#10 Robert Wall on losing 'Lizzy', Loss/Grief, and Learning to Breathe Again

Old Ranger New Dad — Episode: Robert Wall on Lizzie, Loss, and Learning to Breathe Again

In this deeply personal episode of Old Ranger New Dad, Seth Ryan sits down with fellow veteran and entrepreneur Robert Wall for a conversation that isn’t “content”—it’s real life.

Robert shares the story of his daughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” Wall, who lived 2 1/2 years with a rare genetic disorder (rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata) and how that journey reshaped everything: his faith, his marriage, his identity as a father, and his understanding of what grief really is. 

This episode also opens in a raw place—Seth records shortly after losing his son and walking through a medical emergency that nearly took his wife. Together, Seth and Robert talk about the kind of grief that doesn’t fit neatly into “stages,” the pressure men feel to stay tough, and why silence can sometimes speak louder than the right words. 

You’ll hear hard-earned truths about:

• Why grief has no timeline (and why that’s not failure) 
  
  
• The weight of losing a child—and the purpose that can grow from the pain 
  
  
• Faith in the storm: surrender, resilience, and staying anchored as a couple 
  
  
• PTSD beyond the battlefield—and how trauma can show up years later 
  
  
• Hope without clichés: what it looks like to keep moving forward with a broken heart 
  
  

If you’ve experienced miscarriage, child loss, infertility, the loss of a loved one—or you’re the friend who wants to help but doesn’t know what to say—this episode will meet you where you are.

Listen now, and share this with someone who needs permission to grieve—and the courage to keep going. 

Transcript

1:19

All right, Robert, welcome to the Old Ranger New Dad podcast. Super excited to have you on and it's been a minute. It has been. It has been. we, we very first met this the first time, actually just kind of talking and chatting and we're going to do it live on, the actual podcast. Um, you put out a, a post on a podcasting Facebook group and I had signed up for a bunch of these things, not expecting really much out of them. And two posts in a row, yours and another lady Tamra who I have already had on my podcast, that was already out, had some very interesting stories, yours, especially because, uh, you were open to talking about. grief and about the process of, you know, your daughter passing away at a very early age. What age was it again? I apologize. yeah, no, no, that's fine. She lived to be two and a half years old. ah you know, we'll unravel a little bit more about that, but I'll tell you, ah the anticipation in the beginning was it could be days or weeks. And so, ah you know, later I realized what that, the gift that the two and a half years actually gave us. So. Absolutely. And now, like we had kind of, I had mentioned right before I hit record, I had no idea that I would be in the place I'm currently in now, having just lost my son and my wife, having on to gun, uh you know, emergency surgery and almost losing her. We're in a very, very different place than we were, you know, a couple of months ago, whenever I reached out to you. So I, and I'm struggling with just Getting some of that grief out of, of letting of my brain, letting me feel that. And so that's kind of where I'm stuck today. Ironically, I just got back from uh picking up the, the urn for my son. And yeah, it's just the timing with this podcast and talking with you. just, I knew it was something that was, was meant to be. And again, I just want you to kind of share your story and then I will. You know, I will pipe up whenever I have something to say, but for the most part, I really just want to hear what you went through and you know, and what you're ready to kind of share now. Yeah, absolutely. So then here's the thing. um First and foremost, my condolences. My wife and I have been praying for you and your family. And like you said, when we first spoke, it was under entirely different terms and uh with a different mindset and anticipation of what you thought, you know, everything was going to look like. I do want to share my story, but I also want to just address the fact that you talked about coping with grief and, just trying to figure out how to manage that. I think for anyone that's listening to this, whether it's a loss of a child, like we've experienced or the loss of a spouse, a parent, anything, right? mean, grief is grief. And I think that By all educational terms, people assume that there is a timeline to grief and that we go through these stages that are supposed to happen like A through Z. And that just isn't the case, right? Grief is different for everyone. ah It impacts people differently depending on the anticipation of what you thought the future was gonna look like. and how you prepare for that mentally and spiritually and everything else that goes along with that. I'm just going to just start out by saying, you know, you and your wife need a grief the way that works for you, right? And there is no timeline. And quite honestly, here we are. ah I'll dive into my story briefly, you know, ah I'm sitting at what, 24? No, maybe not quite 24 years. Yeah. Since she was born, she would have been obviously a grown adult if it wasn't under those circumstances. And yet, um, I still have moments. I still have moments. She, she's my source of, of strength at times. And then there's times when I just, um, I just need to, to still grieve over the process. So One of the things I'll just kind of throw out there is first of all, let's talk about how, like you said, how we met. We were on the podcast and I don't believe that anything happens by accident. so not only do we have that connection with a loss, we're both veterans. interesting enough, I don't know if you remember in our quick conversation, but I started out initially as a crew chief. on a 141. And so we carried the Rangers around quite often. I was part of that joint bass venture there with Fort Lewis and McCord out in Washington. So but anyway, have you ever been to that base? I did actually, I was recruiting for triple canopy for body guards for Kabul and Baghdad. So I went up there twice and recruited from 2nd ranger battalion, got a couple special forces retirees and a couple of rangers to apply from there. Yeah, yeah, we would take a lot of those first time jumpers out to Kansas and you know, a few other bases, ah kind of those low level air drops. But ah anyway, so definitely an experience. But the reason why I wanted to start there was the fact that, especially in the military, but just however you were brought up in life, you know, I was raised as a fighter, right? ah I had this mindset uh at an early age. of being involved in martial arts. Later when I got in the military, I competed in that space and I also got into boxing. you know, it was all about just tough protection, being there for those that depend on me in every fashion, right? Whether it was life, business, family. And so a lot of times, not always with just men, but just addressing the fact that were brought up with these characters that were supposed to be strong and that grieving as a whole is a sign of weakness and it isn't, right? I think we've both have learned over time that there's actually a great deal of strength in that process. uh But I just wanted to put that out there because that's how I felt back in 2001. 2001. previous marriage. just to kind of get that out there, I've been married for 10 years with my wife for the last 12 years. We have two amazing children. That's part of my story. But when I think of my earlier life in my previous marriage in 2001, I had a I had a son, he's my oldest, had him right when I was in the military. Five years later, had a daughter right behind him and almost instantly, you know, with all uh genetics that are involved, you know, within about nine, ten, eleven months after that third child was coming along and so We feel like, you know, when we've had children, we expect what the next step is going to be like. You know, the anticipation of, yeah, I've had kids before and these are just things you go through and there's not going to be any problems. And, know, you kind of move on to life. But that wasn't the case. So in 2001, she was born. Her name's Elizabeth. So Elizabeth Ann Wall called her Lizzie. And you're right. I dedicated my first podcast on my new platform to her, to her life because it was so instrumental in everything. But at that time, um I was already out of the military, supported, did a little bit of time in the reserves after active duty, and I started a business. And so I was very focused in my business, which transitioned into two different businesses at the time. So I've been very entrepreneurial most of my life. I was real, quite honestly, I was filled with arrogance. I still kind of had that. that young, you know, military, uh you know, just this facade of strength and ego and discipline. And uh my businesses were doing well. So at a young age, I kind of felt like, you know, and I'll just call it like it is in a very pompous way. I felt that uh everything I touched just seemed to turn to gold. I had some good business partners that were also experiencing some success. And in 2001, she was born. We had no anticipation, by the way, that something was wrong. ah All the tests throughout pregnancy back then, they were showing green lights. Everything was good. But when she was born, uh they essentially said, we have some issues here. We're going to take her in for evaluation. And we'll talk to you in a moment. And so ah that's a shift, right? It was a little bit different than what I had prepared for. And so here I am, I'm in the hospital. I have, you know, my ex is in there, my uh children are in there, and some in-laws were on their way, ah or family members, I'm sorry, were on their way. to kind of celebrate the whole process and take the older kids away so that we could focus on the baby for a couple days. Well, the chilling fact is after about maybe 30 minutes, they came in and they asked me to step into the hall. And they said, we've never seen anything like this. And this was an old hospital, Detroit, Michigan, one that had been around for over 100 years. And... for them to say that they don't know what's wrong, um it really stumped me. um they proceeded to say that they did some testing and they found that she was born with her ligaments separated. She had cataracts so she couldn't see. um She clearly had some other problems, an undeveloped palate. and uh just multiple things. And so she was born with a very rare genetic disorder ah called rhizomellic chondrodysplasia punctata. So if you want to write that one down. ah But uh essentially they said, we're going to bring in a specialist, but from everything we see, we don't know if she's going to live a day, a week, not really sure. And so kind of leaping forward a little bit from that, I'll kind of just jump forward in the fact that two and a half years she lived. So she lived all the way until October of 2003. And man, that journey, that journey was something um we talked a little bit before we went live about PTSD. And PTSD comes in many different forms, right? um Anything, any kind of an experience or an emotional experience that comes back to trigger us or haunt us time and time again, this was definitely one of them. The hospital and itself, the whole experience became part of that. uh NEVER wanting to have children again became part of that. uh And so at a very young age, while I was still in care for her, you here I am. I'm a young guy in my young 20s. I went and, know, uh had the doctor make sure that that would never happen again. So, you know, I basically went under, as they said, and uh kind of separated the excuse me, the opportunity that that would ever be able to happen again, because it was I mean just such a such an experience. um The doctors, I'm just going to throw a couple things out there at you. The doctors. They immediately said, do you want to abort? Can you believe that a child that actually was born? What do you think about that? I mean, I can only imagine how bad that must feel, your heart dropping the second they say, would you step out in the hallway like that, that you already know that it's something horrible. then for them to want to, and that's something that we've had to learn, right? And this is the whole point of the IVF journey and me vlogging about it. And just not having the ability right now to, do all the editing, to put that stuff out. But I'm recording all of this, this whole process. And, and for them to now that, that my wife has, has lost the ability to have children because the emergency surgery, I was going to get into that later, but she ended up losing um her womb. And, and it was the choice of, you know, her life. Um, and she's con she's bleeding and bleeding and they're, they've already given her blood transfusions and she, obviously he made the right choice and, and saved my wife, you know, but now we're, we're sitting here going, okay, we have three more kids though. They're all they're frozen, but they're still babies. They're still just like Archer who's alive today. And, and in that process, what I learned is they're like, okay, well your options are. We can literally just take it out and throw it in the trash. That's one of your options. And I'm like, okay, so what are other options? And like, well, you can donate it to science. And I'm like, okay, that, that could be worse than that. I have no idea what that could entail, but that is not something we're going to choose. and, and they said, you can, you can implant it in the wrong part of your body so that it will definitely die. but it will just be absorbed back into the mother. And I'm like that, but it's the same thing. you're still, you're still taking a life that can live and choosing its destination. You're taking it out of God's hands. And so again, that not an option. And then the other option is adopting, but you have no say in it. And I'm like, that makes absolutely no sense. They're like, well, but also. You know, you can't just give it away to whoever you feel like it's not a Christmas present. can dole out to family members. You know, it's, it's not something you can just give to terrible people. have to make sure that these embryos go to healthy couples who are going to be able to care for them. Blah, blah, blah. So it's all in the paperwork, but, but we've had to wrestle with, with that. Um, I say wrestle with it. mean, just, just going over that and, realizing that we really only have one option. is to try now to pursue and find people close to us that would be willing to carry a baby to term and give it to us, which is, and they're going to be a part of our life for the rest, right? For the rest of the child's life. Like we want somebody that's close, that we trust, that's going to eat, not smoke, not drink, not do drugs, not all these other things. Uh, but in my whole point to all that was just. the idea that we're living in a time where people think that those is an actual option. absolutely. And I learned so much about genetics, you know, through that process, that not only did they view it as this is a burden for a young couple, and do you want to one, there's medical things they can do to, you know, speed up the process and she's terminal speed up the process of death, or two, you can give her up in care of the state, which I guess some people do. ah And that still is a death sentence because all it means in my opinion is they're going to accelerate ah what they, you know, assume to be the inevitable. And so it's a sad thing. I've just, I've learned, I've learned a lot even since that process that now if they were to test for that in the, you know, the embryo stage, then. they actually give people right there the opportunity to abort the fetus. uh so, you know, that's probably for another conversation. But what I will say is that that was not going to be an option. And so here I was in my arrogant state, businesses going well. Now I have a third child that has a terminal illness, not knowing what the life expectancy was going to be. And I was going to do whatever I could to care for this child the best way that, uh you know, God gave me, God made her part of my life. And you and I talked, you know, briefly about this just after your experience where um sometimes, although it's hard and we don't know why these things happen, We have two choices. We can sit in that darkness ah or we can continue to grow and maybe through what's happened become a beacon of light and hope. for those that are also going through it, right? And that's what you're doing, man. That's what you're doing on your show. And you and I just being able to connect and talk as complete strangers. Now I feel like I mean, I feel like you're somebody I've known for years, you know, it's just that that close natural friendship where you're just like, yeah, man, we've we've we've been through some things and ah you mentioned some some interesting points there. And that's just laying it, laying all of the things that we've been through at the altar. And sometimes that happens instantaneous. And then other times it takes a long time before we come to the realization of that surrender is the best option. ah Because in military, right, once again, we're taught never to surrender, no retreat. And so when we think we're doing that in life, it seems like a negative thing. But when we're doing it to the person that we serve, the higher power, ah there will be fruit, right? There's fruit in that surrender. So brother, she, know, a lot, there was good and bad, I'll admit, in the two and a half years of taking care of her, um there were moments of great joy. And then there were moments of... ah heartache, pain, and trauma. It uh definitely was just one of many things, but it was a major catalyst in tearing apart my previous relationship. And when things like that happen, it either brings you closer together, right? Or the devil can come in and use it as a device to separate you. And so I'd like to keep encouraging that you and your wife, man, just just anchor yourself to the other things that you have in your life right now. And so anyways, so what I just want to leap forward a little bit and just say so she she ends up passing. And I that in itself, I was out of town on business at the time I was living in Michigan. I was in Ohio three and a half hours away and I finally received the call or I think it was a text message. But the message that I knew someday I would get and that was her breathing is very shallow and I think this may be it. ah And so I immediately left this business setting. Got in my car and I'm talking to God the whole way and I feel like this three and a half hour drive took 30 minutes. I'm not even kidding. It was like I was I was in a different space and. I I just went I just drove. I mean, and I'm that far away and I and I recall. barely hitting red lights, no traffic jams, which there's always traffic in Ohio. So it was just wild, man. You know, God wanted me to be there. And so I got there. I held her in my arms and uh I was with her for about three hours until she took her last breath. uh man, talk about grief, right? Like that's just, it empowered me in this process. I knew I wanted to be the one that held her through that, but it was heartbreaking, you know? um So I held her right up into that last moment. man, so many stories I could share and it's hard to fit it all into a podcast, but I'll just share this because it's something that um sticks with me. You know, she couldn't see, she couldn't speak, she couldn't move, she couldn't crawl. She was fed through a G-tube, many problems, but she could hear. Her hearing was excellent and she communicated through the response of like when I told her I loved her, she would smile and she'd move her tongue around. And you know, as a parent after two and a half years, you kind of get to know their personality a little bit. But when she passed, ah as God as my witness, uh man, it gets me already. But uh I swear I heard the words love you. uh So, man, I actually haven't, I've talked about her story. for years and I don't think I've said this part of the story in a while. But yeah, and so I just feel like that was just that connection. know what I mean? It was just that last breath, whether it was just something I wanted to hear or not, it still was a very calming thing that happened. I wanna kind of shift that story in the fact that I went into a dark place. thought I was, I had it all figured out. I knew she was going to pass some day. And so just like with you and I talking, you know, you have this anticipation of, of hope. Then you also come to this realization of what could happen and then something, you know, you know, something filled with trauma does happen. And it's like, how do you process that? And uh for about three months, it was rough. There was no communication. We didn't want to talk about things anymore. And there was two things that that ended up shifting my mindset and my in my heart and in new alignment. And that was one. I still had two beautiful children that needed me. Right. So I needed to be that presence for them. I needed to be that strength. ah And so I stepped back into that. And then the other thing was I recognized her purpose. And that's what I alluded to in the beginning when we kicked things off about the fact that through what you've been through, you and your wife, you can be beacons of light for those that are going through it, right? That are in a dark place that are thinking about taking their life or just checking out altogether, right? ah And so. One thing I really held on to, and I think you'll appreciate this, man, one of the hospice nurses that took care of her for quite some time was an atheist. She was very much into more natural, earthly presence. She was very spiritual, but not really tied into Jesus or or a God. And so, She used to always say, if there ever was a definition of an angel, it would be in the face of your daughter. Because every time I'm here taking care of her, massaging her muscles, kind of just stretching her out a little bit, I just feel this warming presence about her. In the beginning, she described it as an aura. And then that shifted into more of this angelic, like, wow, she's like an angel. And uh... that hospice nurse ended up um converting and giving her life to uh Christ. And so, everyone's got their own journey when it comes to that, but that in itself made me reflect back and I thought, you know what? Wow, man, like if this child that God has entrusted me with couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't see, couldn't eat naturally, but she had the ability to witness in a more powerful way than I can with all my faculties. ah What does that say about me and my life? What does it say about the excuses that I show up daily with? uh so through that whole thing, I had lost my business. I had lost all my income. Medical was tapped out. I was paying for things out of pocket. People were doing fundraisers to help us with her burial. The whole thing was just a wild time and it was like starting over at zero, you know? But that in itself, I just had to get that out and share it with you and I know I'm kind of just going on, but it's a it was a powerful, powerful shift in my life when I realized. You know what? It's not just all about me. Like my pain, my trauma, even my conversation with God where I blamed him and I said, you know, I go to church. I give I give and help others. I do everything that I'm supposed to right?.. supposed to do. Why? Why am I going through this? And, you know, it wasn't until many years later that I realized why not? I mean, I was probably one of the best suited to go through that for a bigger and higher calling, right? um It's hard when we're in the midst of the storm to see what kind of light is on the other side, right? Absolutely. One thing I wanted to ask real quick before I forget was you mentioned your three and a half hour drive felt like 30 minutes. If you can remember. Now, what was that conversation like? Oh, it was all kinds of things. was it was. um This sounds this sounds crazy. Let's just talk about conversation because of the state that she was in and the pain that she was going through. A little bit of that was like maybe like me coping with. Well, I I knew this day would come and maybe this is for the best. ah You know, maybe she won't be in pain anymore. Like I'm trying to. quite honestly, was like me trying to cope with what I was feeling. And then also there was anger, ah where then I was just bitter and angry and one minute I'd be crying while I'm ah wiping my eyes, trying to figure out if I could stay on the road. The next minute, ah almost hysterically, like a little bit of, I don't want to call it laughter, but it was like. like me just kind of erupting in this like, just almost craziness. Like it's just an emotional roller coaster. um Me thinking about my other kids, me thinking about my other relationships, um just everything, every single thing, every emotion you can imagine went through me at that moment, you know? And um I think that in itself, That experience was a major breakthrough that number one didn't just make the time pass, but it allowed me to just vent and get some things out there. know, just get some things out there. Like I said, at that time in my life, I was always like, I had to be the strength. I had to be the one that was rooted in protecting those around me and being strong for them. And so I didn't have a lot of time to. I should I say like adopt my own emotion, you know, and my own feeling. And so it was was wild. And then, you know, and then I even there was even a little bit of begging, a little bit of begging along the way to where I was just like, you know, like, God, this I know you can work all things. I mean, let her let her be healed. Let this let this be this this miracle of turnaround that. will shock the entire medical industry. You know what mean? Like there's always that little bit of hope that you try to put in there. ah But at the end of the day, it was still a miracle, you know? Yeah. And I think what you pointed out too, with her not being able to see, not having any of these faculties that we have and still being able to bring someone um to God, to Christ, to salvation. I think, right, I think we don't know. You go back to the Bible and you look at what Job went through, right? At that time, he has no idea. And all of his friends who come to visit him are very staunchly against this is a good thing. uh You know, even his wife says curse God and die. You know, the person who is your rock, who's supposed to be there with you through thick and thin after losing all that, they just, they give up. And, and I think that's What you said to with my wife and I, think we, definitely drew us closer than we could have ever possibly been because it's not no matter how much you think you love somebody until a doctor tells you, Hey, your wife may or may not make it. Um, she may, she may not really pull out of this and you're sitting here thinking, I mean, a couple of days ago, she was perfectly healthy. exceptionally healthy actually and we had a son on the way and then we went from that to like flip the switch and the fact that the timing of all of the bad things that were happening to us, um right, bad things happening to us when my wife comes home from her doctor's appointment which I didn't go to, was the first one ever because Archer couldn't go. And my mom just happened to have a dental thing that she needed done. And I'm like, it's not that big a deal. She's only driving a few miles. She's just getting another ultrasound real quick, but everything's fine. So yeah, just, just cruise down there. I'll take care of him. I'll make sure he gets a nap. And he's sleeping on me when she comes in and she just says, there's no heartbeat. And my brain just couldn't comprehend what she just said. And at the same time, this was like an hour after like Charlie Kirk gets shot and murdered, assassinated publicly. And I'm just like, wait, what is happening? And then to go from that to a few days later, now I'm rushing her to the ER and her life is at risk. And, and we already know the doctor said, if I hadn't already given her to, um, 2 blood transfusions before the surgery, she, she probably wouldn't have made it. Like that's how bad she was. That's how much blood loss there was. And the removing, you know, of the uterus was a absolute last resort, but it was the only thing he could do to get her to save her life. And so I know that from watching movies in Hollywood, the thing that splits up marriages and it's this trope that they use all the time is the loss of a child, you know, and there's been so many movies. uh that use that for whatever reason. And what you described there is kind of what I think most people fear that me and Malyri could go through, which is just that you stop communicating, because you don't know what to say. And we're still there today. I don't know what to say. sometimes. Sometimes all the words are in the silence too. You know what mean? Like you just need to. ah It's it's it's it's praying with one another praying for each other. um Letting each other know that when when you're OK to talk about this. I'm here, you know, like in your in your time and. uh Yeah, it's I think from the outside looking in, people have good intentions when you go through loss because everyone wants to say, I mean, it's the first thing that comes to mind. Like, I'm so sorry. You know, my condolences for you and your family. I feel bad. uh which is a real emotion and it's true. However, when you're experiencing it, you're still in the storm, right? You're still in there going, man, I can't believe what we're going through right now. And trying to figure out what the next step is, you already mentioned that. Already it's like, do you do with the other... embryos, right? Like what's our next steps? What are our options? uh think what you just said, be still being in the storm. think everybody still sees us literally sitting in a storm and we're still getting rained on. And we're like, now again, my wife's a combat veteran Marine, so it's, we're not, we're not your average couple, but I, and I think that that training and going through hard things, cause we both deployed to Iraq, going through that set us up. psychologically that if we are in a horrible situation, we know again, that God is in control. And once you give it over to God, then that burden is not on you anymore. He has taken that rucksack off of your back. It doesn't mean that what you're, you're not going to still be weighed down because we are still weighed down with the thoughts and, and the emotions, but We are not just going to sit in the storm and just get rained on. Like everybody keeps saying, you know, it's, okay to not be okay. It's okay to, to take time. And we sat in a hospital every day and every night, you know, for seven days between the two visits. And it was like, you know, I finally broke down. It just kind of came out of nowhere. I scrolling and I, I heard a song for whatever reason, that tune, uh, you know, just made me burst out crying and I went into the bathroom and just cried and my wife is still sleeping and I need her to sleep. I'm not going to wake her up and I made a little video and I have no idea why, cause it was just me blubbering, but I just, made a little message to my son. ah So it's like, don't, now that I'm talking to you, this is coming up and I haven't been able to do that. Like I've been able to talk to people just fine and talk about it completely plain as if there's no emotion behind it. And already with my background, I'm sure people think I'm psycho, a little bit of a sociopath just to not have the... uh crazy feelings that one might have after four deployments in special operations and, you know, living on oil rigs where people are dying around you and being a private contractor in Baghdad and living through the embassy attacks, December 31st, 2019. And it's just, even at that moment, I'm sitting there, the embassy is on fire. Our gates are being burned to the ground. They're throwing Molotov cocktails coming over. Uh, trying to come over the walls and a few guys came over the wall and we're like, okay, this is it. Like we have nowhere to go. We're our last stand. And even then I was still joking around with people. I just like, if I'm supposed to die, that's okay. Because my wife has a half million dollar policy that I took out on myself. So she'll be fine. You know, we didn't have kids back then. Um, and I actually had a, a, a retired canine dog who had PTSD. He was a service dog from, from overseas contracting. And that's who she had to take care of her, back home. And I was just like, she's going to have a, she's, she's got her dog. She's got life, but God brought me through that. And now here I am. And with Archer and everything going so easily, I just, it gave me this false sense of hope that, okay, I've turned the corner on all these L's I've been taking, uh, for so long. And, and I I've had these wins. And now at least with this, surely with this, surely with my family, surely with what me and my wife have gone through trying to have children for, you know, at that point, 16 years. Uh, but, but, know, here we are, we got, we got one baby and now the hardest possible way to have the other three is, is what we have in front of us. And we don't have time to just sit on it and not act. Right. Archer's growing every day. We want him to have a brother or sister. And if that's through adopting, then it's through adopting. If these embryos don't end up making it, they don't, but we want to give them an opportunity at life. And, and no matter what the outcome, even if all three of them end up in miscarriages and we go through, you know, that, you know, that type of misery again, that's okay. Because again, those souls are going to heaven. God. God gave us that and, my wife, when she came out of surgery and I want to make sure and point, say this, she, she came out of surgery and the doctor was the nurse said she doesn't know that we took out her uterus. so just so you know, that happened and she just said it blatantly like that, like bluntly like that. was like, okay, my wife almost just died and oh, by the way, she can't have kids now. Do I want a glass of water? No, I'm good. Like I, but she just said it like it was like, I'm somebody who works at the hospitals the way she said it. boxes on a checklist, right? It's yeah. mean to, I'm not, I'm not being mean to this lady B, but the way it was just, it was so fast and it was, and I'm sure that she was nicer than I'm making her sound, her tone, but the, came out very quickly. There was no humming and howling around it, but at the same time, my wife is in the other room, um, recovering and she did survive. They didn't come out and talk to me until they knew she was going to survive and pull through it. But I was just sitting there like, dumbfounded just like I was before when she walks in and says there's no heartbeat and Yeah. There's no words that you can say to your spouse or to anyone else. That's going to be this profound thing more so than when my wife is told by the doctor, which was what I was getting to that she, that he had to remove her uterus to save her life. And she literally says to him, I know. Now we're both confused. I look at him. looks at me. He's wondering if I told her, and I definitely didn't tell her. Wow. and she just says to him, hurt too much. I knew with that amount of pain that you must've had to take it out. And he's just like, kind of, kind of stunned. And so am I. And she's like, you know, but it's, it's okay. And she was so gracious to him and just thanked him for saving her life. And that's what I did too. I mean, I gave him a hug. I'm like, like you saved my wife's life. He's here thinking this is going to be this horrific news that we're going to be scream crying and, you know, cussing or angry. And the nurses said the same thing to us. said, my wife apologizes anytime they're inconvenienced when she needs help to go to the bathroom or, you know, all these things. they're just, they're like, don't apologize. This is literally what we want to do for you. That's why we have this, you know, that's why we have this job. love helping people. And she's like, I know, but I just, you know, I just want to be able to do things on my own. And one of the nurses come in and was like, you were, you're just so nice. And she's like, well, I mean, how should I be? Are, are people, are people mean? deal. Yeah, they probably don't experience that ah as often as we would assume, right? for some people, they wake up every day and they look for the negative in everything, right? I mean, you see it all across social media. You see it in people's behavior. And people like us that have been through some major trauma and things in life, Just in general. We're not just talking about You know fertility, but our whole lives We have been in situations that have put us in ah in danger ah Our life has been on the line. We have seen other lives, you know ah fall short and perish during you know this journey and It's like because of that I believe that yes, we may have our guard up many times. We may be a little hardened at times and certain scenarios initially. But we're also always looking for the good. ah I wake up every day, you know, with this anticipation that will bad things happen around me? Absolutely, it happens every day, right? Turn on the news. ah Is there an opportunity? to continue to push forward and let my life, even in its own trauma and unresolved pain and loss, can I still in that moment be an example to others? um Absolutely. And so I try to do that. And so there was a couple of things that you brought up that I wanted to touch base on as well. um By the way, thank you for... inviting me into your space because I think this is I feel like this is therapeutic for myself and for you right now. It's like we're just sitting here and we're in therapy. This is our therapy session and hopefully it is for others. ah When we talked about the storm, I didn't want to overlook the fact that many people when they're in a grieving process, they're in the storm, they're in that boat. that's being filled with water, right? The waves are pounding, the rain is coming down, and there's no motion. We're literally sitting there waiting for those results to sink us. And one thing that I have found, whether that's military, whether uh military training discipline, whether it's just something we were born with in life and it's part of our character, uh whatever that may be, we are still moving forward. So whether it means that motor, know, maybe I'm only moving two miles an hour right now, right across this water, but whatever that may be, I'm still moving forward. My boat is still being filled with water. I'm still in panic mode. I'm still, you know, experiencing trauma and grief. but there's still some movement forward in hopes that there's uh there's light on the other side of that storm, right? We know that at some point we're going to break through the storm, whatever that may be, maybe days, weeks, months, years, somehow we're going to break through. And it doesn't mean that the wounds we endured during that time, you know, sitting in that boat, having the waves crash against us, the PTSD that we ah acquired, during that experience, never wanting to be on the water again, you know, that whole thing. ah Those are still wounds. I was going to say that's still trauma and pain and loss, but those are wounds that we've allowed to heal so that we can keep moving forward, right? It's just you stitch those things up, you accept it, you realize it's still painful, but we keep moving forward. And the only way we can do that. is to be attached to, again, higher purpose and power. um And then also in knowing that ultimately, We are very selfish people by nature and all the decisions that we make. And so this isn't about, it's not always just about us. The pain's real. I'm going to still feel this, right? The things that you and are talking about, but there's other people watching. There's other people listening. I mean, your podcast, it started. And you've gone through some things already just since you kicked things off, right? was, you know, it was the pain and trauma and the loss that you had in the past. There was some there was a new opportunity for you as you were thinking about the expansion of your family. And that shifted once again. But you would have never started this platform if it wasn't for something that happened to you even prior to this, right? And so now that you're in this place, I'm telling you, brother, people will be transformed by. the loss and the trauma that unfortunately you've endured. And I mean. this is your, your story, you know, and, and, for you to even put yourself out there, you know, which gave an opportunity. Like you don't realize what that posted for me because literally what I was telling, uh, friends from church, was like, they're expecting me to be crying when I'm telling them like Malyri's at home. I'm here at church. She, you know, she's still having a hard time just standing and sitting down. Uh, and getting around, so she's not here right now. Um, but I'm just saying everything very kind of like that nurse said to me, just bluntly and straightforward. And I don't know how to, I'm like, I don't know how to make myself cry about this. And, um, but, but it was your, again, it was you being willing to even talk about that. When I told people that I was going to be recording a podcast with you, I literally told them, I was like, I think that's going to be an opportunity for me for. me to at least talk about these things and to start processing it more because I'll be talking to somebody who's gone through something different than what I went through. But, you know, definitely, and again, there's, this isn't a competition, right? There's no competition, but the fact that I didn't get to know Kristoffer and the fact that he passed before I ever got to see him and interact with him, but you got to. interact with your daughter, you know, for, two and a half years of life. And even though you know that she's in pain during that time and she's not doing well and not living the life that your other children did for you to have gone that far and then for it to be, for that life to be taken, it is another layer. And that's, that's, it's another level of, of pain and trauma that I want to learn from. Because again, There's no guarantee that any of our children are going to make it to adulthood. And when I started talking to family members who grew up, now my family grew up there from Oklahoma. They literally went through the dust bowl and the great depression in Oklahoma. And they were part of that uh train of people that just drove out to Bakersfield, California, because that's where route 66 went. And it literally ended in Bakersfield and they just stopped because that's where the road stopped. And like, there was no rhyme or reason. They just knew that they couldn't survive here. Oklahoma turned into the Sahara desert. Um, and so they just went out there and, and they lost kids along the way and they had 10 or 12 kids each. Like every family was having 10 or 12 kids and every single one of them had a child that was a child child. got a two, three, four or five year old that ends up dying. And it was just part of life. miscarriages to them was just a normal part of everybody's process. And, and it made me really sit and think for a second because we don't talk about it. And I only know of one guy that I served with that publicly posts anything about his, um, his child that had passed away years and years ago. And it's kind of one of those uncomfortable things where I never wanted to ask him about it. And I just saw his post and I would like it, like send him a little heart, but I'm not going to ask you about your child. And then once I went through this and I don't know why I just felt compelled to reach out to you who again, I hadn't known, You don't come from a background. We didn't serve together. don't, but I just, I felt compelled to kind of just tell you what was going on. And I did the same with several of my, close brothers and found out that. All of them had had literally everyone that I had talked to had been through the same thing at varying stages of like older than our child had made it longer and then had passed or earlier on. And it's just so many people in our congregation last night at church, somebody just leaned forward and said, Hey, we've been praying for you guys. And all we want to say is we've been there. And, and I've heard that from multiple people now that can't, they get choked up. can't even tell us what, know, or don't want to talk about it. And that's fine. Just to let us know that we're not the only ones. We're not, you know, we're not alone in this. This isn't because we're the weird ones who are going through this crazy, weird thing. Why did that happen to them? And that victim mentality that we don't have, and neither of us were, neither of us have that. And my wife actually said that to the nurses. She said, I have no reason to be mean to you. And she said, you'd be surprised how many people just cuss us out and are super angry and super hateful. And she just said, I just, I don't have a victim mentality. I know that this isn't happening to me because of something I did wrong. This is happening to me. And, and we're going to turn, we're going to use this for God's glory. And we're going to just share, you know, share our story and And we're going to help other people. however we have more children, we're going to, will, cause we're going to keep pushing forward. And I think the storm, you mentioned the storm and this is one of, do you know who Eric Thomas is the hip hop preacher? yeah, yeah, yeah. So have you heard his, uh, his analogy of the storm? That's it's my favorite thing of his. So, so he says, and I've, and when we think about, thinking about Jesus and walking on water, right. Having that in my brain, when I'm hearing this, he says, every person is either in a storm. They just came out of a storm or they're headed toward another storm. Wow. Wow. You are in one of those categories. And if you think that you're not, get your umbrella because get your umbrella out because you're about to take on a lot of water. And what you, talked about having success. Like I, I was the same way I had come. I had come from a family of nobody even graduating high school. Everybody went, dropped out and got a GED in my family tree. cousins, grandparents, uncles, nobody ever graduated high school. And with the only exception, I just found out literally this year of my aunt who had committed Self Deletion before I ever met her. that's literally the only person that made it through high school and graduated. So for me, know, there was no aspirin, there was no like, anything I did was going to be amazing compared to, you where I come from. And so I didn't have the, these amazing aspirations of of what all I could possibly accomplish. But I I, you know, I had L's. was just, I was just taking losses my whole childhood. And I finally get out of that. start, you know, living on my own and I joined the Marine Corps and I joined the Marines in 1999 before September 11th happened, or we were Never going to be in a war. And from that moment, when I got to boot camp, like I, It got injured in boot camp, but somehow it just literally magically healed, right? Just miraculously. My arm wasn't working. My shoulder did something and I was literally having trouble getting dressed in the morning. I had to have guys help me and I'm still going through boot camp, doing obstacle courses, doing all the things we're doing. And all of a sudden it just healed and I make it all the way through boot camp. go through infantry school, heavy weapons training, and all of them just bam, bam. I didn't, I didn't struggle necessarily in any of those things. And so I felt like I was on top of the world. I was so focused and then September 11th happens and it just crushed me because I was, I knew that I want to be a firefighter since I was a little kid and I'm going to do that. I was in my paramedic classes. I was starting that I was already working as an EMT. God has like, this is it God. I already got my path. know exactly what I'm doing. And then 9/ 11 happens and I could not sleep. I could not think of anything other than I need to get over there and fight. And my unit wasn't going to get deployed. They weren't getting deployed for a very long time. And so I had to look at myself in the mirror and, and just go, you know, I feel like God is calling me to do this. And if I hadn't done that, I am very confident I wouldn't be married to my beautiful wife today. I wouldn't have gone through the amazing parts of life, good and bad that I've been witness to. I literally got to be in the same room as Saddam when we captured him, Jessica Lynch mission was my first combat mission, rescuing Jessica Lynch. Like that's insanity. I did nothing heroic or amazing. I just was a front row seat to history. And I got to literally be there and witness all of it and participate. So to go through all the things we've gone through, but for this to be the one that that hurts more than any of the losses, you m mean, this is still your battlefield. I mean, as you already said, we're either in a storm or coming out of a storm or, you know, or heading towards one. And, um, but, but I will say it's the things of our past that prepare us for the future as well. So, um, you know, both for you and your wife, it's giving you a, um, a mindset. to, and a spiritual grounding to... to head into this, you know, to deal with the storm. That's what I'm, I'll leave it at that because you know, too many people think, you know, you're, you're, you're good. You know, you're, you're strong. You're, you're going to be fine. And there's going to be still some tough times. You know that you and I both know that, um, but you anticipate it already. It's like going into war. Never once did you think there wasn't going to be casualty or there wasn't a chance that you could be part of that. um or there would be injury or there'd be wounds or there'd be something that would happen and or you would come out of that storm not the same person that went into it not the same person that went into battle right you come out of battle as a as a new person and that's what this is ah so man if i if i could leave you know you and your uh and your audience your viewers with a little bit of hope. I'll just, I'll make this one really quick and kind of blast through it for the sake of time. yeah. But I ended it with saying, at a young age, because of what I went through with my daughter, the loss of my daughter, that I was no longer going to have kids again. Because they told me it was genetic. They told me the chances of genetics, by the way, are when two individuals come together and when there's this alignment of uh this mismatch of chromosomes. and genetically, you know, I had a one in three chance of it happening again. And so, you know, this fear came over me and it was like, I'm never going to go through this again, you know, under any circumstances. And so I thought that was it. And so leaping forward into the future, as I stated. I went through a lot of things. There's a lot I could share, but definitely the journey was a hero's journey, the ups and downs in life. Finally reached this place where I'm moving on under new terms. I'm no longer married and I'm looking to see what the future holds. I meet my beautiful wife and she had never had kids and that was one of the things that she always wanted. And so, I decide, know what, if it's God's will, uh Doctors said it had been so many years that we probably had a small chance of it being successful, but I reversed the entire procedure, went into the marriage, uh not even knowing 100 % if we were gonna be able to have a child, and we did. uh And... So we have a beautiful nine year old together. I I had shared that. So I've got older kids, but I've got a beautiful nine year old. then. And then there was a five year gap. There's a five year gap where we couldn't have any more kids. And going back to some of our story that we've shared, you and I, it finally came to this point and it was it was a lot of pressure. It was weighing on us. It creates its own grief in itself because. Her anticipation was always to have a playmate as well and all these other things that she expected, kind of what her future looked like. And uh it put a lot of pressure on our marriage. so uh kind of long story leaping forward, the specialist said that we had a 0.07 % chance of having a child naturally. And so that meant IVF. They told us we had to go IVF. And so we surrendered. We laid it at the altar. We decided we were going to focus on our marriage and discuss the children fertility situation, maybe six, seven, eight months down the road. And it wasn't until we did that, that naturally She became pregnant again. So we have our four-year-old a five-year gap between the two of them, but we have our four-year-old um And that was complete surrender right when they said it was less than a percent now I I share this For a couple reasons one that was that was Our story that's what happened to us. That was the miracle that came into our life when our marriage was potentially at risk, to be honest. ah It's brought my wife and I so much closer together. God is the center of everything. And we have also experienced so many people like yourself that can no longer have children and they're going through that grieving process. so spiritually, we're like there to become part of that support. Does it mean that every single person that surrenders everything and gives it to God, it means that he delivers the way we expect and that there's just going to be this miracle child that, you know, uh comes into existence? No, that's not how that's not how God operates, especially in a world of sin and all the other things that that that uh that we have to deal with in nature. But what it does mean is that once again, kind of coming back to what you said, if you surrender and the two of you put him at the center and it's like, what is your will? What's next for us? What would you have us do? That's the miracle. That's the miracle. For some, it means fertility when they didn't have fertility. For others, it's the next chapter of life that you don't even know. I can't even fathom of who you'll save, both just through your words and your story, but also maybe for that child that you may adopt at some point in life, or ah just in your nature of being able to care, support, or mentor. other people because of the loss of what you've been through. mean, who knows what that'll look like. So I don't want to put labels on it, but I will just say that God is the answer. he's like literally the answer to the next steps in your life and for anyone that's listening. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate it. I know, yeah, we are running a little bit long. um It's been great having you on and hearing your story and, you know, little Liz and I just, again, my heart breaks. I know that it's been a long time for you, but at the same time, that never goes away. And that's the one thing we knew about this is that it's going to take a long time for it to really even. for us to process it. But that being said, it's just never, it doesn't go away. And that's the point. Loss like that just doesn't go away. um And that's okay. it doesn't have to, that's the point. yeah. But here's the thing, um when you and your wife enter those gates, right? When our life is over here on earth, I too believe that my daughter will be handed to me and I believe that your children will be handed to you as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's part of the reason why it's easy to, for us to come out of that storm and say, okay, we need to go that way. Like we don't have time to sit and just, we're going to think about this on the way, but let's get moving. Let's get going. And again, I think some people are kind of, you know, a little... dumbfounded by that, like, I don't know that that's healthy. You guys need to still sit and just kind of chill with this. But that's just not how we're wired. And I think that unflinching, um, resolve and faith that my wife has, uh, and one that I share, like I'm, I'm completely at peace that God has, uh, Kristoffer and that, you know, like you just said, we will meet him again later. And the reality is. And this is something that I will, I will leave uh everybody with. I heard of a, was listening to a guy who had, um, had just lost his son to Self Deletion and he was in a preacher's, he was in a preacher's course or a, some type of seminary course to where he will then legally be able to officiate the wedding for his oldest son. And while he's in that class in the middle of that class, and he can't leave, like, he can't just opt out of it. cause his son is about to get married and everything is going forward. a detective calls him and lets him know that his son had committed Self Deletion. And at that moment, he, he realized, he said that, you he just talked to God. and he, he recognized that, um, that his son, although on earth, It was his son that wasn't his son. That was God's son, you know, and I know there's a whole lot of different religious beliefs out there about Self Deletion and I'm not trying to get into any of that. I'm just saying he, he recognized that my dad is just another human soul going through life and I'm his son on earth, you know, but ultimately we're all souls of God's and Our whole goal is to get other people, as many of them as we possibly can to him. And so that we can all be free of all of the bondages that sin brought into this now corrupt world that we have to live in until we can be with him in that perfect world. So that's what I look forward to. you know, there's a song that does make me cry when I hear it. that's the uh James Blunt's Monsters. And if you haven't heard that, the name was just what, and he talks about, I'm not your father. You're not my son. And he's singing it to his father who has that point was stage four, like he's dying of kidney failure. And he's saying that song and made a music video of him singing to his own father. And then somebody out there in Australia who turns out to be a distant, distant, distant cousin was a kidney match and reached out to them because of that song. And now his father's still alive today. Like you have no idea what your story and what your pain is going to help other people to process their pain and to just show them that you're not alone. We're all going through this life and we're all headed toward another storm no matter where you are. matter how many wins you have, you're still headed toward a storm.