Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi guys, welcome back to Preview Alliance Podcast. This is Sarah and I have brought back our favorite couple who is also counselors and helping us out, stephen and Erin Mitchell here today. And I will say, if you guys haven't heard our first episode, it is more for everybody carefree battleground of parenting and being in a relationship. But this episode I will put a trigger warning because we are in October. This is the month that we remember loss, infant loss, miscarriages, stillborns, and this conversation is about that. So if this is not the time, not headspace, you guys can always come back to us. But welcome guys back and thank you for being with me today.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 3: 0:51

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Speaker 2: 0:52

It's an important topic I almost said we're excited to talk about and honestly, there's a little bit of excitement where we are going to share some of our personal loss and I genuinely enjoy talking about that. It feels important but it's not easy for anybody. I think Totally.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Well, let's just kind of dive right in. The listeners know I'm open. We had two miscarriages ourselves and I say that I felt like it was kind of a secret club that people slowly said me too, but I had to go first almost to say it. And then there was people from in my family, to people I've grown up with, to people I'd worked with. Even points of one of my best friends' moms shared with me and she had never told her about a loss. So bring us kind of guys to your journey of the you know, of parenting, because it's easy to look at you guys now and be like, wow, they're, you know, got it together, they've got their kids, everything's great, right, but we don't see those painful parts.

Speaker 3: 1:51

Sure, yeah, yeah. So I mean we also had two pregnancy losses. I mean it was our first pregnancy and then our fourth pregnancy and they were different. You know, points along the line. Our first pregnancy it was around 14 weeks and they were at different points along the line. Our first pregnancy it was around 14 weeks, and so that entailed like a whole different experience in terms of we had to go to the hospital and kind of go through the whole delivery.

Speaker 2: 2:15

I was induced.

Speaker 3: 2:16

Yeah, process. And then for our second pregnancy loss, that was something that happened at home, pregnancy loss and that was something that happened at home, and so two very different experiences, but also really they shaped I mean, I think they shaped our experience of pregnancy and parenting quite a bit.

Speaker 2: 2:34

No question, and I think I think probably no matter what, the impact would have been different. There's a lot of reasons I think we can point to for us like oh well, we already had two other kids, we were so much more distracted for the second.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yeah, it didn't feel that hard, but the reality is it was just hard in a very different way and it felt like it was a hard that lingered and it was a hard that just felt like it wouldn't go away. It was a hard that really put a wedge between Steven and me, and the first one it was just us in this miscarriage that, like was like this dead weight on top of us for like a year. We just couldn't get out from under it. I was depressed.

Speaker 3: 3:15

Well, and you had so many, I had every possible complication.

Speaker 2: 3:19

There could be. Yeah, I was back in the hospital all the time and I shouldn't say that I did not have every possible, but it was bad.

Speaker 3: 3:26

But we were. I would say like I think one of the things, especially for us, is no one told us about pregnancy loss or miscarriage. You know you get pregnant and you're like all right, you know this is just going to be great. And then you know, like the miscarriage happened and we were like I mean, we were going to our appointment for I forget for our normal checkup and thinking we're going to hear the heartbeat and do all this kind of fun stuff, and then all of a sudden it's just, oh, you know, you need to go, you need to go to the hospital, you need to get an ultrasound, you know, and it just felt so shocking, so overwhelming.

Speaker 2: 4:08

We felt like nobody said this could happen and I get why I mean it's, even if I experience that part really differently. I was worried from the very beginning. Yeah and yeah, always, always, always.

Speaker 3: 4:16

But you always tell it that way because it was so true for you, yeah the ultrasound was the word like, and ever since that point I mean, that's another thing Every ultrasound we had post that experience with our other pregnancies and stuff, I couldn't. I had a really hard time handling it.

Speaker 2: 4:34

You didn't want to be in the room.

Speaker 3: 4:36

Yeah, and pregnancy as a whole from that point on became very stressful and overwhelming to me and I was like let's just basically get through this 10 months. Not the best approach, I understand that, but that was just my mindset because it was so overwhelming, just didn't want it to happen again, and so I think it was. I love how you said that it was such a weight on our relationship. We were so young. I mean I think back, I mean that's so long ago, like we were so young, so new as a couple, we didn't expect it. And then it just, I mean it made us think like do we want to have kids? Do we want to go through this again? Do we want to? You know?

Speaker 2: 5:18

risk this Also, not even just do we want to like can we, could our relationship survive this? Yeah, I don't. I don't know, because it wasn't easy once, and then, when it did happen twice, it was like oh we, we found out. Nope, it couldn't. We cannot survive this again because it it really did bring us to just about broken.

Speaker 3: 5:37

Yeah, we were in a. Really it was just a lot.

Speaker 1: 5:41

It really was yeah, I relate and I feel like so many people relate and it's it's different stages of grieving, right that, and everybody grieves differently and my husband and me very much grieved differently for a very long period. Still do I remember feeling so angry and I would direct that towards him because I felt, like you know again, I relate so much. We said, like your body and the complications, like I had to have DNCs both time and then my body still thought I was pregnant and it is like I almost felt like he could continue on with his life and my life was still tied to this loss and I was reminded constantly and then I felt like, well, is it my body's a failure? Right, like you know, it was all this and no one ever said to us you guys are going to have a hard time, like as your relationship, like I guess I just thought like everybody else was just like grieving together and healing, or or he thought you know she was handling it one way or I, you know we just misjudged each other and it really does.

Speaker 1: 6:49

It was like this big dividing. I was just so angry and sad and disappointed and questioned. I'm like what if we can't have kids? Like we can't continue in this cycle of feeling this way towards each other and not communicating. It was like an elephant in the room of like again. Go back to our first conversation. The dishwasher really really wasn't the dishwasher. It was that we maybe not have a baby or that I'm upset that it's a holiday now and I should be holding this baby and you're not recognizing that.

Speaker 3: 7:14

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yes, it doesn't go away and it does change. So this right now, october, is 14 years since our first.

Speaker 3: 7:24

Yes.

Speaker 2: 7:25

But it was so different for us. I mean talk about those embodied things, and that still happens. I was just reading a book, like a novel, I would say the name, but I honestly can't remember it. But there was some things in this book, just this past three weeks, where I was like feeling it in my body. These moms were talking about their kids it doesn't really even matter but this woman kept saying, like I would know, and that was one of these things for me.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Right after, in the months after that we'd lost our first, I would be like how did I not know? Like there was, there was like seven, they believe. Like you know, their best guess was like seven to nine days. You know, based on everything they could measure, that probably we had lost him. It was a boy we have three living boy children and we make boys that we had lost him and I and I just couldn't get it out of my head and my body Like how did I not know?

Speaker 2: 8:17

Like how did I feel it? How couldn't like, how did nothing feel different? Like how come I didn't know and that, just that was just one of my things. I think a lot of people have different things. A lot of people like that's like the thing that they think about and sort of like ruminate on, and I don't think that's the thing everybody does. But that was mine and it was just coming back up for me. I was just 14 years later, like how didn't I know? Like how, how did nothing feel different? Like the universe should have shattered, like obviously every like cell in my body should have been like alerting me to something is different. And I didn't know, and I, I still that that just it grieves me, like I it just I wish I would have known. I wish I would have known.

Speaker 3: 8:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:00

What do you think? I mean? You guys see this from couples too, right? So what I mean? If someone's experiencing this and they're years after even like us, right, and it's uncomfortable and I feel like people have such a hard time with miscarriages and like stillborn loss or infant loss, you know, it's always say, you know, if you've had an older child and they died tragically in a car wreck, right, People would mourn that loss and that life and it's a celebration life and it's real.

Speaker 1: 9:39

But people sometimes have a very hard time. Society seeing a miscarriage as real loss, right. So I think that internalizes it more too for the couple that you guys are trying to navigate, because everybody else gets so awkward with it or they say horrible statements like, well, just try again. Or you know, it just sends you spiraling. So I mean, if you're really in this together, what can you do or what do you wish you guys maybe navigated differently.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Great, great questions. So I think this is probably a good time, steven.

Speaker 3: 10:08

Yeah Well, so I mean, I think one of the ways maybe that I dealt with the grief of Wait, what are you saying, like this was also your PhD.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say so.

Speaker 3: 10:17

I think one of the ways that I think I've dealt with the grief I don't think I've ever really thought about it until right now is I was in my PhD program and I realized how impacted we were as a couple by miscarriage and I was like this has got to be a thing. I was like this is a thing. Why have I not heard about this? And so I did do my PhD research on the impact of pregnancy loss and infertility on a couple relationship and it's really interesting there's not a lot of research about it, there's not a lot of study of it, and I think that that is just reflective of the exact dynamic you're talking about, sarah, like it's often this focus of well, the pregnant partner is the one impacted.

Speaker 2: 10:59

And I think that's generous. Yeah, I certainly didn't feel well geared for it Exactly.

Speaker 3: 11:05

So but just even like, the research is just sort of geared towards that and that makes, I mean, it is a very embodied experience. So it is very understandable why that would be the focus. But I think what partners can do is they have to tell the story of what was happening for them, even like, even though you're experiencing the same thing, you're experiencing it in such different ways just because of that embodied aspect of it, like alone. And I think that, at least for Aaron and I and then for the couples that I did research with couples who were able to both tell their experience of what was happening and have their partner hear it and not judge it, not become defensive about, because some of that is like well, you didn't you know. I'm really hurt about this because when it happened, you didn't you know.

Speaker 3: 11:58

Like one of the things for us and our second miscarriage, the day of when it happened, that night, we had put our kids to sleep and I fell asleep and Aaron stayed up and wanted to talk about the miscarriage and I was asleep in that like it's those, it's moments like that where she was like that was it, that was it. You left me to deal with this all by myself, because you can fall asleep and that was and that was and that like entered our relationship into some really, really, really dark moments, like dark moments Like are we going to make it through this kind of moments? Because you.

Speaker 2: 12:40

And why would we want to? You left me right.

Speaker 3: 12:43

But? But each partner has to be able to tell the story of what was going on in that point, Because I think for me I was having a massive trauma response and what happens for me is I shut down, and that's exactly what was happening. Now, I'm not trying to excuse that.

Speaker 2: 13:03

No, explanations are never excuses. But you, we all, do need explanations. Everyone needs to be able to share their own explanation and, honestly, I don't know a single partner no matter how angry, upset, hurt, betrayed they feel who doesn't want to understand. Right, like it doesn't mean they're kind about trying to listen, right.

Speaker 3: 13:20

But Right, but it's the stories of those little details.

Speaker 3: 13:23

It is always the little details Because those little details are the things that stick and last, and then it begins to be like all these little details, oh, and here's another way that you have affirmed that you don't love me or don't care or don't pay attention. And I think that this is the hard part. I think oftentimes couples need some guidance in being able to do this. Not always Couples can talk about it, but I think that you have to, in a sense, go back to the story and reset the story in a different way. I'm falling asleep. Aaron's like he's just abandoning me, me hearing like I can. Absolutely. Yes, I did, I did. I'm not trying to deny that, but also I was crushed. I didn't really have anything to give, but being able to hear that. So Aaron hears that and is like, okay, I get that. I wish you'd stayed up. We still could have worked through that, but the story feels a little different. It resets the story a little.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Yeah, I think the little details have so much more weight than people ever imagined. Oh sure, and I don't think we did. And I'm thinking about our experiences and how it happened for us, which we, to this day, still I don't think fully have been unpacked, to be truthful, and it's been almost eight years now. We just had the anniversary in September, the 1st of this month, but it was he ended up. I was starting having extreme pains, we were going to Sam's club, of all of all places, okay, and we had had a scare, and then everything was fine and then I felt like something wasn't right and I was super worrisome and he was very much like his personality is, and maybe it's because we've both been in the medical professional and we just see things and we know things, but he was just like they say it's fine, it's fine right now, like you know, and I was worried and consumed. So I already think that caused an issue for us, because I felt like I wasn't being validated, I wasn't being believed. Why is it on me to worry about the health of our child Like you act, like you don't care. Right, you do care.

Speaker 1: 15:35

It was this whole nasty cycle and then I had this extreme pain and I got out of the car and I said this is not okay. Like I said, we got to go and he was a resident at the time. So we called one of his attendings as a weekend and they said, yeah, bring her in through the back door and we'll scan her. And I wish we never would have done that, because that created a situation where my husband's a radiologist, so he saw the scan and knew that there was no heartbeat. And I was there asking him is everything okay? Is everything okay? And he looked at me and he said it's okay.

Speaker 1: 16:13

And then his attending came in and shoot him out and I could tell by everybody's faces I was like it's not okay. And so then he was like, help me get dressed. And he was like he's like I lied to you because I didn't want to tell you it's not okay with you laying there with that gown and just he's like that killed me. He was like I couldn't, I wanted you dressed to hear this. Like he's like, I couldn't let it. I just felt you were so vulnerable, like just you know, falling apart, and I was just like but you knew and you didn't tell me know, and I was. He's like I couldn't in that moment and it was like really that moment. Honestly, his face is still like scarred into my memory and it's traumatizing and like so he didn't come to ultrasounds for any of our other pregnancies. We've I've had four total pregnancies. We have two living boys.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Unless and if he came which very rare he wouldn't look yeah and I I thought there was a part of like he knew something and he had to be a physician instead of a spouse or a dad or grief, and it was very hard for us, and it still is hard, because I was like you knew and I didn't know, and here I felt like I was laying there with this false hope, like a fool, you know, and then seeing everything. So it really and we just now have really started unpacking some things in couples, therapy of being like this years removed, but again that detail right Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Yeah, that's. Thank you for sharing so much of that it's um, that's such a confusing hard story.

Speaker 3: 17:39

Yeah, I mean, he's not wrong.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I'm not necessarily wrong Right but and it's like we're. That's a very abnormal situation for anybody to be in.

Speaker 3: 17:59

And that's the thing Right Because suddenly you found yourself all of us, anyone who's I mean from the standpoint of like. If someone says, okay, so like for us. Like that feeling of like when you're in the ultrasound room and you find out that it's a miscarriage, like what are you supposed to do next? Like, what are you supposed to say next? What? How are you supposed to act? That's, that's all I mean in terms of like. There's not a play, there's not a playbook for many of these experiences that you find yourself in. Well, none of them. That's the thing.

Speaker 2: 18:30

So it doesn't, and you talked with people who had so many.

Speaker 3: 18:33

I mean we had two and that feels like so many yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:36

You don't get better at it? Yeah, because they're all always abnormal situations and in abnormal situations you lose your ability to choose. You react we all do. It's what happens. Thankfully, honestly, our nervous systems do take over in those situations, because it saves us from bears and it saves us from hot stoves and it saves us from threats. But in those moments sometimes our partners become those threats and that's tricky because they don't mean to be, they never meant to be and we were mutually. Steven and I had quite a few over the course of our healing months and years where very different moments but very similar feelings. Like you, like you said the thing, like strangers have said that to me, and that was, that was painful, but it was you. Like, how could you? One of our moments was, after probably months, I don't really know Our first one, our first loss. I wanted to look through all of the stuff that they'd given us. They took his picture, they took his handprints, they took his footprints.

Speaker 3: 19:37

We had these small things.

Speaker 2: 19:40

My mom, we were 14 weeks and I, because I was terrified of miscarrying, I told no one Stephen. I told him he could tell his best miscarrying. I told no one we would Stephen was. I told him he could tell his best friend. And I told my mom, and that was it, that we were pregnant, correct? Yeah, and then at 12 and a half weeks it was green light. Well, it's fine, so we tell people. And so my mom said stuff, we had baby clothes coming. My you know, her friends were sending books, and so I was just like going through it and Stephen comes in at one point and was like stop doing this to yourself, stop, stop doing this. Like you are creating your own sadness at this point, like stop. And I was like you, you're dead inside.

Speaker 2: 20:16

You don't. You don't have a heart Like this wasn't in you. You barely knew him. Of course, you don't care, you know the meanest things we could say. That honestly felt true in those moments. They weren't the only truth but, like in that moment of hurt and experienced as threat, it was stop making yourself feel worse and me saying the reason I'm not feeling worse you don't feel bad enough because you didn't care enough, you didn't have enough time and you didn't love him enough. And in those moments for us like I mean, they take years to really feel like I get why you said it you were wrong.

Speaker 3: 20:50

Yeah, well, both of us Well, yeah, absolutely, you know, yes, and I think one of the things that was really at least helpful for me is we did end up going to see a therapist, for a little bit Counseling degrees.

Speaker 3: 21:04

Yeah, so. So we went to see a therapist and I remember the therapist he just said to us he said look, if Aaron wants to look at pictures and cry and do all that he's like, then that's what Aaron gets to do. It doesn't mean you have to like you don't have to do it because you're not. Maybe that's not a way that you feel like grieving or that's not meaningful to you, he's like. But you don't have to monitor each other's grief and be like well, you have to do it this way, or I'm only going to do it this way, or don't do it that way, because it makes me uncomfortable, because really that's what.

Speaker 3: 21:38

I was saying to Aaron I was like, oh my God, this makes me so uncomfortable because I don't know what to do and you, you're so overwhelmed and and that's not what I would be doing Like I was grieving, but I wasn't doing that, and so I think that was just. I remember that conversation and I think that was really helpful.

Speaker 2: 21:57

Oh yeah, for us. I think that the monitoring each other's grief is a big deal, big deal.

Speaker 3: 22:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Because ideally, I mean mean like, if we're going to talk about like how this is how we thought this was going to work, we're going to do this together and you're going to grieve, like me, and at six o'clock every night, we're going to sit down and look through the six pictures we had we didn't have a lot, but like we're going to look through them and we're going to feel the baby clothes and we're going to cry and then we're going to like come out of this room together. That that never happened, not one time. Yeah, stephen was like, let's get back into like running, and I'm like I'm still actively bleeding 17 weeks later. I can't run, I'm so anemic. It was like terrible, just like all the ways that we coped, but like honestly, like felt offensive to the other, like yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 1: 22:41

I think that's a thing Right, and I I think a lot happens to where you know it's been. I look back at me and my husband. It's like when you're dating and you get early married, how you grieve can say, okay, you lost your mom, this is how you grieved, or you shut off, or you turn to this habit, or you want to really talk like that, and so I think when it then becomes something that you two have made together and so much hope and just like expectation, you don't know how each other grieves. It does. I think that's the thing. It's. How do you even if so, if, let's say, a couple's listening to this and they're going we don't want the worst to happen. I think this is important conversation to have. How do you even have conversations about how do you grieve? Like, how would you even bring that up? Because I might say, well, I think I grieve this way in reality. I might not Sure.

Speaker 2: 23:43

I think this is one of those things where I think back to choice and reactions. Even if we think we know how we grieved, it might look different in real time, but I do think it's worthwhile saying, like what's the saddest you've ever been? What's the hardest thing you've ever been through? What'd you do? Why not Like? Why not have that conversation? How? What was it like? What's the felt impact? All those questions. I think they're good and important. I think to Stephen's point too. If you're listening and this has been your story there is a part to grief where you also have to look back at the celebrations. So my mom was big on like our emotions are a pendulum and you got to let that swing. You can't just sit and wallow with pictures. You have to. Though if that's what you want to do In some way, you have to do the sad parts Like. You can't just not, but you also have to do the like. We did this together.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Like when one of the other things that we I got admitted into the hospital, they induced me and then Steven went out. We hadn't eaten, so our initial appointment with my provider was like 945 that morning by the time we made it to ultrasound, then to the results, then to the night it was like, at this point, like 7.30.

Speaker 3: 24:48

PM.

Speaker 2: 24:49

And we had had zero things in our bodies. So he ran out to get food and he came back like almost two hours later. I mean like we had access to closer things, so I was like I don't know what's happening. But he walked in with this grocery bag and he's like he like literally does this face where it's like kind of like kind of crying, kind of laughing, like you are now and like, and he was like I panicked and I was like what, what is happening? And he's like he pulls things out. He's like I went to the grocery store and they bought a block of cheese. So he pulls a block of cheese out and I was like that is gonna be unhelpful in this moment. But okay, what, what else you got?

Speaker 3: 25:23

A burrito.

Speaker 2: 25:24

And I left the grocery store and was like this isn't going to be helpful. So I went to a burrito shop and bought a burrito. I was like so to this event, you have brought a block of cheese and a burrito and that has become a thing for us. Like it's really like one of our anchoring moments where, like we'll be in a really tough situation, like we have a kid who is about to have surgery, and we'll look at each other, like hearing really tough news from a doctor, and be like well, we've got a block of cheese and a burrito, which to us is like, but we've got each other, like you're here, we're together, we can do this impossible ask and you have to have the other side of that pendulum swing of like.

Speaker 2: 26:02

It wasn't pretty. We had some really hateful things we said to each other and felt about each other. We also did something impossible together and there were moments that Steven showed up for me Unbelievably like even in the hospital that night. It was all night long. They finally got me like started on the induction medicine about 830. And he ended up coming I don't really even remember I think right around 830. The next morning is when things like really progressed. But at one point in the night I like made a little movement and steven, like what's going on? What do you need? Is there something you know? Like what do you need? And I was like I just wanted water.

Speaker 2: 26:34

He's like yeah, yeah and he takes the water bottle from right beside me and just moves it like as far away as he possibly can and falls right back to sleep, I was like that's it, you did the wrong thing, like wrong move. He's like oh, I'm sick. What, what do you need? I'm like, oh my god, but like these sweet, tender moments well, it's the little details.

Speaker 3: 26:52

In the other way, both ways right. Like all of these little details matter, and you can allow those what we would say, those funny details, those good details, those connective details, to have power too, just like you can allow those hurtful details to have power too, just like you can allow those hurtful details to have power. And so that's why the story matters, that's why being able to say this meant something to me. This hurt, this, like being able to share those things is really, really important. And I think that I think this is what's tough with grief Like grief is awful, it's about loss.

Speaker 3: 27:26

You don't want to go back and revisit the loss. You want to get past it, but there's no getting past it. There is a way of integrating it into your life, and the only way to integrate it into your life is to go back and retell the story when you're not in that stressed nervous system, survival response mode, and you can get a fuller picture, and a fuller picture that allows you and your partner to, in a sense, get the whole view of your relationship in that moment. That's the idea, that's the goal.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Correct. I think that's right. There's no past, there's only through. No one's looking to get stuck in loss Nobody. But if we feel forced and pressured through it, we will. We will dig deep, we will bury our heels in that sand and we will say, like you don't get to drag me from this. Like do not rush this. Especially, I think, with loss there's nothing else. Like I remember at one point someone saying, like it won't be long and you won. You won't even like this will be like a blip on your radar. And like I don't want that. This has profoundly changed me. Like that is not, that isn't kind. Impacts a couple's experience is, I think whoever is your sort of care team in those moments, their willingness to validate whatever your experience is. It shapes a couple immediately and for the long term. If they're allowed to call it whatever they want to call it. We wanted to call that a baby. I passed a baby and that was important to me and we had a nurse in the room who absolutely allowed that. She was like, yeah, that's your baby.

Speaker 2: 29:08

And she was beautiful about it. We have had so many friends who didn't have that experience. Like you know, like the tissue has come, like that's my baby. Like, well, in this setting it's tissue Like and I get on paper. That has to be the thing. But we've got to use each other's language, and that's true for couples too. Like that's your language, I can use your language. It doesn't have to become mine. But like and that's true with like how we talk about the pregnancy, how we talk about whatever you have lost, how we talk about our grief. We have to learn each other's ways and not just insist they use ours.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Now that's that. I love that point and I don't think people recognize the importance of that or maybe even stand back and go. That's important to him, that it's this and it's one of those things like I was thinking back to of. We never had a conversation of like. Once we had our first loss and I felt like I got fixated on getting pregnant again and that pressure of getting pregnant after a loss, because I knew it.

Speaker 1: 30:11

I we had. We had a similar. It was 13 and a half weeks with a girl and we had just announced that it was a girl and literally that same week, you know, it all happened. And then again it was. It's like I was in fixed mode and he felt like he was being used to fix the situation. It was a whole, because then our first pregnancy happened. It was an unplanned, we were traveling and it was easy. And then the second pregnancy was not easy. It required surgery, it required trying for almost a year.

Speaker 1: 30:44

So I think we never had a conversation of how did we just experience this horrible loss? We're still grieving Now. We're in kind of an infertility stage Plus. I'm in my head going is this going to happen again? He's terrified, it's going to happen again, but he's not telling me that. So I don't think there's ever a point for couples and I've talked to many couples they're like no, we never sat down. We kind of said, well, what can I do for you in this situation or when you're feeling this? Or actually we're really triggered because the last time we're in this freaking office, you know we both were crying, you know. Or, or, yeah, I know an ultrasound appointment's coming up and I used to get really weird around that, you know. I would either just pretend it's not happening and kind of like zone out, and he would just be like, should I ask about it, should I not, you know? So how does a couple who's had loss have some tools to equip them to navigate pregnancy after loss?

Speaker 2: 31:34

Pregnancy after loss, I think, is one of the most under-talked about most necessary conversations there is. So we got pregnant after our first pregnancy, which was also our first loss. Four more times and four more times it was profound, I think, is the only word I can think to use, because it wasn't only bad.

Speaker 3: 31:57

But it was pretty bad it was also different every time.

Speaker 2: 32:02

And so, like the pregnancy right after our loss which I mean, maybe this is a different podcast episode, sarah, but like Stephen would say that all the time Like I would be like I'm ovulating and he'd be like, well, if only that meant that I somehow felt like that meant something to me, but like that pressure, that like there was nothing romantic about trying to make a baby the next day and.

Speaker 2: 32:23

I think it's what I'm trying to not so delicately say and that felt terrible too, like really terrible. And he'd be like you just told me that I'm a terrible person and I don't know how to grieve and have no soul. But now you want to try to make a baby and like yeah, I is exactly what is expected of you, yeah, I'm all, yeah for sure. But then when I did get pregnant that second time, I was like I can't. I tell this the kid who he's our oldest now I like glowed.

Speaker 2: 32:55

I honestly felt like I had like radiating sunbeams from my body from the beginning until the very end, and I didn't have a sad thought, I didn't, I wasn't scared, there was nothing in me that. And anytime Steven would try to say like how are you doing? I'd be like I'm fine, like it was such a 180 and probably in a traumatized way, but I don't even really know. But I couldn't tolerate that. And so like Stephen, you're on your own in this whole like grief bit and like I'm sorry, ultrasounds are hard for you, but I love it and I'm going to do a lot of them and if they're going to offer it, I'm going to say yes and I want.

Speaker 2: 33:23

I want to know everything, and then the next time opposite we couldn't have been further apart.

Speaker 3: 33:26

Pregnancy, yeah oh my gosh, it was a disaster I think, I'm long-winded here because it matters so much to me, but I, I think in, I wish there was a real simple formula, I think, and maybe there is yeah, I think there is.

Speaker 2: 33:42

It doesn't mean it's easy, right couples have to talk they.

Speaker 3: 33:47

They have to recognize that again.

Speaker 3: 33:50

This idea of going back and telling each other the story of what has happened is not harmful.

Speaker 3: 34:00

It is actually the thing really from a neurological level that heals and integrates when we are going through intense things, our nervous system in a very protective way, as you were saying, it kind of like shuts certain things down. It keeps us from focusing on certain things. It helps us, but what that does between partners is it also limits our capacity and access to one another in those moments. And then unless we go back and try to say, hey, let's rework this, let's get access to one another in this moment, and unless we do that, we will continue to feel like we have less access to our partner and we will feel alone and we will feel isolated and we will, like that, necessarily build resentment and that disconnect connection will happen. So there has to be a retelling of the story, a listening, a curiosity with each other, a kind of reworking of that story without that intensity, so that you can have that connection, because that the telling of the story is the connective part right.

Speaker 2: 35:06

I think what you said about the nervous system protects us and helps us. It thinks it's's helping us.

Speaker 2: 35:11

Well in the moment, it is Well for that specific moment, but it's in a very limited way and, I think, when we can know that about our partner too, because Stephen's I mean, you went into fix it mode, stephen goes into fix it mode we're going to get all the best care as if that had anything to do with anything for us. But this is what we're going to do and this is where we're going to go. And that, to me, felt like you're such a robot, I'm just a person and honestly, sometimes I could feel blamed in that because I didn't do it right the first time and whatever. But we've got to be able to say those things out loud. I have got to be able to say like, hey, you're doing this. And he has to be able to say to me yes, that is my protection, I am doing that, and I recognize I am doing that because I'm scared. It feels like what else can I do? Like what else is there? I'm like, oh, and in that case, honestly, it's kind of endearing, like yeah, well, don't forget me to like, but keep, you know, keep doing what you need to do.

Speaker 2: 36:13

Because a lot of times we look at our partners and we say stop protecting yourself, Stop doing the one thing that makes you feel safer in this very scary situation. I mean, that's not what we really mean to be saying, but that is what we're saying Stop being so productive, steven. And he's like and stop being so soft and feely all the time. I'm like that's the only thing that's making me feel better and he's like this is the only thing making me feel better. That's not kind to say back and forth Like well, stop doing that thing. That's making you feel better.

Speaker 3: 36:38

And so I think practically some things that couples can do in terms of that storytelling aspect of it is there were a couple of things that happened, at least for me, so I wrote about it a couple of times. I wrote a chapter in a book. I did this.

Speaker 2: 36:53

It's a medical journal, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Medical textbooks yeah, yeah, not like.

Speaker 3: 36:58

Yeah, about medical experiences and that kind of stuff. But I wrote this chapter, I did this big keynote speech about it, but then also I journaled about it because that worked for me, and Then also I journaled about it because that worked for me, and I think that that is a way like so you kind of have to. I had to kind of tell myself the story of what was happening and then I can, you know, share that with Erin, and she can do the same thing in her own way. So for some people it's art, for some people it's music, for some people, you know, whatever it might be.

Speaker 3: 37:29

But another practice that we also had and I don't know if we did this after the pregnancy losses, but we most certainly have done it after the birth, the birth of all of our three boys is we would sit down and record the story of just the birth experience as we and we would just talk about it. We'd be like, well, well, this is what was happening. And then, you know, Aaron would be like no, no, no, this is what. And we're like, oh, well, I thought, and we just in real time.

Speaker 3: 37:52

Literally tell the story. Just tell the story and record it, and by us hearing it, we hear different aspects of the experience, and they don't need to compete, we don't need to be like no, you're wrong. It's just like, okay, that's what was happening for you, this is what was happening for me. I think practices like that can be really, really useful, because that's how you have that practice of telling each other the story of what happened.

Speaker 2: 38:21

Well, it's not just useful, right? It literally does change your brain, it changes your experience, it allows your nervous system to be like oh, we are safe and relaxed now. We did do a really hard thing together, like blocks of cheese and burritos.

Speaker 2: 38:35

Like you know, like and you find those moments and you don't know them all the time because so many of those things like you forget, because when you're talking about pregnancy it all stacks up so fast that, like last week's a lifetime ago, and then you know, know the next either traumatic thing is happening or the next beautiful thing is happening always. That's true of parenting. And so if you aren't pausing and like, oh my gosh, I forgot that even happened. I, I didn't even remember that, but you are so right yeah it helps us it.

Speaker 2: 39:07

That word integration. Like it it becomes a part of our own shared experience and we don't need to have the same steven tells so many stories about, like the births themselves, or I'm like that wasn't even a part of the timeline for me, but it wasn't my brain that's right, and like okay, and that doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 39:23

Like um, we're not talking about. Like it has to be. Like this shared, like this is exactly. And then at 11 58, and then it's like, oh, that's what, that, that is what you were thinking in that moment. Like what?

Speaker 3: 39:35

that's not even how our recall works, anyway totally like our recall doesn't work perfectly in chronological order.

Speaker 3: 39:41

Our recall just works based on experience and what our sensory body remembers and pulls forward like and and. So in some ways it's just like it doesn't really matter if you get the time. I get the timeframe wrong all the time, like in terms of like order of things, but I think that that I really do think like simply put sit down and tell the story, write it down and read it to your partner. Sit down and talk it out. If there's a song that has mattered to you ever since the loss has happened, share that song and tell your partner why those things are how you pay attention to the details, both those hard details and both those beautiful details.

Speaker 2: 40:23

I think too, just in a practical way you mentioned your husband didn't know if he should bring up. There's an ultrasound, and when I'm scared and sad I Stephen has always said this like it took him I forget how many years 15 years it took me, 15 years to notice that when you're sad and scared, you look like a cactus. He's like you look like the furthest thing from someone who's looking for a hug. Like you are like, stay away, and I'm like that's right for a hug. Like you are like, stay away and I'm like that's right. So I get that like come in and being close to me. Like I not only don't want that, I don't, I'm not putting off that vibe, but man, I really love like a little post-it note on my coffee mug. That's like today's going to be tough, but like I'm here if you want to chat or like you know, like I really love a text that was like.

Speaker 2: 41:10

I heard a sad song today Made me think of that. First we called that baby. We had not named that baby, but we were baby Bozeman. We were living in Bozeman, montana, so it was baby Bo. I just heard a song that made me think so much about whole thing. If I want to follow up on that, great. If he comes home and wants to follow up on that, great. But if not, I love those. It still matters to me moments, and I am thinking of you. I think there's a lot of ways to approach these really tough things pregnancy moments, but even 14 years later, moments where you just remind each other. I remember too.

Speaker 1: 41:39

That's, I think, the most and I think that's so important. I've took so many things from this conversation. I know our listeners too, but I think it is. It just resonates to me we're the same team, we're not fighting each other, but it does feel like you got to get past that, right, and I think it's just understanding each other and hearing the stories and I love it. It's like you did it the hard, impossible, unimaginable, worst case scenario together, and that is something that has bonded it and it's like you have to see it that way and I thank you guys for sharing all these like super vulnerable moments and I know it's hard because it's years past, removed too, but it's still there's a part in your heart and it matters.

Speaker 1: 42:20

And I would have gave anything to hear this conversation post, immediate, post. My loss, right I and that is my hope and prayer is that this will reach those ears that really know they're not alone. And it's not just you and your partner I think that's the key is like isolation, shame. It's just us. It's his failure, it's my failure. We want to pull away from that and I mean, just like you said, there's not a lot of research, there's not a lot of you know talk about it. So I again, I just I think it's such an important conversation and you guys are awesome and helping so many couples and I would absolutely love you guys back and we can dive into infertility and how that affects the couple and I think that's hard, yeah, when you were talking about and I know you were referencing but like those, those moments of, like the impossible, it's hard for couples to remember.

Speaker 2: 43:12

That is also intimacy. We all want intimacy to look like romance movies.

Speaker 2: 43:18

You know, like that's what intimacy is, like, oh look, they're on a date and they're walking and they're on the beach. Like that is intimacy. Sure, that could be intimacy building, but so is the depth of the darkest nights you've ever had, feeling like you were with me not perfectly and certainly not in every moment, and there are moments we can point to where you weren't but we came back. Yeah, we fought through it and we came back. That is also intimacy building. And if we forget that, we are robbing ourselves and our relationship of that type of depth and our relationship of that type of depth which does counter into that type of lightness and like ridiculous joy about, like blocks of cheese and burritos.

Speaker 3: 43:57

Yeah, the couples that in my research that seem to be the strongest and the most connected, had this spirit of if we can get through this, we can get through anything together and I think that that's that goal. It's hard, it's different for each of us, we experienced it differently, but at the baseline if it's like, wow, look at what we've done together as a couple we can do anything. That is so connective, that's so powerful. And I think that the couples who experience loss and that is sort of the ethos of the relationship coming out of it those were the couples that were doing well.

Speaker 2: 44:43

And it's not too late to get through it together. We talk to couples all the time they're like yeah, but that was last year, we didn't't get through it together.

Speaker 3: 44:50

That was five years ago. Yeah, more like, but you can now.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Oh yeah, we can. You can go back and rework that, and not that you're changing history. You're not changing history, you're just remembering together and that that can rewrite the story.

Speaker 1: 45:03

I think that's super encouraging, that you can start today and it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 45:07

There's no timeline and there's no processing of when it comes to grief and trauma together and the losses, and I think that is that's hopeful, right Cause it's not too late and I think that can stand on a lot of life situations right To go through as a couple. It's just not too late to unpack. Well, I appreciate you guys, big fans, and we will continue on with we'll bring you guys back for sure and we can talk about, ooh, the robotics of pregnancy tribe and all that it brings great, but before we leave, tell our listeners where to find you guys.

Speaker 3: 45:40

Yes, so you can find us at couplescounselingforparentscom. That's our website, and then our Instagram handle is couplescounselingforparents and our podcast is couplescounselingforparents, so you can find for Parents, and our podcast is Couples Counseling for Parents, so you can find our podcast and the book is Too. Tired to Fight and the book is Too Tired to Fight, and you can find links to that on our Instagram and the website, and you can just go to Amazon too.

Speaker 1: 46:00

We love that. I will link everything in the show notes too. Well, thank you guys. Pleasure as always. Thank you All right Bye.

Speaker 4: 46:10

Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Preview Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables, like anxiety, anger and even apathy. Hosted by CEO founder Sarah Parkhurst and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focus on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges, as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.