A Journey Through the Grief of Miscarriage and Stillbirth
This Advent, as Jenna and I remember the children we lost and dare dream of the Child to come, we are excited to announce that our own manger may one day be full. We have started the adoption process!
Read More An Advent Announcement: We’re Adopting!On Sunday, April 9, 2017, our twin boys, Ezra Lee and Leo Allen, died. They were born stillborn, just a day shy of 21 weeks. Any stillbirth is tragic. Yet, this loss was particularly painful, because this was supposed to be our double rainbow, the much awaited and longed for babies after we had already endured four early miscarriages within two years. Now, we are simply trying to put one foot in front of the other.
Read More The Purpose of This BlogJust before midnight on Sunday, April 9, 2017, our two sons, Ezra Lee and Leo Allen, died. Yet, their lives saved my own life. This is the heroic story of their birth.
Read More Our Stillbirth StoryOn Palm Sunday, one year ago, my wife Jenna went into early labor and began hemorrhaging. She almost died. Our twin sons, Ezra and Leo, were born late that night, too little and too weak to survive. They died. I never made it to church that Sunday. But I want to share with you the sermon I would have preached that morning. It’s a sermon about a hospital room, about facing pain and death, and when I wrote it, I had no idea that I would spend that very day in a hospital room, facing pain and death. In the quiet of my grief, I returned to this sermon and found God speaking to me—in words I never knew were intended for me.
I share them with you now.
Read More “A Good Death” – A Palm Sunday Sermon“Confronted with sudden disaster, we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred… Life changes in an instant. The ordinary instant.”
This moment – this ordinary, everyday moment – is a great equalizer. For precisely because of the ordinariness of this moment, we know that something like this could happen to any one of us.
Read More The Equalizing Calm Before ChaosTo “choose” a child through adoption is a daunting and impossible task. Can we “choose” Down’s Syndrome, for example? And is that different than when biology dictates your choice?
Journey with us as we face these seemingly impossible choices faced in adoption…
Read More The Impossibility of “Choosing” a ChildWhere is God when we have no strength left?
Read this powerful sermon of strength and hope that Patrick shared with his congregation during a special service on the longest night of the year, a service that recognizes that even at Christmas many were experiencing loss, darkness, and doubt. Along with Patrick, find the miracle of one more breath. One more step.
Read More A Sermon for StrengthNew years bring new beginnings, new hopes, new dreams. There is perhaps no greater testament to this fact than the transformation of our empty nursery, whose door was once ominously closed but is now swung open in excited anticipation…
Read More An Empty NurseryEzra and Leo’s legacy lives on, saving lives by helping others give the gift of life through organ donation. Perhaps, in part, because of their story, another little baby somewhere out there is living on today. I can think of no greater gift this Christmas than that.
Read More A Life-Saving LegacyO’ Childless Mother This Christmas, I see you. Today marks 2 years since the due date of our first baby lost to miscarriage. From one childless mother to another, know that you do not have to face this Christmas alone.
Read More O’ Childless Mother This ChristmasAs we start the next step in the journey to create our family, we are facing new challenges. Learn more how you too can join us on our journey.
Read More Join With Us On Our JourneyWhat do we do with unanswered prayers? Patrick wrestles with this question in his latest sermon. Why did God not save Ezra and Leo as we cried out to God to save them?
Yet, maybe our prayers have been answered in an unexpected way, as Patrick shares how, through one powerful interaction with a prisoner at a maximum security prison, God opened our eyes to a new path to parenthood – adoption.
Read More Answering Unanswered PrayersAs we enter Advent, the season of waiting for the Christ child, Presbyterian Outlook is sharing the stories of parents who bear the grief of infertility, pregnancy loss and infant loss. As a part of this series, Presbyterian Outlook graciously asked Patrick to write a reflection on stillbirth from a father’s perspective. Read this, as well as the stories of other parents who have endured the pain of grief, in this remarkable series.
Read More See me: A father’s perspective on stillbirth
End of the Rainbow 