in terms of what a baby was going to be, and then and then the baby passing away, it was a really strange thing to to think through. And I didn't I couldn't think through it all at once. To that end, to the guys, I would say, first of all, if you feel differently than your wife, if it's not hitting you as quickly or as hard If it comes on slower, I think that's okay. I do think in acknowledging that you may process it at different speeds, that you should do your best to try and understand the things your wife is thinking or experiencing as she talks, or in the receptivity to your touch, or in the times that she wants to sit and talk, or she wants to sit in silence. It there's unfortunately a But feels like a lot of guesswork and trying to understand sometimes what was what was going on in your head. I mean, as we were dealing with this. But to what you said earlier, I think one of the best things you can do is to be present and to the extent you're able to to clear out time in your schedule and space in your day and to realize that this is a pretty serious thing, even if you haven't processed all the way through it. And you should Give yourself and your family time to process and think and just be present together. Right. That's really nice. ⁓ 'cause it absolutely is a loss. So really what we're trying to do here is we're trying to help the dad and encourage the dad in number one supporting his wife, or I don't know, just point one supporting his wife and point two, honoring the the child. Mm, sure. I mean the loss. You know, and I mean of course, I feel like as the mom, like we go crazy with all the planning and the hopes and the dreams and like thinking of colors for the room and the crib design and the clothes and like we go kind of cuckoo on that. What is it like for you? Like when you find out when you've when you have found out that we've been pregnant, I guess what has that been like for you and then and then how is it, you know, that you process the loss? So I can't speak for all guys. I know a lot of guys like myself who think mission a mission. So you tend to have one thing that you're working on that is at the front of your mind at any given time. And I tended to find in our pregnancies that because I couldn't really conceive of how to plan for the baby, I couldn't really figure out, especially before we knew the gender, what to expect or how to think about the baby, it was like I can't make that my goal right now. I can't make that the front of mind experience. It has to be something else. And so it would be the other necessary fires day to day at my job at the house with the other kids. There's always something else in the front of my mind. Which is why I think it was really strange to process through it and and thinking that I'm gonna have time down the road to make this my mission. And I'm gonna put this in the front of my brain and I'll work on it then. Right now I've got other things. And then the baby passed, and you didn't get to do that. It was taken straight from the shelf and put away. So that that was strange. That was hard to process through. And I didn't process it very quickly. It took a while to kind of unravel that. And I I think having watched how you experienced it, we just experienced it very differently. And I was trying my best to be present and almost it's in a weird way to continue putting off those thoughts and to continue not processing those thoughts. So I could go through your very active and very present pain and help you in the the moment which you'd already spent a lot of time thinking about and planning on and it was much more real and presently difficult for you. So yeah, we just moved at very different paces. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I think that's ⁓ you know, you showing Christ's love in a very sacrificial way to almost set aside your feelings, ⁓ to process those so that you could be there to just be present for me and support me in the way that I needed. ⁓ so thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. ⁓ so So let's stick in that moment. You had to so to speak shelf what was shelved. You know, you had to put away the push it farther back. Yeah, push it farther back, ⁓ of what you had originally hoped to be thinking of and and planning on when when it became more real. Okay, so let's ⁓ let's just sit there for a moment. You had to shelf what was shelved essentially. Right, had to push it farther back. And y then you had to somehow show up and be present for me. So just walk walk us through that experience of like being present for your wife and what was hard, what was good. ⁓ Sure, so we were in the hospital and Again, I'd already pushed a lot of those thoughts back. So the beginning of the hospital visit wa it was easy for me to be present and supportive. And to an onlooker, it might have even appeared like I didn't care or like I this wasn't affecting me. And you could say that it wasn't. I had pushed it way back in my brain and was trying to be stable. So Up until the early hours of the morning before we delivered, I felt very stable, didn't have a lot of emotions, felt like I was able to give of myself to you more easily. And then the baby came, and then we delivered the baby. And a lot of those organizing thoughts and putting things in the back of my brain became quickly unraveled and untangled. And it became a lot more difficult to be the strong helper that I was trying to be. I think in some ways there was some beauty in that because we ended up just spending a lot of time holding each other and grieving together and processing that out loud together. And I don't think I would have it any other way. For me to have had to figure this all out would have been almost disingenuous. It would have been strange for me to have been like, ⁓ we're fine, everything's good. I'm trying to help him feel better. And then I myself have just put this off now I experience it somewhere on my own later on. So I'm glad that we did get to grieve together and experience it together when the baby finally did arrive. But there was a change in mindset before and after and the way that I was processing it changed very rapidly. In ways I probably didn't expect after the baby arrived. Yeah. That's hard. ⁓ it it hits us all in different ways and stages. So ⁓ I'm glad that I'm glad in a way that it did hit you. Because if we if we if you were to have closed yourself off more or I don't know, heaven forbid like some men maybe aren't with their wives like during the loss. That'd be really hard. you know, ⁓ and then maybe they wouldn't be able to empathize as much. ⁓ I would hope like in our generation for sure, maybe the husbands are a little bit more supportive. ⁓ but I can imagine in generations past when all the birth stuff and period stuff was like, you know, husbands would cross their hands and say, Nope, not not looking at you, not entering the room, not touching you, nothing like that would have been even harder. We still see echoes of that in your family. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. so walk us through ⁓ the processing ⁓ after the big of grief. Cause you said that it it took a long to process. So it it sounds like the the box was kind of like ⁓ opened up and unraveled at the birth of of Hannah. then at some point, you know, in a way we were like open and we were together and just horribly sad. then at some point did you say that it shifted where you set aside your feelings a little bit to be there to support me or and then you processed later ⁓ or were you able to kind of do things at the same time or what was that like for you? ⁓ Yeah, to be completely I was able to keep those things shelved my brain until the birth. And then in the birth I feel like I lost control of that for a little while and the rawness of the experience came out. I I remember talking with you months later and realizing in a strange way we had experienced some very different things. You talked about all the verses you had worked so hard to memorize and it tucked away in your heart that all came flooding up at once. And I had memorized scripture growing up too, not as rigorously as you had, but I had done things like there was a program in Northwest Arkansas. Upward basketball and there was upward football, and you had to memorize verses as you did your sports with other kids. And I learned I learned those. I worked very hard to memorize those, but I just didn't experience it in the same way. So it just took a long time to think through, took a long time to process. I would be ⁓ in the middle of doing something else when realize, ⁓ yeah, I hadn't thought through what I had. kind of hoped for if we were going to have a girl versus a boy. And I hadn't finished thinking through what this was gonna look like with the other two boys and the how old the baby would have been. And I hadn't finished thinking through the room and the changes we were gonna have to make. And those things slowly arrived. After I had the the box opened and and we wrestled through it together, those thoughts slowly kind of drifted in. And I worked I worked through them lot of times on my own, just trying to process through it. So there was a weird sense in trying to be present with you while also slowly running across these things I hadn't processed. I think for the guys, it is even now hearing you say my presence was helpful, it's encouraging to know that I can s just being there and and give lending your ear and your arms and Being present with your wife is good and and sweet, even while you yourself don't have everything collected and you are still trying to figure out what all this means and what it looks like and those things that you hadn't finished thinking through as those become somewhat disentangled, that you can still support your wife even just with your ear and with your presence and your time. ⁓ so that's encouraging to hear you say because I definitely felt like my brain was being divided at times. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't I feel like we've been through a lot since then, we have. ⁓ definitely. ⁓ I don't have a ton of memories of of like I don't know, I just don't have a ton of memories. But I do remember you being there and I'm thankful for that. and I equally remember what wasn't there, which was your absence or your coldness. Like you were never cold, you were never absent. ⁓ like like I said, we never fought or anything or got angry at each other. Which I just feel like I don't know, I've heard of couples going through loss and and all of that. Like we've had our cat fights here and but fortunately they've gotten further out over the years. But ⁓ But that was never that was never a part of it. So I mean that in itself is ⁓ is great. Yeah, it really is. It's a huge blessing. can you talk us through like spiritually ⁓ how all this was ⁓ for you? Yes. ⁓ Yes, I I mentioned the whole scripture memory thing. I think the Lord was doing a new thing in both of us around that time. We had a really rough year. It had been r a really rough year. I'd lost my grandmother. We had almost had our house broken into. We had just moved into a new house and everything was kind of an absolute wreck. Just didn't have a kitchen for months. And ⁓ Aaron had just broken his leg. And it was it was a really rough year. It twenty twenty one I do not look back on with Fond memories. And I think, in some ways, not that the Lord is unkind in allowing us to go through those things, but as He sat with us in those and as we came out of them, we experienced a new season of tremendous growth. ⁓ I ⁓ drew a lot closer to the guys in my Bible study. I picked up What was actually kind of an unusual love for memorizing scripture, I memorized way more scriptures than I ever ever would have pictured myself having memorized. It was funny, back when I was involved in the navigators in Arkansas, my mentor in the navigators would always try to encourage me to do scripture memory, and it was like pulling teeth. I knew it was a good practice and a healthy practice, but my experience with the Lord in memorizing scripture looked vastly different after that experience. So it was it was spiritually hard. I don't think I ever found myself feeling like I could like I should or even wanted to blame God or like God was at fault somehow. But it was it was strange to think through things that I hadn't pondered before. Like what should I expect Poor babies that have passed away in the womb. Where where do they go? How does the Lord take care of them? How old are they when they arrive in heaven? What is their interaction and relationship with God looks like? And and all these things I never bothered to process. There's lot of having to examine new thoughts and so and now thoughts that were very personal and c near and dear to us. So but I do think we saw the Lord's kindness and sweetness in all of it. And the peace that he brought us and the people he surrounded us with and even how we drew drew closer together and it I think was very sweet of him. Yeah, definitely. so kind of ⁓ continuing to move forward, I don't know ⁓ I think we've covered things pretty well just with even just Hannah's loss. ⁓ I hope so, yeah. I know we had hope and grace too. ⁓ ⁓ You know, what would be your I don't know, your admonitions to the dads in today's, you know, to today, this week, this month, who are, you know, think of think of one in your head and ⁓ you know, what would you try to encourage him if you could just like be super frank with him and sit down one to one? I know I know that's something that one of our friends did. ⁓ one of the dads who had they'd been through a loss heat you guys went out for pizza or something. you know, so what would you try to what would you want to share with the dad? So that was really helpful and I'm glad that there was another dad who ⁓ willing to talk about his miscarriage experience and how he felt very alone and didn't feel like he had another dad in his corner with him. And he took me out and we spent time and talked and it was ⁓ was really helpful. I'm really glad he did that and I'm glad we got to talk and I felt like I hope I get to do this for another dad one of these days. So take your time and let those boxes be unpacked that you stuffed away. And when you're ready, the Lord will use you to minister to someone else and will use your story for something else that's sweet and beautiful. I also think There's a caution to take and I already said this, but a caution to take time and to not feel like you have to stuff your schedule full and to mask all of it and to continue to just kind of stuff it down. I think there's wisdom. There's a a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. This is a good time to carve out time and to spend time with your wife and to spend more time with the Lord and to ponder what's going on. It's funny there's a word I When I talk in jail ministry a lot, I I spend myself I spend a lot of time correcting misconceptions or misunderstandings. A lot of people when think about meditation, they assume it's some sort of almost Buddhist emptying of the mind to experience something different. But I would argue that Christian meditation ⁓ is deliberately and repeatedly filling your mind with rich and good things. It's often compared to a cow chewing its cud, which is a bit of a gross analogy. But as a cow chews grass once in the day and swallows it, and vomits it, and chews it some more, and swallows and vomits it. Again, kind of a gross picture. The picture is you take something that the Lord is showing you, and you deliberately make time throughout the day to continue stopping and processing it, thinking through it some more before you go about the rest of your day. So don't feel a need My encouragement will be don't feel a need to stuff this down and to go do a thousand other things so you can keep those boxes back there as long as you possibly can in the back of your brain. As I said, Ecclesiastes 3, there's a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. Now is a good time to start processing through that. And it'll help you to be more present with your wife for you to go through it together and to lean on each other for support and lean on the Lord together for support. And I would just strongly encourage that to make margin. Are wonderful encouragements. Thank so to all the husbands and dads listening, I hope that ⁓ this was helpful for you just hearing from Adam's story. So ⁓ so thank you for being here for listening. And I just want to encourage you guys to take the words to heart and just maybe take a moment to pray ⁓ alone or with your wife after this episode and ⁓ just invite the Lord into ministering to you both. and please know that I am here for you guys inside of Fertility Framework to to further support you in your journey. ⁓ the healing journey that Adam, well, that I went through and Adam supported me in ⁓ after after all of these things is ⁓ all that we learned in there ⁓ is what's inside of fertility framework for for that healing physically and spiritually and emotionally. So I'd love to support you guys in there. ⁓ it's my favorite when dads come to the coaching calls. It is, it's so awesome. And unfortunately it's kind of rare. so so here's my husband showing up and and being here in this fertility space. ⁓ Adam, you can you could share you've listened to like every episode, right? I have. I'm up to I mean, yeah, that's that's pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. So I'm thankful that you're in my corner. You've always been in my corner and you're always open to learning. And and my prayer is that your husband is open to learning as well. And dad, I I hope that you're always open to learning. ⁓ so so guys can check that out, bekahyawn.com slash course and ⁓ join us in Fertility Framework. and dads come along too. I'm always ⁓ I love giving advice for ⁓ the dad side of things, ⁓ you know. ⁓ I I'm not I'm certainly not the one to speak into you spiritually, ⁓ but absolutely physically, there there are some wonderful things that can be very helpful for the dad's end of things for conception. You know, you are half of the half of that sweet baby. And so your genetic code and your DNA really make a difference. And and doing things and healing ⁓ with your wife is so supportive. supportive, whether you believe in all of it or not, believe in the nutritional changes or maybe a supplement something or some sunshine or some exercise or whatever it is, whether you believe in it or not, your wife will fall head over heels in love with you even more if you are willing to do things with her in the healing journey. So that's my encouragement to you. So I think without further ado, Adam, would you like to pray over our dads and moms and ⁓ we'll close out with that? Sure. Lord we're grateful in a strange sense that you are a God outside of time. Even as we are praying this right now, this booth, people will experience it sometime later. You are with them then, and you will be with people for as long as they are hearing us. So we pray that you would find them in their moment, in their time, that you would cause them to feel your embrace, that they would feel comfortable. Processing the ups and the downs emotionally of this hard season. And we pray that you would draw a couple together that's going through this, closer together and ultimately closer to you. And even in the places where they don't understand why things have happened this way, or why more than just medically things unfolded the way they did, but spiritually, what's going on. That they would find their comfort and their hope in you. That they would remember the steadfastness of your love and your unchanging nature. We pray a blessing over those in the middle of this grief. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.