E11: Parenting Through the Silence ft. David Ryall

Silence can be louder than any sound you’ve ever heard, and for parents facing stillbirth, that silence doesn’t end when you leave the hospital. Today we hear from David Ryall, a bereaved father living in Australia, sharing the story of his son Daniel (Danya), born in Bali, and the surprising way love can show up right beside shock, grief, and disbelief.

David walks me through the day everything changed at 36 weeks, the moment a home Doppler revealed nothing but quiet, and the rush to a hospital confirmation that no parent is ready for. We talk about the real decisions that come next: induction, pain, recovery, and how to stay present with your partner when your own heart is breaking. He also shares what helped them meet their baby with care, including friends who brought music, midwives who created space, mantras that rose naturally in the room, and the choice to capture photos and videos as memory making after pregnancy loss.

Because this is Dad Always, we name something that often goes unspoken: support for dads after stillbirth. David explains why practical action felt grounding rather than traumatic, how cultural rituals in Bali shaped his acceptance, and why the work of “taking care of my son” didn’t stop after birth. We also explore how sound and silence shape grief, including a nearby newborn they nicknamed the “baby duck,” and how hope for future children can return even in the middle of loss.

If you’re navigating baby loss, supporting a grieving partner, or looking for bereaved father resources, this conversation offers honest companionship and concrete perspective. 

Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more parents can find Dad Always. You can also visit the Dad Always website to explore support options and download the SURVIVE guide, a free resource for dad's navigating baby loss.

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

The Waves Are The Ocean by Solitude

Transcript

Choosing To Lean In

SPEAKER_02 0:00

In that situation we still had things to do, we still had to be parents. And wanted to be parents, like to look after what needed to come next. I just feel grateful for it. I feel grateful that we could stand up and do that for you and make decisions about what's gonna happen next. 'Cause it would've been easy not to it would have been easy just to be like, okay, he's our take him away kind of thing. It could have been very easy. I don't think it would have been easy long term, but in that moment it could have been very uh a tempting decision, maybe a tempting choice to just do that, just to temporarily kind of get rid of the pain. But I'm glad that we both leaned in and just went, okay, we've got to actually just take responsibility for what's going on.

Dad Always And David’s Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hi, I'm Kelly Shafi, and welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad, even after baby loss. I am excited to have a very special guest with me today who reached out because actually his wife found the Dad Always account and then put it on his radar. And we've been in communication in the last uh 72 hours or so. So, David, I'm gonna ask you to please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah, my name is David Ryle from Earth West Australia. Unfortunately, a lost dad. We lost our son in July last year, and so we've just been going through everything that happens after that. And uh my wife had started an Instagram account to partly to help share our journey with others, partly because there's also an event that we're organizing for lost parents. But through that, she connected with you and loved what you were up to. And her and I have had lots of conversations about dads in the picture. For her and I were such a team during the pregnancy and after the loss, it was something that she noticed was the lack of support for dads. And so I think when she saw your page pop up, it just it was very interesting to her straight away, and she wanted to make sure that we got in touch and had a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

As we dive into that, take us begin wherever you you feel comfortable and share as much as you feel comfortable sharing, but take us back where where everything started.

A Fast Partnership And Pregnancy

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Well, I guess where it all started was when we got pregnant. And that was a beautiful thing for us. It was so we're both in our 40s and we came together. I wouldn't say quickly, quickly, but we definitely stepped through the milestones quickly. Um so it was in December 2023 that we met. Um and we're already married by March 2025, so last year, almost one year, the anniversary is coming up. But for us, getting having a family was important when we first started dating. We both were in the place where, like, okay, it's now and then we want to meet the person that we're gonna have a family with. And so when we leaned into the pregnancy journey with our age, we thought, mm, this might take a while. It was virtually the first time, and it was just it was so it was a surprise and a shock, but not an unhappy one. We were just both like, oh my god, okay, we're doing this. This is this is beautiful. And we were blessed to overall have a fairly trouble-free pregnancy, a few issues here, a few issues there, but at no point were there any issues with our baby, just there was some stuff that popped up with Angelina's body along the way, as things do. But even no morning sickness, like it was actually quite a blessed pregnancy. During the pregnancy, we got married, we got to travel around the world, with she's from Russia, I'm from Australia, we've we're living in Bali at that time, and so we've had this very nice kind of life. And sadly, tragically, it only went wrong just all at you know, all just in a flash, in a second all at the end, where we were in 36 weeks of pregnancy in July last year. On the 19th of July, we were going about our day, had breakfast at a cafe, left the cafe. Angelina felt something in her stomach. And at the same time, she twisted her ankle. It was just like within a half second, these two things happened. And so we got focused on the ankle aspect because that was sort of the immediate pain and she was limping around, and we thought, okay, do we go to a clinic? Do we get checked out? She also felt this thing in her stomach, and she was like, hmm. She'll be fine, you know, no big deal. It's just a a small, a small thing. Let's just go home and relax.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Did did she ever talk about what she felt in this in in in her stomach? What what was that thing that she felt? Just a sensation.

The Doppler Goes Silent

SPEAKER_02 4:54

And she couldn't describe it as more than a sensation, but it's just something in there happened. She doesn't know what it was, but she just felt something happen. It wasn't like a kick. We were very used to kicks by then. So it's just a feeling. I think it was kind of overtaken. That's I guess something that we dissected afterwards as to whether we could have done something. But knowing what we know, and I guess I'll share more as we go along. Nothing we could have done in that moment would have changed the outcome, except we would have just known what, 10 hours, 11 hours sooner, whatever it was. So after that we went on with our day, we just got busy, things were happening. And it was only towards the end of the day on the 19th where we were staying to wind down for bed, and she was like, Hey, I haven't actually felt him for a while, can we check? Check his heartbeat. And I was like, Yeah, because we had a a handheld home doppler kind of thing. We pulled that out, like we'd done many times before, put a bit of oil on her belly, put on the doppler, and it was silent for the first time. And I'd gotten used to using it, so I I was used to searching around and reasonably technical with equipment, so I already was feeling bad about what was going on, even as we were searching around, and just any point in the belly there was nothing I even knew, and it was her heartbeat. If I slid it up a bit closer, I could tell the difference. Just what the rhythm that we were so used to was just gone.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

We looked at each other. Sorry to sorry to interrupt you, but at that time, were you guys starting to think uh-oh?

Induction Day And Meeting Daniel

SPEAKER_02 6:31

There was an uh oh, we just weren't saying it to each other. We would we would we looked in each other's eyes with the uh-oh, but neither of us wanted to say anything because it was like the machine could be broken. Let's hope it is. If it's broken, I'll throw it out tomorrow, I'll buy a new one, but whatever, let's hope it's broken. Yeah. We messaged the we had planned to give birth at a birthing clinic in Bali. It's just full of midwives, that's a beautiful place, but he's a hot. And so we were texting them, they had a group chat, they operate 24 hours. Angelina had also texted our dual and just said, hey, something's happening, or this is the situation. So we went straight there. They tried their you know, dopplers and their things, nothing was coming out. The lady that runs the place was waking up, got out of bed, she walked over, tried to lose her around the corner. She tried it with the ultrasound, just nothing. And that's that's when it all hit, because I uh was kind of watching it all, watching all the window wives, watching her, you know, measure Angelina, my wife, and I was like, oh shit, this is this is the moment right now. And Angelina had clicked with her what was going on, and she just started bailing her eyes out. And I was crying as well, but I also just try and hold the space to figure out oh shit, where do we go next? What happens here? What happens? I just didn't know. So from and from that moment it just got busy. It's like, okay, time to go to the hospital. Got loaded in a car. We had a couple of midwives come with us, which was great because they handled all the communication paperwork. Our daughter turned up just somehow at exactly the right moment, just as we found out she was there, so she was holding Angelina. She's also the Angelina's Russian, the dollars Russians, but they were able to just talk and be in that space while we got everyone to the car. And because it was in Bali, I guess this will come up a few times in the conversation. Bali has its own special way of operating. It's not third world, but it's not first world. It's got some unique characteristics, and one of it is that we instead of getting an ambulance because that would have taken too much time to organise, we just got in the car and went to the hospital. The doctor, we did have a doctor there, he was contacted as well. So when we got to the hospital, he was already there with us. And I guess he did the final confirmation. You know, we went to the room, had several people standing around, and he just very quietly, patiently just searched everywhere, just said, you know, this is it guys. I think the hardest part then was we already had been it took a half hour drive to get to the hospital even at midnight at this point. So during that time we'd kind of been processing it, but just told down that maybe all the machines were broken. It was that the bargaining phase, I guess, of the groove thing like just all the machines are broken, we're gonna get there, there's gonna be a strong heartbeat, it's totally fine, our baby's alive. But that wasn't there. And so then it was what next? Okay, we've got to give birth. Um, Angelina had the initial uh reaction, understandably, of okay, let's just get him out, you know. This is too hard, let's not waste time, let's just do cesaring. Fortunately, our doctor was wise enough to say we could do that, but I don't recommend it because it's just going to be a longer recovery for you. And so the best thing is to do what's good for your body at this point. And I think even emotionally it worked out better, and he probably knew that in advance. And so we didn't sleep, but we, you know, went to bed that night in the hospital, got up at 7 a.m. and they started doing the induction process during that whole next day was when I had three in the morning on that night after we got after the doctor had told us all this after we got Angela into the room. I drove home and got us some things and finally had my big cry. I just jumped in the shower for ten minutes and was just yelling. Just having to organize the logistics, just getting clothes, getting things that we'd need. I didn't know how long we'd be in the hospital. Messaging a buddy, I'd I think I'd try calling him, but the you know, was sleepy didn't answer. But funnily enough, I should have called his wife because I found out the next day that she was awake for no particular reason. Maybe she was tapped in, I'm not sure what it was, but ended up sending him a voice message and he as soon as he woke up in the morning he was already in touch. And so the next day was uh well, after I got our stuff, got back to the hospital. Uh, she was on a call with a hypnotherapist in Russia that she'd been doing all the birthing techniques with, so that lady was helping us out and can't help us try to get sleep. We didn't get sleep properly, but she at least just did a little meditation with us so that we could just get through that moment. Next day when the induction started, our friends turned up and they brought music and brought dance. And we tried to make the that day at some point we just set the intention to have it be as light and as joyful as we could, because we were still about to meet our baby, and we wanted to meet him with joy as best we could, because we couldn't change what was going on. But we could at least greet him. Yeah, during that day. Doorlers turned up, friends turned up, music turned up. Their door was smiling us, so she was playing a violin for us. Our two friends, husband and wife, turned up, they played guitar and they knew Galeley, so they brought that along. The hospital was amazing, they just let us have a whole room to ourselves, and we were just able to chill in there and have space and just be with the whole situation. And so just for us, uh it became as best we could, just honouring him and honouring the what we were about to go through with the labor. And so even the first of that day with the labor nothing happened. It was like every six hours they're having to give her the medication to move the process along, but just for that whole day, it was like the first medication we were like still on edge, but still doing all the music and everything, but just like okay, we don't know how this works, we don't know how fast this happens. And over the day we got more and more relaxed because nothing was happening. And it wasn't until the next day we got to sleep through the night. Next day just things started to make at 7 a.m. they gave the next dose, and I think within half an hour, an hour, the labor just gently started, the contractions gently started. Okay. Now we're now we're in the end game, I guess. But again, we still kept it light. We on that day had the head midwife at the clinic dimension turn up. She bought a another lady, a chap on jeweler, turn up, and so they were with us the whole day and just hanging out. And when it came to the time of the birth, I guess leading up to the birth of the obviously the labor kicked kicked in. We did have one moment where the pain was obviously increasing for Angelina. So she had that moment of like, okay, maybe it's time for an epidural, just like that moment of like, I just want this to stop. Similar to the night well, yeah, night before, whenever it was with the cesarean idea. But they said, hey, in this situation, we just don't do that. And so that actually helped her because then all the hypnotechniques that she'd been learning up to that point, she just dropped in too deeper. And I think that was ultimately the healthiest thing for her because she really just got to tune into her own body and just be with what was happening. And for me, also just seeing her tune into that and just get calm. I could just support her in that. And so when the time came, we had a bunch of midwives in the room, it was like a panel of experts just helping through everything. And they also had the wisdom, especially this midwife Robin, to know that we just needed time with him when he came out. So he was delivered. One of the ladies was like, Your baby's been born, do you want to go watch? And I was like, actually, I just won't be with my wife in this moment, like be a right next to her, and it was I was just napping my head next to hers and just whispering in her ear, and she explained to me later that I was the only voice that she was hearing, so that helped her. But when they delivered him, they passed me through. She got to hold him, like we got her to bed because she had delivered on the ground, on her knees, and then we just got chest time. And so everyone else was sorting in everything else with the umbilical cord and placenta and helping figure that whole thing out because we still had to go through the second birth with the placenta. But we just actually got to be with him while everyone else was organizing everything else. And one of the things that I've got a background is being a photographer, I was a photographer for 15 years. And something I appreciated in that moment is the people in the room were wise enough to realize uh that we would probably want to remember it. And so we do have photos and videos from that time that we weren't taking, but they just grabbed our phones, and even for privacy, like they didn't record on theirs, they just grabbed our phones and started doing the photos, videos, and even those have been very helpful later for us in our healing process to be able to look back at what happened, and while it's painful to watch it and relive it, it's good to know what actually occurred and how we were in that moment, what was going on in that moment. And even on medical basis when we're trying to figure out what went wrong with our baby. His name, his official name is Daniel, but we call him Danya. Dunya's the uh Russian, I guess, nickname for Daniel. They still have Daniel, but they have Danya. Yeah, it just helped us process everything a little bit better. So we had a lot of chest time with him. I got to hold him as well. We were both swapping in it. There's a one photo that was taken at some point, I think, once we'd kind of gone through a lot of the grieving and I'd held him a huge cry, and then just at the moment I was just, you know, gently rocking him, and Angelina and I were just talking as to bits of the what next, because we knew that okay, at some point this part's gonna end and we're talking with the hospital staff, and there's just this one photo, it's like, oh my god, in this photo we're parents, because I can just see our faces. Like we're just deep in the discussion about okay, the next you know, 30 minutes, this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen, that's gonna happen. It's just kind of a logistical discussion, but just seeing that photo and knowing that conversation were happening, it's like that's like a first I guess parents in logistic mode.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

And I think that it was really just interesting and nice to see that afterwards and I think that's what I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yet you have this memory now of that snapshot of of that moment where everything well, I guess I'll ask, in light of what was going on, what did that moment feel like?

Ritual, Responsibility, And The Ice Chest

SPEAKER_02 18:42

We were just taking care of our son. In that situation where we still had things to do, we still had to be parents and wanted to be parents, like to look after what needed to come next. And I think I just feel grateful for it. I feel grateful that we could stand up and do that for you and make decisions about what's gonna happen next. Because it would have been easy not to it would have been easy just to be like, okay, he's out take him away kind of thing. It could have been very easy. I don't think it would have been easy long term, but in that moment it could have been very a tempting decision, maybe a tempting choice to just do that, just to temporarily kind of get rid of the pain. But I'm glad that we both leaned in and just went, okay, we've got to actually just take responsibility for what's going on. Not that I have any judgment about someone that couldn't do that in that moment because it's a very hard thing to do. But I'm just so glad that we did. And that I guess thing or continues soon after this because again being in Bali. Bali, because Bali has a Hindu culture, they have a lot of just natural processes that they follow. Their religions are very very, very daily practice where there's no they're just doing it. It's like they wake up, they do their prayers, they have their breakfasts, they get on their day, they do their lunchtime prayers, that you know, it's just built in, it's always happening all around. No one's even thinking about it, they're just doing it.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yeah, it's just their it's just the nature of how things work. Yeah, exactly. It's literally the nature.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

And so that even turned up in the birth itself, where just as he was arriving, as we knew that he was coming out, all the midwives around us just started saying mantras, just like a melody of mantras, um, because that's what they do, and they just knew to do it because this is the moment that you do it, and so they were just doing it. It's for us to be especially me. I've lived there seven years in a month from now, it will be seven years, in and out. Angelina have been there, I guess, a year and a half, and so we'd be used to these things happening, but then to have it actually happen at our birth was just very, very beautiful for us. And more extended is after we said, okay, it's time, you know, we've had our second time of our time with him, but it's time to also let him go and start the recovery. His the midwife Robin had organized just a small box for him because the hospitals there aren't good at organizing this stuff, so we just this was organized, just have a small box, and immediately we wrapped him up and they're putting their offerings on there, like they do normally when they're at temples, they always have offerings. In this case, they'll just put offerings around him into this box. And so he was taken to another room. We got an Angelina to the recovery room where we were gonna rest him. But after an hour or two they said, you know, sir, can you come down? Well, we're going to move his body to the courtroom, and which I was about to learn something about, but move his way to the courtroom, do some paperwork, this kind of thing. I was like, Yep, my father. I'm going down to be with my son as he gets changed from one place to another in the hospital. And so he was still in the room next door to where we had been. We're still there, just in his box with the offering serious. And so we took him to what they were calling a cool room, but being barley, it wasn't a call room, it was just our room, where they typically needed to store him because there were no spots in the morgue available for whatever reason. I don't know the whole backstory behind that, but that was just the story. They didn't have one in that hospital when there wasn't one in the nearby facilities at all. And so this room, which they said was a call room, I was like, no, this is a hot room. This is like, you know, 80 degrees Fahrenheit kind of thing, humid. This is not going to be 90 even. It's probably 90 actually. That's not gonna go well. And so I immediately started calling some friends, or calling midwife as well, saying, hey, this is the situation, she knows Valley. I was like, what can we do? She was like, give me five. She spoke with her husband, made a few calls, and she was like, get an ice test or a caller, I think you call it. Get some ice, get him, get him in it. I was like, okay, this is what I'm doing. This is my job now. And it's just so absurd, like it sounds ridiculous, and especially compared to well, any experience anywhere. But maybe it is more common than we know. You know, we're used to Western countries, but they have systems for these things, but maybe not. I don't know. I don't know. I just know this was our experience, where it's like, okay, this just has to be done. I can feel some other way about it later, but in this moment, my son's there, I need to do this.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

So, but it goes right along with what you were saying a little while ago, right? In terms of that picture. Like in that moment, you and Angelina are talking to each other in this mode of having to make decisions for your child. Yes, within the circumstances. And now here is a very bizarre set of circumstances. I've when you when you shared that and and you shared it again with me, and I'm still baffled by everything that it implies in terms of the the way in which you had been processing everything so far, right? There so much activity is happening around you. And there isn't much that you can really do with the exception of supporting Angelina and sort of being there in terms of presence. I'm wondering if you were feeling a little uh unmoored because how how do you move within the space? What what do you do? And then when these like practical things happen, if that sort of gave you a sense of more grounding, a sense of like, okay, so this is something that I can do.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

It's a good question, and it's probably I think uh essentially accurate. Like it's it's I think it's one of the greatest qualities of men is the getting things done aspect. It's like if there's a task to be done and if there's a definite aim, it's like okay. We are very good at that, yeah. Just do it, yeah. And so I think that speaks to one of sh the natural strengths and the masculine traits is to just get shit done. And so for me it was yeah, I think it was like, okay, this is my mission, gotta get this done. And for Angelina, it's like and she I think she sounded the call the uh other day, she doesn't know how I did it. I do, I had to, yeah. It's like this this was my mission, and so for me it wasn't it in sounds like from the outside that maybe it should have been a traumatic thing to deal with, but for me it wasn't trauma, it was just like, okay, no, I'm serving my time.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, because for me, David, me hearing you say that, and so from my outside vantage point, sort of looking into the event that you're bringing alive into my mind. I'm thinking to myself, man, that is gonna leave a lot of trauma, or that has left a lot of trauma. But what you're saying is the exact opposite. Not necessarily I don't I don't know if you even would attach the word trauma to it, but it felt more like, no, this is me taking care of my son. And from that light, there's nothing traumatic about me taking care of my son.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

No, and that's exactly it. I mean, I'd say to a degree, I've probably got a lot of living in Bali for so long, I've got a higher degree of acceptance than I probably would have prior to living in Bali just for the way things are and the way things are on there. Everything is a lot closer to death there. They if someone dies within the family, they're the ones they're dealing with. They will have the person's body at their home for several days and they're doing all the preparations. They're very, very, very close to death. Even my one of my friends there, I saw him dressed up formally one day in the the local dress, but it was like all the dark colours, and I was like, hey, what's happening? It's like, yeah, 22-year-old kid. Okay, and he was like, Yeah, he was drinking. And they make one of their own spirits there. He drunk too much of this homemade spirit, similar to moonshine, but it's like made from rice or something like that, or palm, maybe. And he just died like just overnight. This happened, and so he was one of the men in the village that was supporting and helping to just deal with stuff that had to happen. And so I kind of got used to that, and then I I guess in this moment realized okay, this is my experience of this. I live in this culture, this is the way things happen, right, wrong, otherwise, it's just the way things happen. So, okay, this is this is it. So my acceptance level is high, but even without that, it was just serving myself. And even I remember Ratin being born when Angelina was going through the contractions and having all the pain. At one point, she was sitting on a football, leaning against me, I was leaning against the wall, it wasn't the most comfortable position. I was like, you know, she's doing this, I'm doing this, we're all uncomfortable. Let's keep going.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

So here you are, you're you're going to get this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

So I had to call a buddy, it was like nine o'clock at night. I had to go to the shops, they were gonna close soon, so I called a buddy, I said, Hey, can you come over straight away and just sit with Angelina while I go do this? And he's like, Yeah, cool. He's lived in Bali even longer, so he understands. And so he came over, I left, jumped in the car, went to the local literally hardware store where they had a pace hardware. I think you got in the States as well. And so it was in Indonesia.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Went there, got this cooler. I was trying to figure out the ice thing. I literally was texting my alcoholic friend, I've got one alcoholic friend, I was thinking, if anyone knows where to get ice, here's the guy. He's gonna save you right now. It's like, I'm gonna borrow his affliction and say, dude, where can I get some ice? He was like, try this place, try this place, try the first one, no ice. Went to the second one, loads of ice. Wow. I was like, great, thank you, thank you for your affliction, you're helping me in this. And I didn't even explain to him why in that moment, and he didn't ask. I didn't get to share until later what was going on. But he just I asked him a question, he helped. Got the ice, went back to the hospital, and I just walked in. I don't think they even expected what what I was like, they didn't realise what I was up to, they didn't know what my plan was, but I was like, hey, I just need to get into that room, I'm just gonna put him in ice, and I'm like, oh, okay. And so they opened the room, they just you know, they helped me out, like I put ice in this thing, I put his box in, and I'd already measured everything to make sure that everything would fit. And then closed the lid, and then again, because they're Balladese, they just reset the offerings, put some things on top, and then that was him for the night. Wow. Yeah. And then when got back up to my wife and she was like, okay, so what's been happening? I explained the story. She knew what needed to happen, but then she wondered how it all played out, and so I got to share all of that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

I have to say that's one of the most unique stories that I've ever heard in any context. I I I just wanna I just wanna flag that.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

I I can appreciate that, I think. Even when I say it, it's definitely I can't imagine many people going through this. I don't even know if I've told my parents about this. Check that. I b I possibly have, and that possibly understands flying because they understand barley, but still it's a weird one. Next day was us getting out of hospital. Fortunately, overnight, everyone was working behind the scenes. We had so many people helping behind the scenes, they all cry if I think think about it too much. But we had a lot of support, just even the staff from the birthing centre, because we don't speak Indonesian, but they've known us for months, and so they were speaking to the hospital, or they were calling around other places where they could get him and our baby into a morgue for the next day, and just arranging everything, like just all of it happened without us. One of the midwives that worked in the hospital system used to be a midwife at that birthing centre, and so even that communication just helps speed up all the bureaucratic processes that otherwise would have taken over. They just got to I don't know how much red tape got cut, but things just happened for us. One brief interlude they'll put in put in that just popped into my head, when we were in the hospital, the day before the birth, so when we're just waiting for things to happen, for things to move, there was a baby being born in another room and we could hear it. And it was like in that moment when we heard this baby being born and then start crying, it started crying like a duck, just the wha wah, wah, just this kind of quacking noise, and so we just gave it a nickname of the baby duck. We somehow in that moment decided to be happy with this noise. It's like, okay, baby's just been born. Ours is about to be born as well, not alive, that baby was born alive. That's amazing. Let's let's get everyone pregnant, let's have all of our friends be pregnant. We want more babies quacking, more babies coming out and quacking like that.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah.

Sound, Silence, And Wanting Family

SPEAKER_02 31:58

And as we were leaving the hospital the next day, or the day after, whenever it was, the we passed the room where the duck was. We could see just through the little, you know, room into a little window into their room, and we because we heard the sound of a crying, we were like, that's our friend, he was born. Yeah. We could just see through the window, mom and dad and baby in there. And for us, it was just like a a small kind of joy a bit of sweet, but still a joy leaving the hospital and hearing this. I think because we in the first two hours when it all happened, there was that momentary thought of I can't do this again, I can never do this again, this is too traumatic. A little bit of extra hours passed, and we both individually came around to the no, we still want a family. We're going through this, this is awful. We still want a family, we want families, we want babies around. And I guess it just got reconfirmed when we heard this baby duck in the next room, where we didn't hear it the baby crying and cry ourselves. We just looked at each other and smiled. There's just this moment of like, yeah, let's have more of that in our lives, and we want everyone that you know is inclined to have a family to have that in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Because one of the things that I've heard from people who've gone through a similar experience as you have is when the baby is born, when their baby's born, still the the silence in the delivery room is the loudest thing that they can hear. And so the the way that sound plays a role in that memory, to be in a situation where a sound or the absence of a particular sound, a sound that is expected to be there, is still noticeably absent. I've I've never experienced anything like that, but I have certainly heard that the common thread between people whose babies are born still. It's something that no one has been able to forget. So I I I just find it interesting and and and fascinating that to hear the sound of a nearby baby is also put next to what ended up being your own experience in the absence of the evidence of new life in an audible way.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

So just a side quest story relates directly to it. Today a friend of mine sent a video, she's friends with myself and Angelina. She sent a video to me saying, I don't know if this will be too much for Angelina, but I want to share it, and you can decide. So I started watching this video first, and I just started crying, and Angelina looked over at me and saw me crying and was like, babe, what's up? And so I was like, Okay, and I knew that she'd be fine watching it, but it ties back into the thing you said at the start of this as to how the dads are treated versus how the mums are treated. And that I in this moment of watching this video, which I'll talk through, but I cried more than Angelina. Like it affected me immediately. And what the video was was it was a TV advert, but based in India, of a baby being born, the cord cutting, and then silence. And there's all these women around in the ward that are, you know, expectantly looking over, and then just as they don't hear anything, as they hear silence, they all stand up. And one of them starts with their own version of a mantra. And they start singing to this baby. And you're not sure what the outcome's gonna be, because the sound is like a long one that's drawn out. But then the the nurses, midwives or whatever are doing all these reviving techniques on the baby. And it cries. As soon as I heard that sound of the cry, just that was the next explosion of tears just watching this. But it's not what we experienced on the day of the birth. Well, on the day before the birth when we heard this other baby. I think part of it's because we knew that he had already died. Or is we've heard plenty of other stillbirth stories now where people haven't found out until the moment of birth. So they've thought all that dopamine, all that joy, all waiting for the moment when the baby comes out and suddenly there's something wrong. I feel fortunate just in that at least we had a little bit of warning, at least we had 364 hours to think it through a bit before the birth. So when the birth happened it wasn't shocking as expected. I think if we had it where he just came out that way without us expecting it already, it would have been could have been a lot more horrendous. I don't know how it would have come with that situation. I just really haven't got a gap between when we found out and when he was born that helped us process it all and digest it all before we got there.

Support After Loss At The Clinic

SPEAKER_00 37:52

The next day after your special arrangement for Daniel, what what happens next?

Open-Air Cremation And Letting Go

SPEAKER_02 38:01

So this was so we left the hospital on Monday and went to the birthing clinic. They were happy for us even though we didn't give birth there. They said just come and stay. And we gratefully accepted that offer because the idea of going home with all the stuff that we'd prepared for them just we couldn't even comprehend the idea of that. Just it was too painful to think about. Um so we went there and we stayed, and again, they were organizing things in the background. With Bali, they do creations fairly quickly. They couldn't do it, they would have literally done it the day after if by their normal protocol, but on that day there was something happening on the island which made it not possible, whatever it was, so it was a religious day or whatever it is, but just that day wasn't going to happen, so it was scheduled for the Wednesday. We went to the clinic, we were greeted warmly by a lot of people because we'd been going for checkups regularly, so everyone knew us. I guess two things stand out from being there. One, someone organized a mail train for us. So we had people sending food, I think lunch and dinner every day for two weeks. First week while we were at the clinic, and then second week when we went home, it was still coming to our home, which was people some people knew, some people didn't know. It was just like a organized on a website, and that was crazy, beautiful support. And the first meal we got was from a restaurant that offered mama's chicken soup and papa's bone broth. And that was the first meal that someone sent us was these two dishes, Mama's chicken soup and papa's bone broth. For us we saw it. Again, it ties in with the acknowledgement thing. It's like, yeah, we're parents, and someone's just acknowledged us as being parents. So that was one thing that stood out. Second thing that stood out was that um the dual uh chaplain that was at the berth with us just started checking in on us every night because she was volunteering at the clinic at about nine, ten at night. She just popped by. I don't even know if she'd been home and popped in or how it worked out, but she just knew that we were up and it was the end of the day, so she just checked in with us. It was like, hey, how you doing? How's your heart? And just g gave space for us to just talk. 'Cause she's it was also previously midwife, so she just delivered a lot of babies, been a lot of births, been with stillbirths, and so she just knew that we would need to be able to talk and kind of debrief whatever had gone through that day, whatever we'd felt. And the third thing that was that happened is there were two beds in this room, two single beds. The second bed never got slept in, we slept in the same single bed the whole time. And we both offered to each other, it's like, hey, if you want to like sleep more comfortably, like we can just go to the other beds. I said to her, she said to me, and both of us were like, no, we just don't want to sleep alone, even if we're gonna sleep in this tiny bed. All crammed up with each other, that's what we're gonna do. And that's what we did for the week. And so on the Wednesday, two days after his birth, was when the cremation was again people organizing this. Now cremation in Bali is a public affair and it's open air. As in we got to a large temple with not a wall around it, but a wall around it. A gated kind of place. And we walk in and there's a huge slope in the middle, which had three had had our baby and a small coffin, which I'll get to in a moment, because I need to cry again. And it had two adults which were on these stands to the right of him. There's the Balanese and the priests doing all their prayers and offerings for the body because it's all run by priests, managed by priests there. They're they it's a religious uh center, religious cremation. So they're doing what they need to do for the for everyone there, for the three people that are being cremated that day, they're doing all the offerings and prayers and everything. Obviously, we're not from there, so when we walk in, people are like, Hey, okay, something's going on there. These this isn't our normal crowd, they're not from the village, kind of thing. And because our baby dunya was laid out in just this very small coffin that they had prepared. Again, I don't know how this happened, I know he's in a morgue somewhere, and then suddenly he's there and they've prepared him in an open casket so we could see his face, and they just had flowers and offerings, and they'd wrapped him in the beautiful shawl, and just everything was laid out beautifully for him. And it was unexpected and amazing at the same time. Had a brief concern because some of our friends had turned up. Uh they the friends that weren't at the birth, so they didn't see him when he came out. And so I was like, Oh shit, they're gonna see my deceased baby. Like, how's this gonna be for them? I had this concern for their welfare. But and they I spoke to one of the friends afterwards, he was like, Oh yeah, I didn't know if I'd be able to handle it, but as soon as I saw him, I was just relaxed and it was okay. And they just knew that they were there for him, they were there for us. So we just got to sit with him and just be while the Boloneers were doing their thing, we just did our thing, just had our ceremony with him. Again, we had the ukulele turn up. I don't think we had the violin that day, but we had the ukulele turn up, and our friends brought a special song that they had found somewhere in past 48 hours that was very specific called Little Star, that they just sung and we heard for the first time and it just described our experience of him in that moment. We were just there and we cried, and somehow, somewhere in the process, my I wanted my family to join, Angelina's didn't get hers to join, but just because she knew that emotionally it would have been very tough for them because in that time when we were waiting for him to be born, we had called our family and had all the conversations. And so with my family, I was able to quickly just set up a camera somewhere and just point it. And they got to be in on the live stream and just be there with us. Which my mum said later that she thought would be traumatic. But but as it just rolled on, she just found it very healing. And at the end of it she just felt peace. Because I guess two of the things that happened in that one, which was interesting, is we at some point we they asked us to, you know, pull away like it's almost time to do the thing, to do the cremation. So we moved back, but then we saw all these Balinese just around his coffin and were like just freaking out about what's going on here. So my tall friend just waited in there and was just looking down to figure out what they're doing. And they're adding money to his coffin. And they were also doing it to the other two, and the reason they do it in their culture is it's a gift to the family because maybe they've got expenses that were paying for this funeral and things like that. And so they just put money in there and then to the family. So afterwards that was what we collected and we gave it to the midwife centre to keep it back to them. And the other thing that happened was they actually had to do the cremation. That's not this sort of hidden away thing in the back room somewhere, you know, the coffin doesn't go off on a little conveyor belt and disappear. It's just uh they bring out these huge gas burner things that just blast the coffins with heat and fire and they just burn. So we turn there and watch from beginning to end, and they're even having to it's very it's like seeing a workshop operate in a sense, like if you're at a welding shop or something like that, they're getting their stirring with sticks and everything to, you know, keep piling it as it as the pieces break down, as the coffin breaks down, as all of it breaks down, they just keep pushing it into the middle just to get it down to the final ashes. And we just sat there and watched it. What was that experience like for you? The challenge of the experience was uh knowing that we wouldn't see him again. Because even as we sat by the coffin, I guess two uh two aspects of fathership that came up for me. One was uh because his body had been cold, because I when they bought him, I guess he was still in that ice chest at some point. When they put him in the coffin, he was all laid out beautifully. But someone gave him the ice chest later. So that had made it all the way to there. And his body was cold, and he had the human air. So at some point I noticed that all this condensation was on his face, and so yeah, just as we were sitting there, found some tissues, just mopped that off. And that was one of the five-body aspects, but the second part was the watching of it. It was like this as my son is going off in winter. Yeah, is what he's leaving. I'm not turning away at any point. I'm gonna be here with him as he goes. And it turned out I think it's been we had the whole process which I can the story which I can get into of what we did with the ashes and everything, but just actually knowing that he wasn't just buried and that we got to see him burn and most of him go into the sky and just a little bit of ashes remain and then give him to the close to the ocean later. Just actually letting go of everything of him physically was a very healing process for us because it was I think if we held on to any part of him, we would have got too focused on the atoms and not on what he actually was, because he wasn't just you know, wasn't just the flesh but I think that was a piece of it, but that's not doesn't encapsulate him, and we didn't want to get caught up in that. Personally, that was out of getting caught up in that.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Thank you for listening today. 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. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met. And the ones whose time with us was all to brief.