The Equalizing Calm Before Chaos

“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.

The Impossibility of “Choosing” a Child

To “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…

An Empty Nursery

New 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…

See me: A father’s perspective on stillbirth

As 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.

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An Advent Announcement: We’re Adopting!

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!

The Upside Down, Alternate Reality of Grief

The world of grief feels like a parallel universe, an Upside Down underworld that one must journey through to reach “Acceptance.” But is Acceptance truly accepted in the Land of the Living? Or is there another place where both darkness and light, both pain and peace can live together?

A Mother Reaching Out to Other Mothers

Reaching out from the depths of her darkness, another mother looked to me in that moment to guide her toward the light.

I answered her as honestly as I could, “Only with a lot of support.”

When Day Becomes Night

On August 21st, the day we had dreamed would be our baby boys’ birthday, the cosmos itself will grieve with us. On that day, a total solar eclipse will cross the entire country for the first time in 99 years. The sun will blacken, the crickets will chirp, and for a brief moment the bright daytime sky will become as dark as night.

“Why don’t you just adopt?”

You are parents without children and there are children in the world without parents; problem solved.

This is one of the most daunting questions that someone who is enduring infertility faces.

Adoption is beautiful. As the sister of a birth mother, I know this more intimately than most. However, adoption is also complicated and it is not a cure. There is no JUST about adoption.

Forgotten Fathers and Families

Too often, fathers and families are forgotten victims in the aftermath of stillbirth.

In this post, I honor the grief of these forgotten fathers and families – of Patrick, our parents, our sisters, and their husbands – and I share four simple, magical words that can help you to remember their pain and their love too.