September 17, 2022 • 24 mins
Stephanie has a raw conversation about grief, responding to grief, and her miscarriages. After several miscarriages, Stephanie went through many times of grief, in which people would try to say words of "comfort and wisdom," which usually fell flat. How do you respond to someone who is grieving? What do you say, or not say? Stephanie shares her thoughts on these very questions.
Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean and how to we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma; and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries, and, sometimes a few rants, to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way, and you want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!
https://stephanieolson.com
INSPIRE your team to LEAD WITH SUCCESS and MOTIVATE others with Stephanie bringing 20+ years of speaking experience. If you need to EMPOWER, ENGAGE, and EDUCATE your people-Book Stephanie as your speaker today!
https://www.stephanieolson.com/ask-stephanie-to-speak
Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean, and how do we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, an expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma, and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries and, sometimes, a few rants to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way and want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!
https://stephanieolson.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Olson (00:00):
Thank you for listening.
Please share with anyone youthink will benefit from this
podcast.
Hello, and welcome to resiliencein life and leadership. I am
Stephanie Olson, aka WonderWoman, and super glad to be here
with you today. I am a speakeron things like trauma in the
(00:23):
workplace, multi generationalconversations in the workplace,
but also just amazinginspirational stuff for women.
And you can check it out atStephanie olson.com. I would
love to speak at your event. AndI want to talk a little bit
about grief.
(00:46):
And probably more accuratelythan just grief itself. But how
we respond to grief. I thinkthat's really important.
We can make a difference insomebody's life. But I think
sometimes we think we need tosay something special, something
(01:08):
profound. We need to react in acertain way when somebody is
grieving. And here's the deal.
We don't sometimes we can domore damage than good. I
recently, LSA I recently, itwasn't recent at all. Or I'll
say, hey, the other day, and itwas like two years ago, so just
bear with me. But our firstpregnancy. So not exactly
(01:34):
recently, let's see my oldestdaughter's 21. And this would
have been before her. So you dothe math. My first pregnancy, my
husband and I were just type apeople. Okay, we still are, we
had plans, we knew exactly whatwe were going to do. We had it
(01:54):
all put in place, hey, we'regoing to get married, then we're
going to have baby number one.
And you know, that's going to bethis gender and baby number two,
God, we will let you know whatwe're going to do. You just do
the rest of the work. That waskind of our mindset, because we
(02:16):
thought that's how it worked. Imean, we knew the details,
right? But, but we didn't everthink about the fact that we
might have issues havingchildren. And so we got pregnant
right away. That was never anissue. We got pregnant. And
(02:39):
things were going well. We wereexcited. We had been married for
just a little over a year. Andso we knew we were on track. And
when I was five months pregnant,we went into the doctor's
office. And the doctor, youknow, did the regular check with
(02:59):
the Doppler machine and listento the heartbeat. And so she
grabbed the Doppler and startedlistening. And it was clear she
didn't hear anything. And ofcourse, we didn't hear anything.
And so she said, You know,sometimes these cords are bad.
(03:21):
Let me get a new one. Okay. Soshe did, and she came back and
listened nothing.
So she sent us to get anultrasound. Now, even at this
point, I'm thinking, there'snothing wrong. We're just, you
know, go we we've never donethis before. We had no idea. So
(03:42):
we went to the hospital. And wewent in to have an ultrasound
now. The ultrasound tech saidnothing, said nothing the entire
time first ultrasound I've everhad. And she was very stoic, you
know, doing her thing, neversaid anything. Then she left.
(04:06):
And somebody came back. I can'tremember if it was her or if it
was somebody else. But theysaid, your doctor wants you to
come back to the office. Well,at this point, I was scared. But
again, it didn't really occur tome that I would have lost the
baby. We went back to theoffice. And the doctor told us
(04:31):
that we had indeed lost ourbaby. It was a Tuesday it was
December 8 I remember itvividly. And because I was five
months pregnant, I had to gointo the hospital to actually
deliver the baby because he wastoo big to
(04:52):
you know, do it any other way.
So we went to the hospital. Andof course we're on the ward of
havebabies who are being delivered
and the joyous sounds and all ofthe things. And we were put in
the very end, and there was awhite rose on our door to
indicate that we had lost ababy. Well, I delivered the baby
(05:16):
that night. And I will, I'lltell you before we went there, I
we stopped at my parents,because they wanted to,
you know, give us dinner andhelp us get over there. And my
mom played a song. For me, thatwas really, really special to me
(05:40):
growing up in high school calledhe never failed me yet. And it
says, I will sing up his merciesevery day, every hour, he gives
me power, I will sing and I'llpraise him for all the joys and
all the and I'm messing up thewords. He is my God, and I'll
(06:00):
serve Him no matter what thetest, trust and never doubt.
Jesus will always bring you out.
He never failed me yet. And Iliterally recoiled at that song
when she played it, because Ithought, okay, yeah, you're
failing me now. So that's notthat's a problem.
So we went to the doctor, Idelivered this baby boy the size
(06:24):
of my hand. I mean, it wassurreal. And we got to hold
them, we got to say goodbye.
But we went home without a baby.
And it was horrifying. Now,because this was my first baby,
I had no idea. Will I ever getpregnant again? Do I can I not
(06:48):
have babies and it was just aterrible situation. And at this
point in time, and most of youknow, I'm a recovering
alcoholic, I was drinking. Now Ididn't drink when I was
pregnant. But you better believewhen I got home, I started
drinking again. And so alcoholkind of walked me through that
(07:12):
grief and that pain. What was sodifficult is that, of course,
everyone knew I was pregnant, Iwas showing. And so then
everybody knew that I had lostthe baby. And people don't know
(07:33):
what to say. Let me just tellyou, if you don't know what to
say, don't say anything. Andreally, even if you think you
know what to say, don't sayanything.
Unknown (07:43):
Except for I'm sorry, and how can I help you?
Stephanie Olson (07:49):
I had people say things to me, like, you
know, I'm a singer. And theywould say, hey, you'll get the
song in your voice pretty soonor the song in your heart again.
And I of course had peopletelling me I was God's will
that, you know, that's what andnone of those things were good
(08:09):
to hear. Nor do I believe it wasGod's will for my baby to die. I
do believe there is, you know,we are in a fallen world. And
those things happen. And I don'tthink that God does that to us.
There's no punishment. There'snone of that. We just We just
live in a fallen world. Butpeople would either say
(08:33):
something completely ridiculousor ignore the fact that it
happened at all. I don't want tosay anything. I don't want to
say anything wrong. I don't wantyou to remember that you lost
your baby. I'm not going toforget. I had one friend who
came over and she sat down withme and she said, Whatever you
(08:53):
need, I'm here to listen. I'mhere to cry with you. I'm here
to laugh. I'm here to dowhatever you need. If you want
to talk about it. Let's talkabout it. If you don't, let's
not. What would you like to do?
That was the most healing thinganyone could have said? And I
said absolutely. I want to talkabout it. And I was able to show
her the pictures and show herthe blanket that he was on and
(09:16):
all of those things. And it wasamazing. That's what you do.
Now, I did get pregnant again.
We waited for two years becauseit was just so so difficult,
waited for two years, and thenwe did get pregnant again. And I
(09:36):
was terrified, because I had noidea what was going to happen
again. I was still drinkingstopped drinking when I was
pregnant. And we had acompletely uneventful pregnancy.
We delivered a beautiful babygirl redhead, who was my oldest
daughter and it was amazing andshe was amazing and healthy and
(10:03):
perfect. And it was wonderful.
And so then we decided, hey,we're going to do this again,
we're back on track. And we gotpregnant again, after No, well
was a little older, wasn'tsadistic, and we got pregnant
again and lost that baby. Andagain, I was drinking and drank
(10:27):
that pain away. And it washorrible. I remember that was
February 1, we found out. And itwas an extremely painful time.
Now, at this point, things arenot going well on that front. We
do switch doctors. And you know,I start to go to a specialist
(10:52):
because I want to find outwhat's wrong, and know what's
going on. And soin the meantime, I'd gotten
sober, and started to workthrough that part of of my
journey. And we got pregnantagain. Now this is over a period
(11:15):
of time. And we lost that baby.
So third loss. We know we canget pregnant, we know we can
have a baby. But clearly it'snot working right now.
(11:36):
The pregnancy doctor that wewere working with determined
that it was my lining, that wasnot thick enough. And he was
going to do what he could tomake sure it was we got pregnant
again, lost that baby forlosses. And we were devastated.
(11:59):
And I'll be honest with you, Idid think what am I being
punished what's going on? Idon't I don't know.
But again, having the rightpeople around you to support you
is so important. Becausesometimes people during grief
just don't even know what tosay. And again, that's okay.
(12:21):
There is nothing to say there isnothing to say.
I think that's the main thing toknow. I remember I was in the
bathroom one day. And I wastalking to a woman who we were
in church. I always had problemswith this woman. There was just
(12:42):
something about her that struckme. I don't know, just off. We
did. I struggled with her, youknow in Jesus name. But she was
in the bathroom, knew I had gonethrough these several losses. I
mean, I and I had just recentlygone through a loss. And she
(13:04):
came singing into the bathroomand said, Oh my gosh, we are so
blessed. The Lord will just notstop blessing us. And we're
pregnant again. So that to me.
Well, of course, I'm thinking,why isn't he blessing me in the
(13:24):
same? Well,what am I doing wrong? Well,
that's not how God works. Yes,he blesses people he does. But
the things that go wrong don'tmean that you've necessarily
done something wrong. He's agood guy.
So we did look at adoption, wethought, Well, we do want
(13:47):
another baby. And you know,maybe we'll look at adoption and
all these things.
And then we got pregnant again.
And it was it was terrifying. Itwas absolutely terrifying. And
we went through the pregnancy. Iwas a high risk patient. And so
(14:07):
I had to get shots to maintainmy lining every you know, three
times a week, which my husbandhad to administer, which he kind
of liked. It was a little Idon't know Anyway, I think it
was the pain thing, but that's awhole other story. That's on
him. But we made it through thatpregnancy. A lot of lot of
(14:30):
trouble.
Had a little problem at deliverytime. Another podcast, but had a
beautiful girl. Now it's kind offunny because my daughter's I
always expected my daughters tolook just like me. You know,
(14:51):
will Stephanie's dark skin. Darkhere. My oldest daughter is a
redhead with fair fair skin soshe looks like cuz my mom I mean
she is that they actually dolook very much like Eric and I
great mix of of Eric and I butshe looked just like my mom
redhead fair skin. And the firstthing they said when she was
(15:13):
born not it's a girl. It's aboy. It's redhead. What are you
having a redhead for? Well, itisn't my family. And then my
second daughter was a blonde,fair skin. I thought what the
heck, these recessive genes Iwanted a little Stephanie.
They're amazing. Don't get mewrong. But we had decided, or I
(15:37):
should say, I had decided nomore babies. I am done with
babies. And it was just tooemotionally difficult to get
pregnant to stay pregnant. Itwas just too much work. And so I
had decided happy with the twolittle girls, I'm good. What I
didn't know is my husband reallydid want another baby boy or
(15:57):
girl didn't matter. Just wantedanother baby. But he wasn't
going to say anything to me,because he really wanted to
honor the fact that pregnancieswere really emotionally hard.
For me. I loved being pregnant.
I love that feeling. But theywere emotionally difficult. And
so he didn't say anything. And Ican't even remember how we
started to have theconversation. But we did. And he
(16:20):
shared with me that he did wantanother baby. But he understood
if I didn't. And I said, Well,here's what I will do. I will I
will pray about it. And sothat's what I did. And I swear I
always say, you know, people arelike, hey, wouldn't it be great
if God texted you, I got apostcard from God. I'm going to
(16:41):
tell you that right now. So Iprayed about it. And the next
day I got in the mail, apostcard that said, thinking
about having another baby.
Hilarious, hilarious, God. Sostill prayed about it. And then
I said, Alright, here's thedeal. We know that my lining
(17:05):
doesn't get thick enough tosustain a pregnancy. So let's go
get an ultrasound. If my liningis thick enough, which I knew it
would not be, we will talk abouthaving another baby I wasn't
even ready to commit to we willhave another baby. We'll talk
about it. Now. In the meantime,we had gone to a funeral of all
(17:30):
places, and the whole family wasthere. My daughters were there.
My mom was there. And I don'tremember Eric being there. He
may not have been there. But mydaughter's and my mom were
there. And this woman walked bywho I have never seen in my
entire life, have not seensense, walked by and looked at
(17:53):
my children and said, Where didyou get the redhead and the
blonde? Now, I will tell you,we're talking about grief and
what not to say we've kind ofgone on a bit of a tangent. But
here's the other thing that youshouldn't say, don't walk up to
a woman in a grocery store or aman and say, Where did you get
those children? Or assumesomething that you do not know?
(18:18):
Keep your mouth shut?
Don't touch women's bellies.
Don't do all those things. Nanyhave been this, okay. That's
what I'm saying. So, this womanapproached me someone I have
never seen and said, Your boy,you're next child will have dark
hair and look just like you.
(18:45):
Now, I was I was blown awaybecause I knew that we were
thinking and praying abouthaving another baby. My mom, on
the other hand, had no idea. Shewas furious with this woman
because she was like, okay, mydaughter doesn't do pregnancies.
Well, I can't believe she saidthat. I know she's emotionally
(19:05):
exhausted by this. She's donehaving babies. So she was not
happy. My mom had no idea thatwe had been talking and praying
about it. And we went to get anultrasound and see if the lining
was thick enough. And God blessthe ultrasound attendant. She
(19:25):
said, Hey, I've never seen yourlining thicker, and you're
ovulating right now. All right,guys, you don't have to listen
to this part. But she told us togo and do what you need to do to
make it happen. So we did andthen I got really sick with like
(19:47):
the flu like it influenza and Icouldn't breathe and I was
coughing and all that stuff. Soone time one time and will was
born. jet black hair looks good.
Just like me, and a boy. I don'tknow, I don't know what that
means. But I got a postcard fromGod. I do know that. And I'm
very grateful for that boy. Now,here's what I will tell you.
(20:15):
I did have three healthychildren.
But the losses that I sustained,that grief doesn't go away. You
don't replace babies withanother one. And I believe that
(20:36):
I have four babies and haven'tdanced on what Jesus waiting for
me when I get there.
But grief is grief is grief, andwe need to feel it. And here's
the other thing I will tell youthose last two babies that I
lost, I wasn't drinking. I hadquit drinking by that point. And
(21:00):
I allowed God to walk me throughthat pain. And it was so
different. Because you have togrieve losses. And if you don't
grieve it right, then you willgrieve it at some point, you
will grieve that loss. And sothen I was doubly grieving.
After I got sober. People stillsaid stupid things. People still
(21:25):
did stupid things.
But I knew where my support was,I knew where my support system
was. Now, I think sometimespeople look at miscarriages or
stillbirths, or things likethat, sometimes very different
than a loss of a child. And Iunderstand that. But remember
(21:46):
that when a mom loses a baby,it's a loss.
Be mindful.
So when we're talking aboutgrief in other areas, somebody
loses a child, God forbid,somebody loses a parent,
somebody loses a spouse. Don'tbe afraid to give them love and
(22:10):
support. You don't need to sayanything profound. You don't
need to give them a scripturethat will make them feel better.
Guess what? It's not your job.
To make them feel better. Youdon't need to do it.
So be like my friend, go in andsay, What do you need? Do you
(22:30):
want to talk not want to cry? Orlaugh? You get to choose because
I'm here for you. I have nothingto say. Because there are no
words.
I'm just here to love you.
Unknown (22:47):
That's being a supportive friend or family
member. We don't have to haveall the answers. In fact, we
won't have all the answers. Soif you have someone in your life
who's grieving.
Stephanie Olson (23:07):
Just be with them to grieve. And if you're
grieving,find a soft, strong support
system that can help you throughit. Because it's hard.
On the same token, if you knowsomeone who has lost a family
(23:29):
member lost a child or lost aloved one. Don't be afraid to
bring that person up inconversation later on. A lot of
times people think gosh, I Iwon't, I won't read. I don't
want to make them remember,guess what they haven't
forgotten. They have notforgotten. So by bringing up a
(23:53):
loved one is honoring thatperson. Honor them, honor the
person that is lost, honor theperson that you love.
And be a supportive friend and asupportive family member and
give people the support theyneed not the words, not the
(24:17):
profound words, not thescriptures, not those things.
Just be there. Let's give themyour presence.
That's what I needed. So, onthat note, thank you for
listening. Thank you forlistening. Please share with
(24:37):
anyone you think will benefitfrom this podcast.
Thank you for listening.
Please share with anyone youthink will benefit from this
podcast.
Hello, and welcome to resiliencein life and leadership. I am
Stephanie Olson, aka WonderWoman, and super glad to be here
with you today. I am a speakeron things like trauma in the
(00:23):
workplace, multi generationalconversations in the workplace,
but also just amazinginspirational stuff for women.
And you can check it out atStephanie olson.com. I would
love to speak at your event. AndI want to talk a little bit
about grief.
(00:46):
And probably more accuratelythan just grief itself. But how
we respond to grief. I thinkthat's really important.
We can make a difference insomebody's life. But I think
sometimes we think we need tosay something special, something
(01:08):
profound. We need to react in acertain way when somebody is
grieving. And here's the deal.
We don't sometimes we can domore damage than good. I
recently, LSA I recently, itwasn't recent at all. Or I'll
say, hey, the other day, and itwas like two years ago, so just
bear with me. But our firstpregnancy. So not exactly
(01:34):
recently, let's see my oldestdaughter's 21. And this would
have been before her. So you dothe math. My first pregnancy, my
husband and I were just type apeople. Okay, we still are, we
had plans, we knew exactly whatwe were going to do. We had it
(01:54):
all put in place, hey, we'regoing to get married, then we're
going to have baby number one.
And you know, that's going to bethis gender and baby number two,
God, we will let you know whatwe're going to do. You just do
the rest of the work. That waskind of our mindset, because we
(02:16):
thought that's how it worked. Imean, we knew the details,
right? But, but we didn't everthink about the fact that we
might have issues havingchildren. And so we got pregnant
right away. That was never anissue. We got pregnant. And
(02:39):
things were going well. We wereexcited. We had been married for
just a little over a year. Andso we knew we were on track. And
when I was five months pregnant,we went into the doctor's
office. And the doctor, youknow, did the regular check with
(02:59):
the Doppler machine and listento the heartbeat. And so she
grabbed the Doppler and startedlistening. And it was clear she
didn't hear anything. And ofcourse, we didn't hear anything.
And so she said, You know,sometimes these cords are bad.
(03:21):
Let me get a new one. Okay. Soshe did, and she came back and
listened nothing.
So she sent us to get anultrasound. Now, even at this
point, I'm thinking, there'snothing wrong. We're just, you
know, go we we've never donethis before. We had no idea. So
(03:42):
we went to the hospital. And wewent in to have an ultrasound
now. The ultrasound tech saidnothing, said nothing the entire
time first ultrasound I've everhad. And she was very stoic, you
know, doing her thing, neversaid anything. Then she left.
(04:06):
And somebody came back. I can'tremember if it was her or if it
was somebody else. But theysaid, your doctor wants you to
come back to the office. Well,at this point, I was scared. But
again, it didn't really occur tome that I would have lost the
baby. We went back to theoffice. And the doctor told us
(04:31):
that we had indeed lost ourbaby. It was a Tuesday it was
December 8 I remember itvividly. And because I was five
months pregnant, I had to gointo the hospital to actually
deliver the baby because he wastoo big to
(04:52):
you know, do it any other way.
So we went to the hospital. Andof course we're on the ward of
havebabies who are being delivered
and the joyous sounds and all ofthe things. And we were put in
the very end, and there was awhite rose on our door to
indicate that we had lost ababy. Well, I delivered the baby
(05:16):
that night. And I will, I'lltell you before we went there, I
we stopped at my parents,because they wanted to,
you know, give us dinner andhelp us get over there. And my
mom played a song. For me, thatwas really, really special to me
(05:40):
growing up in high school calledhe never failed me yet. And it
says, I will sing up his merciesevery day, every hour, he gives
me power, I will sing and I'llpraise him for all the joys and
all the and I'm messing up thewords. He is my God, and I'll
(06:00):
serve Him no matter what thetest, trust and never doubt.
Jesus will always bring you out.
He never failed me yet. And Iliterally recoiled at that song
when she played it, because Ithought, okay, yeah, you're
failing me now. So that's notthat's a problem.
So we went to the doctor, Idelivered this baby boy the size
(06:24):
of my hand. I mean, it wassurreal. And we got to hold
them, we got to say goodbye.
But we went home without a baby.
And it was horrifying. Now,because this was my first baby,
I had no idea. Will I ever getpregnant again? Do I can I not
(06:48):
have babies and it was just aterrible situation. And at this
point in time, and most of youknow, I'm a recovering
alcoholic, I was drinking. Now Ididn't drink when I was
pregnant. But you better believewhen I got home, I started
drinking again. And so alcoholkind of walked me through that
(07:12):
grief and that pain. What was sodifficult is that, of course,
everyone knew I was pregnant, Iwas showing. And so then
everybody knew that I had lostthe baby. And people don't know
(07:33):
what to say. Let me just tellyou, if you don't know what to
say, don't say anything. Andreally, even if you think you
know what to say, don't sayanything.
Unknown (07:43):
Except for I'm sorry, and how can I help you?
Stephanie Olson (07:49):
I had people say things to me, like, you
know, I'm a singer. And theywould say, hey, you'll get the
song in your voice pretty soonor the song in your heart again.
And I of course had peopletelling me I was God's will
that, you know, that's what andnone of those things were good
(08:09):
to hear. Nor do I believe it wasGod's will for my baby to die. I
do believe there is, you know,we are in a fallen world. And
those things happen. And I don'tthink that God does that to us.
There's no punishment. There'snone of that. We just We just
live in a fallen world. Butpeople would either say
(08:33):
something completely ridiculousor ignore the fact that it
happened at all. I don't want tosay anything. I don't want to
say anything wrong. I don't wantyou to remember that you lost
your baby. I'm not going toforget. I had one friend who
came over and she sat down withme and she said, Whatever you
(08:53):
need, I'm here to listen. I'mhere to cry with you. I'm here
to laugh. I'm here to dowhatever you need. If you want
to talk about it. Let's talkabout it. If you don't, let's
not. What would you like to do?
That was the most healing thinganyone could have said? And I
said absolutely. I want to talkabout it. And I was able to show
her the pictures and show herthe blanket that he was on and
(09:16):
all of those things. And it wasamazing. That's what you do.
Now, I did get pregnant again.
We waited for two years becauseit was just so so difficult,
waited for two years, and thenwe did get pregnant again. And I
(09:36):
was terrified, because I had noidea what was going to happen
again. I was still drinkingstopped drinking when I was
pregnant. And we had acompletely uneventful pregnancy.
We delivered a beautiful babygirl redhead, who was my oldest
daughter and it was amazing andshe was amazing and healthy and
(10:03):
perfect. And it was wonderful.
And so then we decided, hey,we're going to do this again,
we're back on track. And we gotpregnant again, after No, well
was a little older, wasn'tsadistic, and we got pregnant
again and lost that baby. Andagain, I was drinking and drank
(10:27):
that pain away. And it washorrible. I remember that was
February 1, we found out. And itwas an extremely painful time.
Now, at this point, things arenot going well on that front. We
do switch doctors. And you know,I start to go to a specialist
(10:52):
because I want to find outwhat's wrong, and know what's
going on. And soin the meantime, I'd gotten
sober, and started to workthrough that part of of my
journey. And we got pregnantagain. Now this is over a period
(11:15):
of time. And we lost that baby.
So third loss. We know we canget pregnant, we know we can
have a baby. But clearly it'snot working right now.
(11:36):
The pregnancy doctor that wewere working with determined
that it was my lining, that wasnot thick enough. And he was
going to do what he could tomake sure it was we got pregnant
again, lost that baby forlosses. And we were devastated.
(11:59):
And I'll be honest with you, Idid think what am I being
punished what's going on? Idon't I don't know.
But again, having the rightpeople around you to support you
is so important. Becausesometimes people during grief
just don't even know what tosay. And again, that's okay.
(12:21):
There is nothing to say there isnothing to say.
I think that's the main thing toknow. I remember I was in the
bathroom one day. And I wastalking to a woman who we were
in church. I always had problemswith this woman. There was just
(12:42):
something about her that struckme. I don't know, just off. We
did. I struggled with her, youknow in Jesus name. But she was
in the bathroom, knew I had gonethrough these several losses. I
mean, I and I had just recentlygone through a loss. And she
(13:04):
came singing into the bathroomand said, Oh my gosh, we are so
blessed. The Lord will just notstop blessing us. And we're
pregnant again. So that to me.
Well, of course, I'm thinking,why isn't he blessing me in the
(13:24):
same? Well,what am I doing wrong? Well,
that's not how God works. Yes,he blesses people he does. But
the things that go wrong don'tmean that you've necessarily
done something wrong. He's agood guy.
So we did look at adoption, wethought, Well, we do want
(13:47):
another baby. And you know,maybe we'll look at adoption and
all these things.
And then we got pregnant again.
And it was it was terrifying. Itwas absolutely terrifying. And
we went through the pregnancy. Iwas a high risk patient. And so
(14:07):
I had to get shots to maintainmy lining every you know, three
times a week, which my husbandhad to administer, which he kind
of liked. It was a little Idon't know Anyway, I think it
was the pain thing, but that's awhole other story. That's on
him. But we made it through thatpregnancy. A lot of lot of
(14:30):
trouble.
Had a little problem at deliverytime. Another podcast, but had a
beautiful girl. Now it's kind offunny because my daughter's I
always expected my daughters tolook just like me. You know,
(14:51):
will Stephanie's dark skin. Darkhere. My oldest daughter is a
redhead with fair fair skin soshe looks like cuz my mom I mean
she is that they actually dolook very much like Eric and I
great mix of of Eric and I butshe looked just like my mom
redhead fair skin. And the firstthing they said when she was
(15:13):
born not it's a girl. It's aboy. It's redhead. What are you
having a redhead for? Well, itisn't my family. And then my
second daughter was a blonde,fair skin. I thought what the
heck, these recessive genes Iwanted a little Stephanie.
They're amazing. Don't get mewrong. But we had decided, or I
(15:37):
should say, I had decided nomore babies. I am done with
babies. And it was just tooemotionally difficult to get
pregnant to stay pregnant. Itwas just too much work. And so I
had decided happy with the twolittle girls, I'm good. What I
didn't know is my husband reallydid want another baby boy or
(15:57):
girl didn't matter. Just wantedanother baby. But he wasn't
going to say anything to me,because he really wanted to
honor the fact that pregnancieswere really emotionally hard.
For me. I loved being pregnant.
I love that feeling. But theywere emotionally difficult. And
so he didn't say anything. And Ican't even remember how we
started to have theconversation. But we did. And he
(16:20):
shared with me that he did wantanother baby. But he understood
if I didn't. And I said, Well,here's what I will do. I will I
will pray about it. And sothat's what I did. And I swear I
always say, you know, people arelike, hey, wouldn't it be great
if God texted you, I got apostcard from God. I'm going to
(16:41):
tell you that right now. So Iprayed about it. And the next
day I got in the mail, apostcard that said, thinking
about having another baby.
Hilarious, hilarious, God. Sostill prayed about it. And then
I said, Alright, here's thedeal. We know that my lining
(17:05):
doesn't get thick enough tosustain a pregnancy. So let's go
get an ultrasound. If my liningis thick enough, which I knew it
would not be, we will talk abouthaving another baby I wasn't
even ready to commit to we willhave another baby. We'll talk
about it. Now. In the meantime,we had gone to a funeral of all
(17:30):
places, and the whole family wasthere. My daughters were there.
My mom was there. And I don'tremember Eric being there. He
may not have been there. But mydaughter's and my mom were
there. And this woman walked bywho I have never seen in my
entire life, have not seensense, walked by and looked at
(17:53):
my children and said, Where didyou get the redhead and the
blonde? Now, I will tell you,we're talking about grief and
what not to say we've kind ofgone on a bit of a tangent. But
here's the other thing that youshouldn't say, don't walk up to
a woman in a grocery store or aman and say, Where did you get
those children? Or assumesomething that you do not know?
(18:18):
Keep your mouth shut?
Don't touch women's bellies.
Don't do all those things. Nanyhave been this, okay. That's
what I'm saying. So, this womanapproached me someone I have
never seen and said, Your boy,you're next child will have dark
hair and look just like you.
(18:45):
Now, I was I was blown awaybecause I knew that we were
thinking and praying abouthaving another baby. My mom, on
the other hand, had no idea. Shewas furious with this woman
because she was like, okay, mydaughter doesn't do pregnancies.
Well, I can't believe she saidthat. I know she's emotionally
(19:05):
exhausted by this. She's donehaving babies. So she was not
happy. My mom had no idea thatwe had been talking and praying
about it. And we went to get anultrasound and see if the lining
was thick enough. And God blessthe ultrasound attendant. She
(19:25):
said, Hey, I've never seen yourlining thicker, and you're
ovulating right now. All right,guys, you don't have to listen
to this part. But she told us togo and do what you need to do to
make it happen. So we did andthen I got really sick with like
(19:47):
the flu like it influenza and Icouldn't breathe and I was
coughing and all that stuff. Soone time one time and will was
born. jet black hair looks good.
Just like me, and a boy. I don'tknow, I don't know what that
means. But I got a postcard fromGod. I do know that. And I'm
very grateful for that boy. Now,here's what I will tell you.
(20:15):
I did have three healthychildren.
But the losses that I sustained,that grief doesn't go away. You
don't replace babies withanother one. And I believe that
(20:36):
I have four babies and haven'tdanced on what Jesus waiting for
me when I get there.
But grief is grief is grief, andwe need to feel it. And here's
the other thing I will tell youthose last two babies that I
lost, I wasn't drinking. I hadquit drinking by that point. And
(21:00):
I allowed God to walk me throughthat pain. And it was so
different. Because you have togrieve losses. And if you don't
grieve it right, then you willgrieve it at some point, you
will grieve that loss. And sothen I was doubly grieving.
After I got sober. People stillsaid stupid things. People still
(21:25):
did stupid things.
But I knew where my support was,I knew where my support system
was. Now, I think sometimespeople look at miscarriages or
stillbirths, or things likethat, sometimes very different
than a loss of a child. And Iunderstand that. But remember
(21:46):
that when a mom loses a baby,it's a loss.
Be mindful.
So when we're talking aboutgrief in other areas, somebody
loses a child, God forbid,somebody loses a parent,
somebody loses a spouse. Don'tbe afraid to give them love and
(22:10):
support. You don't need to sayanything profound. You don't
need to give them a scripturethat will make them feel better.
Guess what? It's not your job.
To make them feel better. Youdon't need to do it.
So be like my friend, go in andsay, What do you need? Do you
(22:30):
want to talk not want to cry? Orlaugh? You get to choose because
I'm here for you. I have nothingto say. Because there are no
words.
I'm just here to love you.
Unknown (22:47):
That's being a supportive friend or family
member. We don't have to haveall the answers. In fact, we
won't have all the answers. Soif you have someone in your life
who's grieving.
Stephanie Olson (23:07):
Just be with them to grieve. And if you're
grieving,find a soft, strong support
system that can help you throughit. Because it's hard.
On the same token, if you knowsomeone who has lost a family
(23:29):
member lost a child or lost aloved one. Don't be afraid to
bring that person up inconversation later on. A lot of
times people think gosh, I Iwon't, I won't read. I don't
want to make them remember,guess what they haven't
forgotten. They have notforgotten. So by bringing up a
(23:53):
loved one is honoring thatperson. Honor them, honor the
person that is lost, honor theperson that you love.
And be a supportive friend and asupportive family member and
give people the support theyneed not the words, not the
(24:17):
profound words, not thescriptures, not those things.
Just be there. Let's give themyour presence.
That's what I needed. So, onthat note, thank you for
listening. Thank you forlistening. Please share with
(24:37):
anyone you think will benefitfrom this podcast.
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