Latest / The Infertile Diaries / 8: Rachel Griffin's Story

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8: Rachel Griffin's Story · The Infertile Diaries

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is motherhood not a space that creates the greatest of joys, yet causes the deepest of sorrows, both mingling sometimes in the very same breath?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Baron cry.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our guest today, Rachel, is a dear friend of mine.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you have one of these two.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know that kind of soul connection you make early in life, where the years can quickly fly by, but when you find your way back to one another again, it feels like no time has passed.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And today, for the first time ever, Rachel is sharing her story publicly.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pregnancy and the birth of a baby are supposed to be filled with hopeful anticipation and joyful celebration.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But for Rachel and her husband Ryan, that joy became intertwined with unimaginable grief when their precious son Miles passed away at just 12 days old.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a strength in Rachel that's always stayed with me.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And not the kind of strength that pretends something that's devastating doesn't break you, but the kind that somehow keeps standing when it does.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: A quiet resolve to keep loving, keep living, and keep trusting God while carrying this constant companion called grief.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me tell you, there were so many God moments in this episode.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of crazy.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And undeniable that this message was meant to be shared.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, I texted Rachel to tell her that her episode would air today.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And her response stopped me in my tracks and gave me chills.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Unbeknownst to me, she said, Whitney, September 10th is the day we found out we were pregnant with Miles.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Of all the days this episode could have been released, Miles' story will be shared on the anniversary of the day his little life began seven years ago.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening today and you've lost a child, I believe wholeheartedly you did not find this episode by accident.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: My prayer is that the Lord meets you through Rachel's story, in her honesty, in her strength, and in the way that she's carried both love and loss.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that she reminds you that in your deepest grief, the Lord has not abandoned you.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: He can bring purpose from your pain, meaning from your sorrow, and light into places that feel impossibly dark.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even a long life is short.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And a short life can be full of meaning.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is Rachel's story.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Miles' story.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Infertile Diaries.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't just a podcast.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: This is your place, and these are your stories.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: A place of heartbreaks and hope.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Infertile Diaries Podcast.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Rachel, I am so excited to have you on today.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we okay, so Rachel and I met each other 19 years ago.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: We met at the Focus on the Family Student Leadership Institute, where we both met our husbands.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So she met her husband, Ryan, and I met my husband, Lane, and it was just the most magical, incredible time of our lives, really.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty special.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Rachel and I go way back.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then she has four children, and she's here today to talk to us about her third child, Miles.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she's gonna share his story today.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the first time you're sharing his story publicly.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I know it's I know it's heavy, but we're just so grateful that you would open yourself up and be vulnerable and share his story in hopes that, you know, other women walking similar paths can be encouraged that they're not alone.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank y'all so much for giving me the opportunity.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So fun to be here with y'all.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I also have to add that Rachel is wildly creative and insanely talented and paints these beautiful landscapes.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I still don't know why I don't have one in my house.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But they are beautiful.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta get up fixed.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have you been painting lately?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, I have.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I have done a conglomeration of different things.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually hosting a or helping lead like a live painting class at our church for our women's ministry in a couple weeks.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: So that's gonna be a whole new it's a really good outlet, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: If you paint to like release emotions and stuff.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: And she's also incredible at it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like my mom is an interior designer and has definitely commissioned some pieces.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you go, girl.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was a huge honor to have Laurel Gebin commission.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Laurel Gebbin interiors.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: We want to open the floor up to you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to share, you know, your story and your journey with Miles, and we'll kind of join you along the way.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll let you have it from here.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm Rachel.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm married to Ryan.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as Whitney said, we met, um, Ryan and I met pretty much the year right after we both graduated from college.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: We are both from Georgia, but we met in Colorado at um Focus on the Family Institute and met Lane and Whitney the same day.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think all four of us met the same exact day, which is so fun.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is fun.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were there for Lane and Whitney's engagement.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: We were on the mountaintop with them when they got engaged.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that was also a sweet moment.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: But, anyways, yes, Ryan and I um we've been married since 2010.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going on, let's see, we just hit 16 years of marriage.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh, like Whitney said, we have four kids.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Three of those are here in our home and we get to love on them every day.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: One is with Jesus, and we anticipate being back with him one day.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we have our our oldest is a daughter.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's 12.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Emery.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: She's just wonderful, full of life little girl.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have Wilder, who is 10, who lives up to his name.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then we have Miles, who would have turned seven in March, and then we have Ellie, who is five.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, a little bit about our background.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: We were married for a few years, just kind of anticipating the season where we would want to start a family.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we lived in Colorado at the time and just decided, you know, the Lord was kind of impressing on our hearts just some things with Ryan's career.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: We were seeking, you know, job change, potentially coming back to Atlanta area by the time we were wanting to start a family.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So very graciously, the Lord allowed us to be back here in Atlanta when we were expecting our first daughter.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, honestly, we just our kind of like pregnancy and childbirth journey was pretty easy for the first two kids.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: We had Emory in 2014.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very, I was very naive, like got pregnant pretty much immediately.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: We had a very smooth pregnancy.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: She was born, and then, you know, just we're like, oh, we should try to have another baby.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Just really didn't grasp the like the miracle in the reality.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I knew she was a miracle, but had never, you know, it it was pretty simple, it seemed pretty textbook, I would say.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't struggle with any infertility if you guys said you wanted to get pregnant up and you you were getting pregnant.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really, yeah, had some friends, you know, um, just kind of helped me understand like this is such a, you know, you're you're so fortunate.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was like, yeah, I mean, that's just I'm grateful.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I just never really grasped what a true miracle that was.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So lo and behold, like two years later, we start, or a little less than two years later, we start thinking it'd be, you know, we'd love to grow our family again.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually had an early miscarriage, and that was rattling, say the least.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was like they considered it a chemical pregnancy.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And again, like pretty quickly after that, we conceived our second child, Wilder, and it was a very textbook pregnancy as well.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that point, you know, we have two healthy kids.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: My heart is like, I told Ryan when we were getting married or when we were dating, I would always tell him, like, really want three kids.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the oldest of four.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just imagined having like at least three kids.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he kind of was like, Oh, that's cute.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: She'll get past that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like he always imagined having two.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: He came from a smaller family with one brother.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, anyway, so the time comes where it's been, you know, our son is almost two, and I'm starting to feel that baby fever creeping in.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, No, I'm good.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just think we're, I think we're good.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of led us on a difficult journey in our marriage, um, of just kind of wrestling with like, what is the Lord's will on this piece of our family?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Do we continue to pursue?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, does he have more kids to bring into our family or are are we truly done?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: My heart just couldn't rest.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I he very like selflessly decided, okay, we can we can try to have another baby.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it immediately we conceived another child.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but I will say that from the beginning of that pregnancy, my daughter's here saying, Was it me?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, it wasn't you.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: From the very beginning of that pregnancy, I had this heaviness and this weight in my heart.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know, and maybe I think part of me thought it was because it was maybe my husband wasn't completely like gung-ho, like, let's keep growing our family.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of just wrote it off as that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just this kind of constant heaviness and um uncertainty as to like what's going on.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, everything seemed normal, you know, I had normal ultrasounds, all of that.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: But then at 20 weeks, we went, well, let me back up real quick.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess it was probably sometime in the second trimester, I had this very vivid dream.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I this is like I have a lot of stories about dreams that I've had, and I know some people may say, like, that's so weird, but like it's it's very like real to me.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like kind of like not that all my dreams are real or normal, but there have been some that are like very tangibly.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like the Lord is like communicating something to me.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this dream and it was so strange.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously I was pregnant and I heard this like I I don't know whose voice it was, but as I was sleeping, I heard this voice saying, It's not a boy, but it's gonna be a girl.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I was so I it in my mind, I or it's it's it was something along those lines.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in my mind, I took that as oh, or maybe it's a it's it's maybe it's something like it's it's a boy, but it's actually going to be a girl.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it was just this strange thing where I was like, what is that?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it was like this feeling in my heart to where when we get to our 20-week ultrasound, the old the ultrasound tech immediately is says like you know, cruising around on my stomach and is like, it's a boy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And my heart instantly just like I just knew something was gonna be wrong.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's strange.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was just this this instant like check in my heart and my spirit, which in hindsight, I as strange as it feels, it's like I do think God sometimes prepares us, whether we can sense it or not.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I didn't have any reason to think that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: But anyways, so all of a sudden she starts staying on different measurements on his body, kind of concerned, you know, like measuring, and I noticed her type in 18 weeks on his legs on his measurements, and I knew I was 20 weeks.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, of course, the room starts spinning, and I'm asking her like what's going on.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, you know, are you sure of your dates of when you got pregnant?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said, absolutely, you know, I I know for sure.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I actually know like, you know, all the dates, like I I just know all of that.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've kept up with it and I know.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very like, you know, predictable.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't, it wasn't even a question mark, you know.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and then I had the dating scan that kind of affirmed that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, she basically like passes us on to the OB, who then basically says, you know, your baby's in the in less than the 10th percentile.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: This could be nothing, or this could be a cause for concern.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we want you to meet with a high risk doctor.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you were talking at the 20-week scam that she was scanning you.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's 18 weeks, he's in the 10th percentile.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you go so less.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: And wait, so all those before the 20-week was he was he measuring everything looked fine, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like up until that point.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So at our dating scan, he he was like two days behind.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that's you know how that, I mean, like when we went with my daughter, it was like five days behind.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So because you know how that goes.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: It can be like, you know, the can actual conception happened like a little later, you know, or implantation, like all those things can affect that by a couple of days.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So there was nothing alarming um there at all.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had one more ultrasound because they couldn't find a heartbeat at like 12 weeks, which again is not alarming because they're so tiny, you know, and they were just using the Doppler.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they did, they put me in for an ultrasound and you saw this healthy little baby kicking around.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So they did not measure him.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, I kind of wish they had at that appointment, but I, you know, didn't know to, you know, think about that or whatever.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, then at the 20 weeks, you know, it's just coupled with like this heaviness of my heart in my heart, plus this weird kind of sense that I had felt like I don't know, that really strange dream that I had.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then it we were thrust into this world of high-risk pregnancy with this precious little boy that we were just pleading, you know, to God, like please, you know, let him be okay.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically we go, we began this whole process of going to the high-risk doctors and they start, you know, measuring us, you know, measuring the baby, checking all the blood flow.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they begin telling us, you know, you're gonna need to do all of this genetic testing, which I had never done any of that with my other pregnancies.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that was an option, but I just never had done it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I was doing all these tests, they were pushing for us to have an amniocentesis, like all of these things.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Which are kind of scary.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Very scary.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not only that, but the high risk doctor is sitting here telling us your baby, even if these tests come back clear, that your baby very likely has a severe genetic abnormality that will not make him compatible with life.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically, um every appointment we came to, we were at, they were telling us he will not, he most likely will not live to the next appointment, which was every two weeks.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're just leaving these appointments.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have a five and a two-year-old at home.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to, you know, my husband actually started the day that we were going for a 20-week ultrasound.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: My husband had just taken a brand new job.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at he works, he works at Chick-fil-A and um was given this wonderful opportunity with this new part of the company.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just, you know, he's under a lot of stress, and then there's this this is happening.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like turmoil, you know, beyond comprehension in that season of life of just not knowing.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we go through all these tests, everything comes back normal.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: And how long was that test?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like how long before at your 20-week till and all these negative, like people telling you, oh, this bad's gonna happen, and he's not abnormal or he's abnormal genetically, all this stuff.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then how long till you actually got those tests back?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the first tests we had, um, I was really grateful.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: They all came back quicker than like they say, like a, you know, five business day window.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: They would come back within like two or three days.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just felt like it was just this little kindness that like God knew we we needed in order for me to be able to function just for that day.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and so like the first one, you know, just all of these different, all of these different kinds of panels and that sort of thing.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: We did decide to hold off on the amniocentesis until he was considered viable, which would have been at a pound.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so every time they were doing these growth scans, he was not yet a pound because he was just so tiny.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was in the like zero to third percentile, you know, with his measurements.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: But yet his body and all of his organs and everything appeared so healthy.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of just the logistics of the story.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'll keep moving on with that.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'd love to backtrack and share, kind of give you a peep into some of the windows that we've like been able to look back and see God's hand in all of this.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But at this stage, it's just sheer, you know, depth of sorrow and confusion and chaos.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: People coming around us, praying for us, trying, you know, encouraging us, reaching out to us.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't, I couldn't really even like utter a word.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just much less like I had people saying, you really should start like a blog, or like, you know, you should like start a carrying bridge page.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I can barely take care of my children right now.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like I am crippled with like just sadness.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I really admire women who are walking through like, you know, these horrible things and are able to to do that because I just in that season, I just was so like confused.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was so angry.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it felt like there was just there were some several friends of mine, especially our closest friends here.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: We found out the same day that we were pregnant.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: We went the same day for our 20-week ultrasounds.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: We found out the same day we were having little boys, they were due a day apart from each other.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, then my friend is walking through this with me, feeling this guilt over, you know, trying to just being the most precious friend, you know, she could ever be to me.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: But like also just knowing like everyone around us, my family, like my college friends, like we just had an army of people loving on us.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just so broken.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So this whole process of the like, okay, um, are we gonna make it to the next two-week appointment?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is he still kicking?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was so tiny, I couldn't tell a lot of movement.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, some appointments I went in and just did not even know if he was still alive.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as they would get me on the ultrasound, this baby's just wiggling.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, just moving.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's just so energetic.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: They were always amazed.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, this is like your blood flow does not look good, but this baby is like so energetic and has so much movement.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Rachel, can I ask you a question real quick?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, from what from what I remember, Miles was like perfectly healthy, but it was like the connection from the placenta.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, was it that kind of like he wasn't getting enough nutrients or blood flow from your cord?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we that is what it was.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: We just were told all of these things.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the the official diagnosis is IUGR, which is actually like I think there's like 10% of pregnancies that can experience IUGR to some extent.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: This was just a really severe case.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we, that's why the doctors were like, this has to be like, you know, tristomy 18, tristomy 13, trypoidy.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's, or I don't know if I said that correctly, but just, you know, there has to be something genetically going on, even though all of the scans showed that he was healthy.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: They said it could just have maybe just have affected your placenta.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just like I was being told crazy things.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: They just, you know, they were referring to him as a fetus, even though he was like, you know, I was in the third trimester.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just like it's like he wasn't even, they weren't even like calling him a baby, and that made my husband and I so upset.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, yes.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: In my heart, I was like, could this just be like a placenta issue?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which I had no, my blood pressure was really low.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: I had no history of preeclampsia.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: All of these, like blood, all my blood clotting tests were coming back normal.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there was just no rhyme or reason as to why I would basically be having placenta failure.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, Winnie, that's exactly what it was.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: In hindsight, you know, they once he was born, which I'll get to in a minute, they like, you know, can look at your placenta and everything was just tiny and like basically like not alive.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like my placenta was just not providing him nutrients.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I started myself on these were things that they said would not help, but I started myself on aspirin.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was taking in so much protein.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was laying on my left side.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was just doing anything and everything I could at all hours of the day to provide nutrients and just praying, like, Lord, please let him be bigger at this next growth scan.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so, anyways, eventually, again, all of these questions are hanging over our head.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're still telling us your baby's not healthy, you know, there's something wrong with him.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they end up eventually, I think at 26 weeks, I go in and they decide that the the blood flow in the placenta have like started reversing, which still birth is like very likely at that point.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so they decided we need to go ahead and admit you to the hospital for around the clock monitoring until we decide you need to deliver.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a day, that could be a month.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't know.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm sitting here, my husband.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like 20, actually, no, I was 27 weeks.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was approaching 28 weeks, which was another reason.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, your baby's about a pound and you're approaching 28 weeks.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we want you in the hospital so that we can, you know, he your baby can have a fighting chance, you know, at the point that we decide he needs to be delivered.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we think you need to be in Atlanta for that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so here we live like an hour south of this hospital.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted us at Northside.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I'm my husband's at work.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am calling him and my mom and saying, hey, they want to put me in the hospital for they don't know how long.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm just weeping, you know.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then just, yeah, it just is like this numbing feeling of being like, I'm sending my kids off to my parents.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: My husband's in this brand new job that's really requiring.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were his team was just, I can't even tell you how incredible they were and wanting him to be with me.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Ryan ended up, you know, we situated everything.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up coming and staying, and he was like, I'm not leaving you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like he spent every night in the hospital with me and just like I could not have done that, any of this without him.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: He was just the most amazing husband ever through all of that.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so eventually got to the point where they noticed there was like some encouraging ultrasounds while I was in the hospital.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then there was one day where they thought they noticed a heart defect.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I ended up meeting, they had an echocardiogram where they diagnosed him with this aorta malformation and his heart.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's called a coart coartation, which spoiler spoiler alert, he ended up not having that once he was born.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just another kind of God moment there.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: But just so many things we did an amniocentesis, everything that they said he had came back completely clear.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we did that amniosynthesis once we once we were in the hospital in case, like, you know, the my life membranes ruptured, all of that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like I could be there.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: So like we're kind of sitting there a little bit like maybe, maybe he's gonna be okay.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you feel like you're kind of hopeful getting all that news.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, there was one day where I go down for my ultrasound, and it was the one day that I had told Ryan, like, hey, I think you have a really big meeting.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think you can leave the office.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 20, 30 minutes away.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be good.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what happened the day they admitted me to the hospital, too.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: So lo and behold, I get down there and I can instantly tell on the doctor's faces, like, you're gonna need to deliver this baby today.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was March the 7th.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, just how far along at that point?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I was 29 weeks in one day.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you'd been in the hospital for about a week or so?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just a week and a half, yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it actually was, I was praying to get there to get to stay until at least 32 weeks.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: But that was, you know, all up to like, you know, how how the blood flow was and you know, his heart rate and all of those things.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So they decided we're gonna deliver you.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so basically, just they scheduled me for a C section that night.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was just so many moving pieces that like lined up so sweetly, where like my whole family was there, including my brother who uh works at a church in Los Angeles.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: His band was actually in Atlanta that night for a concert.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, so like even my brother got to be.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we I have like a picture of us all like you know, in the hospital, like with all three of my siblings and my parents, my husband.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like these little moments of just remembering of God reminding you, like in your darkest days when you feel completely alone, like you're not alone.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I am with you, and I'm providing all these people.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I just have endless, endless stories like that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so Miles, you know, we were just praying and praying that he would be, that he would come out like with these little lion, like screaming lungs, and that he would just be bigger than they thought, but he was born, and I didn't even know he was born because I heard nothing.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband had to tell me he's out, and they're intubating him, which I know, you know, is always scary, but I obviously expected that that would, you know, be a potential case.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember them bringing him over to me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: They, the fact that they intubated him was a miracle because he was so tiny.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: They brought him over to me, and I just remember looking down at his face, and it was like the tiniest, sweetest, most perfect face I had ever seen, but like tinier than I had ever seen, you know.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just couldn't believe like how small he really was, but his little eyes were open, and you know, he just was looking around, and it was just kind of amazing to have his 29-week-old baby come out tiny but alert.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: How much did he weigh?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: So he weighed about a pound.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: They actually, when they they said their scales were not working properly, and because he was so critical, they couldn't resituate everything.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when they put him on the scale, the scale was actually a little, it was like 14 ounces, like even a little under a pound.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that is like the size of a 22-week-old baby, which is just impossible to even, you know, imagine.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: So he yeah, just that set us off on a journey of him being in the NICU and just to kind of wrap the story of his birth and his life up in this section of our conversation.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: He basically made a lot of strides within, you know, his life in the NICU.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: He there was a lot of things that, you know, he was growing, he was experiencing some really great things.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then he ultimately ended up um developing pulmonary hypertension because his lungs were working so hard um against his heart, which was it was straining his heart.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up getting a call on the 10th day of his life while I was at my sister's bridal shower.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my baby sister scheduled to get married, got married April the 20th.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So this was March the 17th.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: She had a bridal shower in Atlanta that day.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: So my five-year-old daughter and myself and my mom and my sister-in-law go to this shower, which happened to be like a couple miles, it was in Atlanta.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a couple miles from north side.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of the shower, as she's wrapping up her last couple of gifts, I get a call from the hospital saying, We're doing chest compressions on your son.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: We don't think he's gonna be.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to walk into this room of women again, just yeah, you just cry like remembering um how like in all these moments, like when I feel so alone, I was anything but yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I walk back in this room full of women that I've known for a really long time, including like my grandmothers, women who's like who had like mentored their daughters, like my own daughter, my sister, my mom.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as my sister's like opening one of her last presents, I have to go to my mom and say, Mom.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Miles was not gonna make it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: You have to rush to the hospital right now.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my five-year-old's sitting there, my sister's sitting there in her like sweet white dress, like looking up at me.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my poor mom, I think like now my heart just hurts for her because she's torn between her daughter who's experiencing this like horrible thing with her baby, and then her other daughter who's experiencing this joyful, wonderful thing getting married.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just this like, you know, such a picture of motherhood, right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where like your heart is just like split in so many different places, you know, trying to be there for all of your kids in different seasons.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom just did it so gracefully.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so she like quickly devised a plan.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, like Emory, my daughter, stayed with my sister and with all these women, and my mom took me in.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, right when we left, the women just like paused the shower and just started raining.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So fast.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, by the time we got to the in the car, I got a call from the hospital saying he's doing better.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like we were able, his breathing tube had come out, but and his heart rate had gotten into like the 30s, like he was turning blue, like just a tiny baby, like a one-pound baby.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: They were able to resuscitate him and replace his breathing tube, and he was doing better.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time we got there, I was able, you know, to see him and um, you know, had never gotten to hold him or anything, which was so hard.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, so was able to be there with him.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that same night, I had like one of my best college friends happened to be in town, and so she got to come.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, you know, there were people throughout his journey that dear friends and family members that got to go and meet him.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they would not let our kids in the NICU, which was really hard, just because it was like police season and they had all these strict, you know, requirements.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So our kids faced times with him, but they never physically got to meet him, which is just heartbreaking to me.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, I think what happened was that episode ended up um putting so much extra strain on his lungs and his heart that he ended up just recovering for like a day or two, and then things just were started going downhill on March 19th, and he passed away that night.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um my husband and I, you know, finally got to do there and hold him and tell him we love him.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the neat thing about Miles was he was so like I had a nurse tell me, she was like, I've never seen, like, of course he was on all these steroids and things, but she was like, I he knows your voice.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like she would like I had to go home, you know, to be with our kids throughout those 12 days.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I would call and she would like hold the phone over his little incubator, and she said his eyes, like he would start looking, and it's like he was just trying to take in everything he could in his little 12 days of life, you know.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it just was so hard.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I just I don't really have the words.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um an unimaginable heartbreak for every mom out there.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's like as we should have, I'm sure anyone hearing this story is probably like, well, you knew he was sick, you knew he was only a pound, you know.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: But a mother's heart doesn't know that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a mother's heart only knows, like my husband and I never even entertained him not making it.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, my husband, I was rereading back some of through some of my journal last night, and I remember him saying, I believe Miles is gonna come home on Mother's Day.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just I really like we just had so much faith that this was gonna be God's plan, that we were gonna have this amazing story.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this doctor walking into my um hospital room once Miles was born, and she was talking to me about Tim Tebow's story, and she was like, I just and this lady was like, she's like the head of the whole OBGYN like or labor and delivery at Northside.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's like this precious woman.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: She came in and started crying with me and was like, I believe your son is gonna grow up to be just like six foot four, six foot five, like a strong man of God.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just that amount of like love and care that I received from her in that moment just meant so much.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: So even though that obviously was not God's plan for him here on Earth's side, you know, for that to be his story.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: There was just so much, you know, fight in him where I really did not even consider that he wouldn't be with us, you know.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, that is kind of our story of Miles.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we ended up having a funeral for him with just our family on March the 22nd.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I wanted to kind of say about how God really just prepared.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: There was a a couple of things that I want to come back to.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: If y'all have questions, that's I can answer this.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then I have a couple of things that I wanted to like kind of in hindsight, you know, you can see, not that I have any answers because I don't, but sometimes you can just kind of see God's hand enough, like how he has, you know, like the tracing of his finger throughout different parts of your story that just don't make sense.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's been neat to look back and see some of that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if y'all have any questions about what I shared, feel free to go ahead and do that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing I know that we walked through the journey together, you know, we were communicating while you had Miles and then after he passed.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I know one thing that was impactful for me was that you were saying that, like after he had passed, that you just felt so alone because you're in this postpartum state.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have a C-section that you're healing from.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: You said that you were pumping in the hospital, so you're lactating and you have milk coming out.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember you saying that you were in the gym and that like the gym instructor was being really hard on you, like, come on, you know.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just this like dagger of like, I am a mother, like I am postpartum, but you don't have your baby and no one sees that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to speak a little bit to that?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the thing that nobody could have prepared me for, and it doesn't even, I don't even know how you really can slowly like give it justice because it's such a deep like identity.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things you and I have talked about, Whitney, is like how it feels like an attack on your identity as a woman and a mom when you lose a child because your child is like it just feels like a part of you, you know?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's how like we were designed as women and as mothers.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, there was there were such feelings of isolation, of loneliness, of forgot forgottenness, um, of shame.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um these are all things that we know the enemy wants us to feel, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like these are all feelings that we know are not true of us.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I, you know, God saw no delight in me feeling those things.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like he was, you know, inflicting all of this, you know, and delighting in that at all.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: But we live, I feel like our world is so broken.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in that, in that season, I experienced like the depths of just feeling completely abandoned and upset, feeling like looking, everyone else around me had like things were just working out for them.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I saw some of who had her baby.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, my friend, but then there were so many other friends too that were like having babies.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: They all happened to be boys.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just was this feeling of my sister, my sister getting married, yes, yeah, just all these good things happening.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, my life was really sweet.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I have children.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just know there's so many women who lose who, you know, obviously are having a really hard time conceiving, are never able to conceive, have lost the only baby they did conceive.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I acknowledge now in hindsight that like I was, you know, grief is just it's irrational, you know.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would always try to hold like the acknowledgement of all the gifts that the Lord has given me in these two children that He had given me, that He's given me in tandem with the grief, but the grief always just spoke so much louder just because it's just so dark when you're walking through that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember getting to the hospital to go into this like bed rest, you know, time and I see all these like big bellied, fully pregnant women in labor around me.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just was like, God, I feel so abandoned.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like here I am, me and this tiny little baby that we don't know what's going on, we don't know what you're doing.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel completely forgotten by you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like Miles is completely forgotten by you.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, um, it's hard.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the gym class, like no one knows.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you walk in the grocery store, no one knows like what you have gone through.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's helped reframe my perspective of others and just like not knowing the journey they've walked through.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um I have a question just to kind of back up to that.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, you're you're living the unimaginable.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: You've been up and down with there's a genetic disorder, there's this, all of a sudden he's he's born, he's very small, he's healthy, but he's growing.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: Even if I mean he lasted for 20 days, is that correct?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: He lived for 20 days, 12, 12 days.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: And during that time, you've you build such a bond with him.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: Here, this child, this child's so strong, and then like the unimaginable happens, and now you're left alone, you're still abandoned, you're dealing with the worst grief that, in my opinion, anyone could deal with is losing their child.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: And then somehow you have to pull it together to still be a mom to your other two.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just lay in bed, right?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just put the covers over your head.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: And like, what's your advice?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you tell someone how you begin to move forward, even just like to take a step?
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the best advice I was given, and now this was really hard to do in those fresh early days, and I could not have survived it without like family being there, my husband being there, taking the kids, just letting me have time.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Someone described this to me as a bubble.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't remember if I can't remember who it was, but it's like you live in this bubble of grief.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the longer it goes on, meaning like even just, you know, past that point of shock.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe the first couple weeks, you're able, you have to like consciously choose actually to just step outside of your bubble for a little while, knowing the bubble's still there that you can get back in it.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: For me, that bubble representing like grief and just the time that I needed to be alone to process all that I was thinking and feeling and just the of like a million different things.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was very hard to like, if I stayed in that bubble only, I could not function as a mom or as a wife.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I could not, you know, which thankfully I didn't have to for a while.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I had so many people, like I said, stepping in, bringing meals, like helping with our kids, that sort of thing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like the bubble analogy.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've also heard it described as a box where it's like you have to choose to like take this box down of grief, deal with it, and then sometimes you have to put it on the shelf so that you can function.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it was almost like I knew like every morning and every night, or like every nap time, I could like get into my grief bubble and just like live there for a while.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had this chair in our office, and I mean, really and truly, like in those early days, all I wanted to do was like read stories of women who had survived similar things, you know, and just like read scripture.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I read through the book of Job, I read through psalms.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: My dearest college friends gave me this beautiful personalized psalm Psalter that had Miles's name on it and just had this beautiful, like hand-colligraphed quote on the inside, and it just was like a lifeline for me to sit and read.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I just didn't have any energy to like really write or like create art or like anything like that.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to like just to read.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so that looks different for everyone.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like for some people, that's you know, I mean, walking, being outside, like exercising, those were all really, really big for me too.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just finding things that you can do to say, like, I'm gonna like devote time in my day to grief.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like you have to set a date with grief, which sounds so strange.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it gave me the ability to live outside of my grief.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just, I mean, it was always there.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like it disappeared, but just to be able to like function, like I would step outside of my bubble and then I'd step right back into it when I could.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I will tell you over time, and the bubble analogy just helped me, but over time I was able to live outside of my grief bubble for a little bit longer and a little bit longer.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would step back in it.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then it was like I stayed outside of the bubble for longer than I did the first couple weeks, you know.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: I know it just is like a physical analogy for me, but it just helped me to put like a form and a shape around this monster of something that's so hard to make sense of, which is grief.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and knowing that I had, I could, like you said, I could not just lay in my bed, like had to figure out ways to function.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that really helps me.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that statistically speaking, like couples that lose a child, I think it's the divorce rate is pretty high just because there's so much complexity and there's so grief looks so different for everyone.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: So can you maybe speak to like how you and Ryan processed your grief differently?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, did you guys have any hardships in that way, like understanding each other's grief?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or can you speak to that a little bit?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, everyone grieves differently, like you said.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did not understand what that term really meant until walking through our journey with Miles.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I, you know, he and I just like I would just need to emotionally be, you know, expressive with my grief.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he maybe was not as much so with that, but just would grieve, like he would, I think, hold a lot more in.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it just looked different.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like he wasn't grieving, it was just totally, it looks different, you know.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: We had heard that statistic, and you know, our story is horrendous.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot imagine families who lose a child that they have lived life with that they know and they've watched them grow.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but nevertheless, it rattles your marriage to the core.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: We were already in a not great place going into conceiving miles just because we were already on different pages of like, you know, this was more something that I like had in my heart that I really longed for a bigger family.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there was already this sense, this like bit of a vision and this wedge that I think the enemy wanted to like use to like continue to pull us further apart and he's just resolved like we're like that's not gonna happen.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so we met with a we had a marriage counselor that we met with who just you know we were able to go and just process with him.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like there was anything like super super profound more than just like having the space for Ryan and I to both voice like our feelings and our thoughts and where we were at.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was really helpful for us to hear each other, you know, saying what we were feeling and thinking.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: In addition there were some families that we were connected with that had lost children right after birth.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: And these were families that their kids would have been like 30 or 40 like so they were like our age, you know, when they like they would have been our age had they had they lived.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Those families were invaluable to us to help us to validate how we were feeling and also to like yeah just give us that permission to grieve and to grieve and to give each other space to grieve differently so that it will absolutely pull you so far apart unless you resolve to not let it.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we it's easy to make each other the enemy instead of to make like grief the enemy you know like this is a whole thing so true come at it together as a team like we are not each other's enemy like Satan is the enemy here and death is the enemy and one day it's gonna be defeated in the meantime like we have to figure out how we're gonna get through this alive you know and together.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's great advice.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: Did you how did you get introduced to these families that you discussed like I think that's such a a great resource for someone that's I mean you're not you're not in a support group with like everyone going through it.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_03: You you're you've meet you're meeting with survivors right like where did you where did you get introduced to some of those families?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know there's two there's two families in particular that I'm thinking of we actually interacted with a lot more than that but there were two that we interacted with on an intimate basis mean like we went to dinner with them and they you know were checking in on us.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: One of them was a long-term mentor of Ryan's that he had met actually during his days that focused on the family Ryan did not know I don't believe that he had even lost a child but I think what we found out is when you go through something people find people want to people who've been through something similar want to help you know and so we had um them and then there's a family at our church who lost their third child as well like pretty soon after birth.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: And both of those families just approached us and just made themselves available.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so outside of that though there are some amazing organizations one in particular is called Able Speaks that I'd love your audience to know about um they're based out of Texas um there's a couple who their first baby they lost to trestany 18 and his name was Abel and they started this nonprofit ministry for families who are given life limiting diagnoses during pregnancy and I pointed a lot of families to them because they were actually still a fairly newer organization when we lost Miles and I had a dear college friend that knew them from she lived in Dallas and knew them and connected me with them and they would send me like these they sent me this huge wooden box with his name engraved in it and a Bible with his name on it and blankets and every Mother's Day and Father's day and every birthday they would send us these gifts of memorializing of remembering Miles.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so now their ministry has gotten so large where they connect families with like mentor families.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they deal with all kinds of different diagnoses but you know a lot of them are like trisomy 18 a lot of the ones that it's like this child you know likely would not live past a couple you know weeks or months at the most and they have these families they do retreats like I don't know it's absolutely amazing what they do.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't quite fit in their box.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't we didn't I don't know that we would have had the opportunity to connect with them during our pregnancy since Miles technically wasn't it wasn't a life limiting you know we didn't know what was going on but it was something that a lot of babies survive and do okay with so but on the back end to have them pouring into us um was just like such a gift.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah we'll definitely link that in the show notes.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if anyone's listening they can go and and find the links there.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're fantastic now I know we've kind of asked you some questions but I know you were saying that there were some things that you wanted to revisit in regards to kind of how God was moving through your store.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to take us through some of those yeah because I think I would be remiss to not do that.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you know we all walk through seasons that seem impossibly hard.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think if we are going to learn what we are intended to learn from this, none of those things are wasted.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like my my determination in going into this journey of grief was like I don't want God to waste my pain.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sitting here with y'all alone is proof that like God has not wasted my pain because I am just so grateful for the opportunity for even just one lady who's gone through something similar or is going through something similar or might one day to just have a familiar story and know they're not alone.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like that to me is like such a gift to be able to do that.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple of things you know I just really believe I you know I shared the weird dream thing.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: It just was so strange but it really was so impactful.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Even before that how God kind of was like preparing us to where this wasn't like I mean of course it was out of left field but it's almost like God had gone before us because he does he goes before us in all the things that we face back in like 2012 my husband was working at Focus on the family which is where Lane and Whitney and I met or Ryan and I met Lane and Whitney and um someone approached us and was like hey would you guys be willing to play this husband and wife in this video we're making it's about a family that finds out that they're gonna have this little boy but he's not gonna survive and would you be willing to play the role of the husband and the wife it's like a it's like it was like a father state promotional video for that family.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a true story of a family in I think New Zealand.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so they were creating this promo video about the importance of fathers.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we were like sure you know we didn't have his or our own so I end up you know going we go with this film crew to this hospital and they like put this fake pregnant belly under me.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even really know oh my gosh I am like I have chills right now even thinking that that happened.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: This was prior to kids way prior to kids this was like you were you were married we were married for like a year and a half yeah definitely the story's stuck crazy.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the and the crazier thing I'll get to in a minute is just how I got I don't know I had almost forgotten about the studio until after we had miles and a friend reminded me of it.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like it's just crazy.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah so I remember walking in they like they put me in a like a maternity gown they stick this like fake belly up me and they spray my face with water and they're like you're gonna pretend like you're having a baby and I'm like okay I've never had a baby.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't even tell me the full story.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're like this this story is basically about this couple they find out that they're gonna have this little baby boy he's not gonna make it so you're you're like imagine that the sadness of that and so I'm like okay that sounds horrible like I cannot imagine being in the hospital about to have a baby know he's not gonna make it and so um actually rewatched the video today before talking to y'all just because it was still just like stop staying my track.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: But my husband is playing the role of this dad who's writing a letter to his son and he's just recounting like how he had observed this dad when he was a kid.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like he would watch this dad help his special needs son often on this bus and how how powerful and how as a kid he didn't understand like why would this dad so faithfully help his special needs son day in and day out like you know like what was that about that then he's basically writing a letter to his son now as you know as a spotter who just lost his son saying like what I would not get to do that and to walk you to the bus every day and just to you know be there with you.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so then it starts telling the story of how this you know this family was given this diagnosis and this baby wasn't expected to live and yet every appointment this baby continued to be so strong and how like the value of a life is not in the leaf but of just like a long life is still short, but a short life can be so full of meaning.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And just how the baby in the story um lives like 20 minutes.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the baby's name was Raphael which means dot healed.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a son after we lost Miles one of mine and uh Whitney's friends named Helen actually messaged me and was like Rachel I had forgotten that you did that video that you and Ryan made and honestly I had kind of forgotten about it because it had been like years before and I pulled it up and I just wept because it was telling our story and it was me and Ryan telling our story to ourselves.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God I am literally my I'm head to toe chills right now.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_03: That is unbelievable.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was I mean I'm chill bumps right now too because it was just like in the moments of feeling forgotten in the moments of feeling and I know not every family has this moment like that where it's like oh my goodness but like God is so present in our lives and I think one day like we're gonna get to heaven and like be able to see the ways that we things that we don't even know or you know understand or things that maybe we couldn't see on the side like he's gonna we're just gonna see it all and that was like a little moment for us to see a little bit that he had gone before us.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't know why I still don't know there's still like so many questions like there's still so many days that I'm like my 10 year old really needs a little brother like our best friends who now we we bought land next to each other there's a creek in between our homes it's like the sweetest gift to get to raise our families next to each other with our friends that have the little boy named Eli who was miles would have been Miles's best friend you know and him and my son are best buddies.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: It still doesn't make sense you know it's not ever gonna make sense necessarily but I do know there's enough little things where I feel like God is like but just keep trusting me.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just keep trusting me like I am good.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that was one thing another thing that I think was so neat was Miles's name.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't know what to name him and we honestly I couldn't even wrap my mind around naming him because then it was like really once your child has a name it's like okay this is this child with this name and they're ours you know and of course like I felt that but I didn't know um we didn't know really what that was going to be.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: So as we were prepping to go have a C-section our whole family's sitting in the room with us and one of the names that we had thought about for our son Wilder was Miles because my dad's name is Michael my father in law's first name is Charles so if you blend the two it makes Miles um so we're like looking up we're all about meaning so usually we find a meaning we love and then we like to pick a name out is how we've done it with all of our kids.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: So my husband like comes up with the meaning and I find the name so that's just like how we do.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like Miles I do like that but like I don't know you know what does it mean so I look it up it means soldier.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like oh my word yes this kid's gonna have to be a soldier you know if he's gonna if he's gonna make it so but Ryan was like I like it but like I really want a name that proclaims like I want people when they say his name to say God's name like I want I want his life to be a testimony and because these doctors were telling us you know calling him a fetus and basically saying like hit not outright but basically hinting at the fact that we should terminate you know kind of maybe somewhat of a enticement every time we were there they were respectful they were never like you should terminate that they were it was always kind of like a this is a this is an option for y'all you know so this one specific doctor that we had worked with was very much just cold and I don't know Ryan was like I just want him to say his name and saying he's talking about God and doesn't even know you know so we chose the middle name Elijah which which means the Lord is my God and I just was so thankful for that just like connection Miles Elijah just sounded great.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: In hindsight it was really cool because you know I there's like these little things that my dad is like he like believes not believes in but this sounds weird but like he loves like numbers and like really has felt like God sometimes speaks to him through just like patterns and numbers and you know just like again nothing profound but just like reminding him that like I'm a God of order like I'm in this and so with Miles's life the day that we um buried him was March the 22nd.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I start looking up scriptures that say 322 and of course I get to Lamentations 322 through 23 that says the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases and his mercies never come to an end.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're new every morning graze your faithfulness oh God.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I look and actually the Latin or maybe the Latin name the Latin meaning for Miles was Folgers but then like the German meaning is it's merciful.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like Miles means merciful.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so his name actually means the word my God is merciful.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just was like oh my goodness this is so cool and just how I feel like you know that verse was brought so we actually had that verse put on his no dude we had the first put we had his tombstone says God is merciful God is faithful the meaning of like Griffin which is our last name is like faithful one or something something regarding faithfulness.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just so cool because his whole name like kind of declares what we know is true about God from Lamentations 3 22 through 23.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just you know little things like that he lived 12 days 12 is a number of completion in scripture for anyone who's familiar with like the number 12 12 tribes of Israel like there's just a lot of 12s that are repeated throughout the Bible.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was like I we took that as like God just being like you know his life was full and complete like he lived his life you know completely how I planned it.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was full it was lacking nothing like he is he lived his he served his purpose on earth for those 12 days.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: And there was just his birthday was March the 7th and threes and sevens like my hospital room number was three seven his Nicky room was seven like there was just sevens everywhere.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just like those little things that I know some people may be like oh that's kind of silly but like for us when you're desperate and when you are just like laid bare you take that as like those little things that it's like wow God sees me right now you know um so I don't take any of that as a coincidence and you know not that it's anything to like put too much weight in to be kind of weird but like it just did really mean a lot to us.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well I think that God speaks to everyone differently like he comes to you in dreams he comes to your dad with numbers and there's little he got like he comes to me with humor anything like I'm expecting and like I it always like will make me laugh I'm like I know that was God like okay that was good one and and now it's amazing.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_03: I know you're here I know that's worth it.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: But it's it's paying attention to the little things right it's not a huge loud I mean the the video you had to do that's a pretty loud here's my message to you I I this was pri way a long time ago now this has happened and this is my message to you like that's very loud but sometimes it's not loud right like sometimes it's quiet and and you pay attention to that repetition in your life to kind of look for guidance to continue to move forward in whatever you're doing.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well and to your point I remember in my story just feeling so abandoned by God and just praying desperately that he would show himself to me like in some of those ways that he showed himself to you.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: And like I have some of those throughout my story too and like you do you hang on to everything because without the hope of Christ I mean there is nothing else to hold on to I mean when you're dealing with the death of your child and you're trying to make sense of it right I mean if there's no redemption from the Lord using him somehow to redeem someone else's story, to impact someone else, you even coming on oh it's gonna make me emotional this podcast to share his story like the Lord's going to use it and he is going to take your pain and it's gonna be beauty from ashes you know like we talked about that.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you with the you're such a gift you've been a gift throughout this whole journey for us in countless ways we're just so thankful for you.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like just your journey comforted me so much like to watch you with such you know grace and I mean you and I had so many conversations about your journey and then I think for me to enter into a season where I could understand more of your struggle it was just like it just helped it gave me even that much more respect for you like just the the faithfulness the perseverance that you've had to have to you know come out alive on the other side of infertility is just so incredibly hard you know and um well grief gives you empathy that you would never have had otherwise right I mean I'm a three on the Enneagram and I always love like my empathy meter is like really low.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_00: Especially even when I'm impregnant it's even lower.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean you go through things and you're like whoa to your point right where you were able to reframe like when you you know had the baby and no one knew and just like thinking as you're walking through the grocery store like all these people walking around like what do they carry?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like what weight what heaviness do they carry?
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know it just makes you aware that you know we're in this together.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can't do this alone you cannot and you should not put it and you want to when you're in it because it's like you just feel so isolated, you know it's so hard to want to connect and like want to talk about it.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard to want to do that.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: So well any final t uh takeaways as far as what you would want to tell Rachel like at the beginning of your journey or speaking to to someone listening right now what you would encourage them in if they're in a similar situation?
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah absolutely you know one of the things that I think is just important is to remember you know I could not have come and I know I said this multiple times but I could not have come out of this alive.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: My husband couldn't have my kids couldn't have had it not been for like God being a good God and bringing good people and like his like literal hands and feet into our lives to help carry us through that like I think so many times when you're looking around you're like I'm so alone like there's people right there.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like there were nurses and doctors right there who didn't have to be like you know just caring for us in ways that nurses and doctors really aren't even supposed to like just like emotionally and spiritually caring for us and like friends and family and people that I haven't talked to in years that were coming out of the woodwork.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like just look around you and I know it doesn't necessarily bring comfort in the moment but like remember that you're not alone and even if it's just like one person that has reached out just to know that that is a gift.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: God is not physically you know we don't see him and can't like touch him but like he does come to us like he br he puts people in our path like that is his like his body like his hands and his feet are like the people that he brings to love on us and care for us like the surgeon's assistant who like prayed over us as we were going back for a C-section and we like could not find a trace of his name after and Ryan and I are like he might be in the can't find a record of this man's name and we're wearing his name was Wolf and he was like this tall strapping dude and just like whoa so that was crazy.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he's a real person you know but it was just one of those things where I'm like what I don't know are you like wow doctor praise over you that's incredible.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we were I mean just yeah going in there terrified and he literally laid on me like not he did not lay on me he laid his hands on me it's getting weird this just got weird.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: He laid his hands on on my arms and like on Ryan like had an arm on Ryan's shoulder and had a hand on my arm and was like like prayed in Jesus' name over us as we were going into half miles.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa we'll never forget that like the respiratory therapist who came in as we were like saying bye to our son and just like held held me like she was there for me and just like told me to like let it all go.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: Honey just let it all go.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_01: She just and she followed up with me months and even like years later and just remember our family like which was just a kindness from God you know so things like that just to be aware of the people in your life and just to know that they're not there recklessness.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like they are there on purpose and let them let them take care of you.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's another thing I think just like I had to very humbly I am such an independent person.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: I like I don't want anyone cleaning my house like I don't want anyone like I just like I am like I can do this, you know person.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to let that go.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had to let people serve me and love on me in that season.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it was humbling.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you are a beautiful soul and we are so grateful that to have you come on here.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_03: It was so nice to meet you, Rachel.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I I can't tell you how much I admire you for being able to come and share your story.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_03: I have like literally been praying about this conversation just to be able to hold your story in my heart.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um because it's just, it's so it's it's so heavy, you know, it's so heavy and it's we're literally our worst nightmares, all of us.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so you know you gave a lot of hope to so many people that hopefully log on and hear hear the story when they need it the most because it was beautiful.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_03: It was a horrible story but such a beautiful way to tell it.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: So kind.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well we love you.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's an honor to be I love you girls.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I was there with you in person, but this was just an honor to get to be with you on video.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you again for the opportunity.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: How's little Ellie bear is she running around?
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is she still watching with Bunza?
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: Her story is another one that's crazy.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think I typed this in the thing but like after going through all of that and not thinking we'd ever have another kiddo like I was, you know, she was supposed to be a miscarriage early on and we were like we'll give this one more try.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband was like after a year was like we'll try one more time but like I am only doing this because I love you and I don't think you will ever be able to move forward unless we like try to have one more baby.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because I you know you go through something like that and you just are like desperately like wanting to hold a baby a live baby in your arms.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just this like I couldn't even explain it but it's just like not that I needed that for my healing spiritually I I feel like I would have been okay.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had healed in so many ways but like there's just this peace that's like gosh but would not would that not be so like healing also in its own way.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah she was supposed to be like I remember my numbers like didn't double like they they should early on because they were like tracking my high risk pregnancy because I had this really intense C-section and all of that.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started bleeding at like nine weeks and I bled again at 11 weeks.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow and they kind of were like you probably like I remember when my numbers didn't double I was going on a girl's trip and they were like you might very likely have a miscarriage while you're there.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: So just make sure you know where a hospital is nearby.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways and then everything ended up being okay and her growth was great like had to go for growth scans all the time with her and she um when they were when she was delivered I got the like C-section like the report back which they didn't even tell me this but her umbilical cord was in a true knot which is a very rare thing to have it like absolutely in a knot.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: And had she not been born had she was they let her be born at 37 weeks and it was like I had to push for that because they wanted I was supposed to have her at 36 weeks because of the kind of C-section I had was like a classical C-section.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways had it's just again like God's hand because had she gone full term like there's a she could have been a still birth you know just because the not in the cord so it's just like her life is I tell her all the time I'm like you're such a miracle I think she's like mommy.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: Miles was Miles watched out for her I know I know and I love getting to talk to her about him too it's really sweet.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: We actually her name is Ellie spelled E L L I it's not short for anything it's just Ellie my husband and I like went back and forth on what the what we wanted her name to mean and all of that.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we didn't do an E on the end is because it was kind of like an ode to Miles's middle name which is Elijah.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah yeah it just it's just sweet it's just like she's just such a picture of like undeserved blessings you know but thank you all so much like this just brought my heart yeah I I thank you for sharing the story in so long and I just I didn't know what it would do but it was really good for my heart to share so thank y'all for letting me thank you okay we'll go get Ellie and we'll talk to you soon.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay sounds good bye Lady Bye thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast.
• 1:10:19
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• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: First is leave a review on Spotify or Apple Music.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And second is to share this with a friend who is struggling.
• 1:10:32
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• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to get in touch with Lindsay or myself please message us on Instagram at Infertile Diaries Podcast.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can go to our website at wikihen dot com and everyone deserves a family grants dot com