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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:14
All right, guys. So today's episode is going to be a little bit different. We're not going to have
1:19
kind of your normal outro. I don't really even have a good flow of where this is going to go.
1:24
Don't really have any notes that kind of dictate where this is going to go. So
1:27
really, this is just one of those moments where I'm just going to kind of let God dictate a little
1:32
bit about what I'm going to talk about. And the overall point is that hopefully this resonates
1:39
with you guys. And hopefully this will lead to some good positive and healthy outcomes for you
1:44
and some of the things that you might be thinking about and going through. So I want to talk about
1:48
loss on this podcast, or maybe you can call it grief or whatever you want to call it.
1:55
And I wanted to talk about this several weeks ago, but out of respect for my wife and out
2:03
of respect for some things that we're going on in our family and in our personal life,
2:07
we didn't go that direction immediately. And so it'll make more sense here in just a second.
2:15
I guess I guess the easiest way is just kind of start with the end and then kind of work your way
2:19
back. So a few weeks ago, my wife and I, we lost our second baby. And so it's been a trying time
2:32
for us. It's been a very interesting time for us. The busyness of each of our respective lives
2:41
has not subsided at all, right, in order to kind of allow us to have the necessary runway, I guess,
2:48
to kind of deal with this, the necessary time and space to deal with it. But let's kind of go back
2:56
to to the first baby that we lost last year. So we decided that we were going to start trying
3:03
to have a baby. We've been married for almost 10 years, and we decided we were going to start
3:08
try and have a baby. And we got pregnant almost immediately. And so this is a first time being
3:13
pregnant. We don't really know what to do. Like, well, she had a better idea because she deals with
3:18
a lot of that with with her business. She deals with, you know, mothers and pregnancies and things
3:23
like that when she's taking pictures. But the thing, my wife's a photographer, for those of you
3:27
you don't know, so in case that reference didn't make sense. But essentially, I didn't really know
3:32
what to do. Like, when do you tell people do you tell people? Do you put it on social media? Do you
3:35
not put it on social media? Like, what are the ways that you kind of deal with that didn't really
3:40
know? But we out of our excitement, you know, we started telling a few key people, we weren't ever
3:46
going to put it on social media. I guess we're not going to be those folks. But we got through
3:52
telling our parents, right? And so like both of my parents were just absolutely overwhelmed. Like,
4:00
my dad especially. So my parents are not together. But whenever I called my dad, he was like,
4:06
super excited, like, giddy, crazy excited. You just feel it through the phone. And like,
4:11
his excitement got me excited. And it's like, Oh man, this is really happening. And you know,
4:15
what is it going to be a boy? Is it going to be a girl? What am I going to deal with? And all that?
4:19
Like, you know, how, how am I going to make it through? You know, what's the first book on
4:22
parenting? I need to read, you know, whatever the thing might be. And it was the day after
4:27
I told my parents and that she told her parents that we lost the first baby.
4:34
And, you know, then, you know, we're trying to in a small span of time become experts on,
4:40
uh, you know, pregnancy to being experts on miscarriage. It's like, okay, so could we have
4:47
printed prevented this? Is there something that we could have done, uh, to have kept this from
4:51
happening? Is there, is there something that we can do better next time? Like, what, you know,
4:55
is it how she was sleeping or was it the food we ate or like whatever the thing was? So we start
4:59
going into that mode. But it was one of those things where we found out that this was not all
5:05
that rare. I guess it's like one in five or one in six, uh, women, uh, miscarried their first time.
5:11
But there was just this overwhelming sense of loss, right? And it's kind of almost as if that
5:19
you're mourning something that you weren't even sure you ever really had. And I don't know if that
5:25
makes any sense. Um, but you just, you know, it was kind of a weird feeling. I mean, really,
5:30
uh, one of the worst parts about it was having to call your parents back like a day after you
5:36
made them super excited that they were going to be grandparents. I want to let them know that they
5:40
weren't. Um, and I mean, my dad was, was especially upset. Uh, and so was my mom, but, um, you know,
5:47
different circumstances that I won't really get into in this podcast, but it was just one of those
5:51
things where, okay, we just kind of rolled with the idea that, okay, this is just something that
5:55
happens. Uh, there was nothing that we really could have done to prevent this. It's just a thing
5:59
that happened. Uh, so let's get, you know, ride back up. Let's, let's try again and kind of go from
6:04
there. Well, we, we had a lot more trouble getting pregnant the second time. Um, and, uh, we finally
6:13
did get pregnant. Uh, how my wife told me was, was especially creative and awesome. Uh, for those of
6:19
you who follow us on Instagram, the day whenever I ran those sprints out in the snow, uh, with no
6:24
shirt on and, you know, just like a beanie on or whatever, when I was just out, out running sprints
6:28
in the, in the weather, um, she had told me right before I recorded that video. So, um, because I was
6:34
like, Hey, can you come out and shoot this video for me? I know it's cold, but you know, just come
6:37
and shoot this real quick. Well, she before she hit play or hit record on my phone, she had a shirt
6:43
on that said I'm Pregosaurus and I had like a dinosaur on there. And so it was just this, this
6:49
really sweet, really fun moment, like how she told me we're sitting there in the snow. It just
6:54
everything felt different. Because that first time you don't really know how to respond. You
6:58
don't really know what to say. You just know that you're excited. It's just like misplaced
7:02
excitement, right? But with the second one, it's like, okay, okay, it just felt different.
7:06
Everything about it felt different. Um, but this time we were much more hesitant to tell anybody.
7:12
Um, I think she may have told, uh, her, her mom, I didn't tell anybody that we were pregnant because
7:19
it was one of those things where it's like, okay, let's, let's get into the second trimester and
7:23
then let's kind of figure it out from there. Um, and then within a day or so of her telling me,
7:28
uh, she miscarried again. Um, this time the emotion was much different. Obviously I told you I was
7:37
more excited. So I felt like I was at a higher pinnacle. So I kind of fell a little bit farther.
7:42
I guess you could say, I guess I'd be fair to say, but the thing about it was is two miscarriages
7:49
in a row apparently isn't that common. It's more like one in a hundred. And the thing about it for,
7:57
for me as the man is there's nothing physiologically changing inside of me when my wife gets pregnant,
8:04
right? She's the one that's going through the hormonal, uh, chemical and physical changes,
8:09
right? To, to start, you know, the process of, of growing a, you know, a healthy baby.
8:15
And, you know, all the while while we're trying to kind of figure this out, you know, she starts
8:20
doing what's, I guess, typical with, with young ladies going through this, you know,
8:25
you start blaming yourself. Uh, was it the work that I did over the weekend? Was it the stuff
8:29
that I ate? Did I stay up too late? You know, what if I did this? What if I did that? Oops. I,
8:34
you know, uh, did this thing and I should have done the other thing and, you know,
8:38
you as the guy just saying, Hey, it's not your fault. Like it's just not that. It's not good
8:43
enough, right? But you're just trying to say something. You're just trying to be comforting
8:46
and you're trying to be strong. Um, but I guess the big difference for me with this second one is
8:53
the first one. I didn't really tell a whole lot of people that we lost the baby, right? I told my
8:58
parents, but then, um, I told very, very few friends. I told a small handful of people, um,
9:05
because I just didn't want to burden anybody, right? And I don't know if that's kind of like
9:10
a typical guy thing, but I'll just speak for me. I won't speak for all of manhood here.
9:14
But I just, for me, I knew guys that had personally gone through way, way worse in my mind than a
9:20
miscarriage. I had a really good buddy of mine. It took them forever to get pregnant. And when
9:25
they finally got pregnant, they were going into to the first ultrasound to hear the baby's heartbeat
9:29
and the baby's heart wasn't beating. The baby had died and helping them through that situation.
9:37
I had also had, uh, some people that we knew that took the baby completely to term and, uh,
9:43
they gave birth to a stillborn baby. Again, it just, it felt worse. I even have one of my,
9:49
one of my close buddies that I train with, um, he lost a kid when I think they were like two or
9:54
three years old, he lost one of his kids. And I'm, you know, the whole time I'm like in my head,
10:00
whether this was right or wrong, I was like, man, I can't, I can't, you know, go talk to people about
10:05
just losing, losing a baby, like, you know, into a miscarriage, like it just doesn't rank.
10:10
But that thought process and it took me a long time to kind of realize this, that thought process
10:16
led to me feeling really, really alone after our first miscarriage, just super alone.
10:23
And it wasn't like, Oh, what was me? All you guys should feel bad for me. But it was like,
10:28
I had created this loneliness myself, right? I had done the typical guy thing. I'm going to,
10:33
you know, pull myself up by my bootstraps. I'm not going to show any emotion. I'm going to
10:36
be strong for her. And there's some virtue and all those things that I just mentioned. But at the
10:40
same time, there was, there was no healing really for me for that loss, right? And so with the second
10:48
one, um, it was different. And I told a lot of guys, pretty much if I knew I was going to see you
10:59
in the near future, I didn't want you to look at me and have me be able to fake it and be like,
11:03
Hey, brother, how's it going? Things are going great. I'm praying for you or whatever that stuff,
11:08
kind of that typical Oklahoma, nice, you know, Christianese, nice type of stuff. I didn't want
11:13
it this time. And I just sent out a message. I was very clear in the message that I messaged
11:18
to certain guys that I didn't need anything from them, that they don't need to offer to do
11:24
anything for me. And let's just say I was overwhelmed in a very positive sense at the responses that
11:34
I got from guys. Guys were immediately, Hey, man, I'm coming over, I'm taking you, we're going to go,
11:43
we're going to go get something to drink. Hey, man, I don't understand what that's like because my
11:48
wife and I haven't gone through that. But you know, dude, if anybody can get through it, it's you,
11:53
and I'm so glad you told me and everything up to guys that I didn't even know had dealt with losing
11:59
babies in the womb that they had told me that they had suffered that as well. And so here I am,
12:06
like, I'm trying to go through this morning process. And then it's like, Oh, shoot, well,
12:10
I need to be there for my buddy now, right? Even though this happened a long time ago,
12:14
it's you kind of feel that reciprocity. Let's like, Oh, shoot, like, I got to be a be a brother
12:19
right now too. And you know, my wife, she had some of her own emotional issues. You know,
12:26
we tried to encourage her as much as possible to talk with people and to engage with other people.
12:32
And you know, she's still in that process now. And it's just weird, you know, it's weird,
12:38
it's weird when people know, but it's weird when people don't know. And I guess we just decided
12:42
that it would be better to deal with the weirdness of people knowing. And you know,
12:46
there's there's still those things. There's those little random flare ups of emotion for
12:50
both of us, you know, gifts that we each got whenever someone found out that we were pregnant. And then,
12:57
you know, every time we see that thing, it makes us sad, right? Whenever I'm flipping through
13:02
Instagram and I see that video of me in the snow, you know, it makes me sad. Because you know,
13:06
I remember what happened right before that, you know, just just stuff like that. And it still pops
13:12
up from time to time. But for my wife and I, we felt that it was most important that we treat
13:20
this for what it is. Obviously, if you've listened to my podcast for any length of time, if this is
13:25
the first one that you're starting with on the podcast, sorry, this isn't how it normally goes.
13:29
But you know, obviously, I'm very, very pro pro life. I have a lot of very, very strong opinions
13:35
when it comes to abortion. And so obviously, there's reverence for what is growing inside
13:41
the belly of a woman. And for us, my wife and I have decided that we have put both dates
13:48
of the miscarriages that we've had on our calendars. And we every year, we will acknowledge those losses
13:55
for the for the children that we have that we never got to know.
14:04
And so she and I both were we're still in the fully on wanting kids camp and we're going to
14:12
continue to try and kind of, you know, let God's will be done through that. I will say, I admittedly,
14:19
after the second miscarriage, I kind of felt like God was telling me, Hey, we don't we don't need
14:23
any more Thompson's in this world. So we'll see if to see if my thought on that is is right or not.
14:32
But I guess as I'm just sitting here rambling that the overall point that has basically haunted me
14:39
in a good way, since all this went down is most guys don't share their loss with other people.
14:45
I mean, you know, if someone loses a parent, and certainly for those of you out here that have had
14:52
a buddy that has lost a spouse or lost a child, it's visceral. It's in the air. And it's something
14:58
that hopefully you've helped with. But I would say that there are other things that happened to a
15:03
guy. There are other hurts and other pains that maybe don't register the same as, you know, losing,
15:09
you know, your wife in a car crash or losing your, you know, best friend to cancer or something like
15:13
that, whatever the scenario is. And you may fall into the same trap that I did, where I gave Satan
15:21
so many opportunities to attack me, because I was not allowing the men in my life to get up under
15:29
the weight and help me with it. I did the be by yourself figured out yourself, you can do this
15:38
thing. And again, I feel like there's virtue in that obviously, but
15:42
it became a problem. And it became an issue that I wasn't going to be able to deal with this
15:51
all on my own. And I needed to give my brothers the opportunity to help. And so I did. And that's
15:59
my encouragement to you guys, whether the loss feels big or feels small or somewhere in between.
16:06
That is a really, really good thing to share with the brothers in your life. And we talk about
16:12
male community all the time. And for some of you guys, admittedly, you don't have a strong male
16:16
community that you see on a regular basis. You have your old college buddies, you have your old
16:21
guys that were in, you know, boot camp with you, you've got your old guys from your team in high
16:26
school or whatever the thing might be. But most everyone listening to this, you've got a handful
16:30
of guys in your life that are the, you know, three o'clock in the morning, hey, we need to bury a
16:34
body type guys in there just going to be there. Hopefully you have some guys like that. But
16:42
those relationships need to be cultivated. And it shows a different level of trust whenever you
16:47
trust one of your brothers with part of your pain with part of the stuff that you're, you're
16:50
dealing with and that you're going through. And so again, without kind of a culminating point
16:58
or anything like that, that's just something I want to encourage you guys to do. For those of
17:02
you that are currently in pain and haven't told anybody you need to tell somebody, if you feel like
17:06
you don't have anybody to tell, email me info at undaunted.life. Email me info at undaunted.life.
17:15
Tell me. I mean, I've had guys reach out to me and send me some crazy emails. And I've done all
17:22
that I can in my unqualified manner to help these guys. And I'll do the same for you. But I know
17:28
that you have guys in your life that you can do that with. And one thing I guess I would share
17:34
with you guys as well, that I found kind of while I was mourning is I did come across a scripture
17:41
that I felt was very comforting. And I'm, I normally, this is gonna sound weird. I normally
17:47
don't run to scripture for comfort. Because I feel like I've seen people use scripture as a
17:51
crutch. I've seen people use scripture out of context to like, you know, help them feel better
17:56
about this, that or the other. But I felt like in this moment, it was fairly appropriate. And so
18:02
the scripture I found was second Corinthians one versus three and four. And so I'll just give
18:09
it to you here from the English standard version. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus
18:14
Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all of our affliction
18:20
so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we
18:25
ourselves are comforted by God. And so even just initially reading it in the English, you should
18:32
be able to get a lot from that. But I want to go back to the very end of verse three where it says
18:37
the God of all comfort. So when I went in and researched a little bit more about those scriptures,
18:44
the I guess the Greek word used for all comfort is paraclesis. I hope I'm saying that right,
18:49
the paraclesis. And that's really, really important because if we just give our modern English version
18:57
to a comfort means we might miss something. So this all comfort here, this paraclesis,
19:04
it's more than sympathy. It's more than just this soothing sympathy. Okay, it's it's more so like,
19:13
you know, a hardening a strengthening of helping, you know, making something strong forging it
19:20
is a better interpretation than just, you know, soothing sympathy, right? But the important thing
19:27
here is that God's strength inside of us, you know, his all comforting his, you know, his paraclesis
19:35
to us allows us to do that for other people. So again, the scripture is blessed be the God and
19:41
father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us
19:46
in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the
19:51
comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. And again, I guess that, you know, almost
19:58
accidentally that kind of is undergirds what what I'm telling you guys and encouraging you to do,
20:03
which is to share the pains that you're dealing with, share the grief that you're going with,
20:08
or that you're going through the the loss that you're feeling at different points.
20:11
It doesn't make you less of a man to share your losses with other men.
20:18
You know, to be honest with you guys and again, the second podcast in a row,
20:24
I'm telling you admitting to crying, obviously when we lost a second baby, you know, not around
20:29
my wife, but I was very upset. Didn't know what to do. You know, what do you do, right? You're
20:36
literally helpless in that moment. And I hadn't told anybody yet. And so you're just kind of stuck,
20:42
right? You're stuck right there in the middle of your own emotions. You're stuck in your feelings.
20:46
And you can stay there. You can be paralyzed by it. You can work your way through it. You could
20:52
never work your way through it, right? So you're not paralyzed by it. And you never actually deal
20:57
with it, which isn't healthy either. And so again, a little bit of a different podcast. We're not
21:04
going to do a normal outro or anything like that. I'll probably give you guys the link to that Bible
21:09
verse. But I mean, obviously you can find it second Corinthians one versus three and four.
21:13
But again, I do want to repeat the, the offer to any of you guys who feel like you don't have
21:20
somebody that you can, you can tell about the things that you're going through.
21:25
Just hit me up. I mean, just for most of you guys listening to this, I'm just a stranger.
21:30
I'm just a dude whose voice is in your phone right now. I'm in your headphones, right?
21:34
So you tell me something over email and what's the worst that can happen?
21:39
Because I guarantee I'll respond to you and do everything that I can to help you out.
21:45
Because most of the time when we're contacted by people, they're not even close to where I'm at
21:50
in Oklahoma. But there's still things that we can do to help one another, talk on the phone,
21:54
you know, do whatever that that's what we're here for. So again, to any of the guys that I
22:02
message after this happened that are also listening to this right now, I just want to say thank you
22:09
again. My wife and I were still in the thick of it. We're still going through it. We're still
22:14
figuring out how all this fits into the narrative of our marriage and our story as it were.
22:21
But you guys being there for us and just knowing that you know is comforting and it's helpful.
22:27
And I'm really glad we made the decision to be more open about it the second time.
22:33
As much as it sucks, it's better to go through the suck with somebody else.
22:38
So guys, thanks for listening and we'll get back with you here next week.