Baby Loss, Grief, and the Power of Support: Breaking the Silence

[@sneakernomics5547]

love this babes

[@deathonthedaily]

Thank you my love 💛

[@josephswitzer3283]

Thank you for your strength and vulnerability in sharing the loss of your two children, and for creating a space to openly talk about miscarriages. I didn't realize that you had a miscarriage in 2021, as well. As I've shared with you, my wife and I had 3 miscarriages in a row and I felt utterly helpless and without resources at that time. As a result of my poor coping strategies it almost ended our marriage. Thankfully it did not, and we had our rainbow baby, Cora, eight years ago! 🥰 I would like to ask you a difficult question, but I'm not sure if it is too political to ask. So I will ask it, but please don't feel that you have any obligation to answer if it doesn't feel aligned with what you want to accomplish with your podcast. I'm curious, based on your experiences, how do you feel about the pro-choice vs. pro-life movements? I realize that you don't live in the United States, where these ideologies are heavily debated, especially as we move toward electing a president in the coming weeks.

[@deathonthedaily]

Ahhh Joe, thank you so much for your share and as always sending so much love to you in such painful losses. Plus 🥰 at the joy of your beautiful rainbow baby Cora. You're bringing such an important conversation out of the shadows by speaking to your experience. Pregnancy loss isn't spoken about enough in general - it's even less so with men - meaning so many like you feel so helpless and without resources. And I'm very happy to share here. I am very much pro choice. In my journey, I had to make that choice as a TFMR is essentially an abortion for medical reasons due to her severe birth defect. Something that would have been banned in certain US states, meaning I'd have had to suffer the agonising trauma of delivering her and watching her die at a point where she could feel the pain. I can't even begin to imagine the suffering where abortion is banned. Including in maternal deaths that would have been preventable.

[@josephswitzer3283]

@@deathonthedaily I appreciate your perspective , your openness, and honesty. As a guy, sometimes (okay, most of the time) I feel nervous sharing my thoughts and feelings regarding "women's issues", especially around such a divisive issue as abortion. I want to be sensitive to others experiences and opinions, and don't want to come across as a person who believes my opinion is worth more than anyone else's. I am not much for labels, but I would say that my beliefs align more with the "pro-life" stance. I have debated internally about this issue for many years, and my opinion has been developed through my extensive studies in biology and the personal experiences with our three miscarriages, the births and lives of our three children, and working with children in various capacities over the years. I'm sending you lots of love from St. Louis, during this time of reflection and sharing the lives of your little ones.

[@deathonthedaily]

⁠​⁠@@josephswitzer3283thank you for sharing and honouring you. I hear you on the science research - I actually studied developmental biology across one year of my Biology Batchelors degree at uni. So a bit of a science geek and that’s part of the foundations for my beliefs. Beautiful that you’re drawing on experiences with children. I’d say for us it’s also important to centre diverse perspectives of women who have lived experiences too. It’s multi faceted and where unwanted pregnancy is also intersectional with lack of social care, inequity, violence against women (research shows direct links between unwanted pregnancies and gender based violence eg domestic and/or sexual) and more. Where it is a much wanted pregnancy TFMR due to a less life limiting medical reason than our daughter (who we knew could not survive it and medical science showed would suffer greatly if born) - but still severe in the disability diagnosis - I can tell you having sat in circle with women impacted this way just how nuanced and complicated this decision is. Also as our care systems are simply not set up to support families in these situations - even those with some privilege. But this dialogue is so important - so honouring you for asking and sharing and being open to hear my perspectives. Sending love to you from the UK 💛

[@josephswitzer3283]

@@deathonthedaily ❤