The Keri Croft Show
The Keri Croft Show
Jennifer Bullock on Unimaginable Loss, Unshakable Love, and a Legacy That Lives On
We’re kicking off our April Infertility Series with Jennifer Bullock—mom, wife, NBC4 news anchor and the true definition of a BADASS.
In 2021, Jenn’s world changed forever when she lost her beautiful baby boy, Miles at 33 weeks. What she’s done in the wake of that heartbreak is nothing short of extraordinary. Through unimaginable grief, she created Miles Mission, an organization built to raise awareness, fight for policy change, and support families navigating the devastating world of pregnancy and infant loss.
Jenn is beautiful inside and out, and her strength is next level. Her vulnerability, her fire, and her willingness to speak truth into the darkness—it's something special.
This conversation will move you, shake you, and remind you that even in the deepest sorrow, there’s space for purpose. It’s an episode for anyone who’s ever lost, ever loved, and ever needed to feel less alone.
Jenn, thank you for trusting me with your story. This is for Miles. 🩵
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Hey there you beautiful badass. Welcome to the Keri Croft Show. I'm your host, keri Croft, delivering you stories that get you pumped up and feeling like the unstoppable savage that you are. So grab your coffee, put on your game face and let's do this thing. Baby Ready to elevate your self-care game, bosco Beauty Bar is a modern med spa offering everything from cosmetic injectables, lasers and microneedling to medical grade facials and skincare. Conveniently located in Clintonville, grandview, powell and Easton. Making self-care a priority has never been easier. Use code KROFT for $25 off your first visit. Let's get real here. Aging isn't always cute. Wrinkles, things sagging where they didn't before. Do I hate my partner, or is this perimenopause? I've been there and that's why I'm all about Donaldson, from plastic surgery to aesthetics, to functional medicine. They help you love your body and get to know it better. Want to feel like yourself again? Head to DonaldsonHealthcom and, if you're a first-time client, mention the Keri Croft Show for $100 off your first treatment. You're welcome, jennifer Bullock. Hi, welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here. You know, this is about a year late. Yeah, it's a year late. Yeah, and that's on me. It's all good, but we're here now.
Speaker 1:We're here now. We're here together, yeah.
Speaker 2:How are you feeling today?
Speaker 1:I'm good today.
Speaker 2:I'll admit I'm a little anxious, just because I know what the topic is, but it's and just to tee everybody up here, we are going to have some sensitive, sensitive conversations today around child loss, and so it it hits you like it hits you like a wave. It does, and that's another thing we do with grief is we really try to mask it and it's like this thing you're trying to like a sneeze.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I mean I will have. I have physical things I do where sometimes, like if I'm in a conversation or if I'm in public and I feel something coming on, I'll I'll like put my nail in or I'll pinch myself really hard to try to like physically change my brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do that because we don't want to make other people like not you and I, we understand we're in this club that we don't want to be in, yeah, but if you're out in public or you're with someone who doesn't you, you don't want to upset the apple cart or make them feel you don't want to make them uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:You're always worried about the other person, and that's what I've learned in my own personal grief journey is, I don't need to be worried about someone else's comfort, because this is my life, this is my reality and I shouldn't have to protect your feelings when this is what I'm feeling. You know, and it's taken a while for me to get there, but I completely understand everything you're saying. I'm a I squeeze my thumb when I because I'm I, naturally in my career I hold my hands and so I'm a. I'm a thumb squeezer when I'm uncomfortable or I'm trying to mask my feelings, or it may feel like it's inappropriate in the setting or at the time to be completely honest with what is going on inside my head.
Speaker 2:And you can go off the deep end. Yeah, you really can, and you don't know when you're going to put it back. So the way that I describe it is I put this on a shelf, yeah, and it's on a shelf and it's always there. It's where I can see it, like it's on a shelf and it's always there, it's where I can see it, like it's never gone.
Speaker 2:But man, when I get it out, and if it comes out of nowhere, you just don't and you can't get it back up there, then you're like what the fuck? Yeah, trust me, I get it. So I'm doing an infertility series and it also includes child loss, but it's going to be a lot around family building and the ways people build their families and just the things that happen when you are building a family, and so I figured you know this would be a really great way to to kind of kick that off is to have you and I kind of lock eyes and share our experience, not just as kind of a therapeutic moment between two moms but, for that person at home.
Speaker 2:that's like in it, that's in that dark tunnel, whether it's a couple of days out, weeks out, year, I mean it never goes away, Never goes away. Never goes away. So, and your, your boy miles right, Was born still October 20th.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 2021. Yeah, um, very unexpected. I have two older children Noah, my son is eight, and then Harper just turned five in December. My daughter and we weren't planning for Miles. I will say like my husband and I, we met in college. We've been together like 16 years total. We didn't necessarily plan any of our children, but we always wanted a family and so we were always of the if it happens, it happens. But Miles definitely we did not plan for. Harper at that point was only like a year or so old and I was not ready mentally to have two babies, essentially because I've always been working full time. Thankfully, we've been fortunate enough that my husband's been home, stay at home, dad, taking care of the kids full time, so that for him was not a concern. He was like absolutely, he's such a great dad.
Speaker 2:What's his name? Let's give him some Gerald. I mean Gerald, shout out to you stay at home, dad.
Speaker 1:The moment we found out we were pregnant with Noah. That was the first thing he said is what do you think about?
Speaker 1:me staying home. And I said if we can make it work financially, then let's do it. And it's always been so beneficial for me, because my career, my schedule changes constantly, but for our kids it's been so beneficial to have that constant and to have their dad with them all the time. And so when I found out I was pregnant with Miles, I said can we do this, can we make it work? And he said, oh yeah, he's like I have no problem with it. And so once the initial shock kind of wore off, that this was going to be a reality, we were excited. We were gearing up for baby number three. We were going to have two boys and a girl. We were so excited.
Speaker 1:And of all my pregnancies, miles was my easiest. I have some underlying health issues that I had to figure out with my other two pregnancies, but this one it felt like we we figured everything out, everything was clicking at the right time. And then it just changed and it was October 10th. I woke up and it was a Sunday, and on Sunday I always go back to Zanesville, where I'm from. My family has a church there and we go back and we go to church on Sundays together. And I told my parents I was like he's gone, like I already knew. And they said well, are you sure? And I'm like I, I he hasn't moved and I just know, I'm like he's, I just know he's gone.
Speaker 1:And at that point he was 33 weeks. So when we came back to Columbus I got to the hospital and it felt like an eternity to get back to the room to even see a doctor. I knew when the nurse was trying to put the monitor across my belly, moving it around trying to find a heartbeat, and I told her there isn't one. And she went and got the doctor and they did the ultrasound and I caught the corner of the screen and I just saw stillness and I knew. And then she said it, and I don't even think. Initially I cried because I just she confirmed what I already felt. But then the days after were a lot of tears and a lot of questioning and shaming myself. I shamed myself because I, you know, I thought I should have done something sooner. I knew, I knew he wasn't moving enough. Did I? Did I count the kicks? Did I monitor everything enough? I should have said something earlier.
Speaker 1:I spent a lot of time as a person who's very deeply rooted in her faith. I questioned a lot and I was really angry with God why this could happen to me To me, like I've heard, it happens to other people. But why? Why my son? Why why, after all these months of carrying him and there were no indications that anything was wrong, why is this happening? How do I explain to my then four year old and my barely two year old that their brother's not coming home? And in the midst of all, that it's 2021. We're in COVID, so they couldn't even come to the hospital, they never met their brother and they never saw him.
Speaker 1:While I'm trying to figure out how to answer all of those questions, I'm just living under this dark cloud of all the what ifs and the nevers.
Speaker 1:I'll never get to see the color of his eyes, I'll never get to hear his laugh, I'll never feel him grab my finger Like. I'll never get to know what he could have been. And so you know, three, almost four years later, I still have a lot of those questions, but I like to say that the fog has started to lift a little bit and now that we're doing my family is doing so much outreach in his name, Some of those questions have been answered and I like to say I felt we found purpose in our pain of losing him, and it's a such a big purpose that I don't think we would have been able to help and reach as many people had he survived. And so you know, as a mom, you always want your kids to be better than you and you always want them to do more and be more and to have a legacy. And my son never took a breath on this earth and my God does he have a legacy.
Speaker 2:So it's been quite the journey and we will get to to miles mission. But and there's so much, there's so many angles to take from what you just said and the way that something as earth shatteringly traumatic is what you've been through, the, the ripple effects it has everywhere, and so what struck me, um, first with what you said, is that you know how do I tell my then four-year-old child and I have the same situation with my son, dane, and he doesn't even know about the other two girls. He only knows about Jade, because Jade lived in the in the NICU for 16 days. That's she's the last one that we had and that's like I'm like he can learn when he's older about the other two, it's so it's like so confusing, so much and so to answer questions about heaven, I find myself with two left.
Speaker 2:I'm like, am I dumb? And he will ask me in the most wild times about Jade. And like he wants to go to heaven to see her. And he, where is she? How do how do I get to heaven? How do you? Yeah, do you still get those questions?
Speaker 1:absolutely. Yeah, my son's eight now and they still, I think at the moment too, I didn't realize how much this loss affected them and how it still does, even you know. You know, last night my daughter, harper, said I wish I could just kiss Miles, and it came out of nowhere. We were doing nothing related to Miles, we were I think we were watching Frozen or something like that, and she just blurted it out at the most random times. They will bring him up, and so I didn't realize how much they're still feeling that, even though I wasn't sure they really understood.
Speaker 1:Kids understand things in their own ways and they, they kind of piece things together in their own way and I think a lot of that has to do with their own innocence, um, and how they view the world, and even as somebody who you know, like I've said, my faith, faith is my guiding light.
Speaker 1:There were a lot of questions I didn't know how to answer. Even my parents, who are like my go-to, they didn't know how to answer. Always, you try to be as delicate as you can, but you also want to be honest with them and you know well, if Miles is in heaven, why can't we go? Well, it's not time. It's not time yet, like you have so much more to do on this earth. Well, didn't he have anything to do? Yeah, but he's doing it in his own way. I think you just kind of, when the time comes, you know what, what is right for your family, for your child, and then you just hope and pray for the best that it makes sense in some way to them it really does, though, make you you're like in your head.
Speaker 2:You're like, okay, how the fuck do? I answer that? Because, like, dane will think we talk about the continents, yeah, and he in his mind, he just thinks like heaven's, just like next to antarctica. He's like, well, you said we could go to africa, why can't we go to heaven? Like, why isn't on the? You know, it's the craziest, yeah, most, and like, depending on how he says it and when he says it, it's just the most heart-wrenching thing, because you can't really help them understand you can't.
Speaker 1:And you know, like my kids, well heavens, that they think heavens in the sky or above the sky. Well, can't we just get on an airplane and see and it's like, no, it's not, it's not that simple and I try to just tell them one day, when you're a little bit older, we'll talk a little bit more about it and it'll make, hopefully, a little more sense just stay.
Speaker 2:A child is too complicated out here in this adulting is too complicated, oh my gosh, we haven't figured it out.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, I just, you just try to do your best. And thankfully they're kids, so their attention spans like this and they're on to the next thing.
Speaker 2:So something else that strikes me, and I know what this feels like. You know, when you know your baby is no longer has a heartbeat, you still have to deliver. Yeah, and you chose. You opted for a C-section, I did. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, thank God not a lot of people understand that. But just going back into that space where you now have to have this surgery, yeah, that's going to be a climb physically to get back from and you know, going in there is not going to be this joyous is not going to be this joyous. Did you just black out? I mean, do you have a memory, Like I'm sure you remember? But was it just kind of like Jesus, take the wheel and you kind of remember a little bit.
Speaker 1:Or how did that? Yes, so I do. Actually it's funny you say Jesus, take the wheel. Because I think that choosing to have a C-section was the best decision Ultimately. To have a c-section was the best decision ultimately.
Speaker 1:I my other two pregnancies I had c-sections because of some complications, so I at least knew what to expect. But I knew just, you know the fact that Miles was no longer living. I just, for me personally, I could not labor through that. That might be right for some people and that's totally okay. You have to make your own choice. But for me it was like I just I can't go through this long, laborious process. So I did opt for the C-section, having known previously what the recovery was going to be like and C-sections are no joke.
Speaker 1:I still have weird, random phantom pains because of that. I wish I could have blacked out a little bit more. But even to this day I remember so much of that entire experience and you know, being on the table, everything's happening, and the doctor says he's beautiful, but you hear silence. That's what really just like broke my heart in that moment. And then I, like I said that Jesus, take the wheel, I found out that the placenta was completely attached to my uterus, grew through my uterus, and so the doctor said I can't remove this safely. So the doctor said I can't remove this safely, otherwise, if I try to leave your uterus you're going to bleed to death.
Speaker 1:And part of me said, ok, like just let me die. I don't know how to explain to my kids and my family and everybody I know I'm in this very public position. Everybody who's followed me knows that I'm pregnant and expecting and I have to tell thousands of people I've never met that I'm not bringing another baby home. Like yeah, I would rather die, honestly, yeah.
Speaker 1:But my husband was in the operating room and I looked at him and he said we have a beautiful family and if we're meant to have more kids, it'll happen, whether it's surrogacy or adoption, whatever that may be, or if this is what we are as a unit. He said this is, this is enough and this is OK. And he said but I can't lose my son and my wife. He said I can't, I cannot do that, and so I opted to have a total hysterectomy, not to say that I don't know if we ever would have tried again, but that I was also grieving that loss, that I lost my son and I lost the chance to ever again grow our family, naturally at least. So all of that played into the grief and the days to come as well, wow, what a layer.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that the finality of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was like it has to happen now because we already have you cut open and on this table. And so I remember they started kind of messing around and I remember starting to feel things and so they said we need to put you under. I remember struggling initially when they put the mask, the anesthesia on, because I didn't want that, and so we kind of had this moment of it was a panic attack and fighting and all of this, and then finally I gave in and then I just remember waking up and them saying are you ready to see your son? And it it felt almost like a dream because I was still in this groggy, waking up from surgery. But they're saying here's your son and I'm and I remember thinking this doesn't feel like my life, like I was just really hoping that I would actually wake up and this wouldn't be my reality.
Speaker 1:But it is and I've come to terms with it. But I think in a lot of ways I've more so come to terms with Miles's passing, but I'm still so very much grieving not being able to grow our family like I thought we were. We had always talked about having four kids and just in minutes that dream was like ripped away from me. It's really hard being at the stage I am now where so many close friends are expecting and I'm happy for them and I'm so thrilled that they get to have that experience. But it hurts as well and I think those feelings can live simultaneously, so that I think I'm still very much working on healing from.
Speaker 2:They absolutely can and they do, and it's the duality of it and I think that's an important message for all the people who are out there smiling and really trying hard to push down the realities of hopes dashed, dreams lost. You know the weight, the way it takes over your whole entire life. It's okay, you're not a bad person because you're having bad feelings. You are a good person going through a really really hard time and so you can be happy for other people and you can still grieve for yourself and guess what else you can do. You can talk about that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think you know, looking back on it, you know it is this like all of a sudden, you're shipped off into this. You know and I'm talking like, let's talk about just infertility for a minute You're shipped off to this island, this land of misfit toys, where you're over here and waiting, this land of misfit toys where you're over here and waiting, and until you can come back to the other side and have the baby shower and have the happily ever after, you have to stay over there and just, you know, pretend, yeah, you don't, because guess what? So many people are going through that type of thing that if we just are honest with each other about it, like, hey, listen, having a really bad day because I'm really sad that X, y and Z, but I'm still so happy for you. You're my best friend. That can be. That can live together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it absolutely should and it should. I remember, you know, seeing this post on social media and it said just because someone carries it well doesn't mean it isn't heavy, and I think that is so true. How many of us are just shouldering these burdens of our own thoughts and feelings and dashed dreams and lost hopes, but putting a smile on for everyone else around us and we talked about that in the beginning of making sure that other people don't feel uncomfortable. But that's why I think conversations like this are so important, because we don't know how many people are really feeling the same way that we're feeling.
Speaker 1:This is a topic that for so long people have not talked about, that for so long people have not talked about, and you never really truly know what someone is holding. You really don't, and I've learned that, as I've shared publicly how many people who I worked beside for years I had no idea the losses that they had experienced, because they just didn't want to talk about it. We had no reason to talk about it and until I brought up Miles, I had a line of coworkers and people I've known for decades that said I actually had the exact same experience, or I've had several miscarriages, or I've never been able to have a child I never would have known.
Speaker 2:No, and I do love, I love a lot of things about opening up these conversations, but it's that you are carrying something inside and stuffing something down. Damn, wouldn't it feel good just to get it out? And if that makes someone else uncomfortable, that's not the person. That's not the person.
Speaker 2:There are people out there who want to hear about your miscarriage or your children, or your hopes and dreams, and the losses, people want to hear about it. So, this infertility series that I'm doing, I will tell you something. So I wrote two posts, two posts, two little posts. It brought me to tears the responses. I mean, they were the women writing to me. It wasn't just like a hey, I'd love to, it was almost like they were like shouting from their keyboard paragraphs and then, at the end this is so important, thank you for talking about this. So, yeah, talk about it. You know, talk about the things you have happening, the losses, the trauma. This stuff affects your mental health. You know, you wake up and you're holding miles and you're in this surreal moment that you would do anything. Although peaceful, I can only speak for myself. There is morbidity to it, there's something very obviously very unnatural, but there's something you feel close to God. Yeah, absolutely Just the. I remember every sound.
Speaker 1:Tissue.
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Speaker 1:This is like we said it's's. It's therapy much, but it's also our realities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes I think that we are overly brave and courageous and always holding it together and having discussions like this. There are so many times where I've either been invited to speak or I ended up just having a conversation with somebody just out and about at Kroger, like because they've seen my story, they know who I am and they just want to share their own experience. And I'm able to. I don't know if it's the grace of God, I don't know if it's just how I'm feeling in that moment I'm able to hold it together really well, and then the minute I get home, oh yeah, it's just like yeah, and I lose it, and so I think moments like this are really important to be able to release, oh yeah, and when you meet someone who who knows, it's like you get it.
Speaker 2:You get it. You get it Because even people's best intentions, people who are closest to you, unless you've been in that situation, yeah, you know. So it really does feel like a very safe space, absolutely. And so back to the like, the mental health aspect of once you're holding him, it all comes to, you know, comes full circle, and then you have to go home, yeah, yeah, and pick up the pieces, like not only physically, but then the mental aspect of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it was like you mentioned it was. It was a peaceful experience, I think. Even just I spent about three or four days in the hospital, obviously because I had major surgery. They wanted to make sure everything was OK, and the mental aspect of even just that was at times really traumatic, because I had to ask for permission basically to see or hold my son to be released from the morgue, basically to see or hold my son to be released from the morgue, and I could only be with him at certain periods because if his body got too warm they needed to take him back. It was COVID, so I could only have two named visitors, my husband being one of them, and then we collectively had a conversation and decided to make my mom the other named visitor. Thankfully, because my dad is my pastor, he could come in as clergy. So my dad and my mom were able to come in see him and hold him and I'm glad at least they got that experience.
Speaker 1:My family is very close, very close. They were able to hold him. And even my mom she's like my, all of our kids call her Nana. My sister has two little boys and she's just the best mother I mean when I tell you, angel on earth, I that's not even doing her justice. She is literal perfection. And she, I remember, was sitting in the corner and she was holding him and she was like rocking. And in the moment I remember thinking how beautiful that was, that, even though he couldn't feel it for her it was really healing and she was doing what felt natural to her as a grandmother.
Speaker 1:Then, you know, he would have to be carted back to the morgue for a little while and then that final goodbye was really hard. You know, my husband and I just held him for a little while longer and we kissed him and um gave him to the nurse, and leaving the hospital empty-handed is an experience I don't wish on anybody. And at that point I still couldn't really walk very well, and so to be wheeled out and to just get in the car, and that was kind of it. And I remember when I first, when we got back home, my sister had my two oldest um, just to give us time to get adjusted, and in the house, and it was just so quiet and I hated how quiet it was. And so my husband said, well, how about you like get in the shower? You take a shower. And so I did that and I locked up in the shower. I had to call for him and he had to pick me up and carry me out of the shower because I physically could not move Like my I don't know if it was me and my brain, my muscles, I don't know what it was but I just I couldn't move and I lost it. And so he picked me up out of the shower and he just held me for a while and that was the first time I really cried, that entire time that I was in the hospital, time that I was in the hospital and I think, because that was reality really hit.
Speaker 1:The drugs had worn off, I was home and in this space that we had prepared for three kids, and to know that that wouldn't be the case was really hard, and so I spent days in bed. My family is incredible, like I said, my mom she took a full week off work. My sister lives here and she was always helping with my kids. They were just fantastic and my family literally took turns just coming and laying next to me in bed. My mom was like you need to eat something. I don't care if it's crackers, like something. She would run me hot baths and they would just take turns, just letting me know that I wasn't alone in this, even though I felt like I'd never been more alone in my life.
Speaker 1:I think it was probably a full week before I even saw the outside again, because I just couldn't. I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't want that reality and that that was a space where I didn't have to face it. I didn't have to face people, I didn't have to exist, essentially because I didn't want to have to exist in this new reality and so the mental aspect of it. There are still a lot of things that I'm trying to figure out.
Speaker 1:Mentally I'm much better than I was in those early days, but it's a journey and I think they call it a journey for a reason, because you're still trying to navigate any new feelings or thoughts that arise yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's a forever thing that you, that you sort of manage and sort of examine yeah and kind of changes over time. But yeah, I can remember too being in bed and that would be the only not the place where you'd feel good at all, but like you could kind of hide and not exist.
Speaker 2:And then I can remember after a bit was it a couple days or something and my husband comes up and he's like do you want to go for a walk? Kind of like like let's, you got to keep moving, you got to get up, yeah. And do you know something? Can you remember when you started to get that little whisper, though from yourself, where it's?
Speaker 1:like Jennifer. Yeah, I, um. I remember very vividly. Actually it was Halloween and Miles was born October 11th and it was trick or treat and we had just moved into our new house and I think that was part of it too. We had just bought a new house in June because we needed more space. We were having another kid and so we were in this new neighborhood and it was the first year that we were able remember taking part in, because it reminded me and it prompted me.
Speaker 1:You have these two children. Yes, you lost Miles, but you still have to be a mother to these two children. They need you children. They need you, and I remember my mom and my dad and my family all telling me that you're always going to be a mother to Miles, like if it's something or someone that takes up space in your mind. Then they existed and they are real and you are his mother, but you're also mom to Noah and mom to Harper and they need you just as much, if not more, now.
Speaker 1:And so I remember thinking, okay, as much as I'm still navigating what this looks like and trying to figure all of this out, I still have to care for my other two children. I want to care for my other two children and I want to be present for them. I don't want to look back and think that I missed all of these moments with them because I was trying to figure out how to live without Miles. And you know, I always think of from the perspective of Miles too.
Speaker 1:If he were looking down, thinking, oh my God, look at my family, family, like they're so amazing. And there goes my big brother, my big sister, and my mom's such a great mom to them, and my dad is an amazing father and they're creating all these wonderful memories that someday we're going to be able to to sit and talk and laugh and share. And so I always have to think of it that way if Miles were watching, what would he want to see? And so I got up out of bed and I didn't look my best, but we were there, we went trick-or-treating and we did. We had a.
Speaker 2:We had a great moment something tells me your looks that your worst ain't that bad, honey. Ain't that bad? Maybe in my mind so the woman, who's the person who has gone through that physical journey, yeah, you're going to handle this different than even your spouse and it sounds to me from what you're saying you have a very loving, supportive spouse who was able to help carry you and be the ebb and flow.
Speaker 2:I just also want women to know out there, if you are feeling something with not feeling supported or feeling like someone is handling things differently, you know that's, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's, the grief is very different, for it's different for a man than it is a woman. Absolutely it's different for the person who carried versus the person who didn't, so also give yourself grace there too. You don't have to be feeling.
Speaker 1:You're not going to feel something exactly the same as someone else, and from day to day, like there were moments that for us it was clicking and it was great. And I remember first coming home and we both said we've got to be together in this, and then there were moments where I was feeling more than he was feeling, or he was feeling more than I was feeling, or as a couple we were just not clicking and it was because that grief roller coaster we weren't on the same ride at that moment. And that's OK, we've had to figure it out, we're still figuring it out. But for every person, for every couple, for every family, and even within every individual, within those units, it's going to look different day to day, and that's what makes us human is just trying to figure it out together.
Speaker 2:But letting that be, letting it be different, yeah, I think, is a powerful, it's a superpower. So if, if something brings you comfort, remembering miles, but it triggers your husband or you know, somebody may want to put balloons off. That's what I love to do for Jade and Angel and Hope by the river. It's just a thing, you know. If, if that's a triggering moment for someone else, allow it to be. Some people can go through photos and just want to. Yeah, some people like, if I see a photo, it will just put me over the edge. So, yeah, I do think with grief, giving grace and allowing for that, to understand the way you grieve ain't the way the other person and it's, it's okay it's okay, there's nothing wrong with.
Speaker 2:We put too many expectations, I think, on the spouse. Yeah, because they're our spouse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they're just another human being going through what they're going through yeah, and for a lot of us, it's it's the first time, or it looks different than it did, it's it's all different. Um, and we, our expectation should be to have no expectations because we just are trying to figure this out Amen to that.
Speaker 2:That's actually. We need to use that for everything in life have no expectations. You're going to have a lot of peace, honey, Exactly so when did Miles' mission? When was that the aha moment? Like we need to do this on behalf of Miles.
Speaker 1:So we, actually my family I mentioned my parents and my sister and her husband and kids. We're all very close and we were coming up on Miles' first birthday. I knew I wanted to do something, I just didn't know what. But I knew I didn't want to be in town. I knew I didn't want to be at work or around too many people, because I just needed an escape. And so we booked a trip and, as an extended family, we went to Florida and so we're staying in this big condo.
Speaker 1:My dad, this whole time was on his laptop and I'm like, what is he doing? Like he's on vacation. He shouldn't be working on sermons or you know whatever. He's a very active and involved man, so he sits on a lot of boards and things like that. But I'm like, dad, like we're on vacation, what are you doing? And he said I'm writing a book. And I said, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:And so he actually wrote a book called Even Now I Know, and it is all about that journey of losing miles, figuring it out as a family, some of his and my mom's own personal experiences with grief that I didn't even know about because they were sheltering me as their daughter. And so he wrote this book, released this book, and then, shortly after that, we sat down and had kind of like a family meeting and he was the one who said we need to do something, because he said, you know, writing this book and talking with so many people, this is so much bigger and there are so many more people experiencing loss like this than we ever really knew, because nobody talks about it. And so he was the one that said there's a mission for Miles and there's a legacy and we need to do something. And so my dad is the president of Miles's mission, I'm the vice president and matriarch, my mom is the treasurer, my sister is the secretary, and we are an established nonprofit that just works to raise awareness but also to provide support for people who are just figuring this out.
Speaker 1:At any stage whether it was a miscarriage, a stillbirth, an infant loss decades ago it doesn't matter. If you're experiencing grief, we want to help you and we want to make changes legislatively when it comes to bereavement support, because I learned after the fact that there were a lot of things in the hospital that I didn't get that I could have gotten, and I don't want anybody else who's experiencing this to feel less than or to feel like their loss is overlooked or that it doesn't matter enough, and so that's what we've been working since 2023 to do.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Thank you, it's really amazing. Thank you and I love your sweatshirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is our logo. My coworker, actually Rob, is an incredible graphic artist and created the logo for us, and this is Miles's hand. We got some photos taken before we left the hospital and there was this one photo where he was holding this heart shaped pillow and you just saw his little fingers, and so how do I get one of those? I think I have an in for you.
Speaker 2:OK, do you think you can hook me up with that? For sure, OK amazing, but is there anything else about that experience?
Speaker 1:Miles' mission, anything else you want to make sure that we yeah, I just want to highlight the fact that I mentioned when I was in the hospital that there were a lot of things I didn't get, and I didn't know that I didn't get them until after the fact. But you know, I'm not going to call it the hospital system because I don't think it's their fault. I think when you have such a taboo topic and there are a lot of people advocating or pushing for, they're only doing what they know to do. And so you know, having lost a child but then having to be wheeled around on a maternity floor and recovering from a c-section while I'm listening to other babies cry in their mother's room and you know I had just this symbol placed on my door, that it was a symbol that they used to indicate that you've lost, it's a, it's a mother of loss, and I actually got it tattooed on my wrist because it stuck with me. But so, like the nurse would look at this symbol and know, like when I enter this room she doesn't have a baby, like she's the only mother on this floor that doesn't have a baby in this room, and so I just felt like tortured almost for three or four days, just listening to babies cry and happy families, and that wasn't the case for me. And then you know miles being wheeled back and forth to the morgue.
Speaker 1:We found out that there are several hospitals in the state of Ohio, even here in central Ohio, that have cuddle cots, and they are these bassinets, essentially, that are just cooling mechanisms so that they place these cuddle cots in the hospital room and the baby can stay in the room with you for the entirety of your stay. I didn't get that, and I was at one of the largest hospital systems in the state and nobody brought this up to me and I didn't even know it was a thing. And then I found out. Had I gone to another hospital I would have had access to that, so I could have had Miles with me the entire time. And so we have been working with Miles's Mission and some partner agencies, with Cuddle Cot directly, to make sure that every hospital system has at least one, if not more, and we've seen a lot of great progress there.
Speaker 1:But, like I said, with the standardization too, I shouldn't have had to stay on a maternity floor. That's insanity to me. Looking back, I'm like you know that, I think, hindered a lot of my healing mentally, and so we want to create this rule book, essentially for hospitals to say if you have several women or families experiencing loss, this is what you should be doing and you can't say yes or no, or maybe because it's a legislative standard. So that's what we're really pushing for, good for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that is just badass. It really is. And it just reminds me, if you're listening to this and you're someone, or you know someone, who feels a little stuck in their grief, where they are in this spin cycle, they don't know what to do with it. Plug into something, yeah, and maybe reach out. I mean, I'm all about the.
Speaker 2:DM the email. Reach out to Jennifer. You know you can take the awful feelings and the things that you're kind of stuck with. There actually is joy there. There is. You have to tap into it and maybe you're not ready, maybe it's not time yet, but for that one person out there who needs to hear that you know there's something you can plug in to get that energy flow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I promise you like just reach out and even if we have like a five minute chat, yeah, exactly yeah, there's something, there's a space for everyone, especially if you've experienced, or you've been close to someone who has experienced, a loss. Our biggest thing is almost like creating this army. Like we, there's strength in numbers for a reason, and the more people who join this cause and say, yeah, this, it shouldn't be this way, why has it been this way for this long? It's 2025. Like, why are we just now saying, oh, I guess loss is a problem and you know, we're not trying to say that we're going to make it go away.
Speaker 1:Death is a part of life and I know that not everything is preventable. But there are people who are living and existing right now, who are experiencing these losses and I could have been another loss. You know, after losing Miles, I didn't want to live anymore and without the support of my family, I can't say that I would be sitting here with you right now, honestly, because I can't imagine having to endure something like that on my own. I really can't, and I know that there are people who have and who will, and that just breaks my heart. And so I I want to be connected. We have to be connected, we have to be support system for each other. You need as many people as possible on your side, because this is this is a journey nobody should have to walk.
Speaker 2:No and raise your hand. Your mental health is everything. And again you are not alone. Hand your mental health is everything. And again, you are not alone. Yeah, and we are in this club and we have real big shoulders, yeah, and big hearts so you know yeah but, jennifer, thank you so much for coming up on an hour I could talk to you for I talked to you for days, truly, I know, I could as well I really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I feel like I just had like a very cathartic, good uh therapy session good, that's what it should be.
Speaker 1:We should be able to just openly talk about this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And again, please reach out if you, if you want to talk, if you have someone that you know, please send this to them. Carrie, at the Carrie Croft show dot com, send me a DM. You can send Jennifer a DM. We are here and I know we can add some value, right, yes, absolutely, and if you're still out there following your girl, follow me on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And until next time, keep moving, baby.
