E5: Who Gets To Grieve When A Baby Dies? ft. Michael Elliott (part 1)

In part 1 of my conversation with Michael Elliot, we trace Michael’s path from early joy and provider pressure to the ultrasound room where a missed heartbeat rewrote his future. He unpacks stoicism, the awkward retraction of public joy, and why men’s grief after baby loss must be seen, named, and supported.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• fear and motivation colliding during early pregnancy
• provider identity shaping choices and silence
• the ultrasound shock and immediate emotional response
• first private breakdown and redefining support
• telling people, then retracting joy online
• connection through shared miscarriage stories
• dads being asked about mom but not themselves
• first-year milestones
• men’s grief as valid and visible
• honoring both parents in baby loss

SUPPORT

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, request a private 20-minute conversation by emailing info@dadalways.com. 

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Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Apple Brandy by Midnight Daydream

Azul by Lunareh

Transcript

Opening And Purpose

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I had a friend of mine who, weeks after we lost our baby, ended up going through her own miscarriage. And she had been in the same page as she hadn't told anybody. She only told me because she knew I had just gone through it myself. We her and I had a conversation. She enjoyed me talking about my story and how we happened to us. And that was good for me because I got to then release some of that and and talk about it. And for the first time, someone was there to listen to it and didn't just get awkward about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hi, I'm Kelly Jean-Philippe. And welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss. Welcome to another episode of Dad Always. And I'm excited to have Michael with us. He reached out to me on Instagram, and we've been in communication about what his experience has been. I'm glad and also very saddened that you found the platform and that people like us will end up finding this platform. But it's it's a privilege to have you on the platform. So I'm gonna ask you, Michael, if you could please introduce yourself very quickly.

Joy, Fear, And Provider Pressure

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Thanks for having me. First off, Michael, I'm from the Chicago Land area, about to turn 35, and you know, uh just about I over a year ago, my wife and I lost what would have been our first boy. It happened last last August. It's been a weird, weird time. It was such a crazy experience, even the the short term that we were pregnant. We meeting her. We found out a week before we had bought our first home, we were about to move, and she drops this bomb on us, and it was great in a way, but I remember being so scared because I had just moved. We were moving, you know, expenses were going up. I had a plan of uh we're gonna wait a little bit of time, you know, and then we're gonna have to start the famine that we'd always talked about. And here we are, a week from moving, and she's pregnant, and this is everything we ever wanted. But it's just, in my opinion, like the timing was crazy. And so we moved, and here I am getting this house ready to get a baby in it. No one can find out because we're still not telling anybody, and it's it's such a crazy time of life, but I've never been so motivated in my entire life to do anything.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Let's talk about that. Let's unfold that a little bit more, let's unpack that a little bit more. Because there is the fear that you're mentioning you felt, and then also that motivation. Finding out that you are an expectant dad in the midst of all of that, I assume is what also contributes to the fear of the unknown, right? The fear of the what if. If we can slow down the time and then you can objectively re-enter your psyche at that time, what were some of the other things that you were considering that also contributed to the fear that you were experiencing?

Nesting And Tunnel Vision

Identity As A Provider

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Our situation was was a little bit weird in terms of my wife is is self-employed, so she was paying for her own healthcare. So she didn't have the best health care. Again, moving in a week, I know from our rent to our mortgage, we we went from you know$1,500 a month to$2,500 a month. And in my brain, it was like, okay, both of our incomes, we're gonna make it happen. I'm just such an analytical person. Like I did all this research and all this planning before we decided to look for the house, had it all packed in, and then, you know, she tells me first off, you know, because she's self-employed, her one of her jobs was ending the week that we were moving. So I was like, okay, we're still gonna be able to make it, still be okay. And then she tells me we're pregnant, and I'm like, okay, how am I gonna get this done? You know, as the as the man in the house, as the one that's like, you know, in my personal the way I feel is like I'm the provider, I've the one that was that was pushing us forward. Now what do I do? And the house that we bought was a fixer upper in a way, it was ready to live in, but it was there had to be spent some money. So now I have to spend money to get it ready. She's gonna find a new job, and and I just figure out how to make it work. And I was just so scared. I remember I feel bad in a way because even when she finally told me, I didn't even process it right. I was so baffled at the time. Like I don't even know how I wasn't even excited. I think she was even mad at me because I wasn't, I didn't seem excited because my brain instantly went to, oh my god, what am I gonna do? You know, but then we went to bed that night and she fell asleep, and I was sitting there waiting. I was just like, but I was sitting there, I was like, my baby, you know, like this is so scary, but this is gonna be awesome. Like it's it's I just I'm gonna find a way to make it work. So that's where like that motivation came through. I was so scared to not be ready by the time you know January came around. I was like, but I'm just gonna make it work. I've always made it work. So what do I do? So I sat for the next like six weeks or so. I was every waking minute, I was either getting the house ready, going to work, figuring out how I was gonna take weeks off from work because that's just not the kind of business that I live in. Like I live in a I work in a very like, you gotta kind of be there kind of job. I was the boss, I was in charge. And so I'm like, all these things are working. But I've never been less tired in my entire life. I've never been less I was just so focused for the very first time as someone who's very off the wall all the time. I was very family, house, getting ready for this baby that was coming, and I I didn't care about anything else. Like I was just so hyper tunnel visioned that it felt again scary, but like so right. And that's how I knew like, okay, we're gonna make this work no matter what ends up happening.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

You know, what you're saying resonates so deeply because what I describe that moment as is a seismic reorient reorienting, reshaping of values, of absolutely everything in my mind when my wife told us that you know, we were expecting for for the very first time. And like you, I experienced the same thing. I'm all over the place, dude. But then it it's almost like this sense of becoming more myopic, right? Just I'm gonna quiet out all the things that really don't matter to the destination that we're headed to right now. And everything that I'm doing and I'm thinking and I'm striving for has to now fit within this paradigm that's being created of holy crap, I'm about to be a dad, man.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

All of the the things that wake, you know, that wakes up in you at the moment. So you are in this mode of really nesting. Like you're you were, right? That that's that's what you were doing. You are you were nesting, considering all the things. I also think it's it's worth talking about the thing that you just mentioned in terms of seeing yourself as the provider, seeing yourself as the one who has to push the family forward and keep things together prior to finding out that you were going to be a uh a dad. Was that necessarily part of your identity that you leaned into or that you you saw as being forward-facing? Or did you experience that part of you come on specifically after knowing that you were going to be a dad?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

I think it's always been a part of what I thought I needed to be, you know, like even in dating my wife and then getting married, and I've always been the one to be the provider. I've always been working so hard, you know. I I I work in restaurants, so like there's very little pay at the beginning, but I was like, no, I'm gonna make this a career. I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make a living out of this. So I've always been pushing really hard to get to a certain point. And in that comes like this this sense of like I'm going to provide for a family one day. Like, this is not something that I wanted just because I'm old enough. I've been wanting a family since I was a teenager because that's what you think life is gonna be. It just ended up being a little bit later in my adult life than I originally anticipated. But I was always like, I'm gonna get to a point where I can provide for a family before I decide to have a family. Because again, I didn't want this fear of not being able to make it. So I wanted to be prepared, even though, like looking back on it, there's absolutely no way to be fully prepared, is exactly what everyone says, but you don't think about it when you're not in it. You're like, oh, I'll get there, and I'm gonna be ready before it happens. And then life just ends up happening at such a crazy clip. You know, things that you don't expect to be right now are right in.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

So take me to the moment where things started to change.

No Heartbeat: Shock And Aftermath

SPEAKER_02 9:51

We went through life, went through the first, the first couple doctor's appointments, and we had been planning, we're gonna plan this housewarming party slash gender reveal for the baby. So a few weeks before, we decided to do a gender reveal just for the two of us and our family because we're gonna do this big thing, and my wife didn't want to find out because the party we were gonna have was gonna be after our anatomy scan. She didn't want to find out in the room with ultrasound. She wanted to find out first and then and then do it right with our family. So we did it with just our mom, our parents, our best friends, and we find out we're having a boy. And from that moment on, that was about I'd say it was about 14 weeks or so, 15 weeks. And from that point on, you know, we're full on. I'm gonna be a boy dad. You know, she was like, oh, I was actually really happy we were gonna have a boy. We have the baby's room that we're starting to plan, we're starting to get names, we're starting to talk about these things. And then a few weeks later, we have our anatomy scan. It's a 20-week scan. And we go in there, we have the two of us, and then we have to go to the store afterwards to get the stuff for the party. We're gonna make a whole day of it, it's gonna be great. And we get into the room, the ultrasound tech says she's gonna just take some pictures and take some scans and everything's great. And then she puts the ultrasound machine on my wife, and I see him for a few seconds. I go, oh, I looked at him, like, there he is. And all of a sudden she's she pans out, and thinking nothing of it. This lady's trying to do her job, and she's just kind of moving it around, and my wife is like, What's wrong? And I'm just looking at her, like, don't worry, like, let her do her job that she's she's trained to do this job, and she's just going through her you know, motion and she's kind of moving it around, and and my wife is getting more concerned, and she's like, What's wrong? And eventually she says, Well, I don't have good news for you, but there's no heartbeat. And the two of us are shocked. We were so shocked that I was so worried and focused on on the ultrasound tech in a way. Like I didn't even think about myself. I was so worried about she must feel horrible. She's trying to, you know, tell us she's she's expecting there to be a heartbeat. She's expecting there to be all these things because this is not what we're here for. We're here for something, you know, we had no idea that he was already gone. So she goes through everything. My wife obviously is in shock. She's not crying yet, but she's she's just processing. And she the text says that, yeah, he measures about 16 and a half weeks. So it was a completely missed miscarriage. Nothing happened, which part of me was happy about in a way, relieved. I don't even know happy, but like I don't know that my wife could have gone through the traumatic part of a miscarriage, as well as even this. Like, it's it's so kind of things that I've thought about over the last like few months of you know, yes, it was horrible to find out in the way that we found out, but would it have been worse if she was by herself and something horrible happened that way? So it just taking myself out of it. But we get into the next room with the doctor, and the doctor literally walks in the room and goes, Welcome to the shittiest day of your life.

Stoicism, Breakdown, And Support

SPEAKER_00 14:19

You talked about your perception of your wife and and that piece of it. The only thing you said about yourself was shock. And I'm wondering if now with where you are now, if you've been able to go back to see yourself in that ultrasound room and see yourself having just received, having just heard the news that there is no heartbeat. When you look at that Michael still in that ultrasound room, what do you see? What do you feel?

SPEAKER_02 14:55

You know, he that's that's an interesting question. I I don't I was so worried about everybody else in the room. Like I wasn't even concerned with myself at the time. Like it took me hours afterwards because I just played stoic. I was so take care of her, tell everybody at some point in some capacity, because we had just announced, I think a week earlier, was our anniversary, and we announced it at that point. So like we had just told everybody, now we have to find out how to take it back, and that's the hard a hard thing. But there I was just so worried about her. I remember the the first thing that I did after we found out and after we moved rooms and and were getting set up is I texted a friend of mine and I go, Do you have a minute? And she's she texted me back right away and said, What do you need? And I go, We just found out the baby doesn't have a heartbeat, and I don't know how to handle this, and I don't know how to support my wife. Like that's all that I really cared about at the time. Because for me, like I I I was just so I guess I was in shock. I just really wasn't worried about how I felt at the time. I really usually don't worry about how I feel. I usually try and worry about how others are feeling, and I just I didn't worry about myself at the time, and that came back to bite me later. Okay, let's talk about that. When did it hit you? It was probably four or five hours later, six hours later, you know. I I I was doing something in the yard just to keep myself occupied. And I called my mom. I was sitting in in my front yard and I called my mom and and I just talked to her for a second and got off the phone and I'm just sitting there and and for the first time I just broke down. Like I just I didn't understand it. I didn't know what was going on. I was so all these bottled up emotions from trying to stay not emotionless, but supportive, trying to think that that's my role. My role is to be supportive and to be to be the one that's holding it together so that she doesn't get more upset. And that was the first time just by myself that I just kind of lost it. And I sat there for five minutes or so and I just wallowed for a while and and then I was finished for that moment, and and I just got back up, got back in the house, and and went back to trying to be the guy that I was trying to be that entire time of supporting her and finding out the best way to go about the rest of it.

Speaking Up And The Taboo

SPEAKER_00 17:18

You know, that's so real, Michael, everything that you just shared. Because what we think support ought to look like in those moments and what that moment feels like as you're the one living it and experiencing it. And what perhaps your wife's need at that time, support need at that time was whether she was able to articulate it or not. I will go to venture that if we were to take a snapshot of all three of those scenarios, the word support would look entirely different. Right? The definition for support would be entirely different. And what I'm saying is what I discovered for me was that I also wanted to be emotionless because the thought of me breaking down and allowing my wife to see me break down equaled in my mind, I would be adding more to what she's already feeling and experiencing. And I think that came from the place that if you tell me if this resonates with you or not, we are witnesses to this loss. And our experience of it is totally different than our wives' experience of the loss. It means something for me too, that I lost my baby, but I have the distinct posture of not being the one to be the carrier of the baby. So I'm not questioning necessarily the relationship to my body in a way that I would assume my wife is questioning or was questioning at the time that she was experiencing the losses. My perception of what it meant to support her was to sort of be this anchor, I'm going to delay my thing. In fact, for me, it wasn't even a matter of delay. It was, I'm going to suppress my thing, and then I'll deal with that at another time. I haven't had that conversation with her yet, my wife. I haven't had that conversation with her yet. But I would be willing to say that if I were, or when I have that conversation with her, to ask her at that moment, what did you need from me? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if her response is entirely different than what I thought I needed to give to her at the time. I think that when And when we are in the midst of that experience, like you said, the the the framework is just utter shock, right? And disorientation and not knowing what to do. There is, or they can't, there can be, at least in my experience, it was that way for a little bit, there can be moments where I felt like I needed to continue to perpetuate that idea of support. But then it just felt so heavy to suppress, to withhold, to delay, or to even do it in her, in her absence. And I wonder how did the support piece evolve for you over time?

SPEAKER_02 20:42

We just kind of started to just kind of get through life again, you know, like a part of it was trying to make it normal, as normal as you could at the at the time. You know, we still had a lot of new in life. So we still had things to kind of keep our minds occupied, you know, in but talking to her in the past and she'll even say, and a lot of people that I've talked to will say, Well, we didn't really want to talk to you about it because you seemed like you were okay, and that you thought, and we're like, we we don't we wanted it to be in your time. You know, I was just talking to my mom recently and was like talking to her about how I was feeling, and she goes, I was waiting for you to kind of to talk about it because I knew you'd talk about it when you were ready. And you know, but it's just for me, supporting again was just getting back to doing what I thought needed to get done. It was it was a very it still is very weird. Like it's still something that's a little bit taboo. She luckily has a great friend group that she can talk to this about or talk to about as much as she needs to, and and I just try and make sure that we're you know going through life. It's it's a hard, it's hard for me and and I think even for her sometimes to talk about what happened, even still, it's again, it's still it's fresh. It was at the beginning when it first happened, it was really easy, and then we kind of just got back to life and and it just became this thing that just is normal. We we talk about it every once in a while, we we do what we can, but it's it's just been trying to support by making sure that life is supported. It's just really still trying to figure out how it is that I can get to that next point.

Telling People, Retracting The Joy

SPEAKER_00 22:30

You know, what's interesting is that what seems to, and I think I was sharing this with you when we were messaging back and forth, this thread, this similarity between your experience and my experience. There's the element of not being able to talk about the pregnancy early on, because it was still early on. And if I remember correctly, in your case, similar to mine, our wives asked us not to say anything to anyone because you know, to protect the initial stages of the pregnancy. For me, I there was not a point prior to the loss where I had even gotten to say anything to anyone. So there's that element of not being able to talk about it, the loss happened, and no one had any prior knowledge of it. In your case, you weren't able to talk about it. You did tell some people, and then the loss happened. And now, to use your words, having to sort of take that back. And how do you even begin to navigate that? It's impossible. Yeah, yeah. So let's let's talk about that because I I don't know if one is better than the other, as much as it's it's impossible to navigate. So what was your process?

Shared Loss Across Timelines

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I think we waited till we were 18 or 19 weeks to tell, you know, it the internet. We told family, we told very close family right away. You know, like I told my parents, she told her parents, and then we slowly started to tell friends, slowly. And then when we were when we were planning the reveal slash housewarming party, we put it out there to people. So like we told everyone and everyone, we told who we were inviting first about it. So like we didn't just bring this, hey, we're having a baby, you're invited to the gender reveal. It was like, hey, just so you guys know, like, you know, we're having a baby, just and then so it was a very small group, and then we told, you know, social media. And that was great, everything was fine. And then when you lose the baby, you know, you're sitting there wondering what you're gonna do and how you're gonna walk it back. Because as everybody knows, no one reads the retraction. So we a few weeks later, collectively, we both individually put out, hey, you know, the baby's gone. We're very thankful for our family and friends, and we kind of left it at that. Fast forward, even you know, sometimes today I get, so are you a dad? Well, congratulations. And I go, I have to be like technically, but you know, I lost the baby. And everyone goes, Oh, and gets really awkward and really squirrely about it. And it's like, no, it's it's okay. Like, I mean, we can I could talk about it, I appreciate it. It's hard for everyone to kind of read the second message and the way algorithms work, and I'm okay talking about it. It just you can see everyone getting all like very squirrely, very awkward, because it's a very awkward thing to talk about. And very similarly to your situation, I had a friend of mine who weeks after we lost our baby ended up going through her own miscarriage. And she had been in the same page as she hadn't told anybody. She only told me because she knew I had just gone through it myself. And so she was in the same boat if she hadn't even told her parents yet. But her loss was still a loss. And I got to connect with her on that. I was like, you know, it's we her and I had conversation. She enjoyed me talking about my story and how we happened to us, and and that was good for me because I got to then release some of that and and talk about it. And for the first time, someone was there to listen to it and and didn't just get awkward about it. And then so then, you know, she was a few months behind us, and so on her what would have been her due day, I go, hey, you know, just so you know, this is coming up, just be careful. And she's like, no, I'm fine. And so that only to say it doesn't matter at what point you lose or in who you tell, uh, this still hits everybody in the same way. And that was something that I got to learn through the whole process is it doesn't matter if it was three weeks or 20 weeks. She still lost her baby, and I still lost mine. And so we're still the same. She just had no one else to talk to about it, and I had a small group of people I could talk to about it. And it's a very, it's a it's a different dynamic, but it's all the same, it's still the same pain. It's just it's just a different level.

Asking About Mom, Forgetting Dad

SPEAKER_00 27:14

When we were exchanging messages, you shared something that landed so closely to my heart because we share that very similar aspect in in our stories. There were people who would, especially when my wife was pregnant, pregnant with our with our living child, with our first living child, people would call her and ask, you know, how are you doing? People would call me and ask me how she was doing. And no one cared to ask how I was doing, what I needed, or anything like that. In your case, you talked about people calling you and asking about how your wife was doing post the losses or post-the-loss, sorry. And then that was it. What was that experience like for you? What did that do to you? And how did that frame the way in which you were processing your your own emotions, your own thoughts, the loss itself?

Half Of Me, Half Of Her

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah, I mean, it still happens to this day in conversation of you know, it it people will come and they'll be like, you know, how's how are things doing, you know, such and such. And then they're like, how's your wife? And by that meaning the loaded question of like, how is she processing this? And I go, she's she's okay, you know, like it we're getting back to life and stuff and stuff. And then they move on. They they don't they don't ask me how I'm doing in that way, in that same way. And it is almost I and I've always tried to compartmentalize it. I understand why she was the pregnant one, she was the one carrying the baby, she had all the physical parts of it, she was pregnant, but I was also having a baby. It was our child. I did not physically carry him, but I physically had all these other things going on mentally, emotionally during that entire process. That is just different. It's it's not in any way the same, but that was my baby. I lost him too. And I've had to kind of wrestle myself a little bit of like I have to be okay with the fact that that's I'm the man, I'm the one that's supposed to just be okay afterwards, and she was carrying him, and I and I'm okay to be like, yep, she went through a a horrible thing, but I went through a horrible thing also, just in a different manifest. It just manifested differently. Like it just it just isn't just it's not the same, but it's the same pain. Yes, you know. Yes. He I I like I said earlier, I still had I had memories for him that he hadn't done yet, but that all got taken away from me. Yeah, you know, and I I built I'd saved for you know 15 years to get the house he was gonna be born into and and to walk past his room and uh and all the other things. I worked so hard in preparation for him that that also got ripped from me. Like now you're like, well, well, now what who cares? Now that all the things that we've just done to to get ready for him don't matter anymore. So like it's you know, and so I struggle back and forth. I I get it, but then I don't understand it. I get you know, someone wanting to not talk about it because I'm I look like I'm okay, but I don't I look like I'm okay because you don't want to talk about it. You know what I mean? Like that's why I present myself as okay. Yeah, but every time I every time I saw a baby walk into the restaurants that I work at, I had to leave the room. You know, we're coming up in a month, till he would have been one. It's four days before my birthday, and I never want to celebrate my birthday again, you know. So like people don't understand the things that I I didn't go through, but I still went through. I didn't I didn't physically lose, but I still lost.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

And I wouldn't even challenge that, man, because okay, look, my wife, like your wife, are the carriers. That we we get all that, right? We get that. But she did not self-generate. You're uh as far as I'm concerned, my wife did not self-generate. There was a physical part of me that was implanted in her and a physical which metaphysical part of her that came together to form the embryo that formed our children, the ones we lost and the two that we have. So the physical carrying is not the only, should not be, ought not to be the only indicator for who gets to grieve and who does not get to grieve openly, or who gets to be considered and who does not get to be considered. And that in itself makes the argument of physical anything a moot point. Because if she was the one, if my wife was the one who woke up one day and was like, I am going to self-generate a child, then absolutely I have no stake in the game. It would be entirely up to her. And that's the end of it. Yeah, then now you can look at me and be like, hey yo, bro, like why are we tripping for? You had no involvement in this. But we do, though.

Firsts Without Him

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Yeah, you're actually that's a very a great point. I you know, I I think a lot of it just turns up being it's just societally, you're supposed to be okay. You're just supposed to be emotionless out of this entire process because you're the man. And I'm like, I I if that were the case, you know, men would never raise their children. Like they would have no emotional attachment to them. Like, as soon as I found out that we were gonna have a baby, I just got again, I got so hyper focused on making sure this child was going to be brought into this world correctly and with the best possible chance I could give it, you know, and and to know that I had worked so hard to then get to this point that I could give him the best life that I possibly could. To again, the guy got taken away from me emotionally and yes, physically, because he was gonna be half of me, he's gonna be my you know, better half or worse half, who has any idea at this point, but he was going to be everything, he's gonna be half of me and half of her, and that was gonna be this whole new human that shared, you know, me. That was that was it's always it's a hard thing to like kind of put into perspective. Like, yes, he would have been his own, he would have been his own human, but like yeah, I would have had such I would have had a nature and a nurturing part of it. Absolutely. And and to have that again, that future, that idea that what would he have been? I will always have to ask myself that question. You know, it's every memory, the first Christmas is coming up. I mean, I'm almost at my last year of firsts, and every first has been really difficult. I'm almost to the last first. First birthday will be the last of first. And every time, you know, last Christmas I thought about where we should have been. This Christmas I'll think about where we should be, and that is so powerful in my brain of like, I remember where my nephew was his first Christmas, and now it would have been my son's first Christmas and his first Thanksgiving. What would what would we have done? You know, I thought about this last month. What would we have put him in as for Halloween this last year or this last month? I thought about that and I was like, what would we have done? I have no idea. But I have all of these what ifs and should have been's and and could have been, but I just don't have physically him anymore. He just he just never got to this part of life. And I feel bad for that too. Like I feel for some reason I feel guilty in that way of for him, of like he never got to experience life, and it's a whole different part of my brain that gets lit up of like wow, I don't know he never got to experience life, and life is is this gift that you know one day you just you just wake up and he never got to to wake up, and that's a weird it's a weird thing in my brain too, of like but it's it just adds to what he would what would he have been, who would he have been? And so for people to just think that my wife is the only one that lost this baby is is crazy because I I can I'm I I equally lost only because he was 50% and 50%. You know, the rest of it, the physical part of it is traumatic and I feel horrible, but like it's just a different kind of the same loss. And I just don't want people you know, men, the men matter too. They they just they they they're half of the equation in this entire thing.

Men Matter Too

Closing And Dedication

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Thank you for listening today. Next week, I'll conclude my conversation with Michael as we dive further into aspects of his story. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met. And the ones whose time with us was all too brief. If you want to stay in the loop of what's going on at Dad Always, go to datalways.com to join the email list to receive updates.