MISS ME ALWAYS: Child Loss, Infertility and Adoption Challenges

For some people, there is no planning when it comes to having a family. However, Tasha Van Howe’s was very different. Her memoir is MISS ME, ALWAYS, a story she shares for anyone who’s ever experienced the loss of a child, struggled with infertility or adoption challenges—she’s faced them all.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for listeningto Get Connected. For some people,
there's no planning when it comes tohaving a family. Tasha van How's experience
was very different. Her new bookis Miss Me Always, a personal story

(00:26):
she tells for anyone who's ever experiencedloss, struggled with infertility or adoption challenges,
She's faced them all. Tasha vanHow, thank you for being on
Get Connected. Thank you for havingme. In the beginning of the book,
you talk about health classes in school, and I think so many of
us remember those setting reproduction. Thishappens, and this happens, and then

(00:47):
there's a baby, and it's verysimple. What were your expectations when you
first started to try to have children? What did you think your husbands were,
what would happen? Well, youknow, it's funny because we didn't
start trying several years after we weremarried. So I think about this often.
I think, Gosh, I wishI hadn't tried to prevent getting pregnant

(01:07):
all those years, because in mymind, like I write in the book,
I figured it would be really easyto get pregnant, and so many
people around me it's that's their story. You know, some don't even try
and they get pregnant. So foryears I took birth control to prevent it,
and here we are, after allthose years that I probably shouldn't have.

(01:32):
You know, I expected it tohappen quickly. As I said in
the introduction, this is a bookthat kind of covers a lot of phases.
You lost a child, if youstruggled with infertility, you had adoption
challenges. So we're going to kindof take it in stages. After all
you've been through. It feels likethese questions are probably bring up so many
things. But as you thought itwas easy in the beginning. Can you

(01:55):
talk about that shock of even yourfirst miscarriage. I thought world was crashing.
I didn't understand why I thought Ihad it was my fault. I
thought I had done something wrong.I kept thinking back to was it because
I lifted something? Was it becauseI ate something. I was trying to

(02:15):
find reasons for why it had happened. And you know, it also instilled
to fear me to try it again, because I didn't want to have that
kind of loss again. And theneventually I decided, you know, it
was time, and of course wewant our family, and we kept trying,
and then that was years of trying. Even though roughly six million women
in the US have trouble getting pregnantor staying pregnant, as you say in

(02:38):
the book, talking about infertility hasalways been taboo. Once you started talking
about yours with people close to you, though, they started sharing their own
private stories. What did that makeyou think about? It made me sad.
It makes me sad that so manypeople don't realize that this is happening
because it is somewhat kept secret inthe hearts of and women. I say

(03:00):
men and women, because you know, if you're in a couple, the
man is also going through it,and we don't at times think of what
the man might be thinking about,you know, if it's their fault or
not, so I say both.However, it was enlightening for me because
I didn't realize that this was happening, and then I wanted everyone to know.

(03:23):
You mentioned your husband. This bookis very much interspersed with memories of
you and your husband's first years ofdating, his first kiss, prom proposal,
all these things, why did youwant to keep returning to those early
years. That's what kept me going, and that's what helped me heel or
you know, push forward. Ourlove is what made us persevere through all

(03:44):
of the heartache. And although Ithought I loved my arth, you know,
I knew I loved my husband,it wasn't until after we started doing
things, going through these hardships,that I saw him in a different light
and I fell in love with himeven more so. I wanted to honor
our love story because I think,especially through infertility, you know, we

(04:05):
might lose sight of that, andI didn't want on the lose side of
that. You know, He's alwaysbeen the first person that I chose to
spend my life with, and Iwanted to remember that the next time you
were pregnant four years later seems likefor me, the most difficult part perhaps
of all of this. Every timeyou went to a doctor, they gave

(04:26):
you a different opinion about whether yourson was healthy or not. How to
handle it? Meanwhile, you're receivinggifts and congratulations from friends and family.
What was that time like? Confusing? Confusing as you can imagine, because
almost like I was living two differentlives. On one side, I was
trying not to mourn the baby thatI was caring because of all the bad

(04:50):
news that doctors would give me.And then on the other side, I
was not you know, I wantedto live happily and in this pregnancy and
enjoy it, and so I wouldhave that aspect with family and friends and
celebrating and receiving gifts. So itwas almost like living two separate lives.

(05:11):
Your son, Brody was born alivebut only lived a very short time.
How did you and Jeff cope withthe loss of your son? I mean,
you're you're always going to be copingwith it? Yes, yes,
most definitely. There are moments wherewe could be doing the most random things.
It could even be watching a movieand I will start crying, or

(05:34):
I'll look at over it, youknow, justin and all the other side
the couch, and he might bechoked up. It never goes away,
I say that, you know,the grief never goes away. We just
learned how to live with it,and that's what we're doing. We live
with it. But knowing that,you know, I'll be with our our
babies again one day is what sortof helps me push through every day.

(05:55):
We cried a lot, and wecommunicated a lot. You know, put
I joke and I say, don'tget me wrong. We also thought,
you know, infertility is not easy, and neither the finances that come behind
it. So there's that, ButI think when it comes down to it,
we just had to be there foreach other. There was no rhyme

(06:15):
or reason behind it. You justknew you had to be there for each
other. And when he was upset, I found strength. I knew that
this was my moment. I hadto be there for him, and vice
versa. Our guest is Tasha vanhow Her book is Miss Me Always.
You're listening to get connected on oneof six point seven light FM, I'm
Mina del Rio. Unfortunately, oneof the things that happened to you after

(06:39):
you lost your son was you hadan upper dural which caused you to lose
the ability to walk. Was thesituation there? And how long? How
are you feeling now? By theway, so it's almost seven years.
I still have problems walking. Iactually still walk with a limb, which
some days I'm embarrassed by, andthen some days I don't even notice.

(07:01):
I have a lot of pain inmy legs still, so Jeff, my
husband, does help me with thatpain in the night. But I did
go home in a wheelchair from thehospital. The only way I can explain
it to you is how the doctorexplained it to me, And the way
that he did is he said,when you're sitting on the couch and your
leg falls asleep, what's the firstthing that you do. You shake it

(07:24):
off, You wake up your feet, you wake up your legs. Well,
my legs had been sitting dormant forso long. I was in labor
for about thirty six hours before theymoved me into C section, and my
legs were sitting the dormant for solong that by the end, when the
nurses came to lift my legs andtold me to push, they create a
nerve damage because it traumatized my legs. So the day's following I kept saying

(07:48):
I can't feel my legs, andthey said, oh, it's step of
dortal, We're off. And itwasn't until about the third day when they
said you have to use the restroom, and Jeff basically carried me into the
restroom and when he let go ofme, I hit the floor. I
hit the floor hard and he startedscreaming for help. And then that's when
they acknowledged that I had lost allfeelings in my lege. How did you

(08:11):
realize, I mean, this isprobably part of it, of course,
but how did you realize you weresuffering from postpartum depression? And how did
you manage that? That was trickybecause I knew that I had. I
was grieving obviously, it was grievingour son, even going to the doctors
when they brought me in to tellme, you know, a misdiagnosis,
and they kept trying to push antidepressantson me and kind of medicate me.

(08:35):
And my biggest thing was I saidI didn't want to be medicated. I
knew that I needed to work throughmy grief and everything I was feeling was
completely normal. But it didn't occurto me that there was postpartum also.
And I was taking care of mymom at that time, and she had
Alzheimer's. She lived with this.I started to resent her. I started

(08:56):
to have odd feelings towards her,and I was mad that I was taking
care of her. I didn't knowwhy, but I was. And it
wasn't until Jeff and I were ina little staycation. I was sitting in
a hotel room, really high floor, twenty something floor, and I very
much imagine myself jumping up the windowif I could. I mean, it

(09:16):
was very it was very specific.I mean, in my head, I
was putting in details of how Iwould do it. And then I realized
that's not normal. I don't wantto do that, and I went and
grabbed Jeff and I said, I'mfeeling a certain way right now. I
feel really odd, and I'm kindof scared. And we talked it out,
and by the end of that conversation, I said, I think I

(09:37):
might have also postpartum depression. Soit was sort of a double whammy for
me. I had both the griefthat I was going through, but also
postpartum. We're going to jump forwarda little bit, just for time,
because your story has so many facets. You did try to adopt later,
and that process unfortunately turned out tobe a scam. Briefly what happened there

(10:01):
it did. We decided to doa private adoption. We you know,
a lot of people told us totry foster to adopt, but we had
already had so much loss. Idon't think I could have handled, you
know, foster to adopt, andthen the child gets taken away from us.
So we did private adoption quite costlyas well, and a birth mother
chose us off of our profile.She was unhoused, so we paid for

(10:26):
her living arrangements, clothing, food, cell phone. For several months,
I went to all the doctor's appointmentswith her. We bonded, we talked
about all things that weren't even babyrelated, and when my husband and I
got to the hospital to pick himup, they stopped us and said that
she had given the child to anotherfamily. They made us go home.

(10:46):
I called our social worker, Icalled the agency, and they didn't They
really didn't do much for us.I fought with them tooth and nail,
but in the end we didn't getthe baby. And about a week later,
the shriffs called us and asked ifwe knew where the baby was or
who had him, because they wereinformed that she sold a baby for six
thousand dollars. What has been themost difficult part of writing this book reliving

(11:11):
it, reliving all of it.So you know, I've learned to look
at the brighter side of things.I've learned to heal and then I sit
down at the computer and suddenly Ineed to rewrite everything that's happened, and
I wanted to give up a lot. I cried a lot. I threw
myself on the bed and said,I can't do this a lot, and

(11:33):
also researching. You know, ifI didn't know the term for something that
a doctor was telling me, Iwould look it up and then go down
this rabbit hole online where I spentthe next few hours reading blogs and all
these things and then going Okay,this is unhealthy and I had to step
away. So it was difficult,painful. It does seem that you carried

(11:54):
such a burden and piled so muchblame on yourself for not being able to
have children naturally, especially when youwere younger. Over time and even writing
this book, as your perspective changed, No, I still question why we
haven't had children, but I've justlearned to live with it. So,
you know, the way I describeit as Jeff my husband, He's the

(12:18):
first person I chose to spend mylife with, and we are going to
do that. We are going tolive our lives and honor the love that
we have and have fun and whetherit's traveling or my favorite thing is getting
on a couch with our dogs andwatching movies. That's what life is for
us. And although that it's okay, it's going to be okay. I

(12:39):
have moments where I feel like thewise start popping up, the guilt behind
it, like, oh, Iwasn't able to give him a child.
But it goes away. It goesaway quicker these days. Do you have
any advice you would give to someonegoing through a similar part or any part
of an experience like yours. Well, if it's infertility, I would say

(13:00):
it, never lose hope. AndI know I say this all the time.
It sounds cliche. There is lightat the end of the tunnel,
and whether or not you get yourbaby at the end, don't forget that
there's still a life to be lived. To really embrace that. Also,
trust in that journey and trust yourgut. If you feel like something isn't
correct you, you don't feel likeyourself, trust that and speak to somebody

(13:24):
about it. And my biggest thingwould be to advocate for yourself. If
you're going through something and somebody's tellingyou a B or C and you don't
quite think, I think that's whatit is. I don't care if you
turn into the biggest screaming lunatic,but you just advocate for yourself. Tasha
Vannah house book is missed me always. Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. This

(13:46):
has been Get Connected with Nina delRio on one of six point seven light
Fm. The views and opinions ofour guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missedany part of our show or want to
share it, visit our website sightfor downloads and podcasts at one oh six
seven lightfm dot com. Thanks forlistening. H