Latest / Where We Rise / 36 | "Space for Grief and Joy" | Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance

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36 | "Space for Grief and Joy" | Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance · Where We Rise

• 0:00
  Khalila McCoy: Hey, I'm Khalila McCoy, and you're listening to the podcast that covers every chapter of your journey.
• 0:07
  Khalila McCoy: This is Where We Rise.
• 0:11
  Khalila McCoy: Hi, welcome to the show.
• 0:14
  Khalila McCoy: It means a lot to have you here with me today for such a meaningful and special episode.
• 0:20
  Khalila McCoy: This episode is airing in October, which is Pregnancy, Infant, and Child Loss Awareness Month.
• 0:26
  Khalila McCoy: And this exact date, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
• 0:32
  Khalila McCoy: I send my love to all the moms and dads out there who are remembering a child not just today, but every day.
• 0:40
  Khalila McCoy: This episode is for you.
• 0:42
  Khalila McCoy: You are not walking this journey alone.
• 0:45
  Khalila McCoy: In this episode, I sit down with Heather Baker, a mother, author, advocate, and a woman who shares her story with powerful honesty.
• 0:56
  Khalila McCoy: Heather has walked through infertility, multiple miscarriages, and the stillbirth of her daughter Blakely.
• 1:03
  Khalila McCoy: A loss that she describes as dividing her life into a before and an after.
• 1:09
  Khalila McCoy: And yet, through every layer of pain, she is finding purpose and a voice that now brings comfort and hope to others.
• 1:17
  Khalila McCoy: So take a breath, settle in, and let's hear from Heather.
• 1:25
  Khalila McCoy: Hi Heather, how are you today?
• 1:29
  Heather Baker: Hi, I'm doing good.
• 1:31
  Heather Baker: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:33
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 1:34
  Khalila McCoy: Thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 1:36
  Khalila McCoy: I know you're very busy.
• 1:37
  Khalila McCoy: We talked a few months ago on the phone a little bit about your story.
• 1:42
  Khalila McCoy: And then you went on a book tour.
• 1:45
  Khalila McCoy: So tell me a little bit about your book tour.
• 1:47
  Khalila McCoy: How was that?
• 1:48
  Heather Baker: Oh my gosh, it's been so incredible.
• 1:51
  Heather Baker: And I feel like I kind of hit the ground running.
• 1:54
  Heather Baker: I'm starting to finally like slow down.
• 1:56
  Heather Baker: But yes, I just published my second book within the last year and a half.
• 2:02
  Heather Baker: And so wow.
• 2:03
  Heather Baker: Such a blessing.
• 2:05
  Heather Baker: And also I'm ready to kind of slow down and get to have more conversations like this and just kind of yeah, the heart behind the books and the why and kind of get it out into the world now that it's written.
• 2:17
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 2:18
  Khalila McCoy: Now, are you done with the tour or is it still happening?
• 2:22
  Heather Baker: No, I'm all done.
• 2:23
  Heather Baker: So now I'm just essentially speaking and doing podcasts and just different speaking engagements and stuff.
• 2:31
  Khalila McCoy: Nice.
• 2:32
  Khalila McCoy: Now I have a copy of the book right here and I've been reading through it.
• 2:36
  Khalila McCoy: So it was really exciting.
• 2:37
  Khalila McCoy: I didn't know when I first talked to you that you were writing a book.
• 2:39
  Khalila McCoy: So it was really cool when you're like, yeah, I'm on a book tour.
• 2:42
  Khalila McCoy: So I was like, let me get that.
• 2:43
  Khalila McCoy: But I also didn't know it was your second book.
• 2:45
  Khalila McCoy: What was your first book called?
• 2:47
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 2:47
  Heather Baker: So the first book is called Us After Loss.
• 2:50
  Heather Baker: And my husband and I wrote it together for couples walking through infertility, miscarriage, or the loss of whether it's stillworth or infant loss, but just kind of, you know, and obviously we'll get more into it in our conversation, but just our journey with loss and how to not only survive, but kind of really thrive in your relationship while facing some incredibly hard things.
• 3:14
  Heather Baker: So that we published last October.
• 3:17
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 3:17
  Khalila McCoy: Was it always your intention to then write the solo book, or did it just kind of come about?
• 3:23
  Heather Baker: It just kind of came about.
• 3:25
  Heather Baker: I it's so funny, both of my books are a little bit heavier topics, you know, um stay pretty, be quiet, the one that you're referring to, was written after, you know, a couple years of facing some um really facing head on my sexual abuse and wanting to heal and fight back and really take my power back and just find healing and kind of breaking some generational patterns, but then also learning that sometimes that isn't always easy.
• 3:54
  Heather Baker: It's a battle, but there's so much freedom on the other side.
• 3:57
  Heather Baker: And so I knew that I wanted to share my story.
• 4:01
  Heather Baker: I just didn't know how that was gonna be.
• 4:03
  Heather Baker: And yeah, two books that I didn't really want to write, but my publisher says that the books that nobody wants to write are the ones that need to be written.
• 4:11
  Heather Baker: So that they bring light to some dark spaces and show people that healing is possible.
• 4:17
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Khalila McCoy: And I like that because, like you said, unfortunately, a lot of people will relate to that, have gone through it and have wondered, what do we do?
• 4:26
  Khalila McCoy: And um, I know even, you know, with my in my own experience, I have a a six-year-old, I keep forgetting he's six now.
• 4:33
  Khalila McCoy: But when he was young, he was not doing well, and we both thought that he wouldn't make it.
• 4:39
  Khalila McCoy: And just the questions then of like, what would it look like, what would we do, came up for us too.
• 4:45
  Khalila McCoy: So, you know, if that had happened for us, it'd be nice to know that there was somebody else who was going through, had gone through it and had shared something.
• 4:53
  Khalila McCoy: So I like that you guys did that together too, getting that male perspective and perspective of the wife as well, too.
• 5:01
  Heather Baker: So yeah, yeah.
• 5:02
  Heather Baker: It was um it was something that we just felt so passionate about because after we lost Blakely, I mean, even prior, we had had three miscarriages, we struggled with infertility.
• 5:12
  Heather Baker: And so becoming parents just wasn't this like easy process for us.
• 5:17
  Heather Baker: And, you know, it it definitely weighed on our relationship, on our marriage.
• 5:21
  Heather Baker: And so we just really, you know, I remember after losing Blakely at birth, like coming home from the hospital and being like, I how I need we need help.
• 5:31
  Heather Baker: Like, how do we do this?
• 5:32
  Heather Baker: How do we do this together?
• 5:34
  Heather Baker: And everyone reads differently, and especially men and women.
• 5:38
  Heather Baker: And so in all of my digging, I didn't find any.
• 5:42
  Heather Baker: I mean, I had a few books that were kind of talked about relationships, but nothing that was just like down to the nitty-gritty.
• 5:51
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 5:51
  Heather Baker: And our book, like we talk about everything, like the we talk about sex after loss, we talk about grieving differently, we talk about healthy coping and what wasn't healthy and finding support outside of each other.
• 6:03
  Heather Baker: So we really and we kind of talk about my perspective and his perspective and faith, like our faith differences.
• 6:10
  Heather Baker: And so we really wanted something that was really honest and vulnerable, hopefully for people to be like, oh my gosh, okay, I'm not alone.
• 6:18
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 6:19
  Heather Baker: This is hard, but it doesn't have to be the thing that, you know, ends your marriage.
• 6:25
  Heather Baker: Like you can survive it.
• 6:27
  Heather Baker: But, you know, I think when we lost Blakely, someone was like, had told us, well, 90% of couples who lose a child get divorced.
• 6:34
  Heather Baker: I don't know how true that statistic is.
• 6:36
  Heather Baker: But in my findings and talking with therapists and doing some research, I find that a lot of couples, it it is very hard on a marriage.
• 6:45
  Heather Baker: A marriage is hard enough.
• 6:46
  Heather Baker: And so it can be really taxing on a relationship.
• 6:50
  Heather Baker: And so we just wanted those couples to see, you know, we definitely got to a place where we're like, we don't know if we're gonna make it six months after she passed.
• 6:58
  Heather Baker: And so if I had had someone else at that point being like, oh my gosh, same.
• 7:04
  Heather Baker: We we didn't think we'd make it, but here we are.
• 7:07
  Heather Baker: And they shared some of those tools of how they made it, I would have been like, oh my gosh, please help us.
• 7:12
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 7:12
  Heather Baker: Um, but thank goodness for lots of therapy.
• 7:15
  Heather Baker: We did lots of therapy and yeah.
• 7:17
  Khalila McCoy: Now, what's the title of that book?
• 7:20
  Khalila McCoy: Us after loss.
• 7:22
  Khalila McCoy: Us after loss, okay.
• 7:24
  Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
• 7:25
  Khalila McCoy: So you kind of talked a lot about the topics that we're gonna talk about just in the overview of your book, too.
• 7:32
  Khalila McCoy: Um, and it goes a little bit into um the one I'm reading, Stay Pretty, Be Quiet.
• 7:37
  Khalila McCoy: But if you can take us back to just the beginning of wanting to become a mother, I know you've already said that it was a challenge to get pregnant.
• 7:46
  Khalila McCoy: So talk to us about what that was like for you at the beginning.
• 7:51
  Heather Baker: Yeah, it, you know, it's so funny.
• 7:54
  Heather Baker: You always think like, oh, when you start trying, it's just gonna happen.
• 7:58
  Heather Baker: And I had lots of friends, I had an identical twin sister that that was their story, right?
• 8:02
  Heather Baker: It was like, oh, we're we want to have babies.
• 8:04
  Heather Baker: Okay, we're pregnant.
• 8:05
  Heather Baker: And for us, that just wasn't how it was happening.
• 8:10
  Heather Baker: And then, you know, the doctor's like, oh, give it six months to a year before they even intervene in any, you know, right um, usually in any capacity.
• 8:18
  Heather Baker: And so we did, and you know, still nothing was happening.
• 8:23
  Heather Baker: And it was just, it was really hard.
• 8:25
  Heather Baker: It kind of started this war with my body of like, why, like, what is happening?
• 8:30
  Heather Baker: Why can't I do what feels like most women could do so naturally?
• 8:34
  Heather Baker: And the doctors couldn't give us answers, and you know, that puts a whole different level of pressure on intimacy with your spouse, of just like when you're like, I have a window in this, we gotta do it this time at this day.
• 8:49
  Heather Baker: You know, it's just like just not great.
• 8:52
  Khalila McCoy: Yes, I remember those times.
• 8:55
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Heather Baker: And so it was, it was definitely tricky.
• 8:58
  Heather Baker: And then really after that first year of trying, I think it might have been a year and a half, we did get pregnant.
• 9:03
  Heather Baker: And, you know, unfortunately, you know, we found ourselves pretty early on in that pregnancy, like hearing those dreaded words, like, I'm so sorry, but there's no heartbeat.
• 9:15
  Heather Baker: And you know, I'd heard of so many women, I'd had family members who had had miscarriages, but really until you go through it, you don't really understand.
• 9:24
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 9:25
  Heather Baker: Um, and it like wrecked me.
• 9:27
  Heather Baker: And um, you know, I had no idea the the next what the next couple of years would look like for our journey to becoming parents, but that was incredibly hard.
• 9:39
  Heather Baker: Um and really was the start of kind of this, like I said, this war with my body of feeling kind of like a failure and feeling um just grief and loss and um struggling and trying to make sense of something, and then having doctors say, like, we don't, there's nothing, you know.
• 10:02
  Heather Baker: We did all the tests, and they're like, There's nothing obviously wrong.
• 10:05
  Heather Baker: You're just not like one, you weren't able to get pregnant, and then two, you had a miscarriage.
• 10:11
  Heather Baker: Like, that's really common.
• 10:12
  Heather Baker: So it just is what it is, and it's hard because you're like so down and dumps.
• 10:18
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 10:19
  Heather Baker: Doctors are like, well, it just happens, you know.
• 10:22
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, like they're more clinical about it, and you're like on the emotional side wanting to know what what caused this to happen.
• 10:31
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Khalila McCoy: When you how far along were you when you had your first miscarriage?
• 10:36
  Heather Baker: My first one was just after six weeks.
• 10:38
  Heather Baker: So it was so early.
• 10:39
  Heather Baker: I have found out at four weeks that we were pregnant, so I had known for a couple weeks, and then so that one was I was in a tremendous amount of pain, went to the emergency room, was experiencing a lot of um pain, and so that one ended pretty, pretty quickly after six weeks.
• 10:58
  Heather Baker: We went on to after I got cleared to try again, try again, couldn't get pregnant, couldn't get pregnant, finally got pregnant again through the fertility clinic we were at, and we were doing IUIs.
• 11:10
  Heather Baker: Okay.
• 11:11
  Heather Baker: And got pregnant with twins, which I was really excited about.
• 11:15
  Heather Baker: My d I am a twin.
• 11:16
  Heather Baker: And so I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
• 11:19
  Heather Baker: And so the doctors were like, Yeah, we see both heartbeats, like everything looks good.
• 11:24
  Heather Baker: And at right around 10 weeks, we found out that we had lost one of the twins.
• 11:30
  Heather Baker: Um, which, you know, I hear is very common, but the doctors were like, oh, we see both heartbeats, you know, they reassured us, but right we so then I was freaked out, but it was the first time I learned that both grief, joy, grief, and joy could coexist because I was grieving this, you know, little life, this twin, but then also was carrying still another healthy little baby.
• 11:56
  Heather Baker: And I went on to have a healthy pregnancy and had a little girl named Emiline, and she's 10 now.
• 12:03
  Heather Baker: Awesome.
• 12:05
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 12:06
  Heather Baker: And her little life was just the start of teaching me that very important lesson of that there's space for both grief and joy.
• 12:14
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 12:15
  Heather Baker: And that is something I would definitely need to know further down the road.
• 12:20
  Heather Baker: When she turned one, we unexpectedly got pregnant because we had always needed help and support from a fertility clinic.
• 12:27
  Heather Baker: But when she turned one, we found out we were pregnant, like surprise, and I was like, what?
• 12:35
  Heather Baker: Um, and I just thought, okay, we're gonna have our babies close together.
• 12:39
  Heather Baker: This is it just is what it is.
• 12:41
  Heather Baker: And right.
• 12:42
  Heather Baker: Um at right around 12 weeks, I miscarried.
• 12:46
  Heather Baker: It was a little boy, and so um he had trisomy 15.
• 12:52
  Heather Baker: Because it was my third miscarriage, they wanted to do some genetic testing, and um, and so he had trisomy 13, which is not compatible with life, is what the doctors told us.
• 13:02
  Heather Baker: And um, so we got answers for that, but it was incredibly hard.
• 13:07
  Khalila McCoy: What is that?
• 13:07
  Khalila McCoy: I haven't heard of that before.
• 13:10
  Heather Baker: I think, well, I I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think what that means is there's a third chromosome of that particular, like 15.
• 13:20
  Heather Baker: I think what I say 15 or 13, trisomy 15.
• 13:24
  Heather Baker: Um, so there's just an extra chromosome, and it okay, it's not compatible with life.
• 13:30
  Heather Baker: And again, I do not I am definitely not a doctor or anything, but I just remember in the haze of them being able to give us some kind of an answer, and they were like, it's just a fluke thing that happens, and most of the time you have a miscarriage and you don't get answers.
• 13:48
  Heather Baker: Only reason why we were able to get answers is because we did genetic testing, because one miscarriage is common, two not as common but still happens, but three they were kind of like, let's just see what's you know, what's going on.
• 14:06
  Heather Baker: And so for peace of mind and for us to know, like, should we keep trying?
• 14:10
  Heather Baker: Like, is there something going on?
• 14:12
  Heather Baker: And they had told us with this particular um trisomy that they're like, it's literally like a random thing that we're gonna do.
• 14:20
  Heather Baker: Mm-hmm.
• 14:22
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 14:24
  Heather Baker: So we decided that we, you know, after that loss, we were kind of we went from not planning to then being pregnant to then wrapping our minds around it to then being like, okay, here we go, and then losing him.
• 14:38
  Heather Baker: And so we were like, okay, well, now we were had our mindset on having another and we want them close together.
• 14:45
  Heather Baker: So now let's keep trying.
• 14:47
  Heather Baker: Couldn't get pregnant, of course, on our own, even though we just had, and ended up back at our fertility clinic.
• 14:54
  Heather Baker: We were on our last round of doing something called IUI, which is right before IBF.
• 14:58
  Heather Baker: It's like a little bit um, it's not as involved as IVF, the process, but it's kind of where they start you, unless you have, you know, things going on that you need to go to IVF.
• 15:09
  Heather Baker: But we're in our last round before we were kind of like, I think, you know, we're tapped out financially and all the things.
• 15:16
  Heather Baker: And we got pregnant with another little girl.
• 15:20
  Heather Baker: And I went on to have a pretty normal pregnancy.
• 15:24
  Heather Baker: Nothing was ever super alarming or anything that they saw, you know, went through all the mile markers.
• 15:31
  Heather Baker: She looked great.
• 15:33
  Heather Baker: Um, and you know, we were so excited I was gonna be a girl mom and had her name picked out and everything.
• 15:42
  Heather Baker: And I was working and I was about two weeks out from my due date, and I just wasn't really feeling her move.
• 15:51
  Heather Baker: And I had had that happen a few weeks before.
• 15:55
  Heather Baker: It was right around Christmas, and went to the hospital, freaked out, made my husband leave work early, and they were like, Oh, you know, you're she's just you're so far along.
• 16:08
  Heather Baker: She's just like, there's not a lot of space in there, you have some like a lot of fluid, so you probably just can't feel her.
• 16:14
  Heather Baker: And so then I felt so dumb and like I overreacted.
• 16:18
  Heather Baker: And so then when it started kind of that morning when I was like, I haven't really felt her move, I didn't really think anything of it because it had happened and I was literally so close to the finish line.
• 16:29
  Heather Baker: Um and you know, by midday, I was like, I just don't know.
• 16:35
  Heather Baker: I think I'm gonna call my doctor.
• 16:37
  Heather Baker: And so my doctor was like, Yeah, come in, peace of mind, like we're here.
• 16:41
  Heather Baker: And you know, I had no idea, like walking through those doors that you know, my life would never be the same.
• 16:49
  Heather Baker: They say that like, you know, loss divides her life in half into the before and after, and it definitely did that for us.
• 16:56
  Heather Baker: You know, we found out that she had died, and um it it was brutal.
• 17:04
  Heather Baker: Like, I don't really think there are words to say how hard or heavy that moment was.
• 17:11
  Heather Baker: Um it was pretty awful.
• 17:16
  Khalila McCoy: And I know from reading your book that you carried her for a few hours right before you went to the hospital and actually had to go through labor.
• 17:26
  Khalila McCoy: What what was that like for you in your mind?
• 17:30
  Khalila McCoy: Were you just trying to stay busy with all the other things you had to deal with and not think about the fact that she was in there?
• 17:38
  Heather Baker: Hmm.
• 17:38
  Heather Baker: Yeah, you know, it was it was awful because we left the, you know, so I had to get my husband to the doctor's office to tell him because I didn't tell him because I thought I'm just like the boy who cried wolf, I'm being dramatic.
• 17:51
  Heather Baker: So getting my husband there, then making all the phone calls of, you know, how do we call our families and tell them?
• 17:58
  Heather Baker: And, you know, at the time my daughter was two and a half, my living daughter Emiline was two and a half, and she very much needed us too.
• 18:07
  Heather Baker: And I'm like, wait, how do we do like your world stops, but everything else is still going.
• 18:12
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 18:13
  Heather Baker: And you have to figure like literally it's like one second at a time.
• 18:19
  Heather Baker: Um, I remember having this, it was such a struggle because I wanted her to I knew what was to come.
• 18:29
  Heather Baker: Like the doctor's office said, you know, why don't you go home, grab your stuff, um, head to the hospital, and we'll induce you this evening.
• 18:37
  Heather Baker: And that was kind of the first moment that I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to like go through all of the same steps I did with my first daughter, like labor, everything, except, you know, I know my baby wouldn't come out crying.
• 18:52
  Heather Baker: And that was incredibly hard.
• 18:57
  Heather Baker: And so I wanted to, you know, keep her inside of me because she was still very much a part of me, and I didn't want to have to like face all of that and go through it.
• 19:06
  Heather Baker: And at the same time, if I'm being really honest, it felt really heavy knowing that she wasn't alive inside of me, and there was just so much, I just blamed myself and my body, and uh it was very, very hard.
• 19:25
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 19:26
  Khalila McCoy: Now, did you have to go through labor like there wasn't an option to do like a C-section or anything like that?
• 19:34
  Heather Baker: No, so I had had my first uh vaginally, no C-section.
• 19:38
  Heather Baker: I I have heard with you know, now I work with a lot of moms who go through this, and I've heard some are offered that, especially if they've had one before.
• 19:47
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 19:48
  Heather Baker: But my doctor really wanted me to try to do it vaginally because you know, a C-section is still a major surgery.
• 19:58
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 19:59
  Heather Baker: And, you know, I think if everything was looking okay, they really wanted me to try to do it that way because they knew my recovery wouldn't be as long.
• 20:09
  Khalila McCoy: Okay, that makes sense.
• 20:11
  Heather Baker: Mm-hmm.
• 20:12
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 20:14
  Khalila McCoy: And then going through that labor, who was with you during that?
• 20:19
  Heather Baker: Oh man, you know, it was so beautiful.
• 20:21
  Heather Baker: We made our phone calls, we called our families, and the beautiful part of all of this was just that our community showed up.
• 20:30
  Heather Baker: And I'll never forget returning to the hospital that evening, I think it was like 11 o'clock at night.
• 20:36
  Heather Baker: And walking up onto the labor and delivery floor as soon as the elevators opened where the waiting area was.
• 20:43
  Heather Baker: I mean, a group filled of our friends and family were there.
• 20:48
  Heather Baker: And we didn't ask them to come.
• 20:50
  Heather Baker: Like we didn't, we didn't know they were there.
• 20:53
  Heather Baker: And I just started crying because I was like, this is why we're designed to be in community.
• 20:58
  Heather Baker: And right, they didn't know what to do, they didn't have the right words, right?
• 21:03
  Heather Baker: There are no right words, but they just showed up and they some of them were sitting there praying, some were just crying, some were just wanting to be close to us.
• 21:11
  Heather Baker: And that was a huge gift.
• 21:14
  Heather Baker: Um so they we got to at least see them, hug them.
• 21:18
  Heather Baker: And then really when once we started the whole process, it was just my husband and I in the room, but we let our families stay in the waiting room.
• 21:29
  Heather Baker: And we just wanted our families to be able to be there because they were grieving too.
• 21:33
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 21:34
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Khalila McCoy: Did you get to spend now?
• 21:37
  Khalila McCoy: I know her name is Blakely, right?
• 21:40
  Heather Baker: Yeah, Blakely.
• 21:41
  Khalila McCoy: Did you get to spend some time with her?
• 21:44
  Heather Baker: Yeah, so she was born.
• 21:46
  Heather Baker: We got in Deuce, and she was born about twenty four hours after we started the induction process.
• 21:52
  Heather Baker: So she was born pretty late at night.
• 21:54
  Heather Baker: We had an incredible nonprofit called Walk With Me, who I actually work for now.
• 21:59
  Heather Baker: They came to the hospital and brought a thing of keepsakes and things that we could put her footprints or handprints on.
• 22:08
  Heather Baker: And really beyond that though, it was someone else who had been there who was sitting on the edge of my bed, hospital bed, saying, You're, I know it doesn't feel like it, but you're going to be okay.
• 22:21
  Heather Baker: And seeing someone else who had gone through it.
• 22:23
  Heather Baker: And not only had they gone through it, they were sitting there encouraging me.
• 22:27
  Heather Baker: That was a huge gift.
• 22:28
  Heather Baker: And I remember thinking, I want to do this for somebody else someday because I don't know where I would be if it hadn't been for them coming and just being with us.
• 22:37
  Heather Baker: They sat with our families and told our families like what to kind of expect and what to say and what not to say.
• 22:43
  Heather Baker: And so it was really sweet because by the time Blakely was born, again, it was pretty late, and we knew we wanted just our family to be there.
• 22:54
  Heather Baker: Um, and so we let our families come in, like just a we have a very large, very large family.
• 23:00
  Heather Baker: So just we did a couple at a time.
• 23:02
  Heather Baker: They came in, got to meet her, take a picture too.
• 23:05
  Heather Baker: Because we wanted them to be able, I mean, she, you know, even though it didn't look how we had planned, she was still very much our daughter.
• 23:12
  Heather Baker: She deserved to be celebrated, she deserved to be introduced to them.
• 23:17
  Heather Baker: Um, and so we did that, and really uh the hospital that we were at didn't at the time had not experienced a ton of stillbirth.
• 23:27
  Heather Baker: It was very um new and a smaller hospital, and so they weren't as equipped.
• 23:32
  Heather Baker: And we had friends who literally hunted down this um machine called a cuddle cot and from children's hospital, and for what however I don't know what they did to get this, but children's hospital let them take it and bring it to our hospital, and it's essentially this cooling bed that helps babies just preserve a little bit longer so their bodies don't deteriorate.
• 23:56
  Heather Baker: And that was such a gift for us because we got to spend some time with her and not watch her body deteriorate, which is really hard.
• 24:04
  Heather Baker: Um and now most hospitals have those.
• 24:08
  Heather Baker: So, you know, when and so you know, if she'll be eight this January, she would have been eight.
• 24:13
  Heather Baker: And so eight years ago it was something that people are like, what is that?
• 24:16
  Heather Baker: And now we're finding almost every hospital has one, which is really good.
• 24:22
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 24:22
  Heather Baker: Um, and so we got to spend, you know, some beautiful sacred hours with her.
• 24:27
  Heather Baker: They put the cuddle cot right next to my bed.
• 24:30
  Heather Baker: I fell asleep.
• 24:31
  Heather Baker: Um, I was exhausted emotionally, physically, and they knew I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
• 24:36
  Heather Baker: So they're like, why don't you just sleep?
• 24:38
  Heather Baker: And you know, they they didn't rush us, and we ended up saying goodbye to her the next morning, and so you know, January is always a little hard for us.
• 24:47
  Heather Baker: We found out she passed on the seventh, her birthday was the eighth, and then we said goodbye to her on the ninth.
• 24:53
  Heather Baker: Okay, and so and then we ended up leaving the hospital that day as well.
• 24:57
  Heather Baker: So it was just a rough couple, very hard couple of days, but again, learning that that grief and joy can coexist and seeing the joy in her and knowing that she was still very much the answer to prayer.
• 25:11
  Heather Baker: It just was not how we had envisioned.
• 25:14
  Heather Baker: Uh-huh.
• 25:14
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 25:15
  Heather Baker: And but her life was a gift, and you know, she has changed the whole trajectory of our lives and what we do now and what we do for work.
• 25:23
  Heather Baker: And she's made me the mom I am to my living kids.
• 25:26
  Heather Baker: She's made me the friend I am to people, you know, the partner that I am.
• 25:30
  Heather Baker: I mean, it's just she really helped me find my strength, my resilience.
• 25:37
  Heather Baker: Um and I'm just so grateful.
• 25:39
  Heather Baker: I always say that even though she lost her life, she helped me find mine.
• 25:43
  Heather Baker: And of course, I want her here.
• 25:47
  Heather Baker: Um, but there's nothing that would make that okay that she's not.
• 25:52
  Heather Baker: But every day I wake up just wanting to honor her and her carry on her memory and her legacy.
• 25:58
  Heather Baker: And I do that by hopefully sharing with others and spreading hope and light.
• 26:02
  Khalila McCoy: And um yeah.
• 26:04
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 26:06
  Khalila McCoy: What was it specifically about this experience that made you feel like you were finding your life?
• 26:16
  Heather Baker: That's such a great question.
• 26:18
  Heather Baker: I think when you experience, I had experienced loss before.
• 26:22
  Heather Baker: I mean, you know, our miscarriages, um, I had lost a you know, grandparents, which they're all, you know, those are all typical, like, you know, that's losing a grandparent is something that, you know, is what do they say, like the order of of death losing a child, that's not how it's supposed to be.
• 26:44
  Heather Baker: And when you're faced with such of a deep loss like that, it makes you question everything about life, right?
• 26:54
  Heather Baker: So everything from faith to why am I here and what am I doing.
• 26:59
  Heather Baker: I mean, nothing mattered anymore after she died.
• 27:02
  Heather Baker: It didn't matter how much money I made, it didn't matter what kind of car I drove, didn't matter what my house looked like.
• 27:07
  Heather Baker: Nothing mattered.
• 27:09
  Heather Baker: And I found myself really struggling mentally.
• 27:14
  Heather Baker: So I went right into therapy.
• 27:17
  Heather Baker: And, you know, I'm such an advocate for therapy.
• 27:21
  Heather Baker: It saved me in so many ways.
• 27:23
  Heather Baker: It gave me a place to really process.
• 27:26
  Heather Baker: Um, and then slowly throughout the time, you know, sh her little life helped me just, you know, essentially like shine light on some areas in my life that maybe I had ignored or that I just pushed through or didn't have the emotional maturity yet to face.
• 27:46
  Heather Baker: Um, you know, when you literally stare death in the face, there's not a whole lot that you feel like you can't do after that moment.
• 27:56
  Heather Baker: And so she gave me this like strength of if I can get through that, I can get through anything.
• 28:03
  Heather Baker: And so when hard things would come up, or you know, talking about confronting some of my sexual abuse, when that started to come up, but for years I had shoved it away, shoved it away, shoved it away.
• 28:13
  Heather Baker: I just knew I couldn't do that anymore.
• 28:16
  Heather Baker: And I knew I was strong enough to go through it because I'd already been through, well, I'd already been to hell and back and survived that.
• 28:23
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 28:23
  Heather Baker: And so I took that strength with me into other areas of my life.
• 28:27
  Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
• 28:28
  Khalila McCoy: How do you have that conversation or how did you have that conversation with Emiline?
• 28:34
  Heather Baker: Oh man, you know, she taught me something so profound.
• 28:38
  Heather Baker: And it was, you know, for me, I grew up um in a I have a religious background, grew up in a Christian home.
• 28:46
  Heather Baker: Um there are a lot of things that this whole experience, and I, you know, I talk about this in both books.
• 28:53
  Heather Baker: I address it in both books of just the faith I inherited, what how it looks different, all the, you know, ways that this made me question things, because this isn't what I grew up, like I grew up very much in prosperity gospel.
• 29:04
  Heather Baker: And right, you pray, you're good, and you get you get, you know, x, you know.
• 29:10
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 29:11
  Heather Baker: Um, and that died, you know, that belief died the day that she died.
• 29:16
  Heather Baker: I was like, wait a second, she was so prayed for.
• 29:18
  Heather Baker: I mean, we had people when we went to our last fertility treatment.
• 29:22
  Heather Baker: I remember my mentor, who's a pastor, she came over and prayed over me.
• 29:26
  Heather Baker: I mean, there was just so much um faith tied into her little life that it just really shook me.
• 29:35
  Heather Baker: And so with Emiline, I realized she helped mature my faith and helped me.
• 29:45
  Heather Baker: She kind of kept me in check because she came to the hospital.
• 29:48
  Heather Baker: I was just about to deliver Blakely, and we had, you know, just me and my husband said, Hey, we we just want to let you know mommy's having like I'm gonna have the baby today.
• 29:59
  Heather Baker: But, you know, Blakely, she died and she's no longer with us, she's in heaven with Jesus.
• 30:04
  Heather Baker: Isn't that cool?
• 30:05
  Heather Baker: And my daughter goes, No.
• 30:07
  Heather Baker: I was like, You're right.
• 30:12
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 30:12
  Khalila McCoy: We want her here with us.
• 30:14
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Heather Baker: And here I am trying to be like, oh, it's happy positive.
• 30:18
  Heather Baker: And it's like, no, why can't we just sit in it and be like, this is really hard?
• 30:22
  Heather Baker: This isn't how it should be.
• 30:23
  Heather Baker: I don't know what God is doing.
• 30:25
  Heather Baker: I am mad.
• 30:26
  Heather Baker: I am disappointed, you know.
• 30:28
  Heather Baker: And I took that lesson from my then two and a half, almost three-year-old, and was like, yeah, you're right.
• 30:34
  Heather Baker: I don't need to sugarcoat this.
• 30:35
  Heather Baker: This is really hard.
• 30:36
  Heather Baker: And so, yeah, it, you know, she was still so young.
• 30:40
  Heather Baker: So when I came home from the hospital and there was no more belly, you know, she didn't say much.
• 30:45
  Heather Baker: But then a few days later, and right before Blakely's service, her celebration of life, you know, she was playing with a baby doll.
• 30:53
  Heather Baker: And I said, Oh, I I love your baby.
• 30:55
  Heather Baker: What's her name?
• 30:56
  Heather Baker: And she goes, It's Blakely.
• 30:58
  Heather Baker: And I just started crying because I wanted her to remember.
• 31:02
  Heather Baker: And at the same time, when she would say things, it would just rip your heart out.
• 31:07
  Heather Baker: And we still have those moments, but she is the most empathetic little girl who's not afraid of death, who we talk about Blakely all the time.
• 31:18
  Heather Baker: We, you know, and same with I had a baby after I had a son, and he's six now, and we talk about it all the time.
• 31:27
  Heather Baker: And so we in our family, we don't sugarcoat it anymore, thanks to her.
• 31:32
  Heather Baker: We talk about like what would she?
• 31:34
  Heather Baker: I mean, I even had a moment with my daughter yesterday.
• 31:37
  Heather Baker: We were at Panera and I saw an MM cookie on the counter and my heart just sank.
• 31:44
  Heather Baker: And I was like, oh, and she goes, Mom, what?
• 31:47
  Heather Baker: I was like, Oh, that MM cookie.
• 31:49
  Heather Baker: And she was like, Why, why are you like crying?
• 31:52
  Heather Baker: Like I started to tear up.
• 31:54
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Heather Baker: And I said, the day that Blakely died, I was, you know, working and trying to get her to move.
• 32:00
  Heather Baker: And I said, Sometimes when you're trying to get your baby to move, you eat sugar to try to like get them to start kicking.
• 32:06
  Heather Baker: And I said, I'll never forget I ate an MM cookie from Panera.
• 32:10
  Heather Baker: And you know, it didn't work.
• 32:13
  Heather Baker: And I so I was telling my daughter, you know, I found out she died, and I started like crying in public, and she was like, Oh, mom, that's really sad.
• 32:20
  Heather Baker: And I said, Yeah, it is.
• 32:22
  Heather Baker: I was like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad.
• 32:25
  Heather Baker: I just had a moment, like it literally, those triggers come out of nowhere.
• 32:29
  Heather Baker: And and I said, Man, you know, I used to love MM cookies, but sister ruined that for me, and we just kind of chuckled and just then talked about, I wonder what she'd look like.
• 32:41
  Heather Baker: And so we had our moment, then we laughed, and then we kind of dreamt about like what would she look like?
• 32:46
  Heather Baker: So yeah, we had our moment, and you know, that's that's what we do.
• 32:51
  Heather Baker: We don't shy away, I don't hide it from them.
• 32:54
  Heather Baker: I'm very honest, and I make sure that they know it's not their job to make it better, or you know, like we can just sit in the hard moments with each other and then we can laugh in the next one.
• 33:05
  Khalila McCoy: Good.
• 33:06
  Khalila McCoy: I like that.
• 33:07
  Khalila McCoy: What was it like for you too after losing Blakely and then trying again?
• 33:14
  Khalila McCoy: Because I know you said you had a son, and I know you had miscarriages before.
• 33:17
  Khalila McCoy: Did this feel different trying to have a child again?
• 33:21
  Khalila McCoy: It did.
• 33:23
  Heather Baker: It was brutal.
• 33:25
  Heather Baker: Um, it was really hard.
• 33:26
  Heather Baker: You know, we had kind of decided that we weren't going to do fertility treatments.
• 33:32
  Heather Baker: I just couldn't go there mentally.
• 33:33
  Heather Baker: So we had kind of decided if we weren't pregnant by her first birthday, that we would either be done and our family would be complete, or you know, if we were pregnant, then we would see where that went.
• 33:44
  Heather Baker: And but we would only uh go through this one more time.
• 33:47
  Heather Baker: And so if that ended in miscarriage, like we would we'd be done.
• 33:51
  Heather Baker: Because we just couldn't felt like we couldn't handle any more loss.
• 33:55
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 33:55
  Heather Baker: And it's kind of a long story with my son, but it was to me, it felt like such an incredible miracle from God.
• 34:04
  Heather Baker: But we got pregnant um literally the first month without any form of protection.
• 34:10
  Heather Baker: Because I at first I wanted a baby right away.
• 34:13
  Heather Baker: I wanted to fill my arms, I thought that would make it better.
• 34:15
  Heather Baker: Um we were traveling a lot, we had some things going on.
• 34:18
  Heather Baker: That's when Zika was still a big thing, and doctors are like, if we need to wait.
• 34:22
  Heather Baker: And so we had to wait.
• 34:23
  Heather Baker: And that was a huge gift because I needed to really process and do some healing work before just getting pregnant again.
• 34:31
  Heather Baker: Um, so I'm really grateful we had that time.
• 34:34
  Heather Baker: So I found out I was pregnant um in November, the end of November, uh, beginning of December, and her birthday was in January.
• 34:43
  Heather Baker: So almost a year later.
• 34:45
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 34:46
  Heather Baker: And what a gift it was that it happened right away, because that would have been a whole mental toll.
• 34:52
  Heather Baker: Like I'm that's not lost on me that that was such a miracle that it was quick.
• 34:56
  Heather Baker: Um, it was terrifying though.
• 34:58
  Khalila McCoy: And I was gonna say, did you allow yourself to be excited about it, or how did you feel when you found out?
• 35:05
  Heather Baker: I remember going to appointments and I would look at the screen and see the heartbeat.
• 35:09
  Heather Baker: And there was this piece of me that would feel relief and excitement, but then there was also this other piece that was like, no, no, we've been here, you know.
• 35:17
  Heather Baker: And here's what I always tell people, and this is what I tried to remind myself of.
• 35:22
  Heather Baker: You know, you'll never regret celebrating, but you will regret not celebrating.
• 35:28
  Heather Baker: And even with Blakely, you know, she was my second, and so we didn't people were like, you don't really need to do a shower, it's your second, but we still had a baby shower.
• 35:36
  Heather Baker: I still did maternity photos.
• 35:38
  Heather Baker: I'm so grateful that we did those things because we celebrated her when it was happy and just filled with joy.
• 35:46
  Heather Baker: We still celebrate her now, but there's a level of sorrow.
• 35:49
  Heather Baker: And I loved having maternity photos.
• 35:52
  Heather Baker: I loved having, you know, and I think in our brains we think, oh, if we don't do those things, or if we don't share with people, or we don't, if we keep like our, you know, our guard up, it will make it easier.
• 36:04
  Heather Baker: And the reality is, is it won't.
• 36:06
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Heather Baker: So celebrate, yeah.
• 36:08
  Heather Baker: I remember being like, I'm gonna celebrate this baby no matter how many days they're with us.
• 36:12
  Heather Baker: And that could be six weeks, that could be 36 weeks, 37 weeks.
• 36:16
  Heather Baker: It could be that they'll be born a healthy baby, but I'm gonna celebrate.
• 36:21
  Heather Baker: And that's a lot easier said than done.
• 36:23
  Heather Baker: Um, once I got closer to 30 weeks, because we never got answers as to why Blakely passed.
• 36:31
  Heather Baker: Um so that was incredibly hard.
• 36:34
  Heather Baker: So once I got to 30 weeks, I was living at the doctor's office on stress tests, like all the things.
• 36:40
  Heather Baker: I didn't mind that because I wanted to be watched very carefully so it didn't happen again.
• 36:46
  Heather Baker: Um, but two things I think that were helpful for me.
• 36:49
  Heather Baker: One is I had a friend who's a therapist, and she said, I kept telling her, I'm having so much anxiety about him, you know, at that point we knew it was a boy.
• 36:57
  Heather Baker: I was like, I'm having so much anxiety about him dying and this and that.
• 37:00
  Heather Baker: And she was like, Well, let's talk about it.
• 37:02
  Heather Baker: What would happen if he does?
• 37:03
  Heather Baker: Who would you call?
• 37:04
  Heather Baker: How would you do it?
• 37:05
  Heather Baker: You know, and she had me walk through the plan.
• 37:06
  Heather Baker: And as much as I even as I say it, I'm like, Yeah, you know, having like saying it out loud and being like, Whoa, I've already been through this, I would never want to go through this again, but I've done it before, and I know like it took away the power of the fear almost.
• 37:23
  Heather Baker: So that was helpful.
• 37:25
  Heather Baker: The second one was my doctor at one point was like, we need to put you on medication.
• 37:30
  Heather Baker: Like you are struggling with anxiety, and what's gonna be best for baby is that you get on this medication for anxiety that is safe for the baby, um, but also will help you postpartum.
• 37:43
  Heather Baker: And man, am I so glad I listened?
• 37:45
  Heather Baker: I was very hesitant because I was like, I didn't even go on stuff when my daughter died.
• 37:48
  Heather Baker: I don't need that.
• 37:49
  Heather Baker: I'm so glad I listened to her.
• 37:51
  Heather Baker: It made the rest of my pregnancy and my postpartum, I think, a little um easier because I had some of that support.
• 38:01
  Heather Baker: Good.
• 38:02
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 38:03
  Khalila McCoy: Now you said that you had your boy, and what's his name?
• 38:07
  Khalila McCoy: Zaid.
• 38:08
  Khalila McCoy: Zayd.
• 38:09
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 38:09
  Khalila McCoy: So we have Emiline and Zayd.
• 38:12
  Khalila McCoy: I love their names.
• 38:13
  Khalila McCoy: What does Zayd mean?
• 38:14
  Khalila McCoy: I haven't heard that before.
• 38:16
  Heather Baker: You know, my husband picked it out.
• 38:17
  Heather Baker: Um, there's an artist, uh musician named Zayd.
• 38:22
  Heather Baker: And I think my husband was listening to the radio one day and was like, that's such a cool name.
• 38:26
  Heather Baker: And he is a Zaid.
• 38:28
  Heather Baker: He's unique, and he's just like such a little boy full of energy.
• 38:33
  Heather Baker: And he has helped us, he's helped heal our hearts in ways we could have never imagined.
• 38:41
  Heather Baker: Doesn't replace her, it doesn't make it better, but he helped us just see light again after a really dark time, and we're just so grateful for his little life.
• 38:51
  Khalila McCoy: Can you share a little bit about, like you said, your relationship as husband and wife, like somebody who could be listening to this, going through that?
• 39:00
  Khalila McCoy: What would be something you would really encourage them to do?
• 39:04
  Heather Baker: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 39:06
  Heather Baker: I think what we learned is so much grace for each other because you grieve differently.
• 39:14
  Heather Baker: And um, you know, I'll never forget our first counseling session with our therapist.
• 39:22
  Heather Baker: I was telling our therapist, I would say, you know, I just don't get it.
• 39:25
  Heather Baker: Cause like I would break down and start crying at home, and my husband would just freeze because he didn't know what to do, right?
• 39:32
  Heather Baker: He wanted to fix it, he can't fix it.
• 39:34
  Heather Baker: He's grieving, he's trying to be strong, right?
• 39:36
  Heather Baker: Then take on that.
• 39:37
  Heather Baker: I gotta fix it, I gotta be the strong one.
• 39:40
  Heather Baker: And so we would have these moments where he would freeze and I would feel so alone, and I'd be like, say something, like say anything.
• 39:47
  Heather Baker: But he was trying to be strong for me, but in reality, that wasn't helpful.
• 39:52
  Heather Baker: It made me feel more alone.
• 39:53
  Heather Baker: And so in our first therapy session, I remember the counselor saying to my husband, like, Well, what's going on in your head when she has those moments where she just breaks down?
• 40:02
  Heather Baker: And he was like, Well, I just feel like I can't climb in the pit with her because who's gonna get us out?
• 40:08
  Heather Baker: I have to stay out of the pit and like help her out of it.
• 40:11
  Heather Baker: And he was like, actually, that's not true.
• 40:14
  Heather Baker: He goes, Oftentimes, what the person in the pit needs is someone just to come sit down there with them and just be there and not have to get them out.
• 40:26
  Heather Baker: And oftentimes, what happens when that person feels supported, just has presence or whatever it may be, they feel seen in their grief or in that moment, they then have the ability to climb out of the pit on their own.
• 40:40
  Heather Baker: And so, yeah, it was such a helpful thing for us because my husband would go to work, you know, he had to go back to work like two weeks after.
• 40:49
  Heather Baker: He would get in his car, he would cry all the way to work, he would then suck it up and he'd work, he'd cry all the way home, he'd suck it up, take care of me.
• 40:59
  Heather Baker: And he opened up to our therapist that that's what was happening.
• 41:03
  Heather Baker: He was like, our therapist said, you know, what a gift it would be to Heather for you to cry with her.
• 41:08
  Heather Baker: You're not gonna make her.
• 41:10
  Heather Baker: And so there were times like then he would open up and he'd start crying, and maybe I would join him and he would be like, I'm sorry.
• 41:17
  Heather Baker: I'm like, no, no, it's okay, like we're in it together.
• 41:20
  Heather Baker: And then there were times he would cry and I would be like, I'm feeling okay in this moment, and I can hold that space for you.
• 41:27
  Heather Baker: And you know, it was just it just we started to really learn how to grieve together, but we had to give each other so much grace because you don't have patience for things.
• 41:38
  Heather Baker: You the small things in your marriage become or in your relationship become mountains because you just don't have the capacity that you once had.
• 41:45
  Heather Baker: They, you know, you're postpartum, so you have hormones, there's just so much going on.
• 41:51
  Heather Baker: So lots of grace and lots of therapy if if you're able to.
• 41:55
  Heather Baker: Um, and and getting support outside of each other too.
• 41:59
  Khalila McCoy: What do you mean by that?
• 42:01
  Heather Baker: That means knowing that, like, you know, for my husband, right?
• 42:05
  Heather Baker: Like he, if I was having a really bad day, I would check in with him and I would say, hey, you know, we'd use like a numbers system of like, hey, I'm at a three today.
• 42:16
  Heather Baker: And he'd be coming home from work and he'd be like, I'm at a 10.
• 42:18
  Heather Baker: So like, hey, I'll get Emiline taken care of.
• 42:21
  Heather Baker: I can get dinner, whatever.
• 42:23
  Heather Baker: But if we're both talking and he was like, I'm at a three, I can't, like, I'm so low too.
• 42:29
  Heather Baker: I would reach out to a friend and be like, hey, I need help.
• 42:31
  Heather Baker: Can you come take our daughter for a little bit?
• 42:34
  Heather Baker: Can you come bring dinner?
• 42:35
  Heather Baker: Can you, or you know, if I needed to just cry and he was like, I love you so much, I can't sit in this right now with you.
• 42:43
  Heather Baker: I'm it's not that I don't love her, it's not that I don't love you.
• 42:46
  Heather Baker: I'm just tapped out.
• 42:48
  Heather Baker: Then I would call a friend, or he would call a friend, or you know, we just would find that support outside of each other and just know that there were times that we couldn't just be like we couldn't be everything for each other.
• 43:02
  Khalila McCoy: Mm-hmm.
• 43:02
  Khalila McCoy: How did you find those people who were good for those moments?
• 43:07
  Heather Baker: Well, man, that is a great question too, because that's the other thing that grief teaches you is that not everyone is is gonna be able to stay.
• 43:15
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 43:15
  Heather Baker: And you find that out really fast when you walk.
• 43:17
  Heather Baker: I mean, everyone does when you walk through hard seasons, right?
• 43:20
  Heather Baker: Those friends that you're like, whoa, you're showing up for me.
• 43:23
  Heather Baker: And like I have nothing to offer, or this is hard, but you continue to show up.
• 43:29
  Heather Baker: I think it for us, it was we have to let people in.
• 43:35
  Heather Baker: So you do have to let people in.
• 43:37
  Heather Baker: And people will say, What do you need?
• 43:38
  Heather Baker: And what I was never gonna ask people for things.
• 43:42
  Heather Baker: But the people who said, I'm bringing a meal and just didn't ask, they just did it, or we're sending someone to clean your house.
• 43:49
  Heather Baker: Like now, everyone is so different, but I think we learned who could stand with us when we would show some of those, like, hey, we need help, and that they didn't.
• 43:59
  Heather Baker: Shy away from that, or we could talk about her and it didn't make them uncomfortable, right?
• 44:06
  Heather Baker: Like there were some of my friendships that didn't survive it because they were so afraid of losing their child or their pregnancy that I was this constant reminder that that happens.
• 44:17
  Heather Baker: And they just couldn't sit in that.
• 44:20
  Heather Baker: And I don't fault them for it.
• 44:21
  Heather Baker: I just we don't do grief as a society really well.
• 44:24
  Heather Baker: We want people to be happy and move on.
• 44:26
  Heather Baker: And so I had friends who were like, you know, I'll never forget a friend on my daughter on Blakely's first birthday was like, I'm just so glad it's her first birthday.
• 44:35
  Heather Baker: We can move on now.
• 44:36
  Heather Baker: And I'm like, no, like I will carry this with me for life.
• 44:40
  Heather Baker: And it changes.
• 44:41
  Heather Baker: It's definitely as the years go on, like it changes, it becomes more manageable.
• 44:46
  Heather Baker: The triggers are way less, but she will always be a part of me.
• 44:50
  Heather Baker: It's not just like this, okay, now we're happy and we're good.
• 44:53
  Khalila McCoy: Yes.
• 44:53
  Heather Baker: Um, and so you learn who those friends are, but I will say you do have to let them in and you do have to ask for help.
• 44:59
  Heather Baker: Um and that's not easy either.
• 45:02
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 45:03
  Khalila McCoy: You've talked a lot about kind of like that happy and sad time that grief and joy can exist at the same time.
• 45:12
  Khalila McCoy: Is there anything that you do personally just to help to make sure you don't go too far into that grief side or also on the same time, like too far into the joy to the fact that you're almost like faking it?
• 45:26
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Heather Baker: You know, I think it probably is having those people in my life that I can reach out to and say, hey, I'm really struggling.
• 45:40
  Heather Baker: Um, the other hard part in all of this is there were people that, you know, wanted to be close to the situation, wanted to like, you know, be there for us, which was a beautiful thing.
• 45:57
  Heather Baker: And they also wanted to like kind of control the narrative.
• 46:01
  Heather Baker: And so I did have a very close friend who, you know, would talk to other friends of mine and and would share things about me or my marriage that weren't really true.
• 46:11
  Heather Baker: But I think she just wanted to feel I don't know what she wanted to feel, but I think like the inside, right?
• 46:19
  Heather Baker: Or like, well, I'm not sure.
• 46:22
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 46:23
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 46:23
  Heather Baker: Um, and she that hurt and like I was trying to survive and then to find out that she was spreading rumors about my husband not being there for me and that she was staying at my house and like helping me when he wasn't.
• 46:37
  Heather Baker: Like, I mean, that was brutal.
• 46:39
  Heather Baker: And there are people out there like that.
• 46:41
  Heather Baker: I don't know if it's for attention or whatnot, but all of that to say, I say that because it really, really hurt me.
• 46:48
  Heather Baker: And we are often given a choice.
• 46:50
  Heather Baker: And we all have people in our lives who hurt us to some degree, share something that maybe we shared in private with them that then they went and said somewhere else, or that insert themselves into our grief or into our life where it's just not appropriate or it's not for the right reasons.
• 47:06
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 47:07
  Heather Baker: And, you know, that was the other thing that Blakely's life kind of taught me is I now have a choice and I can pull back and be like, I'm never doing that again because I don't want to get hurt or burned by someone or have lies spread about me, or you know, whatever it may be.
• 47:25
  Heather Baker: Or I can see the some of those red flags, I can learn and know that that wasn't a healthy person.
• 47:33
  Heather Baker: There were things going on in their life that wasn't healthy, but I still, I still need those people in my corner.
• 47:41
  Heather Baker: And I talk about this in my second book, Stay Pretty, Be Quiet.
• 47:44
  Heather Baker: And I think I talk about it in Us After Loss.
• 47:46
  Heather Baker: Um, now I'm a Muay Thai fighter and I love using Muay Thai analogies for life.
• 47:51
  Heather Baker: If you don't know what Muay Thai is, it's a martial art.
• 47:54
  Heather Baker: But every good fighter has a corner, right?
• 47:57
  Heather Baker: So if you go, if you watch any kind of fight, there's always a corner coach that is there for you, that supports you, that helps you see your blind spots, that helps encourage you in the fight.
• 48:08
  Heather Baker: They don't fight the fight for you, but they're very much that steady presence helping you like see some of those blind spots and encouraging you, giving you water, giving you ice in between rounds.
• 48:20
  Heather Baker: And I kind of compare that with just people in our lives, right?
• 48:23
  Heather Baker: We all need those people.
• 48:25
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 48:26
  Heather Baker: Because we aren't meant to do life alone.
• 48:28
  Heather Baker: It can't just be my spouse.
• 48:30
  Heather Baker: Um, and so we need those people who can remind us who we are, who can help us when we're fighting for our life.
• 48:38
  Heather Baker: Um, again, that don't fight for us, but that help steady our breath.
• 48:43
  Heather Baker: Now we have coaches who walk away.
• 48:45
  Heather Baker: What does that mean?
• 48:46
  Heather Baker: That means we just find another coach that fits that season and we still do life with people no matter what, because it's so incredibly lonely to do it alone.
• 48:57
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 48:57
  Heather Baker: And I just don't think that we're designed to do that.
• 49:00
  Heather Baker: It makes it so much harder.
• 49:01
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, that's a really good analogy.
• 49:04
  Khalila McCoy: So why?
• 49:05
  Khalila McCoy: How do you say it, Muay Thai?
• 49:07
  Heather Baker: Uh-huh.
• 49:08
  Khalila McCoy: What made you decide to do that?
• 49:11
  Heather Baker: You know, I I actually, to be honest, the very first like snippet of getting a taste of it was I was sitting with a mom who had experienced stillbirth, and this was probably a week or two after I lost Blakely.
• 49:25
  Heather Baker: She was one of the only people in my life.
• 49:27
  Heather Baker: She was a like a client of mine.
• 49:29
  Heather Baker: And she just understood what I was going through.
• 49:34
  Heather Baker: And she sat with me and she was like, the best piece of advice I could give you that someone told us was to get a punching bag.
• 49:40
  Heather Baker: She was like, because you're gonna hit the anger phase and you just need somewhere to like release it.
• 49:44
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 49:45
  Heather Baker: And she said they got a punching bag, and it was such a huge gift.
• 49:48
  Heather Baker: And so I did.
• 49:48
  Heather Baker: I got a punching bag for me and my husband, and I loved it.
• 49:52
  Heather Baker: It just gave my grief somewhere to go.
• 49:55
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 49:55
  Heather Baker: And then all the, you know, a couple years later, in facing some of my sexual abuse and wanting something different for my daughter.
• 50:04
  Heather Baker: My daughter was kind of turning the age that I was when some of my abuse started happening, and I wanted her to know her body was hers, that I wanted her to have skills to fight back.
• 50:12
  Heather Baker: Like I have so much fear as a parent because that's part of my story.
• 50:16
  Heather Baker: I mean, I think you do no matter what, but because it's part of my story, there's a lot more fear.
• 50:20
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 50:21
  Heather Baker: And I wanted her to be equipped with tools of how to protect herself.
• 50:25
  Heather Baker: So I put her in this program to do jujitsu and they do Muay Thai as well.
• 50:30
  Heather Baker: And so, anyways, all that to say I watched her train and you know, watched them teach her how to fight back.
• 50:36
  Heather Baker: And I just, you know, as hard as it was and triggering as it was watching her in these classes in these situations that felt very vulnerable, but watching them teach her how to bridge her hips, turn over, like all the language of jujitsu and um it was so powerful to watch her take control, get out of those vulnerable positions, learn how to fight, learn how to fight well.
• 51:02
  Heather Baker: And she's going against like boys in the class, it's not just little girls her size.
• 51:06
  Heather Baker: Okay.
• 51:07
  Heather Baker: Um, I was like, whoa, that is really cool.
• 51:10
  Heather Baker: What if it's not too late for me?
• 51:12
  Heather Baker: Like, what if I can learn?
• 51:13
  Heather Baker: And what if teaching her to be powerful and strong, the best way to do that?
• 51:18
  Heather Baker: What if it is for me to model it?
• 51:19
  Heather Baker: And so I joined a program there and I fell in love with it.
• 51:22
  Heather Baker: And now I coach and did a fight last year.
• 51:25
  Heather Baker: I mean, my whole book, my second book is centered around the fight and the fight of life.
• 51:31
  Heather Baker: And no matter who you are, Muay Thai can relate, like whether you step foot into a fighting gym or not.
• 51:38
  Heather Baker: There's so many things that taught me about life that I just put in the book.
• 51:42
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 51:43
  Khalila McCoy: You talked about how, like, having Blakely kind of started it all and just giving you that power in yourself, like, I can do hard things, I can face this, which was what led you to facing your a sexual assault that you experienced as a child.
• 51:59
  Khalila McCoy: And I know you said you work with a lot of moms now.
• 52:02
  Khalila McCoy: Do you is it typical that like when you go through this type of grief, it does open up kind of who you are to yourself better?
• 52:12
  Khalila McCoy: Is that what you're ex most people are experiencing?
• 52:16
  Heather Baker: I think it definitely can.
• 52:18
  Heather Baker: I think it can do one of two things.
• 52:20
  Heather Baker: It can open you up and it can kind of open up the floodgates, and you're forced to deal with things and and you want to because you start to realize like the importance of healing and becoming the best version of yourself.
• 52:34
  Heather Baker: Um, you know, I love the quote that says, um, heal so you don't bleed on those who didn't cut you.
• 52:42
  Heather Baker: And I like that.
• 52:43
  Heather Baker: I know.
• 52:44
  Heather Baker: And I that's what I found with Blakely, right?
• 52:47
  Heather Baker: I was like, I want to heal from her loss because I don't want to be bitter.
• 52:50
  Heather Baker: I don't want to never be able to look at a baby again.
• 52:53
  Heather Baker: I don't want to hate all my friends who are having babies and healthy babies and hold this bitterness.
• 52:58
  Heather Baker: That didn't feel healthy.
• 52:59
  Heather Baker: That didn't feel good to me.
• 53:00
  Heather Baker: I, you know, like I just wanted to do some of that work.
• 53:05
  Heather Baker: And then I wanted to heal from my sexual abuse so that it didn't show up in my parenting constantly.
• 53:11
  Heather Baker: It didn't show up in my relationship.
• 53:13
  Heather Baker: It didn't steal things from me that it had stolen.
• 53:16
  Heather Baker: And I'm really honest about this in the book of it almost cost me my marriage.
• 53:21
  Heather Baker: The one safe relationship that I had, this amazing, incredible man who's been so patient with me.
• 53:27
  Heather Baker: It started to show up in our relationship.
• 53:30
  Heather Baker: And that's just not fair.
• 53:31
  Heather Baker: And I think that is a little bit of what I feel called to do with my life is to bring light to dark spaces and talk about things that are really uncomfortable and that most people don't want to talk about.
• 53:43
  Heather Baker: And the reason why I want to is because I have found so much freedom and healing, a lot of loss.
• 53:52
  Heather Baker: Um, but you know, and even as we talk, you know, sometimes people are like, oh my gosh, like there's just so much trauma.
• 53:58
  Heather Baker: And I'm like, yes, and this is a story of victory and of reclaiming and of showing people that we can do hard things and knowing that that it is possible.
• 54:12
  Heather Baker: Um and I think that's I do think people who go through grief, they do have this awakening of their soul a little bit.
• 54:21
  Heather Baker: Um and I just didn't want to stay stuck.
• 54:24
  Heather Baker: I didn't want to be bitter and just angry and a grumpy person.
• 54:28
  Heather Baker: That's just not me.
• 54:30
  Heather Baker: Right.
• 54:30
  Heather Baker: Uh I wanted to, I wanted to deal with it.
• 54:35
  Khalila McCoy: Was writing kind of therapeutic to you as well?
• 54:40
  Heather Baker: It was.
• 54:40
  Heather Baker: And I was in massive therapy the whole time.
• 54:43
  Heather Baker: Because it just brings everything up, right?
• 54:46
  Heather Baker: And it brought up things that I hadn't maybe dealt with, but it was incredibly healing.
• 54:51
  Heather Baker: Um, after we lost Blakely, I started a blog that was helpful.
• 54:55
  Khalila McCoy: Okay.
• 54:55
  Heather Baker: Even if no one ever read it, it was more for me.
• 54:58
  Heather Baker: Um, but yes, writing was incredibly healing.
• 55:02
  Heather Baker: And then having people reach out and say, Me too, or this was so helpful, like that to me, you know, I know everyone looks at things differently.
• 55:12
  Heather Baker: For me in life, if I can help others, that is the only thing I find that feels healing to me.
• 55:17
  Heather Baker: Is if someone can say, Oh my gosh, me too, or this was so helpful, like that means the world to me because I mean, if I'm gonna go through all of it, like I really want to be able to use it to try to help other people.
• 55:32
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 55:32
  Heather Baker: Um, and just again spread light.
• 55:35
  Heather Baker: Mm-hmm.
• 55:37
  Khalila McCoy: Yes, I love that.
• 55:38
  Khalila McCoy: Can you summarize stay pretty, be quiet?
• 55:42
  Khalila McCoy: Like, what is the whole story?
• 55:44
  Khalila McCoy: Well, not really story, but what is it telling us and who would it re speak to?
• 55:50
  Heather Baker: Yeah, you know, the tagline is finding the courage to speak when silence was expected.
• 55:56
  Heather Baker: And I will say it's more geared towards women.
• 55:59
  Heather Baker: However, a lot of the men in my life are reading it and they have been like reaching out and saying how much they love it, which is so I love that.
• 56:06
  Heather Baker: Yeah.
• 56:06
  Heather Baker: So I think men can enjoy.
• 56:08
  Heather Baker: But it's just this whole idea of as women, we are given, we are told, you know, all these different things of who we need to be, and you know, different expectations or, you know, whatever it may be, messages that become really a part of who we are.
• 56:24
  Heather Baker: Um and it's just my hope is that it is a book of sharing some of those things for me that kept me small, that kept me quiet, that kept me in this version of me, who I thought I needed to be in order to be loved, to be safe, to be accepted, to belong.
• 56:43
  Heather Baker: When I started to shatter that box, I realized who I actually was instead of who, you know, what I had been handed and said, this is who you need to be.
• 56:52
  Heather Baker: Um, and I really started living life.
• 56:56
  Heather Baker: Um so my hope is that no matter what your story is, as a woman, you would pick it up and and see parts of yourself in it and find it inspiring.
• 57:07
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 57:08
  Heather Baker: For me, I also really want women who have had any form of sexual abuse to read it and see.
• 57:16
  Heather Baker: One, that healing is possible, two, that shame has to change sides, that it's not ours to carry.
• 57:22
  Heather Baker: And the for them to see the struggle, like the battle it is when you do speak up, but man, there is no amount of, you know, when you read the story, like you'll see I have a lot of loss.
• 57:36
  Heather Baker: I lost a lot of people in my life by speaking up, but I gained so much more than I lost.
• 57:42
  Heather Baker: Um, and so my hope is that just sometimes I think we need to borrow someone else's courage before we find our own.
• 57:50
  Heather Baker: And I know I did that in other women's stories before I came forward about mine.
• 57:54
  Heather Baker: And so that's what my hope is is that it will just make women feel courageous to do the work of healing and to know that they're so much stronger than they think they are.
• 58:03
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 58:04
  Khalila McCoy: Um, like I said, I read most of the book.
• 58:06
  Khalila McCoy: I'm I have a little bit more, a few more chapters to go, but I like how at the end of each chapter, like you say, hey, if you're feeling this way, or if you have a connection, go to like page 200, whatever, like, and then you'll find something to connect to.
• 58:22
  Khalila McCoy: And even though I haven't experienced like sexual assault in my life, the way you have the question set up, it was still like I could still connect, take your story, connect to something in my life and answer those questions.
• 58:35
  Khalila McCoy: And it brought up stuff like, oh, maybe I do need to work on this or something I can grow in this area.
• 58:40
  Khalila McCoy: So, like you said, it's for everybody and you can get something from it.
• 58:45
  Khalila McCoy: And I'm a very reflective person.
• 58:47
  Khalila McCoy: So I love the idea of sitting down and really thinking through where is my connection here and where can I grow?
• 58:53
  Khalila McCoy: So I really thought that was really great.
• 58:56
  Khalila McCoy: And I like too that it's not like a lot of times in the books, you have to read through the whole story, and then at the end, you know, then it gives you all the questions and the reflecting, and you're like, oh wait, where was this in the story?
• 59:06
  Khalila McCoy: Where was I thinking?
• 59:07
  Khalila McCoy: So I love that it's just right away like, hey, go here now, check this out.
• 59:10
  Khalila McCoy: So yeah.
• 59:11
  Khalila McCoy: So I really like it.
• 59:13
  Khalila McCoy: If you can't tell, but it was great.
• 59:18
  Heather Baker: That just means the world.
• 59:19
  Heather Baker: And I, you know, I wanted it to be such a deeper thing than just my story because I'm, you know, and I've I don't mean to say this like in a bad way, but I'm like, nobody cares.
• 59:30
  Heather Baker: Like it's just me.
• 59:31
  Heather Baker: Like, I'm not some like crazy celebrity.
• 59:32
  Heather Baker: Don't read my memoir.
• 59:35
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 59:35
  Heather Baker: But I wanted it to be my story with, you know, knowing that, and even in this podcast, knowing that my story will bring up and will resonate sadly statistically with a lot of women.
• 59:47
  Heather Baker: And it does bring up a lot and it is heavy.
• 59:50
  Heather Baker: And so I wanted them to have a, you know, I'm not a trauma-informed therapist.
• 59:55
  Heather Baker: And so in the book, yeah, there's a whole, like you were talking about in the back, a section where a trauma-informed therapist does contributions of her expertise, right?
• 1:00:05
  Heather Baker: Because that's what she does.
• 1:00:06
  Heather Baker: And then we have like the the whole the questions and the reflection, so that if it does bring up something, you can dive a little bit deeper.
• 1:00:14
  Heather Baker: And, you know, we always I say in the book, it's not to replace therapy, but it's hopefully to get women to just start to question some of those things.
• 1:00:21
  Heather Baker: Just start there and then see where it takes you.
• 1:00:24
  Heather Baker: And I love that that was my hope.
• 1:00:25
  Heather Baker: So hearing you say that is makes me so happy because I was hoping that anyone, no matter their story, could pick it up and see themselves in it, and and it would just challenge them and be inspiring, you know.
• 1:00:38
  Heather Baker: Yes.
• 1:00:39
  Khalila McCoy: Well, I think you are succeeding in that.
• 1:00:41
  Khalila McCoy: And I'll definitely add that link to our show notes and my listeners can grab a copy as well.
• 1:00:48
  Heather Baker: Oh, thank you.
• 1:00:49
  Khalila McCoy: So thinking about everything that you've shared with us today, if there was just one thing that you would want to make sure a listener walked away with, what would you want to say to them to encourage them to rise in their own life?
• 1:01:03
  Heather Baker: Hmm.
• 1:01:03
  Heather Baker: I would say the words keep going.
• 1:01:07
  Heather Baker: Um, and I know that feels so simple, but as you asked that question, it was exactly like what popped into my mind.
• 1:01:12
  Heather Baker: So I was like, maybe someone just needs to hear those words.
• 1:01:15
  Heather Baker: And what I mean by that is, you know, I'm gonna be really honest with you.
• 1:01:20
  Heather Baker: I've had a really hard day today.
• 1:01:22
  Heather Baker: Like it, it's I've actually kind of I'm in a little bit of a hard season, but not in the sense of life trials.
• 1:01:29
  Heather Baker: But the book, everything like I mean, I was going nonstop, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
• 1:01:34
  Heather Baker: I'm high capacity, I'm always working, I'm entrepreneurial, always have the next thing.
• 1:01:38
  Heather Baker: And now that the book is in the world and I'm not writing every day all day, and I'm not, you know, doing all the things for like the like I'm slowing down.
• 1:01:50
  Heather Baker: Now, when you've been in survival mode and you have a lot of trauma and you just do do do do do do do, and then you get to a point where you get to be kind of quiet, it's a little scary and it's a little hard.
• 1:02:02
  Heather Baker: And the last couple of weeks, you know, even though it's like, oh my gosh, I wrote this book and it was in Times Square and it's, you know, became a bestseller.
• 1:02:11
  Heather Baker: Like those things are so awesome, but that doesn't take away from there, are still things that I'm walking through and things that I'm carrying, things that I'm learning to put down, like things that I'm learning, my value doesn't come from being so busy.
• 1:02:26
  Heather Baker: It doesn't come from writing a book.
• 1:02:27
  Heather Baker: That didn't change my value.
• 1:02:29
  Heather Baker: It was healing, but it doesn't change who I am.
• 1:02:32
  Heather Baker: So now that I'm like slowing way down, I am finding, oh, I've got some things I need to, you know, kind of just address.
• 1:02:43
  Heather Baker: And one of those is my value does not come from my productivity or how busy I am.
• 1:02:49
  Heather Baker: And I'm tired.
• 1:02:51
  Heather Baker: Um, and then also raising kids and all the things.
• 1:02:55
  Heather Baker: Um, you know, it's hard.
• 1:02:57
  Heather Baker: And so I even today just had to keep telling myself, like, just keep going, like just one day at a time.
• 1:03:02
  Heather Baker: That's all I have to do.
• 1:03:03
  Heather Baker: Don't look at the whole staircase, just look at the next step.
• 1:03:06
  Heather Baker: And I am in a massive shift, you know, of what am I doing for work and what am I doing, you know?
• 1:03:11
  Heather Baker: I'm also a makeup artist.
• 1:03:12
  Heather Baker: That's been what I've done for 20 years, but I'm feeling called out of that and into doing more speaking and podcasts and things like that.
• 1:03:20
  Heather Baker: I but I don't know what it looks like, and the unknown feels scary.
• 1:03:24
  Khalila McCoy: Right.
• 1:03:24
  Heather Baker: And so for me, I get overwhelmed and I can feel kind of depressed and like, where am I going and what am I doing?
• 1:03:29
  Heather Baker: And you know, how am I gonna get paid?
• 1:03:31
  Heather Baker: And where's all the like where if I stop doing, you know, this, like, anyways, all that to say, long story short, I've had to remind myself lately, like, just keep going.
• 1:03:42
  Heather Baker: And sometimes it's a minute at a time, sometimes it's just one day at a time.
• 1:03:46
  Heather Baker: Um, and knowing I don't have to know like what the whole chapter holds to just continue to keep turning the page.
• 1:03:55
  Heather Baker: And so I think just that simple phrase, keep going, right?
• 1:03:58
  Heather Baker: Just keep going and lean into those people who can help you keep going, who can help give you that reminder of who you are, reminder of your strength.
• 1:04:10
  Heather Baker: You know, they can't fight your fight for you, but they sure as heck can help steady you and remind you you've got this, you know.
• 1:04:16
  Heather Baker: And that's what I do with my friends.
• 1:04:17
  Heather Baker: I'm really honest and I'm like, hey, I'm in this season.
• 1:04:20
  Heather Baker: I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 1:04:22
  Heather Baker: It's exciting and it feels really scary.
• 1:04:26
  Heather Baker: And I feel kind of depressed or kind of like I'm not sure, you know, and they they just are with me and they're like, we've got you, and we'll keep reminding you that you can do this just like you did everything else, you know?
• 1:04:38
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Khalila McCoy: That was great.
• 1:04:42
  Khalila McCoy: Well, I want to thank you, Heather, for your time today and everything that you shared and just your honesty and just the way, even the way you say things, it's just very relatable.
• 1:04:52
  Khalila McCoy: And like I said, it doesn't, it feels like whoever's listening, there's something you can gain from it.
• 1:04:59
  Khalila McCoy: I know I've gained a lot from our conversation.
• 1:05:01
  Khalila McCoy: And even just like what you've been talking about, being a friend.
• 1:05:04
  Khalila McCoy: I'm I'm thinking like, huh, like who might need me to be there?
• 1:05:07
  Khalila McCoy: Who am I being a good friend to people and stuff like that?
• 1:05:11
  Khalila McCoy: So you've given me a lot to think of, and I know my listeners will really appreciate this conversation.
• 1:05:17
  Heather Baker: Oh, well, thank you so much for having me and for letting me just kind of share and be super honest and vulnerable.
• 1:05:23
  Heather Baker: And yeah, I hope that it just even inspires one person.
• 1:05:27
  Heather Baker: And if anything else, it's just so good for me to just get to share and share about Blakely and keep her legacy alive.
• 1:05:33
  Heather Baker: And um, I just appreciate it.
• 1:05:36
  Heather Baker: So thank you.
• 1:05:37
  Khalila McCoy: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 1:05:38
  Khalila McCoy: Thank you so much for joining in this conversation with me and Heather.
• 1:05:45
  Khalila McCoy: Her story was heavy and beautiful at the same time.
• 1:05:49
  Khalila McCoy: I really appreciated her vulnerability and what she shared today and what she wrote in her books.
• 1:05:55
  Khalila McCoy: There were some really powerful things that she said that I don't want you to miss.
• 1:05:59
  Khalila McCoy: First, you'll never regret celebrating.
• 1:06:04
  Khalila McCoy: Even in grief, even in uncertainty, even when life looks nothing like you imagined, celebrate the moments, the memories, the people you love, and the victories that show up quietly.
• 1:06:16
  Khalila McCoy: Celebration honors what matters and it keeps love alive.
• 1:06:21
  Khalila McCoy: Second, this is a story of victory.
• 1:06:26
  Khalila McCoy: Not because everything turned out the way Heather hoped, but because she chose healing.
• 1:06:31
  Khalila McCoy: She chose, no, she chooses each day to keep going.
• 1:06:35
  Khalila McCoy: She chooses to let Blakely's life shape her strength instead of her despair.
• 1:06:41
  Khalila McCoy: Victory can simply be choosing to hope again.
• 1:06:45
  Khalila McCoy: Third, don't look at the whole staircase, just the next step.
• 1:06:50
  Khalila McCoy: Heather's journey wasn't one giant leap.
• 1:06:54
  Khalila McCoy: It was first one breath, then one decision, then one therapy session, then one moment of courage.
• 1:07:04
  Khalila McCoy: If you're walking through something hard, don't overwhelm yourself with the whole picture.
• 1:07:09
  Khalila McCoy: Just take the next step.
• 1:07:11
  Khalila McCoy: Healing happens one step at a time.
• 1:07:14
  Khalila McCoy: And finally, we say it so much on here, the power of community.
• 1:07:21
  Khalila McCoy: Heather says that we were never meant to carry our pain alone, and I couldn't agree with her more.
• 1:07:27
  Khalila McCoy: The people who showed up for her in the hospital, in the waiting room, during her time of healing, they became part of her strength.
• 1:07:34
  Khalila McCoy: Community doesn't fix the hurt, but it holds you while you heal.
• 1:07:39
  Khalila McCoy: If you're grieving or struggling, let people in.
• 1:07:43
  Khalila McCoy: You deserve to be supported.
• 1:07:46
  Khalila McCoy: Before we go, I want to speak directly to anyone listening who has experienced the loss of a child, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, or any form of unimaginable grief.
• 1:08:00
  Khalila McCoy: I want you to hear this clearly.
• 1:08:03
  Khalila McCoy: You are not broken, you are not alone, and you are allowed to carry both the weight of your grief and the light of your joy at the same time.
• 1:08:27
  Khalila McCoy: You will never regret celebrating the life you loved, even if it was far too short.
• 1:08:32
  Khalila McCoy: You still have a story of victory because you are still here loving and rising.
• 1:08:39
  Khalila McCoy: And as you take the next step forward, this community and so many others will be cheering you on.
• 1:08:46
  Khalila McCoy: Thank you again for listening and thank you for showing up and being part of this community.
• 1:08:54
  Khalila McCoy: We rise together through grief, through joy, through healing, and through hope.
• 1:08:59
  Khalila McCoy: Make sure to check out Heather's books, Us After Lost, and Stay Pretty Be Quiet.
• 1:09:04
  Khalila McCoy: They're tagged in the show notes.
• 1:09:06
  Khalila McCoy: Her words are a lifeline for so many, and I know they'll bless you too.
• 1:09:10
  Khalila McCoy: And if today's conversation touched you or encouraged you or helped you feel a little less alone, I invite you to share this episode with someone who might need it too.
• 1:09:19
  Khalila McCoy: Your share could be the comfort or the hope someone's been waiting for.
• 1:09:23
  Khalila McCoy: And as always, as you go through the rest of your day, I hope you take a moment to listen a little louder to yourself, to the people you love, and to the things that connect us in ways we sometimes forget to notice.
• 1:09:37
  Khalila McCoy: I'll meet you back here next time.
• 1:09:39
  Khalila McCoy: See ya bye.