Finding Community in the Hard Stories: Abigail Burle on Loving Your Story

Abigail (Abby) Burle, founder of Love Your Story and mom of triplets born at 24 weeks, joins Rachael to share how extreme prematurity, medical complexity, and deep grief led her to create a community for other families walking similar roads. She unpacks the birth of Molly’s House—free housing for out-of-town medical families—her “Care Like a Mother” and “Care Like a Father” programs for caregivers, and why your story is not a tragedy, even when life looks nothing like you expected. Plus, Rachael invites listeners to join Alliance in supporting Love Your Story’s matching campaign so more families can find a place to belong in their hardest seasons.

Listen in and be reminded that even the hardest chapters of your story can become a place of hope for you and others.

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Guest: Abigail Burle, Founder of Love Your Story

Host: Rachael Auyer, Co-Owner of Alliance Prosthetics & Orthotics

Producer: Laine Johnson, Alliance Prosthetics & Orthotics, Marketing Coordinator

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Love Your Story, Abigail Burle, NICU journey, triplets, medical advocacy, resilience, community support, nonprofit, Molly's House, care cohort, Care Like a Mother, Care Like a Father, capital campaign, universal design home, family support.

SPEAKERS

Rachael Auyer, Abigail Burle

Rachael Auyer  00:00

Welcome back to The Alliance Goal Digger Podcast. I am your host. Rachael Auyer, today we have the unique privilege of hosting Abigail Burle, also known as Abby. Abby is the founder of love your story, encouraging others to find strength, meaning and purpose in their own experiences, even when life looks different than expected. Abby is a mother of triplets born just 24 weeks, whose journey into motherhood began in the NICU and grew into a life advocacy resilience and purpose. After spending five and a half months watching her children fight to survive, she quickly learned that the challenges did not end at discharge. They only evolved over the years. Abby and her family have traveled across the country and internationally to access specialized care, including surgeries and intensive therapies. Through these experiences, she has witnessed the emotional and financial strain families face when navigating complex medical needs, especially when insurance doesn't fully cover the entire cost. Through it all, Abby has embraced a powerful belief every story is worth honoring. Abby. Welcome to the podcast.

Abigail Burle  01:15

Thank you so much for having me.

Rachael Auyer  01:16

Rachael, all right, so let's start from the beginning. Who are the mighty three and who are all your people?

Abigail Burle  01:24

Right. Like you said, my name is Abby, and I'm married to Ryan Burle. We've been married for 13 years. We have triplets that are eight, but turning nine in May. And we have one girl, her name is Maggie, and she's our baby, a and then we have two boys, Maxwell and Miller. Everybody's fraternal. Everybody is their own identity, and it's a wild time. I tell people, I recommend having triplets. It's it's fun.

Rachael Auyer  01:56

It will level set you. I think all of my experience with triplets have been in this office. Jason, my husband's claim to fame was doing helmets for triplets, and he would have all three of their car carriers, and the mom and dad who brought these kids in were the strongest, most sound mind people I've ever met.

Abigail Burle  02:19

Well, I tell people I think triplets attract crazy and crazy enough to be like, we can do this. 

Rachael Auyer  02:27

Awesome. So in the introduction, we kind of talked about the beginning stages of your kid's life being born at 24 weeks, if you would kind of dive into how you knew that you were going to need extra care for your kids?

Abigail Burle  02:42

Yeah, I will try to sum that up. So if you've ever had a high risk pregnancy, or especially what they call high order multiples, which triplets is the first one of that of high order multiple pregnancies, they're very honest in the beginning that you're probably looking at some form of early delivery. And so when I was 22 weeks pregnant with the triplets, I went to routine appointment and actually found out that I was in labor, and did not know.

Rachael Auyer  03:14

Oh my gosh.

Abigail Burle  03:15

And so I didn't know, because I was like, Well, my back hurts. Whose back doesn't hurt, you know, I'm 22 weeks pregnant with triplets, and so I was immediately put on hospital bed rest. And I honestly did not fully understand at that point in time the gravity of the situation. Yeah, I think looking back that that was part of God's protection, that I did not understand the gravity of the situation being in complete bed rest, but also, too, I look back and know that I experienced a peace and a joy even when laying in the hospital bed. So our hospital back at the time at the northeast Georgia, Nicu really wanted the triplets to make it to the 24 week mark before they intervened, mostly because it's triplets. At 22 weeks, they were barely over a pound. You know, the odds were truly stacked against us. So my body made it actively in and out of labor for 11 days in the hospital. And so at 24 weeks, and technically one day, I gave birth to the triplets, Maggie Maxim Miller, and they were all born just over a pound. At that point in that moment, you kind of are shocked into realizing it's not the journey you're even thinking about it. Will I even get to meet them? And so in that moment as a parent, I think it's more overwhelming to think, well, I even get to hold them, touch them before they pass. And so we I look back on our experience, and people ask me all the time, we did not do anything different, but we got to bring all three of our babies home, which is a miracle in itself. The odds were 30% and we brought all three. Home. And so we are the lucky few that have gotten to experience our kids in our own home. Maggie Max and Miller all had very different journeys in the NICU. You know, a one pound baby obviously cannot do anything on their own right. They're not making their own blood supply. They're not eating so there's a lot of interventions that have to happen in the first I really feel the first milestone where I kind of experienced joy as a mom, was the first time I got to hold them. And I tell people all the time I look back at the NICU, there are highlights. There are Joy moments. Just like you have joy moments in your motherhood. That was all I knew, right? I didn't have kids before them, and so I got to hold Maggie at day 14 for the first time. I got to hold Miller at day 20 for the first time. And little Max, I got to hold him at day 26 for the first time. But it was my first realization as a mom in this new role where I'm trying to interact with babies and bonds with them, that I started to really understand that life we can plan all we want to, and we can try to have a false sense of control, but in when reality is we don't have any control of life, and when a tragedy hits, what is going to be the dialog and belief that I believe about myself, that I believe about the babies, that I believe about my marriage, the community around me. What's going to be the dialog I tell myself, because I could have lived in telling myself this is a tragedy. Nobody wants to live my life. Woe is me, when, in honesty, some people never even got to experience being pregnant and having a one pound baby, right? You know, some people never got to experience a community coming around them in a tragedy. Some people never got to have hard conversations with their husband of what does this actually look like? What is the value of life? And we can talk all we want to about the value of life, but when you're faced with what is actually the value of life, it takes on a whole new meaning. And so really starting to, like, I hate the word reframe, reframe, but really starting to truly understand that we can't control life. And so when I'm handed these situations and we're making hard decisions for our kids, how can I view this as an opportunity versus a woe is me type situation. So they did. We all got discharged. Maggie technically got discharged at month five, and the boys got discharged at month five and a half. But it was one of those things I still naively thought, Oh, when I come home, I'm just gonna have babies to hold. Rachael, I was quickly woken up to the fact that, no, I'm still bringing home three very medically fragile kids. They just don't need intensive care, right anymore. And so that's a little bit about our NICU. I mean, obviously there's so many things that happened down there, but yes, we we had a wild first five and a half months as a family, as a first time family.

Rachael Auyer  08:04

And so not to not pay honor to the amount of time, because we say five months, but it probably felt like five years and the amount of times back and forth. And let's also acknowledge that you birth these children so you're worn in your tip top shape to waddle down to the NICU, right? You eventually come home with three medically complex kids, and you realize you need a team. I'm sure you realized you needed a team. Yes, why don't you dive into how you identified people you could have on your team people I'm sure you chose not to have on your team or kicked off your team. I'm not quite sure. As a mom, we have had that experience as well, and kind of what you built for your family during this season.

Abigail Burle  08:55

Right, that's a great question. I think it's in reality of we're told that when life hands us something, we have the tools to serve ourselves and to rise up to the occasion, when, in reality, first, as a Christ follower, we're first called to receive, receive a gift that we've never earned. And so I quickly realized we're about to have to receive a ton of gifts that we can never repay. And so we, my husband and I just laid it all on the line, to my family, to the people surrounding us in our church community, of we can't we can't do this alone. To the point where I had friends that came to my house, because a lot of people don't know this at the northeast Georgia Nikki, you have to leave every day, so you can't stay with your babies, and so you have to go home. And I had friends that truly I would text and I'd be like, I physically cannot get myself in the shower. I physically cannot shave my legs. I had friends come over and help me with those little tasks. I think the biggest thing that we did in building community was just be so vulnerable. Vulnerable with the amount of help we needed. That when someone texted or called, I said yes. When someone called me and said, Do you need your grass cut? Yes, yeah, I do. Do y'all need meals? Yes, we do. Here's our door code, go put it in the freezer, and not feeling like people that I owed them something back. I think that that was very important for me, with my guilt of being like, oh, I can write them thank you notes, and I can call and it's like this little voice in my head being like, Are are you crazy? Like, you know

Rachael Auyer  10:33

when?

Abigail Burle  10:33

Yeah. And you have three kids on life support. No one's coming to you expecting something in return, in this moment, right? And that's hard. We also boldly told anyone who would listen things that we needed. For example, my husband, at the time, was a high school teacher, and I was going to be looking at, obviously, staying at home with the situation that we had down in the NICU. How can a family of five live off $50,000 a year? I mean, really sit with that.

Rachael Auyer  11:05

And medical bills?

Abigail Burle  11:07

Yes, lots of medical bills, right? And so we just started telling anybody who would listen to like, we're looking for free help. And they would say, what does that mean? When the babies come home, I need someone 7am to 5pm here at my house, we can't pay and just started saying it as many times as we could. And we ended up getting this call from this woman. My kids call her Gigi. They do not know she's not a blood grandparent. I will never tell them otherwise, because she is a blood grandparent in my in my mind, she called me and she's like, I'm retiring. I don't have grandkids of my own. I heard, you need me to come and live on some babies. And so she came to the NICU to get trained and everything. And they came home on a Wednesday. She came over on Thursday, and really, the first two years of their lives was at our house almost full time, three to four days a week, people often ask me, how'd you find her? How'd you find her? Because we told people, and I think a lot of people in their tragedy and hard seasons, they don't want to take the first step of being vulnerable to say, I need free help, like really saying what they need, and I truly believe us saying what we need is why? Why we found her. I mean, that's the only reason I can think of it. A lot of people also don't know this in our in the Northeast Georgia NICU, Choa is different. Choa allows anyone to visit as long as they have a license. So lots of people can meet your baby if they're down there for one week or nine months when you're in the Northeast Georgia NICU, four people ever right? Four can meet your kids. So for us, you were talking about people we had to let go in our community, you quickly learn when you're in a situation, if people start making about themselves, or if people are on the team to care for the babies, right? And that's a tough realization to feel like, Oh, I thought this person and this person were for us, when, in reality, through that season, it was about them, right? And it has strained some of our relationships, some of even our very close relationships, and it's changed our community. But what it has changed for me is knowing actually what true community looks like that it's not a tit for tat situation. It's truly a I'm going to give and I'm not respecting anything in to turn in return. And you hope that then I can offer that back to my friend that it's going through the next season. So we definitely experienced both, for sure,

Rachael Auyer  13:37

and it seems like everything you needed was provided for you, and we share a similar faith tradition. And I I can say that in my life, even though I didn't have three children in the NICU in my most desperate hour, my needs have been met. And yes, and I can say that while people may have been the vehicle that met them, the source was, my God. 

Abigail Burle  14:01

I mean, we ended up having insane stories. I mean, you know, Gigi was one of them, one of them, somebody called us and was like, we heard that y'all have a car payment. 

Rachael Auyer  14:11

Oh my gosh.

Abigail Burle  14:12

We, we want you to sell that car, and we're going to give you a van for $1

Rachael Auyer  14:17

That, that sort of stuff. I know it's your podcast, but like, not a lot of people know that we do payment plans here at this clinic. 

Abigail Burle  14:26

Oh, wow. Okay.

Rachael Auyer  14:27

We have angels who have come in and paid payment plans for patients. And we don't promise it to anybody, because we don't instruct angels. They come to us, right? But just recently, someone said, Hey, I heard Can Can I do something? I had this prick now that you are in that position of the move out and give. I want to get to how you got there in just a second. Yeah, but it seems like you and I both know that there, there are times when you are to receive and. Times you are to give How do you know the difference?

Abigail Burle  15:03

Ooh, that's tough. That's a really good question. I think the receiving comes from knowing that you truly what the situation you're being faced with is truly beyond you, whether that's a cancer diagnosis with your spouse, whether that's your child is going through a new diagnosis, you're going through a divorce, whatever it is really allowing saying, how would I serve my friend to the left, right when I bring them a meal? If you're saying yes, then guess what? You're probably the one in this situation that would need the meal, like if you're reversing the script, right? If my friend was going through a divorce. Would I take her a meal? Yes, well, I'm going through a divorce. Oh, it's my turn to receive the meal, right? But I think also knowing them when to give is when this sounds tough, is knowing that when you're in a steady place to give and you're not in a space of I burned myself out to give to this person, and now I'm cycling through that they should have written me a thank you note. 

Rachael Auyer  16:08

Right.

Abigail Burle  16:08

If that's the dialog, you might be closer in a season to receive than you are to give.

Abigail Burle  16:45

Yeah.

Rachael Auyer  16:46

Life is just a bed of roses, right, Abby?

Abigail Burle  16:48

 Oh yes, Rachael, bed of roses. Yeah. So I'll kind of do a snapshot of when the babies were about six months to about year five, because it's pretty much the same kind of pace. So I'm a very career goal oriented person. I have my masters. I saw myself doing X, Y, Z. So I tell people all the time, if you're a mom listening to this and you found yourself staying at home and that's not what you designed or desired. When I say I laid myself down every day to stay with my kids. I laid myself down to stay with my kids every day, because that's what they needed. So from the six month the five year mark, all three of our kids have a chronic lung disease. So we were almost in the ICU PICU with breathing things more than we were at home. All three of them had physical therapy, occupational therapy, feeding therapy, constantly throughout the week. I know you know Noreen at tender ones therapy services, I tell people, I mean, we were there eight to 10 hours a week between my three kids. That was my second home. And so none of the triplets took a first step until they were past 24 months old. So really, the first two years was full on therapy, and I truly say this keeping them alive, right? Truly keeping them alive, and honestly keeping myself alive. And so we were able to go through a lot of interventions to help us get the kids safely to stay at home when they were sick. So we have all three of our kids have a lifelong diagnosis, Maggie, our daughter, has hypotonia, and she also has a craniocentosis diagnosis that's led to us having several major brain surgeries in Philadelphia, with an optic nerve atrophy. She's technically legally blind in her right eye, but if you saw her now at eight, she's running in gymnastics and swimming, and you wouldn't know the story that she had, which I tell people all the time, is, like most people, we don't know the story that they're carrying Correct, right? And then my son, Max, he has a physical disability called cerebral palsy. And for those of you who don't know what cerebral palsy is, is actually not a muscular disorder or disability. It's a brain disability. So it's how his brain communicates to his muscles, and it does affect all four of his limbs and his speech. And he is a wheelchair user, and he loves Legos, and he he does a lot of breathing interventions. Because something I did not realize until I had a child with a physical disability, movement keeps you healthy. 

Rachael Auyer  16:56

That's a great answer, yeah. And if you're doing it for approval, sometimes in the faith tradition we hold. You give so that way you feel good about yourself instead of actually out of the freeness to give. True, very true. Now I want to hear about how you got to start this amazing organization, but it evolved through your own personal experiences with your kids. Feel free to catch us up, because you're discharged, you have Gigi car payments are magically getting paid. 

Rachael Auyer  19:31

Oh, that's so wild you're saying that.

Abigail Burle  19:34

I know. So when you have a child with limited mobility, it's very hard to keep them healthy, and so we do BiPAP at night. We do airway clearance vests daily, and a bunch of breathing meds, and that interventions have really allowed us, knock on wood, Rachael, to stay out of unplanned hospital stays for the past 18 months.

Rachael Auyer  19:57

That's good news.

Abigail Burle  19:57

Which has been a miracle. Um. And then my son, Miller, he is autistic, and I tell people, and he's hyper verbal, which a lot of people don't realize in the autism community, is a thing. So he is repeating movie lines all the time. He is your party starter, a squirrel in a blender during a rave. He's He's a great time when he's not your own child. I'm just kidding, but yeah, he He's wild. He's wild. So all three of them have truly had a distinct journey, which has led us to kind of where we are today, in the sense of, I'm not wearing one hat as an advocate. I'm wearing for my daughter, who's more of the medical surgery. I'm wearing a hat for my son, Max, that, you know, intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities. And then I'm wearing my hat for an invisible disability, where people really more look to me and like, why aren't you parenting that kid? You know? You're like, well, that's he has an invisible disability. We are parenting him. And so we have truly been Rachael all over the country and out of the country for care for our kids. And through that process, I'm sure a lot of moms can relate. I was completely alone. I was alone with an 18 month old that didn't have head control in a hotel room for three weeks by myself, because somebody has to stay back and work and make money, which is my husband, my parents would watch the other two, or whoever I was with. And I found myself coming back after our first trip. So he we went to Toronto, Canada at that point for the first three weeks, and it was for a special therapy called DMI, which we don't have talk time to really talk about. But I found myself being in a hotel room, completely alone, and I came home, and I was crying to my mentor at the time. Her name is Beverly Filson, and I was like, I know I'm doing what's best for my child, but I'm not doing what's best for me. I am mentally. I mentally haven't I have nothing left to give. Emotionally, spiritually, my marriage is in shambles. Our financial our finances are in shambles. I can't do this. I can't do one more trip with my kid. And that is when she looked at me and she goes, you thrive in community. How can you go do this trip next time and make it in community? And so I did what any good mom does. I went to Instagram smart, and I DMS a mom that I had never met before from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and she had a child with cerebral palsy, and I had remembered that we had crossed over in the clinic in Canada for one week of our stay. And I said, Hey, we're going back to Canada in six months. This is the week we're going would you want to share Airbnb? And she said, Yes. And that one yes, I'm going to try not to cry. Completely changed my life, and it changed my life in the sense of I fully realized for the first time I was not alone with someone who actually understood and lived the day to day grind of because my child is in a burden, but the finances and the travel and the medical and the decisions that come along with it, it feels like a burden sometimes, and I experienced. She would cook a meal, then I would cook a meal. She would clean up dinner, then I would clean up dinner. I would go for a walk without my kid, because she knew how to work a airway clearance vest, because her kid wore air weight clearance fest, and that's where it kind of brings us to present day. I'll kind of pause for a minute and let let you ask her questions or anything, but that's where it kind of gets us to present day. Of okay, I've experienced community for myself. How can I go do this for other people?

Rachael Auyer  23:38

No, I think it goes back to what we talked about at the top. How do you know if you're supposed to give or receive? And you got into a position where you realize there's a need here, and you personally found a way to find it for yourself, and now you want to create it for others. So yeah, talk about how you give community through Love. Your Story.

Abigail Burle  24:01

And Rachael, you said it kind of like, selfishly started out for me in the sense of like I need to receive community, like I'm drowning. I'm not going to make it. Yeah, and then realizing, Oh, this mom needs to receive it too. Well, if we both need to receive it, then I bet when we're together, we're also giving.

Rachael Auyer  24:16

 Right.

Abigail Burle  24:17

You know? So, yeah, fast forward to our actual community here in Hall County, which is what I call home. I was at Tender Ones Therapy Services in Gainesville, Georgia, and we were coming off a Texas trip with one of our kids for diverse medical treatment, and I sat down in the waiting room and a mom, her name was Alicia, and I started striking up a conversation. And I said, Where are you from? And she said, I'm from Arkansas. And I said, What are you doing in Gainesville, Georgia? She said, This is the closest clinic that accepts my insurance. And I looked at her, and this light bulb moment went off for me, of Absolutely not. No one in my community, in my personal community, is going to feel the way I have felt traveling around this. Country. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but we're gonna do something now. Mind you, I have triplets who are not in school, and we're still doing all the hospital things, you know. And so I went home and told my husband, and I was like, I don't know what this looks like, but we got to do something. And he's like, Abby, we live off $50,000 a year. Like, what are we gonna do in helping this family? And I was like, but we know people who do have money, and we know who people who are generous with their time, I think we can go do something. And so what started out is I just put on my personal social media. I was like, Gainesville, Georgia is my home clinic. Gainesville, Georgia is my home town. If you are traveling to Gainesville Georgia, I want to help you find a place to stay. And that's how it started. And it started in random people's basements, our spare bedroom my parents house. And we did that for over two years. And at the end of two years, Beverly Wilson, the same woman that I said before, she looked at me and she said, Do you realize you're running a business? And I said, What? And she said, helping people find free housing. And I said, No, I'm just Beverly. I'm just helping people because I know how they feel. And she said, Okay, well, when you're ready to write a business plan, you let me know. And I kind of came back to her a month later, and I said, I think I want to write a business plan. And she said, Okay, help me write a business plan. We ended up finding an investor. This was not a nonprofit at this point. This was just meeting a need. We found an investor who was in the real estate business, and he said, Okay, I'll buy you a house, and you guarantee me renters, that's how the conversation started. And I said, Oh, okay, I can do that. And I said, Well, how will the payment work? Because we're, I've been like, asking people for $100 here, $200 there, you know, pairing up with the Airbnbs that would give us a free week or something. And he goes, Hmm, oh, have you ever thought about starting a nonprofit? I said, Oh, no, that's not what this is. And he goes, Hmm, sounds like what this is. And I said, I really don't think I have the margin to start a nonprofit. I'm just really just trying to do this under the radar. He said, Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll buy you this house. I'll give you six months no rent. That'll give you six months to go. This is how much I'm going to charge you moving forward, I'll give you six months to go collect some money. And so I went to our church and I said, I need a fiscal sponsor so that when people give they can get a tax write off. Right, right? And our church was like, oh yeah, we yeah, we could do this for you. I was like, Okay, great. They're like, how much do you think you need to raise? I was like, I need to raise $30,000 in a year to pay for rent liability, you know, all this stuff. And they're like, oh yeah. So I just start calling people in my phone, like, Hey, would you give $200 would you give 100 this is what, this is what we're doing, you know. And people had kind of been following on my personal social media, and kind of knew what we were helping do. And the church called me probably at month three, and they said, Hey, we got a little bit of a situation. And I was like, what they're like, Do you know how much money you've raised? I said, I have no idea. I hope it's close to 30,000 and he goes, you've raised $98,000 and I said, Wait, what he said, $98,000 and that's when one of the pastors at church was like, have you ever thought about starting a nonprofit? And I was like, Oh my gosh, with this again, you know? And I finally just had people that loved me. There were five people, they came around me. They literally, basically sat me down, and they said, You're not seeing what we're seeing. We're not asking you to do this by yourself. Let us help you start a nonprofit. Let us help you do this for real. So in 2022 love your story was born. We had been obviously doing it for about two years prior to that. But May 20 

Rachael Auyer  28:39

And during covid.

Abigail Burle  28:41

Yes, during covid.

Rachael Auyer  28:42

 Right.

Abigail Burle  28:43

Yes.

Rachael Auyer  28:43

Complicated. For sure.

Abigail Burle  28:45

Complicated. And I have my own mental health journey of my own that we would could have a whole podcast about, and I didn't know if I was in a space to do this, and that's when those five people were just like, but nobody's asking anything of you. And I'm like, but everybody's asking things. No, they're not. Families. Just need an open door of a place to stay. And Molly's house was born. That's what we call the house. So it's a free three bedroom, two bath home on April 1. So in two weeks, we will have hosted our 100th family. 

Rachael Auyer  29:20

That's awesome. 

Abigail Burle  29:21

Yeah, representing 16 different states. It's wild.

Rachael Auyer  29:26

So, 

Abigail Burle  29:27

That was a lot.

Rachael Auyer  29:29

No, it was not. It's actually really beautiful that you tried it before you buy it. We did, and then now you're here. You run a nonprofit. It kind of sounds unwillingly at first, and now willingly, I'm thinking willingly.

Abigail Burle  29:45

It was unwillingly. And this did not become my job until 18 months ago.

Rachael Auyer  29:52

Really?

Abigail Burle  29:52

 Yes. So even for the first, like two and a half years that we were a nonprofit, it truly was a community wide effort. Effort to do what we were doing with the families. And then we got to a point where it was like, okay, somebody's kind of, kind of take the bull by the horns and do this thing. And my kids were at a health space where I felt like I had the capacity to do it. And so I have now done this full time for the past 18 months. 

Rachael Auyer  30:19

That's amazing. Congratulations. 

Abigail Burle  30:21

Thank you. It's been fun. 

Rachael Auyer  30:23

I'm sure some of the uptick in the growth of it has been because of the investment of time you've been able to give it. And I know that comes with a large plate that you probably have to decide what stays on and what gets off all the time. I wondered when you started more in this past 18 months. What is the number one lesson you would be willing to share with maybe somebody who's considering doing something that they're not quite sure if they can make it work?

Abigail Burle  30:53

My number one piece of advice for you is, do not go it alone. Start with a collaborative mission. Start with a community that is surrounding you. An example of that could be, let's say you want to start a food pantry in your neighborhood. Go meet with other food pantries, find out what they're doing, because you might not have to start your own thing. You might could come alongside of theirs and expand it. We were in a position where, truly, nobody was meeting this need, right? But the collaborative in the community. I look back at myself over really these past eight years, and that is what my triplets have taught us. That's what starting a nonprofit has taught me, that when the work is good. People want to help true. There's no amount of convincing that needs to happen. I didn't have to sit down in a room and pitch and pitch something. Everyone was like, Absolutely. People need a place to stay. Why isn't our community doing this? And so when people can actually have a space to come around you or come around what is your vision? People are. They buy in and they buy in when they have a role. So collaborative and community. Don't start it by yourself.

Rachael Auyer  32:14

That'as good advice. Now we're going to talk about this 100. 

Abigail Burle  32:19

Yeah. 

Rachael Auyer  32:20

You guys are doing something special. I would love for you to do, not even an advertisement, because the work is good. You don't have to pitch us what is happening inside the community right now.

Abigail Burle  32:31

Yeah, that's awesome. So we are about to host the Barcus family. They're our 100th family. They have a daughter with down syndrome. Her name is Bella Rose, and they're coming the first week of April, and they're going to be staying with us for three weeks. And remind you, it's completely free housing we actually last year also now do thanks to Hopewell Farms. We offer free organic meat and eggs every week to the families, and then we also provide them two to three meals a week in community. So we don't just drop off the meal there. They eat in community with people. And so what we're doing to celebrate our 100th family is we're having a 100th birthday party, and we have partnered with some of our very loyal, loyal donors, Judy and Larry Glover, and they have done a match campaign. So they have said we will get $10,000 for the first 100 families if you can get 100 people to give $100 and so this campaign is going till June 4. Is how long we're doing the campaign for, and it's matched. So this will match us for $20,000 a lot of people ask, What would $20,000 do for love your story, it actually would cover an entire quarter of hosting families, which is hosting about eight to 10 families in a quarter, which is what we do. And so it really puts a dent in our program for Molly's house, and it's exciting work. And these families, honestly, who have traveled all over the country like us. When they come here to Gainesville, they cannot believe the generous community that we live in. 

Rachael Auyer  34:09

Oh, I agree.

Abigail Burle  34:09

It blows them away. It literally blows them away of when they hear our story, how people have come around us and then those people are then coming around them, the same people that came around us in the NICU are now coming around other families. I mean, I get chills, and it's man that is powerful.

Rachael Auyer  34:30

It is. 

Abigail Burle  34:30

That is a generational impact that I am honored to play a very small role in. And it kind of goes back to we called it love your story, because I was in a process as a mom, which we're all in this process, until we die. When life has handed you lemons.

Rachael Auyer  34:50

Are we gonna sing Forrest Frank? 

Abigail Burle  34:53

I know should we? But you know, a lot of times we're taught when life ends you lemons make lemonade. Okay. But what if life has. Did you so much and you have so much lemonade stored up, you don't know what to do with it. You're called to share it. 

Rachael Auyer  35:05

Yeah. 

Abigail Burle  35:06

We can share the lemonade. And so it's like one of those things where it's like, I never thought eight years ago, when I had three babies on life support, I'd be sharing some lemonade. I honestly just thought I'm never going to do anything with these lemons. And here we are. We're like, squeezing the heck out of these things, you know. And I'm so thankful that I'm on this process of learning how to love my story, you know. And that's what we kind of challenge. Sit down with every family that we host of. How can you be a person no matter what you can love your story. What does that look like?

Rachael Auyer  35:44

That's beautiful. I I know we repost a lot of these things. You've done some things for moms in our community that they can meet with other moms. 

Abigail Burle  35:52

Yeah.

Rachael Auyer  35:53

If you want to talk about that, and all the community that you've built, that's not even for those that are traveling outside, but locally here, if you have a child, I don't want to say spectrum. I want to say, like in the wide world, you need to learn how to love your story. You get to come to these things. So.

Abigail Burle  36:13

Correct. So Rachael, when I started love your story, and obviously Molly's house is hosting families traveling into Hall County, a lot of local moms that I sat down with coffee who have kids impacted by disabilities, medical needs, you know, they're like, but what about us? What about us? And I was like, What about you, you know, and they're like, help us. And I was like, Okay, I hear you. And so last year, in 2025 we started a program that we call care. Like a mother, I love it, and it's a care cohort, and it's truly designed. It's a free morning. We do offer certified child care, which means we have PT OTs and a nurse in the room, free child care, and we have 197 moms in our care cohort. Most of the events will have around 50 moms that actually come to the events. And we meet once a quarter, and it is a time for you as a mom. It is not talking about disability resources. It is not talking about Katie Beckett. It is not talking about IEPs. That's about your kid, yeah. And as moms, even if you have all typical kids or a kid with a disability, it is hard to get in a room and not talk about your kids. Yeah, this is the time to get in the room and ask yourself questions. What do I like about myself? A lot of moms cannot answer that question. What is something that I have found new about myself this week, what's a hobby that I have? And all of these questions we really kind of give them space to answer. And our goal is two things. Number one, that nobody in North Georgia would care give alone, that's the goal. And number two, how can we be moms that are equipped for the long haul? 

Rachael Auyer  38:00

Right.

Abigail Burle  38:01

Because we get so short sighted of the next IEP, the next appointment, the next scan, the next ... that we're not thinking about ourselves. Where am I going to be in 18 years?

Rachael Auyer  38:15

That so wise of you to think forecasting is something that I think moms just uniquely have to do, and very often we don't do it for ourselves because we're so in the weeds, right? I know that you are working towards having something for dads. 

Abigail Burle  38:31

Yes. 

Rachael Auyer  38:32

So why don't you? We love the dads too. We need you dads.

Abigail Burle  38:35

We love the dads. So, you know, with a nonprofit comes funding, you know, and so you want to make sure that when you start a program it's sustainable.

Rachael Auyer  38:45

That's good, and also in real business too,

Abigail Burle  38:48

Yes, correct. And so just because you have an idea doesn't mean it's time to act on it. So we were very thankful that we got to get one year of care like a mother under our belt in the dads, which is called Carry Like A Father, and it will start June 13, and it launches. And we've partnered with Decoy, which is like a eater tannery in Hall County. And the dads will get to play like duck pin bowling and mini golf, and they're going to do trivia. And we have five dads, like, the dads kind of looked at me and they're like, Oh, are you going to come run this? No, no, I'm a mom. 

Rachael Auyer  39:26

Yeah.

Abigail Burle  39:26

Right? No, dads, this is you. And so we have five local dads that have kind of jumped in and already started planning this. And so 

Rachael Auyer  39:36

That's awesome. 

Abigail Burle  39:37

Yeah, we're excited.

Rachael Auyer  39:38

You guys have a lot of good stuff going on, I got to come to your fundraiser and hear how awesome you sing, as well as so many others. 

Abigail Burle  39:46

Thank you. 

Rachael Auyer  39:46

Your husband was the sneak attack. He's actually very talented.

Abigail Burle  39:50

People still come up to me and they're like, you know, your husband loves you a lot, right? I was like, Yes, he sang High School Musical on stage in a Zac Efron wig. I. Me, and he is not like an up in front people person, naturally like me. I'm like, grab me a mic. I love it, you know. And so I'm like, Yes, I know he deeply loves me. I do know that.

Rachael Auyer  40:12

Yeah. I love that you guys love each other and you support each other so well. That's a cool thing to carry with in our space, what we see is a lot of marriages don't end up making it. They end up having just unreconcilable differences, because in the middle of it is really complex decision making. It's not just caring for children. It's figuring out how you're going to pay for it, who's going to do what treatment, and how are you going to divide the labor, and there's no even division.

Abigail Burle  40:43

There's no even division. And then you have a spouse that grieves differently than you grieve everybody grieves differently. And so even though our kids are alive and we brought them home, there is a grief story that is there, there, there is a morning of maybe what Ryan and I thought, you know that our family would look like grieving for some things that our kids don't know they'll miss out on, but we will we know they miss out on. So that's even more of our story of like rewriting that, not putting it on them. But you know, when you have when you have people who are grieving differently, you're in the midst of tragedy. You're making truly life and death decisions, trying to make those together. It's a recipe for disaster, you know. And talk about how the community came around us. I mean, we were warned very quickly in our NICU journey of like, this ends marriages. 

Rachael Auyer  41:33

Yeah. 

Abigail Burle  41:34

This ends marriages. And somebody from our church was like, we don't want that to be your story. We're gonna pay for you to have Center Point counseling for a year for marriage counseling. And we said, 

Rachael Auyer  41:44

Okay!

Abigail Burle  41:45

Yes. And it quickly became a safe place for us to go and talk through even my parents, who we love, and I talk to my parents every day, and they were down in the NICU every single day. They don't even still know some of the decisions we had to make, because I don't, number one, want that burden on them, and number two, I don't want it to make them look at our kids any different, or Ryan and I even different. So it really gave us a safe space to really dive into some of those things. And we've continued individual counseling and then some marriage counseling. You know, there's no arrival of marriage, just like there's no arrival in motherhood. But one thing I do know is that Ryan and I have truly come out of this on the other side, truly seeing each other, seeing each other at our worst, and still choosing each other. And I can't think of a better way to move forward with a spouse. 

Rachael Auyer  42:32

No and at the event, I just loved watching the both of you support one another and your strengths and talk about some exciting new things for Love Your Story. I don't know if you're if you didn't get to come to the event, you should definitely come this coming year. 

Abigail Burle  42:54

Yeah, October 2nd at the Boot Barn. It's really fun.

Rachael Auyer  42:58

It is a ton of fun, and hopefully we'll see more wigs. But the exciting news about Love Your Story, about where you guys are taking territory for the future.

Abigail Burle  43:08

Yeah, so you know, Molly's house is fantastic, but it's 1000 square foot home that is built in the 1950s it's not fully where to wheelchair accessible. We have to be honest with families about that, especially with the bathroom, and 85% of the families we serve have a child in a wheelchair. So Molly's house is great, but it's actually not what we need. And so we have started a capital campaign. If you go on our website or social media, you're not going to see anything about our capital campaign, but we do talk about it, but we are raising $2.3 million right now. We hit our first big milestone of 1.5 million, and we are building a fully universal design home that's 2800 square feet, and it will be able to host, Rachael, two families at a time, which then actually meets the mission of Love Your Story, creating that space of belonging amidst communities, right? Because that's where my first light bulb, yes, moment came that changed my life, of staying in an Airbnb with somebody, and that's what we're going to be able to offer families moving forward. And so we're so excited. So we technically broke ground last Friday. We're logging and all the things. So we hope at our October 2 event we're like revealing walls and all the things. It's super exciting, and we can't wait to see how it expands Love Your Story.

Rachael Auyer  44:33

I'm so proud of you guys. You're doing great work. I don't want to transition too hard, but because I have you here, I want to hear some rapid fire questions, okay, are you you a book or podcast? Kind of person

Abigail Burle  44:45

book, but I do have one podcast. I don't miss a single episode on.

Rachael Auyer  44:48

Which one?

Abigail Burle  44:49

Good Hang with Amy Poehler,

Rachael Auyer  44:51

All right, good to hear.

Abigail Burle  44:53

It is life is too hard not to laugh. It will be the best 45 minutes of your week. You're not going to learn anything. You're not going to have a personal growth experience, because that's not all the time what we need to do. Good Hang you are going to laugh your butt off though. 

Rachael Auyer  45:06

All right, so then, what book are you reading right now?

Abigail Burle  45:09

Oh, gosh, I read all things. I think the best book I just finished was The Frozen River, about a woman in she's a midwife in the turn of the century. It's great. It's a great book.

Rachael Auyer  45:23

All right, I love it. Good recommendations, okay. And then I wanted to know, because we talked about meals, a lot of meals.

Abigail Burle  45:31

Yeah a lot of meals.

Rachael Auyer  45:32

What's your favorite go to meal to make for your family? And then what is your favorite go to meal that you send to people when they need a little love?

Abigail Burle  45:41

Okay, my go to meal to make for our family. We're big beef people. I've mentioned Hopewell Farms already once, I'm going to mention them second time, their steaks and their pork chops are like our top meals for what we do, and just grilled vegetables and maybe some like potatoes on the side, nothing fancy. When I personally, as Abigail Burle, am providing a meal for, like, a family who just had a baby, something like that. My go to and everyone always ends up being like, thank you. My go to is breakfast food, because nobody brings breakfast food. And so I'll bring, like, a casserole they can put in the freezer, and then I'll bring, like, individual cups of yogurt and bars and some fruit. And that's my go to. That's a good hack. I love that. Okay, and then you guys have really built rhythms in your family. What is one rhythm that just is so relaxing that you guys do as the Burle family?

Rachael Auyer  46:38

Oh, that's a good question. I tell people all the time, I like going home. I like spending time with my family. I think the two things that we do as a family that has set us up very well with ribbon, the rhythms of now, two parents that work and three kids with all different needs, is we have a Sunday family meeting, and it might only last five minutes, might last 15 minutes, and we talk about, what's one thing from the weekend that we loved all doing together? We talked about, what's one thing that we're excited to all do together this coming week? And then we just kind of go through our week and talk about bullet points of like, this is when mommy's picking you up this one, this is when daddy's picking you up, this is when grandparents picking you up this you know. So to give them a little something to look forward to, something to look back on, that's something we do every Sunday, and then every Friday night we spend as a family. And so that might be that, and that's our that's our order in. That's the only time we do like fast food or something like that. So Friday's we order in might be pizza, Chick fil A, whatever, and then we either watch a movie as a family, play a game as a family, we let the triplets vote, and we have, like, little things in a hat where we pull out because they're, like I said the beginning of this podcast. They're all different. Rachael, they all have very different, I was gonna ask, are there any alliances that they team up against, one or with three? It would be tough.

Abigail Burle  47:56

Okay, I tell, I also tell this to our kids. So I'm not saying anything I would not say. So, they are all fraternal but Maggie and Max have a very special bond, so and they have the same blood type, so we think they are fraternal twins. And then we call Miller the third egg. He just somehow popped in there and just makes the makes the party. You know, just is a little sprinkle on top of the situation. So, awesome. But yeah, Maggie and Miller. I mean, Maggie and Max definitely have a little bond.

Rachael Auyer  48:25

Okay, so that's we're going to pick things out of a hat to make sure,

Abigail Burle  48:28

We have to pick things out of a hat to make sure everybody is, 

Rachael Auyer  48:31

Another good life hack.

Abigail Burle  48:33

Another good life hack. Yeah, 

Rachael Auyer  48:34

I love it.

Abigail Burle  48:35

And at the end of the life hack, guess what? Parents are in charge.

Rachael Auyer  48:38

Exactly. We have authority. We need to take it.

Abigail Burle  48:41

We have authority. So if I say we're not watching that movie, we're not watching. 

Rachael Auyer  48:44

Exactly. This has been such a great podcast, something that we do is we typically take a moment, especially those who believe in prayer, to pray for the person on the other side of it, because we don't think anything happens by chance, that if you're listening to this podcast, you needed it, and we'd hope that you would have an opportunity to pray for them, encourage them, and we could just bless them, and then I'll close us.

Abigail Burle  49:10

Okay, whoever is listening to this, I need you to know that your story is not a tragedy, that you are not holding a story that was written to burden you. You are not experiencing what you're experiencing to be alone if you feel right now that you're experiencing you're experiencing loneliness, you're experiencing grief and sadness and just so many questions that you feel stuck and you cannot move forward. My prayer is that you would just open your hands and you would truly say, I want to be able to love my story. Help me be a person that loves my story and as Christ followers we. We believe in the power of prayer, and we believe that God will intercede on your behalf of that request, but not only that, that you might have to have eyes to see the people that are coming around you to help you rewrite the script in loving your story.

Rachael Auyer  50:17

Thank you, Abby, for sharing that, and if you are needing community, or want to know more about love your story. Would you please click on this description box, my producer and amazing Marketing Coordinator Laine Johnson, is going to link all of these amazing things, and as we close out, Alliance is definitely going to do $100 and we are asking if you listen to this podcast and you were encouraged, would you please send $100 to Love Your Story? Because $20,000 can be done with many hands. So thank you, Abby, for joining us, and I look forward to seeing you in real life. Yeah. Were you inspired or challenged today? If so, connect with us. Follow the links in the description box below, we want to hear from you until next time. Thanks for listening to the alliance Goal Digger Podcast.