Ep 41: A Mother's Story - Abortion part 2.

When Rhea and her husband learned they were pregnant with their first child, their joy knew no limits. But when their journey took a heartbreaking turn, the couple chose to end their pregnancy. Rhea shares their story with Ryan in the hope it’ll give comfort to others facing a similar heartache; the loss of a child in early pregnancy. 

#abortion #termination #mother #prochoice #prolife #nohumbleopinions #straighttalk #sparkplugradio #rynosway #unpopularopinion  #unpopularopinions #podcast #podcastlife #podcastrecommendations #podcastseries #politicallyincorrect #politicalcorrectness

Transcript

0 (0s):
Hey there. Ryno here from the podcast. No humble opinions. We talk to interesting people about interesting things today. I've got a very cool cat on Rhea. She's going to have a chat to us about her experience with

1 (11s):
Bullshit. <inaudible> how are you buddy? How you doing Ryan? I'm okay. I'm happy to be here. I'm very glad you're here. Thank you very much for joining.

0 (32s):
Give him the kind of sunny Ray cliff today. It should be by the markets afterwards. It's pretty cool. We said, okay, let's do that. And I'll have be like, thank you very much for coming in now, as I alluded to at this stat and this conversation, you had an awful experience. You have been a friend of mine, sort of from a distance for a wall and you put up a post on Facebook about losing your child. I saw that and thought that's awesome. Cool cat, thank you. And sort of a chat about it. And the reason I want to chat about is I did a, a interview wall back, which was very one-sided in an opinion from a, an older man on how abortions should not be a thing, which I didn't necessarily agree with, or I tried very hard to remain impartial, but right.

0 (1m 20s):
You've been in the barrel. Tell me about it.

2 (1m 23s):
Gosh, where do we start? Well, so, you know, let me just clear up for, you know, for, for anyone who cares to listen to this, that when you say awesome, you mean it's awesome that I put it out there, right? Because it's really hard to talk to talk about,

0 (1m 37s):
Talk about it. No one talks about this is one of the phrases to these shows that people don't talk about difficult things because it difficult. And the problem is people go through things that are difficult and you've got to discuss that and make it a reality. My kid not normal as such, but no.

2 (1m 52s):
Yeah. So I guess our story started, I suppose, after I met the man of my dreams, Brendan, we got married. We, we wanted to start a family, starting a family was really important to him. You know, for me, I was very much on the fence with it. I said, look, you know, I'm in no rush. We can wait, but yeah. Or here's a beautiful time. So we tried to fall pregnant for about seven months before it actually happened. And we was so happy and Ryan, you know what had happened? My, my sister, so my twin had just had her baby. So we thought, how incredible right? How in sync, how amazing would this experience be moving forward with two children between the two of us, you know, who are growing up together and, and sharing in the life that we've, we've each created for them.

2 (2m 43s):
And we were just over the moon, we took my sister's lead. Actually. We took a lot of inspiration from her in sharing our news early with our friends and family, because like her, we thought that if card, you know, for bed, if something were to go wrong, then we would need to lean on our support network for support. We would need to lean on our loved ones for that help for that comfort, if anything were to go wrong. So not just to share our happy news, right. But to actually say, guys, this is a big deal for us. You know, moving forward, we'd love your support here because God, if it goes South, then we would need a lot of care.

0 (3m 22s):
A lot of people don't share it. So about 15 weeks or so. So I feel like they're out of the, they're in the comfort zone a little bit. Yeah,

2 (3m 28s):
That's right. And not just that. Right. But you know, they say don't, you know, a lot of people don't share their news for those three months because it is the most difficult three months. You don't know whether the pregnancy is going to be a viable pregnancy. You don't know whether it's going to continue after that. It's the riskiest time of the pregnancy and to each their own, right. I've always said to each their own for me, I was, I was in, you know, in the thick of looking for more work as a freelancer and the gig economy that, that we're in. And I knew, and I was getting very sick, very fast, very quickly. I was, I had hyperemesis, which meant I couldn't eat or drink anything at all.

2 (4m 11s):
Mine was a very severe case as well, where I was on levels and levels of medication to try and add, give me some nourishment from the food that I would try to eat. So for me, I had to be very transparent and wanted to be very transparent with the people who were going to become my employer for those first few months of my pregnancy. So, but, but taking of course the inspiration that I did from my sister, I wanted to share it with our network. So we did, we told our nearest and dearest and that we were pregnant, that we were expecting. And, and we knew, right, it was all celebration for those first few weeks.

2 (4m 51s):
But I started bleeding like crazy a few weeks into it. So we were rushing to the hospital four out of five days to the emergency center.

0 (5m 4s):
So you seek you bleeding. Things are not going well,

2 (5m 7s):
Things are not going well at all because they, they, they told us it was a threatened miscarriage, right? Because there's always this, the risk of miscarrying your baby, if you're bleeding. So that was happening to me all the time. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And as the days went, we just kept going back, kept taking a deep breath. My husband had to take a lot of time off work because he was taking me to the hospital every day and wanting to be there with me every step of the way. He's the most amazing supportive partner. Right? So that was our journey for a little while. And the more tests that we did, you know, initially the ultrasounds showed that baby was okay, so hurrah, you know, we, we knew that it was just a hematoma for me.

2 (5m 52s):
I had, I had all this blood in that I was coming out, but it didn't look like it was, there was anything wrong babies. So that was really reassuring at the start. But then we were, we were asked to do an ultrasound in week 10 and we just so happened to have this weird Wiz kid, a radiologist, this young, lovely, bubbly woman who was conducting the work, was taking the ultrasound. And she went above and beyond. I think what she was called to do. She took these, these images of the baby that they said D wouldn't have normally have been done in a week, 10 scam.

2 (6m 35s):
That's something you normally do in week 12 when you start to test for a CHRO, I guess, chromosomal abnormalities and the like, but anyway, genetic, sorry, not genetic specialists, but our obstetricians at the time, because we were being managed by a private team of the best of the best in Brisbane and OBS as they call them where we're looking at, where these images, all of a sudden, and they now start seeing all these red flags because they could tell so early on, but there wasn't something right with baby. There was something the matter here when I saw these images. Yeah. And it's really rare to be able to, in fact, it's, it's unheard of to be able to tell so early on, but they still needed to flag it with us.

2 (7m 22s):
So they did, we were called into their offices. The next day we were both set, you know, sat down and, and give him the very sad, brief that look while it's still early on. It's not something they want to see. And unfortunately, because we were so early in our pregnancy, we had to wait to very what felt like long weeks until we could actually start testing and start to discover and now investigate what really was the matter with baby,

0 (7m 52s):
More than an awful situation. I mean, hanging around with that weight, I've got some experience with waiting for bed and you used to, and it's not, it's not fun at all. So, so what was the situation? What was the baby?

2 (8m 3s):
Oh, so many things wrong. Goodness. And I think that we started to discover one, one thing after the other, you know, it started in week 12, what they do and, and look, it's, it's now a blur for me because I think when we were living in the, in the thick of it, I could tell you that it was a nuclear translucency. It was something else. It was a, it was genetic. It was, but now all the medical, all the medical science behind it, I guess is, has such a, a sad blur, I guess, because there were so many things that were going wrong right there. And nuchal translucency, you know, was, was thicker much thicker. In fact, a rare thickness. It was, there was a cystic, hygroma something they called, you know, this growth around the neck, but, you know, poor baby had so many things wrong with her that it just wasn't okay.

2 (8m 52s):
She just, she was developing, you know, rapidly, not as you should have been. There were problems detected with her little heart with her little lungs. So there were so many things that were going wrong. We were multiple issues. We were losing her. Yeah.

0 (9m 10s):
And water. Okay. Firstly, this is very recent for you. Yeah. I mean, it's January 24th today. And this was in December that you lost baby. Correct? That's not long. Yeah. And you know, the blur thing. I get it. Okay. We've for listeners out there. I think most of you might know. I lost my son three years ago today. Actually you say, bang, there you go. But we had 14 weeks of cancer, 14 weeks, 14 months of cancer. And I'm to tell you, truth is a lot. I don't remember about it. And I'm okay with that. I don't want to relive it. So I appreciate you doing so I've done it a few times with I can I get where you're coming from, but you've got that situation there where, you know, baby, isn't going to make it correct.

0 (9m 60s):
Yep. Okay. What chats did you have? What chats did we have? You know,

2 (10m 9s):
I like to think of myself as a realist, right? I like to think of myself as someone who can look at a situation and look at the facts and try to find as many facts as possible. I do it for a living as a journalist, right. I, I look at a situation. I lay out all the cards before me and I say, what can I work with? Is the situation workable? Is it not? And thankfully Brendan works in a very similar way. The both of us looked at our situation and as heartbreaking as it was, we, ah, thankfully we're on the same page, Ryan, my God, you know, I cannot imagine if as partners in life, we were on two very different pages, but thankfully we were on the same page.

2 (10m 50s):
We asked ourselves questions around. All right, well, we know now this is happening with baby. We know that there's in those early stages, there could be something really wrong here. What do we do next? What other kinds of decisions that we might have that come, you know, head on to us when we eventually, if we find out that there's no hope here, the two of us are very, very positive people. We are so positive. In fact, I think both my husband and I, you know, work really hard to not just lift each other up every day, but lift our communities up around us. You don't have to people up at, in our lives because we would like, we would like to role model, I think positivity and grace in, even in the most difficult situations, which is why I think what brings me here because as difficult a situation as we found ourself in, from the start, even before I had to, even before I said anything to my husband and, and look, I'm, I'm, I'm a lot.

2 (11m 51s):
I put myself out that quite a, as a, as for what I do for a living, you know, compared to, compared to him, he's quite a private individual and I am too to a degree. But, but even before I could say, you know, Brendan, I want, I want to tell our parents about this. I want to tell our families about this. He, he said to me, he wants to tell our community about what we were going through because he wants, he wanted us to be, to people that our community could lean on for support. If they ever ever found themselves in the very unfortunate position that we did, where we were weighing our greatest hopes against our deepest fears, where we were questioning what we would do for our baby.

2 (12m 35s):
Right. You know, our baby who was, you know, a baby who was very much wanted, who was already loved. There was already an emotional connection there. All right. You can tell me if it was 14 weeks in just a second trimester, but I'll tell you there was already an emotional connection there for me, for him. So the conversations that we had to have with some really difficult ones, but made easier because we were so aligned. And so in sync with each other and our desires to, for one, not see any child of ours suffer, right. That was a massive, massive one for us too, for us not to be parents who would say, bring a child into this world and what if we died, right.

2 (13m 21s):
And we would die. You know, the, the idea is you, you, you lose your life before your child, your child outlives you. But what happens in that scenario? What happens if we have a child who is not in a position to be independent and look after themselves, who looks after them after we're gone, those are the kinds of questions

0 (13m 40s):
Recently where I am a mother killed her older child who was forties. I think it was very hard level of disability because she felt nanos could, could look after them. And I mean, God, what a decision. But the thing is, I'm not going to bring these to the four. You didn't ask for these. And with, with people having an opinion from a distance on how people should behave and her light and those bits and pieces, I think it's very easy to throw rocks from the grandstand has a voice said on sing with, with Jake, my ex and I had to have some just horrific discussions enough was going on barely, already.

0 (14m 23s):
But we had discussions about when we would let him go, when do you not treat? If he gets pneumonia, which is quite common, do you not treat that and let him go and all these and okay, we didn't have to do it in the end, but it's still the discussion. And you still go through that point there. And I found it very, I mean, you're not here, we're here to your story. You know, I didn't ask you to come in and have an opinion or anything, but for me personally, it's individual circumstances, individual there's, you can't sit there and say not, not, not, not, not, not, not never, never, never, never is a long time and a stupid word because it's not true. And when you had a situation there where your baby was not viable from what I gather and I obviously, and you had to make a horrific decision, I have been in that situation to a degree and no one asks for that.

0 (15m 19s):
And for someone to sit there and make a judgment on what you should do in your position now, that's just, I just don't, I'll never understand it. I'm a gray person. I'm not black and white, but I will never understand those sorts of decisions. I mean, one of the things we talk about or talk about a lot is death. I've had too much experience with it, probably, but Carpen losing my parents early and all and stuff there. And then Jake, but it's a part of life. And sadly things don't always work out like they should. And you're in a situation where something was thrust upon you with a baby that you to wanted, and that was loved. And you had to make a choice to end it.

0 (16m 0s):
Now, I don't think anyone does that lightly. No, I haven't. Yeah. Sorry.

2 (16m 5s):
No, no. I just, I couldn't agree with you more there because nobody does it lightly. I didn't do it lightly. My husband didn't take that decision lightly and it's so sad and it's so unfortunate and it's, it's really disappointing Ryan. When, when you find that particularly people of faith or who profess to have a, be people of faith, share their opinions. So harshly and judge others. So harshly, you know, Ryan, you might wear the largest gold cross dangling around your neck, but ask yourself, do you really role model and uphold the values, values, like compassion that your belief systems call you to, to role model, to embody.

2 (16m 53s):
Do you do that? Can you truly say through the judgment that you pass, sitting from the sidelines, a lot of the time not having those experiences yourself, can you truly say that you're upholding the values? You preach values like compassion and care for your neighbor. I'm not even going as far as saying love thy neighbor. I'm saying, can you truly say you are showing someone compassion and especially people who are vulnerable, people who are so vulnerable. When I walked into that center, I was vulnerable Ryan, because as confident a person as I can be as outspoken a person as I can be, I was braking.

2 (17m 34s):
I was walking into a center to end my pregnancy, a pregnancy that I want at pregnancy. And I want,

0 (17m 43s):
That was something that you ideally wanted. And that's the thing that gets me. I had to, I had saying, are the people uses a form of contraception bullshit. Well, I'm sorry. I just can't imagine to do it because it's traumatic. I've known other people that have had abortions and none of them said, Oh, you know, none of them are in the pub that night going to, I just got rid of one day. It's all good. I mean, it's awful. And I mean, I don't want, we probably shouldn't get in the bashing religion, which I do enough anyway. Sometimes Padre Paul, like you're out there, brother.

2 (18m 20s):
I think between the two of us, we have best friends who are from all walks of life and all religions. So we can't say we're bashing.

0 (18m 25s):
No, exactly. Right. But it's yeah. I find like for me, I often think about the, my, my sorta daughter, Maddie has this thing. She goes on a WW RD. She sits in a situation. He goes, what would Ron? I do. And I just think WWJD, what would Jesus do? I mean, the guy is sitting there saying he was without sin, throw the cast, the first stone and all these other beats. And then I'd get these people making judgments. And I'm sorry, you have no right to do

2 (18m 53s):
No. And, and I'll tell you this, if you know, we are so blessed to live in a state that protects women like me, vulnerable women, walking into those places to have an exclusion zone around those clinics so that people can't come and demonstrate outside the door. As you're walking in to do something that is going to break you, or it would, for me personally, was breaking my heart. I, I, you can see that I've pulled out my phone really quickly because I took the name. I took down the name of one of the nurses at the centers that I went to her. Her name was Michelle and she was this kind hearted, beautiful, beautiful woman who wrapped me in blankets.

2 (19m 40s):
Ryan who put at least seven blankets on my body, around my feet because I was in the air con and I had taken some medication to start the process, unfortunately. And, and she had, she came to me and checked in on me so many times, and then eventually sat at my feet while I sat in this recliner chair. She put my feet up, she wrapped my feet in these blankets. And then she rubbed my feet and just sat and held space with me. She sat in silence, just looking at me, smiling at me and rubbing my feet. That makes me want to bawl my eyes out right now, because can you compare perhaps a person standing outside the center charging me so harshly and showing me so little compassion versus a woman like that who showed me so much care.

2 (20m 38s):
You can't compare. You just can't compare the two.

0 (20m 41s):
And that's the, that's the thing. And I've gotta be careful all the time when I'm doing these things that I don't get wrapped up in the, because it's, there's extremes on either side of life on generally any topic, and then they're always wrong. Like the middle grant insecurities. And the fact is that Michelle, I mean, she's done a lot. I'd imagine she's been there a lot for things, but the impact she was having on someone in a, in a horrific moment was, you know, well, something you'll never forget, I'd imagine. And I'm on a beautiful thing. And as you say, it's compassion for a, for a person that didn't wish to be in this situation, but is doing their best with what they've got and people like that.

0 (21m 23s):
Yeah. I mean, this is what I don't get. Like if you don't like it shut up. I mean, you haven't been there and I do find it too. And I will say this too. I find it very difficult that watching a man tell a woman what she's going to do with her body, for one, in addition to that, her child. Yes, it is Brendan's child as well as yours. And I get that, but it's for someone outside of the sphere to make decisions like that and say, no, no, no, you can't and this is wrong. And I just don't understand that.

2 (21m 59s):
No, I thank you for saying that. Right. And thank you for being as thoughtful as you are. Right. But I will say that I, you know, I, I can't even say that to a degree because I do believe that we, we all are entitled to our opinions and if we can communicate the respectfully, then by all means, go for gold respect respectfully. And so for me, I can understand as difficult as it is to hear arguments on the other side, or to hear the gentleman that you've had on your podcast really put his views out there the way he did. I think that as difficult as that may be, that is his opinion.

2 (22m 42s):
But for me, while that is important and by all means, I, I can still understand why I, someone like me might say have an opinion and voice those opinions because I do mine, right? If I don't like something, I would voice my opinion, but I would try as much as possible to do it respectfully and compassionately. I think that we are entitled to our opinions. And by all means, have your opinion and share your opinion. Because if you don't, I think that that might, and you might agree with me on this. It breeds a lot of animosity. It, it goes unheard of until it erupts. And then it gets a little bit uncontrollable. So it's important.

2 (23m 22s):
And it's, it's, it's, it's worthwhile to be sharing these opinions. And, and I get Ryan. Why people even like that gentlemen, feel as strongly as he feels in order to, I mean that he needs to put himself out there because we're talking about children, all of us feel to some degree strongly about children. All of us to some degree might feel strongly about life. And when we start to talk, ending life, I can see, and this is me really trying to put myself in their shoes. Right? It's here's the hope, right? That's the hope. And if I, so if I were to put myself in their shoes and I really cared about things like life, and then talking about terminating that life or ending life, life, that is so important to me.

2 (24m 8s):
And then children, if I loved children and I thought about ending the life of a child, no matter how young they are, no matter how developed, even as a fetus, they are, if you can, you see that as a life, then it is a life to you in your mind. And that is your, that, that manifests as, as your truth, right?

0 (24m 27s):
Your baby was certainly a life to you, wasn't

2 (24m 29s):
It? Oh, you know, when I saw my most wonderful, beautiful counselor and a man, Joe, when I went to see him a few weeks ago and to update him on, on things, the first question he asked me was, was she your baby

0 (24m 54s):
Tough question? Yeah. I mean, maybe easy to answer, but yeah, that brings up a lot.

2 (24m 60s):
It does. And for me, I didn't have to think twice about that. I said, yes, yes, she was, she was my baby. Yes. She might've been three and a half inches long. The size of a brilliant beet. Apparently a beetroot. Yes. She, she wasn't is as big as she might've been at 22 weeks or, or all older, but she was my baby, you know, she was my child. So yes, she was mine.

0 (25m 31s):
Yeah. Well, I've had one of my friends had a very similar experience to yours. I think it was later in the pregnancy, but they were grief-stricken absolutely go stricken and still are to a degree. Like it's, it's very much a he's he's name is used, you know, it's, it's not just, I was pregnant once it was, it's a person for them. And, and they had to make the same horrible decision you had to make. And that once again, no one does it lightly. I know one Sidney, he got high and I just get rid of that one. That's right. And I mean, it's a horrible set of circumstances and I, but it's, it's sadly, sometimes it's a necessary set of action.

0 (26m 16s):
And it just is, like I said to him, one of the things I said to my guests, that gentlemen who came on now, I said, okay, well, if someone has a baby, that is absolutely horrifically disabled. And basically non-functional are you going to look after? And he said, no, no, no. That's, that's the parents. They chose to have sex. They chose to have get pregnant and it's up to them. And I thought, well, if they chose and low sings, well can't, they choose to end. I mean, that was and choose to end with some dignity and some compassion given to them. That's the things, that's the, that's the part that I struggle with the most and those people with their opinions, then they're all happy to say no, no, no, no, but they're not happy to firstly, listen, I don't think, and secondly, to assist,

2 (27m 2s):
I have to say this to you. I have to tell you this, because it's so important that I, I really say this. And, and so, you know, when we started, when we early on in our, and finding out that we were struggling with this with, with our baby, our baby was struggling to go to grow properly. And we were now in a position where we were putting our story out there to our friends and our family. When we, before we said anything to our family, I was very, very afraid that with my husband's family being staunch Catholics, as they are, I was going to be up against quite a lot of pushback or judgment potentially, or even just please to ask us not to do that at determinate.

2 (27m 49s):
Because as we know, it's a grave sin, according to the religion. But let me tell you that I could not have asked or receive more support the support that I had from my in-laws beautiful Brian and Sandra was just something that I, you know, every person like me going through something that like this deserves support, like the support that they showed us and even being Catholic, the fact that they could come right out and say to us, we would support you no matter what your choices, if you choose to terminate for, for these reasons, for whatever reasons. In fact, we would support you because even for us, it was, was quite quite difficult, right?

2 (28m 34s):
There were, there were really strong medical reasons associated with that, with our choice to terminate. And they said to us, you know, we have your, you have our support rather every step of the way. And I did. And for me, that was so strong. That was such a strong show from a community, from a religious family too. And, and I think that to a great degree, they, they told us that it must've been even due to that traumatic story. When, when they fell pregnant with that third child, Brendan's youngest sibling, they thought that they were having a baby who was going to have superficial abnormalities when he w at birth.

2 (29m 20s):
But he unfortunately had a very severe type, I think of APAD syndrome and was quite deformed when he was born. And a lot of things were going wrong for that poor boy. And he only survived till he was three months old. But the trauma that, that family, my family faced looking after him and then losing this poor boy was just something that they said they would not wish on anyone. Lee let alone their own children

0 (29m 47s):
A hundred percent. And firstly, I just want to say, jeez, you've kicked a coat, a goal with this bloke. He has his hands up. He's got it all going and hats off to you. Brandon. You're showing me up brother. And yeah, that's, what's interesting with your in-laws is they've, they've lived a bad one and that's the interesting part. And I made a lot of people that that's don't that are blessed and have a great time and it all goes well and it's all fine. And it's lovely. And then they sit there. Oh no, no, no, no, but everyone else, well, it's not like that for everyone. And it's really not. And yeah, it does my head, anybody. I was having a little bit of a brightly, I've got to have a chat about a sponsor of mine. Cause people will actually help me to do this, which is really cool.

0 (30m 28s):
So I, to have a big shout out to crude, illegal in keeper ring, they are the injury specialists. Sorry, if you haven't, if you've had a bit of a stack or something's going wrong at work, or, you know, you're a bit hurt and you think you need a bit of an assistance from a lawyer, give crew legal, a call, they'll help you at all the time that they can. And they'll give you good advice, right from the get go. So check out crew legal and keep a ring. Look them up on Google. I would imagine, would be the best way to go. Ray, can I just take you back a little beat? Would you mind at all discussing the process if you like and what I mean by that is okay. Cause people, right.

0 (31m 8s):
People for fee, things that don't understand or are foreign, you found out that your baby was not vulnerable is an awful word, but,

2 (31m 17s):
But it's a good, but it's a, it's the right word in a way to use Ryan because the pregnancy wasn't viable. That's what the word is. Unfortunately.

0 (31m 24s):
Yeah. So, so your pregnancy wasn't viable, you and Brendan sat down and had this discussion that you never wanted to have. Would you mind telling me what happened? What, what was the chain of events that led up to your day in the hospital with Michelle? Yeah,

2 (31m 39s):
So, you know, in a way before I, on my way here, I was wondering whether you'd asked me this question and I was sort of hoping that you would, because when we were really trying to investigate and research, what happens next? Every step of the way, there was so little out there from women or couples who were talking about the process that they went through, all we had to talk to. And the only people that we really had a chance of learning from were medical professionals. We had genetic counselors, obstetricians other physicians, nurses, people in the medical industry and field, but they weren't.

2 (32m 20s):
And even though they are moms and dads and people in their own

0 (32m 24s):
Efficiently, and they're making it as dry and as informational as possible. And that is quite often not what you need. And I had that experience with Jack as well. We were sitting there and it was all very clinical, but clinical wasn't what we needed right then no. And I think

2 (32m 40s):
That is compassionate as they was, they were to us and, and is as informative and, and, and worthwhile and really necessary. The information that they were giving us was to us, for our own understanding of our, of what we were going through. We would have really, and I mean really benefited from hearing from another couple, another mother, another father who could even tell me something along the lines of Rhea, Brendan, the CVS test that you're going to do involves a needle, as long as you're up, essentially going into your abdomen, but do not worry. Don't be afraid.

2 (33m 21s):
It doesn't hurt. It's uncomfortable.

0 (33m 24s):
See that is, this is the thing. This is why we need to discuss these things. Because if it's hidden, it's frightening.

2 (33m 31s):
It's, it's frightening as all hell. Right. And I'll tell you what, there was one blog post, one that I found on Google one, Ryan, I'm looking at you with a widest eyes right now to try and get the fee, the weight of what I'm trying to say to you across, because there was one Google post or link from one blog post from a lady who had gone through the CVS test, who said in her blog, it is not painful. Do you know what that meant for me going into that test? It meant the world. Because even though at the back of, you know, it's, it's not an, a forefront of my mind.

2 (34m 12s):
It wasn't at all. I, I was going for this test hoping, you know, in all my power of hope that I was, would hear at the end of that test, that I was going to have a healthy baby at the end of it, that, you know, what we, our baby was going to survive against all odds. But at the back of my mind, there was this little fear, this fear of a test that sounds really, you know, daunting to have to lie there on an examination bed and have this needle in be inserted or through your abdomen. And there's a risk as well, along with that, they tell you that, you know, there's a risk of miscarriage even with that as well.

0 (34m 48s):
They always make those risks sense. So huge too, like, wow.

2 (34m 52s):
And they've got it. They've got a flag it with you of course. But, but it's all scary, you know, in a situation that's scary enough. It's just one more thing to dread. And so I I'm, I'm happy that you ask, because I think the more awareness that women and couples really have about the process of it, the more informed we are and the more of powered we can be on our journey, knowledge is power. Knowledge is power.

0 (35m 18s):
Yeah. So, okay. So you've got went neuro, when did you start the process? Who do you ask, like, who do you say to someone listen, we've decided to, is that something that's on the table very early, that people that the doctors discuss with you, or

2 (35m 33s):
Thankfully it is something that doctors discussed with you. They are absolute who lay all the cards on the table to dis you know, regardless of what your beliefs personally might be or not, they have to give you your options. And one of the options is that she might be faced with, as we were the, the option of terminating and not waiting to miscarry or waiting to lose our baby at a much later stage when she was a developing and suffering. Anyway, you know, we, we were managed by a team, as I mentioned at a private facility that looked at that, that had midwives and obstetricians looking after our pregnancy care. But I would imagine that it would be the same right across the board.

2 (36m 15s):
You know, you wouldn't need private care to be, to have these conversations with your doctor. I'm sure your GP, anyone should be able to have this conversation with you and I'm sure do so for us, it meant that while we were discovering, if I made, while we were discovering that baby was, was struggling and the, and, and that I would miscarry my chances of miscarriage were really high. It was our obstetricians and, and midwives who were having those discussions with us and who laid all the cards on the table and said, Rio, Brendan, this is an option. There is a clinic that we would refer you to who handle terminations and, and, and they would then look after your care.

2 (37m 1s):
If you do decide that that is a path that you want to go down. So from speaking to our midwives and obstetricians, we were referred on to this wonderful facility where Michelle worked and, and the team that looked after me worked, and they are, yes, an abortion clinic. They are a clinic that, that women would go to, to their pregnancies. And as, as, as sad as that is, it is something that I personally believe should be offered to, to women. And not just women like me, who, you know, want our pregnancies, that our babies, but I'm sorry to say women who don't want their pregnancies Ryan, because I think as a journalist and, and you are of all people as being somebody with the police force, once upon a time, you know, people like us in the line of work that we, we face.

2 (37m 56s):
And we go to every day, we see some horrible things. We see children faced with horrible, horrible things. And, and I think that for me, it's always been, you know, something that I could say without a doubt that if, if a lady and if a woman chooses for herself, that she either cannot, or does not want to look after a child, then by all means she has to, she must have the choice to terminate. And, and I think that, you know, that's why anyway, going back, I guess, the, to what happened in for, for us and, and the process, we were then referred on to this clinic, the clinic got in touch with me and, and, and we booked in a termination date and, and then we were there.

2 (38m 44s):
So it was the day of our termination. Oh, gosh, it wasn't. So, Oh my goodness. Here's I'm so thank you for asking that question, because it's a good question. A great question. In fact, because one of my fears in my mind that I wouldn't get a termination date set and booked in, before I miscarried, I was petrified of miscarrying. I lived every day waking up with the dread that I would be miscarrying. I just, I feel like, I think I I'm pretty strong person when it comes to it sometimes, but I think that that would have been such a dramatic thing to go through. For me, it would have broken me and to a degree anyway.

2 (39m 27s):
And I think that that's something that I really didn't want for myself, which is why we decided also that we were terminate. And I,

0 (39m 34s):
The anxiety of, of Whiting, I see, describe Jake Jake's cancer as being in a tunnel with a train coming at you. And all you can see is a lot. Yeah. And you don't know when it's going to hit, you just know it's going to hit. And we were blessed with, with him having a beautiful death as I've discussed before on this show, but I get where you're coming from. It's just, and when Jake died, I felt a sense of relief, which I felt very guilty about for a while, but there's nine guilty net, Lycoming, God, my kid died good. You know, and inevitably what was going to happen. So for you, I certainly understand that. And that's why I asked the question. Like the hardest part for me was when, when does this happen,

2 (40m 18s):
Ryan? You know, they looked after me so well, and as I'm sure they look after so many women who are faced, Oh, right. Don't even get me started.

0 (40m 28s):
Anyone who gives a health system a hard time off your heads is the best in the world without them,

2 (40m 34s):
You know, and look, I, right. Okay. So everything can improve, right? There's always room for improvement, but we are so lucky to be where we are honestly. And I think that that really hit me even harder, I think because of our journey and what we went through in that experience with our healthcare system. So this termination facility, this, they, they booked us in really fast and all of our specialists and midwives and obstetricians, and even them, they reassured us from the start that if, and when we decided that we were going to terminate, we would be prioritized and booked in right away.

2 (41m 16s):
So the wait wasn't that long. Right. And you know, they, I was in, in the week, you know, and, and, and how, and then ask me what it was like to even go there. And I'll, and I'll happily tell you, because you know, it was, it's such an unknown world because there's so much silence. It is just shrouded in silence because nobody talks about it.

0 (41m 43s):
I think one of the reasons people don't talk about it is that the fear of, of people condemning them for doing so. And, and those people that wave placards out the front end and all the stuff there. And it's, it's a frightening situation. So how to feel walking through those doors

2 (41m 59s):
A little terrifying until I met the team. Yep. Terrifying of what to expect, terrifying, because I had no idea what to expect, but my obstetricians at the facility that was managing my pregnancy reassured me that I was going to see the best, most compassionate people in the industry, as I'm sure they all must be, if they do what they do. Right. And for me walking in there while it was terrifying, I was trying to leave myself as open as possible because I was there experiencing something completely new. And I always try to give, you know, situations and people the benefit of the doubt. Right. So, yeah, so we walked, I walked in and it was sold terrible, but Brendan wasn't allowed to come in with me.

2 (42m 42s):
So I was walking in alone. I didn't have a support person with me because of COVID obviously. So we were down to being very restrictive, I think. So I believe so. I don't know really what's like it really did, but I think that what made it better was, you know, having the compassion of people around me to see me through that experience, that really, really made it for me because it could have been really horrible. Had I not had the people in, in, on that team supporting me through that and, you know, rubbing my feet when they did or checking in with me, seeing how I was feeling. So you walk in, you check, you know, you, you check yourself in, essentially you check in with the people at the front degree to you, and then you go through a three-level stage where you're checking in with nurses and other physicians, all asking you how you are asking you questions, you know, I guess the motivations as well behind why you're bad.

2 (43m 40s):
Yep. Are you sure? Yeah, absolutely. And I guess taking you through the checks that they need to take you through to, even for your own self, to be sure that that's something that you want to go through with, I guess, you know, I, I saw three different people, a nurse and two physicians, two doctors, one was an orthotist one. Was it a doctor who was going to be performing the, the pro the, the surgery, or I guess there, the procedure, the procedure is a better word for it. For me, who all took me through a list of questions and just checked in to make sure that my wishes were being adhered to, and is including Ryan, my wish to cremate our baby, you know, our, our desire to cremate a little Bob so that we could spread her ashes in the ocean place that we absolutely love, you know, so to really look after us every step of the way and make sure that our desires were going to be fulfilled at the end of the day, because you don't know to ask those questions, do you, you don't know if you hadn't been through it, you know, what happens next?

2 (44m 46s):
And for us, you know, for them to even ask, well, you know, what would you like us to do? How would you like us to handle this? At the end of the day for us termination was, you know, something we had to do and then cremation was something we wanted to do. And, and that's how we decided we were going to say goodbye to our child that we were losing already. And, and so I guess you, you then go into a waiting room and you're looked after, but your can I get into the nitty gritty details of it, even because I think that is just knowledge is power. Right? And, and so I was given two, two tablets, which were a medication that would, I guess, help the cervix, relax and, and, and open up a little bit, even more because yeah.

2 (45m 37s):
And, and, and, and Ryan for somebody who had no idea what it entailed, I mean, I have a basic understanding of it. I try to inform myself as much as possible, but I think being faced with it. So personally, so, so personally was, can be really confronting if you don't know what to expect. So let me share with you what happens, you know, you are given the, this medication to loosen everything up because that's how they, that's how, what the process is, you know, and, and then you wait and then that, and, and so I sat in a, in a beautiful, comfortable waiting room, waiting for my body to start to respond to this medication. And, and for some women like me, you start, you can sometimes start to shiver B as a, as a, as a symptom of, of what's happening to your body and your body preparing itself.

2 (46m 27s):
Unfortunately, and that's when I started to shiver uncontrollably and feel really cold on any given day. I feel the cold war more, you know, more than most. And we are slip of a thing, coaching what me. So I've got my winter coat on all the time. And so, yeah, I started to feel really cold, but I was really looked after they, Michelle came up to me and wrapped me in the warmest blankets are straight from, from what looked like an oven. And, and I was looked after, and then I was taken into the room where I had a whole team looking after me, Ryan, a whole team of experts in their field who looked at me, who squeezed my hand, or my foot who smiled at me, who looked at me with, with so much care, compassion, and, and sympathy with breaking hearts.

2 (47m 18s):
I imagined for what I was going through. And that's when it happened. Absolutely. Oh, I, I remember, I think I was trying to give my, my brain a breather from, for moments. So I was, I, while I was waiting for my body to respond to the medication, I, I was reading articles on my phone. I was of dare I say, even on Netflix for a while, because I just said, look, I I've, I need, I'm a person who needs, who knows the importance of giving my brain a break from grief. I allow myself to grieve Ryan, but I allow myself to breathe. I allow myself some respect from it. So going in there, I was trying my level best to distract my brain.

2 (47m 59s):
But I'll tell you what, when I, when I was faced with the moment, the moment of reckoning, I suppose, I, I lay there and I cried and I could feel the doctor at the end of the bed, squeeze my foot as I cried. And I stepped into a deep sleep before it all happened.

0 (48m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel ya. Nitty-gritty again. Okay. Is it, do you, is it Jim on the steak yonder or,

2 (48m 27s):
Oh God, what did I, what did they give me? I, I can't, I don't remember what it was. It was a mask when it, like I said, it's all a blur. It is a form of anise and it's an aesthetic. Right. And it is a form of, of, they put you to sleep essentially. And even though it feels like, you know, for me, it was, it, it all happened. It all happens fairly quickly. So I think you only go under for about 15 to 20 minutes, you know? So it all happens fairly quickly and, and carefully, and then you wake up and, and it's done, you know, and, and then you, you wait to recover, you wait to make sure that you're okay to, and you wait till your fit enough to, to leave essentially.

2 (49m 10s):
And they look after you some more, they make sure they give you something to eat and drink and, and they check in with you and may said, may give you some company as well. And, and I think so, so it's, it, it, it all happens really quickly. I think when it does. Yeah.

0 (49m 27s):
And Tuffy for you, but with your baby, your, after the termination, they obviously they hang onto baby until, you know, you're ready for cremation and all those little bits of pencils.

2 (49m 40s):
All right. So, Oh God, bring it, bring your questions on, because I was one of those people wondering Ryan, I mean, we asked those questions. We wondered, I, of course I wanted to know what happens with baby, you know? Yes. It's, it's what they call pregnancy tissue, you know, but she is my baby. And, and, and I, and that's how I looked at her. That's how I saw her. She was my baby. And, and so of course I wanted to know what happened with, with her body, with her tissue. And, and, and so what happened with us because we were choosing to cremate her. They held on to her and they held onto her body while until the, a cremation service team came to collector.

2 (50m 25s):
And let me tell you, Ryan, Oh my God, I cannot sing the praises of even this team more because I had a gentleman call me from this service and all Ryan, I fell madly in love with this other man. I'll tell you for a while, because his words to me were the most compassionate and kind and respectful. You know what he said to me, he said, rare. I would like to reassure you that the moment that baby is in our care, you will be the first to know. So the moment that baby is in our care, when baby is in our care, you know, how powerful those words were familiar, you know, to know that I was, for me, what was such a dreadfully heartbreaking feeling of terminating my pregnancy and then leaving my baby's body behind.

2 (51m 27s):
And to hear somebody say to me, that baby was going to be in his care. You know, it was hard, but it was so beautiful and excuse me, but the tears that are coming, but it was so powerful to be pretty out, but it was, but it's, it's, it's, it's so important. I think to know these things, because these are all the questions that Brendan and I both had, but had nobody to tell us, otherwise, we had nobody to share this story with. And that's precisely why I'm here sitting across from you having this conversation with you. It's why I have the support of the most beautiful husband in the world who said that it's, it's important that we share our story.

2 (52m 9s):
It's why we wrote that article together and shared it far and wide to our broader network and community. It's to say, guys, we are here. If you need to talk to somebody about this, if you want to know what it's like and what to expect, or even if you just need a shoulder

0 (52m 28s):
And it's you're spot on. And it was, I found that very difficult with w with my experience with Jake, is that, who do you talk to? And I didn't maybe do as well as I could have with that in some ways, but it is what it is. It went that way, but interesting things happened the other day. So I just wanted to do a sidebar while you clean up those teasers.

2 (52m 52s):
Yeah.

0 (52m 53s):
We, I run a charity called tribes, social belonging, and we had a gathering the other day, and we were talking, I've asked one of our people. She does, she makes cardboard furniture and she does a good job. So I asked her to build my coffin. Now, why? Because I think it's funny when Mrs thinks I'm off my head, but I don't play. <inaudible> built. I'll show you some photos that it's good, but it's why it's because to de mystify part of that now I was, and when we were there talking about that, I had a friend Beck, who's a nurse, and she's a beautiful human. She stacked my bar. Cause I think I'm 22 and I'm not.

0 (53m 34s):
And I had to have some surgery and she looked after me, but I've known him for a while anyway, and we were talking about this and she said, she's often thought about becoming a death doula. And so a guide basically, cause there's there's birth doors and being a guide for these difficult times is so helpful. And so reassuring. And he's this guy that looked after baby afterwards. Like, that's what it's about. And I remember from the cops, you would have really great funeral people and Morgan and Morgan Morgan attendance, and also, and you'd have real decades.

0 (54m 15s):
Sometimes it might always, and it was the luck of the draw on how that went, but you need a God in these crazy circumstances that you'll probably never have again. And I think the fact that you've, and I'm going to blow sunshine for a second, but the fact that you've done this and stepped down on that is just so much opportunity for people in a very difficult the wheel during situation to know something about it. Are you going to put yourself out as someone to assist people or what's your intention or

2 (54m 49s):
What a great, another great question. Thank you. First off for, I guess, holding that space with me and acknowledging that. Not that we ever need acknowledgement, I don't need it. My husband doesn't need it to be honest, but I think to answer your question, yes, I, I hope that moving forward, we can be support to so many people. However, they need our support. Our beautiful genetic counselor asked me if we, I would be a support person to other women and couples going through genetic counseling and that process and that journey when they're potentially getting the worst news of their life.

2 (55m 30s):
And yeah.

0 (55m 31s):
Did any counseling, what life they found out that something is amiss with the child, you talking to someone they know you or I don't know.

2 (55m 37s):
Yeah, no. They, so genetic counseling essentially to, to talk through the genetic process of testing and what to expect, especially the more testing you decide to do. So. So when we were referred to a genetic counselor, it was to, to get more testing done for both Brendan and I, or even potentially baby had, we decided to keep going without pregnancy, because there are tests you can do to try and really knuckle down on what the problem is. And, and, and for us, unfortunately, the answers weren't clear initially, but it didn't mean that something wasn't wrong, there was clearly something very wrong there. So, so I guess when we had one of our conversations recently, when I had my beautiful, beautiful counselor, I checked in with me, gave me a call just to check in, to see how we were going.

2 (56m 24s):
She asked me if we would be support people and I put my hand up straight away, straight away. And I said, absolutely without a heartbeat. But let me tell you rhyme that since sharing our story, even one-on-one with family and then on to sharing it a little bit more publicly across our social networks, the amount of women and the amount of men, even couples, people, fathers, mothers, who have reached out to us to then share bear stories of loss and losing a child for the first time, Ryan and I'm talking people who are grandmothers, who haven't ever breathed a word about this to anybody for as long as 30 something years, people who have, you know, been connected so closely connected to their communities and still suffered in silence, going through incredible lengths of grief and loss.

2 (57m 28s):
But in silence, you know, those people have come to us and said, thank you for sharing your story because now I feel I can talk about it. Thank you for being brave to say something especially about a termination. Thank you. Because now we can share our journey. You know, that I think has been such a major part of what's kept us sane and what's kept us strong throughout this whole process, because I think as positive and as, as determined to be happy type of people as we are, of course, we're grieving of course, where we're breaking, you know?

0 (58m 6s):
Yeah. It was interesting that you mentioned that, like after I did my previous discussion on abortion, I had four women that I knew that were friends of mine tell me that they had been through the procedure, had been through an, a termination and hadn't, and just don't talk about it and not telling them, I mean, that's a lot of, that's a lot of grief and misery getting held in one little space, isn't it? You know, not, not having that.

2 (58m 31s):
You know, I, when I call it, I call it the culture of silence. The culture of silence to me is wrapped around so many issues. You, you censor yourself, things like deaths, you know, things like what we're talking about today. And it is heartbreaking because so many people feel the pressure or the stigma, or even the fear sometimes to struggle and suffer in silence when really nobody should, nobody should. And I think what happened as a result of us sharing our story with our close loved ones was that we were cocooned in, in that care, we were cocooned in support and love. And, and that meant that our burdens would just that little later Ryan, you know, and it's a very powerful thing.

0 (59m 16s):
That's, that's why I started trollop. Cause I just had so many people who loved me and I just started thinking, what if don't, but what do you do? And now you've been very fortunate with it. And look, I I'm Sarah, I'm very grateful for you speaking so openly and discussing things because someone is out there is going to listen to these and they laugh. Hopefully it will be a bit easier due to that. I thank you very much, Ray. Thanks for sharing. And look grieving takes a wall.

2 (59m 44s):
It does. And I'll tell you what, somebody asked me the other day. How do you feel now? And the only way I thought that I could really truly and honestly respond was to say, I think I was always okay because I grieve and get up. I grieve and get up because getting up is never an option for me, but it doesn't mean that grieving is any less what it is. So thank you, Ryan. Thank you for shedding light on these issues. And thanks for having me. It's been a true pleasure.

0 (1h 0m 8s):
It's been an absolute pleasure, buddy. Thank you very much. I'm very grateful. We might do some more fun stuff one day, but fun. Have a nice big, thanks again to crew legal for supporting me in being able to put this show on. Thanks. Thanks listeners. Really appreciate it. We will catch up you next week on no humble opinions. <inaudible>.