Intro

The thing that surprised me most about having a kid was how much I'd be affected by seeing other children suffer. In hindsight, and knowing myself, it makes total sense. I just hadn't gotten to know any kids on the level I'd get to know my daughter, nor had I spent the time learning about things like childhood development milestones.

If you're like me, I offer this warning upfront that this isn’t a happy story. It’s a sad one, and it will hit harder if you're especially affected by stories about kids and their parents. Nevertheless, it’s a story that happens to expectant parents all over the world, every single day. So I’ve put it online because people need to know about it and understand it. If you have a friend or family member going through it, this might offer some perspective. If you’re going through it, you need to know you aren’t alone, and it’s rough, but it gets easier.

Expecting

New parents are nervous about all kinds of things, but for my first daughter, the thing I was scared of the most was that I wouldn’t be able to be the father she deserved. I’d never changed a diaper, get nauseated at the smell and sight of vomit, tend to want to be in control of my life and time, and can turn into a pretty unpleasant person when I'm forced to be reactive for long stretches of time. "What if the responsibility of a kid winds up to be just too much for me?" I thought. This, of course, in addition to all of the other things expecant parents worry about like finances, readiness of the home, major life shifts, balancing work and caregiving, etc.

It turned out my concerns about virtually all of this were unnecessary. I got really good at changing diapers, excellent at swaddling, turned out to oddly enjoy cleaning her nose, and the first time I was projectile vomited on, I played it fairly cool. I won’t try to make parenting sound easy because it’s not, but I was way better at it than I imagined I'd be.

So when my wife and I were expecting our second kid, my nervousness was replaced with enthusiasm. Equipped with the knowledge from raising our first child, we knew we could do things better, and we had better ideas of what to expect. From my own perspective, I was so excited to meet this little guy. I knew he’d be a good kid, and a good person, would do good in the world, enjoy happiness, and become enriched with the good stuff life has to offer. I wanted his sister to have a playmate, and a friend in adulthood. I wanted to see how he’d be different from her and the rest of us, but also how he’d be similar. I wanted to make things together with him, and maybe see him grow up, fall in love, and become someone else’s dad.

Part of helping toddlers through life’s complexities involves explaining things that will be happening in the future. It could be telling them that in 5 minutes the TV is turning off, or the following day they’re going to school, or in our case, telling our girl she was going to be a big sister. We read books about babies, watched TV shows about siblings, talked about babies and pregnancy, and made sure she was aware of what was going on and what would happen. We could tell she was starting to get excited about all kinds of things, like no longer being the youngest, and having a playmate, and being able to help take care of him.

One day when we’d asked our daughter what we should call her little brother, she quickly and nonchalantly replied “Blueberry”. We loved it, partly because it was a great example of how little minds don’t overthink things, but also because our daughter didn’t realize how ridiculous of a name it would be, especially as that boy grew into an adult. I’m sure there’s someone out there named Blueberry, but unless our boy became some kind of interdimensional bounty hunter or artist on the levels of Salvador Dalì and Frank Zappa, Blueberry Coots would have been too much. Prior to all this, we had nicknamed him “Cloot” as a joke because we like being ridiculous, but Blueberry basically dethroned Cloot, and we'd ultimately settle on “Blue” as his middle name.

Expectant parents shoulder a lot no matter what. I work remotely, and was being moved out of my old spot to make room for the nursery. I’d just spent a few days assembling my daughter’s new bed, getting her accustomed to it, explaining to her that her brother would be using her old bed, and moving all the boxes I’d packed. There was a pile of yet-to-be-used baby gear in the corner next to my desk in our parlor, clothes for him next to the toddler bed in his new room that I still needed to convert back to a crib, and without all my office furniture upstairs, the room was really starting to feel ready to welcome its new resident. It was an exhausting weekend, and the house was in total disarray, but our boy’s arrival was quickly approaching and we just didn’t have much time to think about anything else. Saying I was “happy” to be juggling all of this would be a stretch, but I knew we’d come out on the other side glad, and they’re the kinds of challenges and sacrifices I think parents are ultimately happy to make for their kids.

The plan was that in a few weeks, my wife would go in to deliver, I'd start my parental leave, and we'd begin learning to handle two kids at a time instead of just one.

The Unthinknable

A week before our son would have been full-term, my wife went in for a routine ultrasound. Because of her age, they did them every week, and up to that point there had been little to no cause for alarm. But she was texting me that the baby wasn’t moving, and she was waiting for the doctor. Another text came shortly after that she was still waiting. Then the phone rang, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the guttural crying on the other end, and learning from her that our son had died and we didn’t know why.

Both miscarriages and stillbirths are extremely common, and they’re one of those topics our culture doesn’t talk about often. A miscarriage is technically any baby that doesn’t make it past 20 weeks, while a stillbirth is any baby that makes it longer than that. I don’t want to diminish the heartbreak that a miscarriage carries, because they’re extremely tough. I genuinely believe that each week is a little different for people. For me, I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t more upset when we had a miscarriage back in 2020. But the baby at that point felt almost more conceptual, even though they were obviously quite real. This was really different though. We knew his gender, we’d seen his face and toes and ears and stuff on ultrasounds, and he had almost made it all the way. We were quite ready to start our new chapter with him, and now we'd have to accept this wouldn't be happening.

These are the weirder “working from home” moments that really highlight how isolating it can be. When bad news hits, nearby people can immediately tell from overhearing, looks on faces, and body language that something's not right. But in my case, I had to figure out how and who to tell at work. It crossed my mind that the optics of how I delivered this news might reflect on me later, but I didn’t really care. Who wants to make a phone call or schedule a Zoom meeting at a time like this? I sent an oddly unceremonious Slack message to my boss and closest colleague. They sent their condolences, and my boss told me not to worry about work for the rest of the week.

Shortly after, I joined my wife at her OBGYN. We’d still been waffling on finalizing a name, and the grief and guilt that our son died without one hit me hard at that moment. What kind of parents were we, to have not named our son? “His name is James. I think his name was always James.” I said, trying to honor him in some way. It simultaneously didn’t matter and mattered a ton. He deserved this at least, and it was the name I think my wife and I both liked the most. James Blue Coots. It was the first decision we chose to make in several days loaded with decision making.

Since my wife’s doctor’s office was at the hospital, she had the option to walk right over to labor and delivery and give birth immediately. Although I personally didn’t feel ready, I wanted to follow her lead. After all, she was the one suffering the trauma of being physically attached to our dead son. Most women in their third trimester are very ready to have the baby out, but I thought this might be different. One of the many things I admire about my wife is how pragmatic she tends to be under pressure, and this was no different. Even though we were both emotional wrecks, we decided it was better to work through logistics like telling our family and finding care for our daughter and dog before we went in to deliver.

My general propensity is to fix things. I guess it makes me feel helpful and useful, and it tends to deescalate tense situations. The next best thing in scenarios like this is to just do whatever I can to be useful, so I volunteered to call our family and deliver our news. Family connotes a lot of different things to different people. We're fortunate enough to have a terrific family on both sides. Our parents, our siblings, our nieces and nephews, they were all excited for us and were expecting my call to be cheerful news that their new family member had arrived a little early.

The one family member I dreaded telling the most was my daughter. For all our talk of the possibilities the future with her brother held, we hadn’t prepared her for the possibility that he wouldn’t make it. How would we tell her? How would she take it? How well would she understand? It seemed to sink in to a degree, but at the end of telling her, she simply said “I hope I get to play with my baby brother”. Kids her age don’t yet grasp impermanence, so this was her way of saying “I hope I get to see him another time”. Still, she could tell the gravity of our discussion was different even if she didn’t fully get what it meant.

Amidst trying to navigate all of these difficult steps with grace and composure, dozens of questions were constantly vying for our attention. What went wrong? Was it our fault? Is it possible they made a mistake and he’s okay? Will we be able to try again? Would we even want to? How and when will we know these things? How does the birth process differ? Is my wife’s health at risk in any way? Does being in Texas make matters worse? How can I help support my wife’s recovery? How will I move past this crippling grief? Will we be able to see him? Will he look normal? How will I feel if he doesn’t, and what does that say about me? Will we be expected to do a funeral? How should we handle his remains? How much does something like that cost? Do we want an autopsy to help identify the cause of death? Could we handle that being done?

When I try to describe what going through this is like, I explain that the grief is layered. As soon as one subject of grief such as whether or not he suffered leaves my mind, another such as never being able to see him get excited over something I share with him enters. I learned that the more I allowed myself to think about him and about our situation, the worse this would get. That night in particular, I couldn’t quit thinking about things like these and something else entered my mind: Eric Clapton. If you’re unfamiliar, Eric Clapton’s son Connor was 4 years old when he fell from a 53rd-floor window of an apartment in NYC in 1991. Clapton’s song Tears in Heaven is written about this. I’m not a big Eric Clapton guy, but I respect his work and think it’s a pretty song, so in the middle of the night I decided to look at the lyrics.

This reduced me to a crumpled, ugly crying mess. Things like your kid holding your hand and learning to say your name are such special milestones, and it was simultaneously a nightmarish reminder that I wouldn’t experience this with James, but also raised spiritual and theological questions I wasn’t ready to confront. If there is a Heaven, James is there, and I’m not. We’re separated, and it just leaves me with more questions than answers. Such as: would he know my name? Would he even recognize me? Would he accept me? Because even though I feel like I know him, I didn’t. I really wanted to. All of these are more layers to that onion of grief. Plus, although him dying is without question the worst thing I’ve gone through, as a 42-year-old father, home owner, pet companion, husband, and leader at work, people are relying on me to “be strong” and “carry on”.

I later read at one point Eric Clapton said he quit performing this song live because he had moved past his grief, and he felt that without his grief he couldn’t do the song justice. This gave me a little ray of hope that I wouldn’t feel as horrible as I was feeling for the rest of my life.

Delivery

The following day, after dropping our daughter off at school and explaining to her that her grandfather would be picking her up, we had coffee and tacos at one of our favorite places in town, Flitch. I think we both took in a little comfort from the simple act of doing something we enjoyed just the two of us, which we don’t get to do as often now that we have a kid. I still had tears streaming down my face as I crammed migas into my mouth, because I was grieving that we wouldn’t be able to take James to this place someday like we did with his sister. But we composed ourselves as best we could, because it was time to head to the hospital.

Mr. Rogers’s advice to kids in scary times is to “look for the helpers”, and I find this helps when you’re a scared adult, too. We had the best helpers. Besides my work being understanding and giving us space, our friends and family were tripping over one another to help us in any way they could. Neighbors watched our dog, family took off work and traveled to visit, and my daughter also deserves a shout out, because she really impressed me with her maturity and resilience when we threw off her routine and asked her to do things we knew she’d rather not. The nurses in Labor & Delivery at St. David’s Medical Center deserve extra special applause for their superhero-like handling of our entire stay. Unbeatable bedside manner, understanding, attentiveness, empathy, care, everything you’d possibly want. I realize it may sound hyperbolic, but they made such a tremendous difference for us that it gave me more hope for humanity in general. I’d forgotten people could be that good if we really tried.

By the middle of the night, my wife was in active labor and proved (yet again) to deliver way faster than anyone anticipated. This time around they were giving her the epidural, and it hadn’t even had time to take full effect before her water broke and James was out seconds later. There were probably half a dozen medical professionals surrounding my wife, so I was just on the sidelines trying to stay out of the way. This moment was perhaps the worst for my wife, and one she kept replaying and feeling mortified by. I can only imagine how scary and horrible it was for her, and there wasn’t anything I could do. Once James was out, I could see immediately the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck at least a few times. He was whisked away pretty quickly and the team’s focus was on my wife’s wellbeing. After they were stitching her up and her doctor was taking questions from us, I was able to ask what happened to him. She said we didn’t need an autopsy for her to tell us, it was likely what they call a “cord accident” which is exactly what it sounds like.

After things quieted down, they asked if we’d like to hold him, which of course we did. His eyes were closed, his lips were extremely red, and his skin was a little grayish blue. His mouth kept limply opening, which didn’t feel right. None of it really felt right. He should have been squirming, crying, wincing, and grabbing at stuff. But he was just still. I held his hand.

The horrible side-effect of being creative is that your creativity can work against you when bad things are happening. I’m a superstitious person, and a private wonder I had was if our choice of middle name somehow caused this. We chose a weekday for my daughter’s middle name, and she happened to be born on that day. So was this some kind of cosmic joke that my boy literally turned blue and died because his umbilical cord strangled him? Obviously I know this is nonsense because of course a name can’t kill someone, but my mind still can’t shake the coincidence.

I’m naturally more optimistic than not, so I was trying to find silver lining. At least we wouldn’t have disrupted sleep! And hey, now I could just skip my parental leave at work. Think of all the money we’d save on formula and diapers. No rush on the backyard office completion either, now. But I didn’t have to even go beyond the surface to know I’d take my son being alive over these lame conciliations, and all the positivity in the world wouldn’t make any difference.

Our nurses used our phones to take photos with us which I haven’t shown anyone except my mom and sister. Every so often I’ll be scrolling in my phone’s photos, one will come up, and I’ll get sad. But fortunately there’s a really great non-profit called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep which volunteers to take photos of stillborn babies. The name alone was enough to make me cry more in the delivery room. I didn’t want to lay James down to sleep. But the photographer came the following day and she did some incredible work, both in the camera and in retouching software.

Do you know how you want your remains to be handled? Because even though we’re in our 40s, my wife and I hadn’t talked about it for ourselves yet, much less our daughter, and much less for James. I’ve (oddly and by happenstance) lived next to graveyards the majority of my life so I see them as peaceful, pleasant places. But I was unsure if we could afford a burial plot much less a casket and funeral, and with the rest of our family’s end of life plans uncertain, we didn’t want this little guy to be alone in his resting place. In fact when my wife said she’d like him to be “with us” it gave me some weird solace. Cremation seemed to make sense logistically, but I really struggled with the thought of my tiny son’s remains being rolled into a cremator.

During our stay at the hospital, we opted to meet with the chaplain. I’d never done this before and wasn’t even sure what the deal was. Weren’t chaplains a catholic thing? I’m a mainline protestant, and my wife grew up catholic but isn’t practicing. Would they try to be converting us or getting us to join a church? Would I really want to hear what they had to say right now? I was happy to discover that just like the L&D nurses, this was the right guy to be talking to. Another wonderful helper, if a bit unconventional.

Going Home

After being in a hospital room without windows for nearly 24 hours, going home is a real treat no matter how nice your stay was. We got sandwiches, picked up a prescription, and went to my father-in-law’s house to visit family. Even though I was feeling under the weather (likely due to just stress and uneven sleep), it was good for us, and we were happy to spend a little time with our daughter, her grandparents, my sister-in-law, and her kids.

We had so many people send us flowers, gift baskets, cards, and were just overwhelmed by everyone who was thinking of us and cared. Some were even friends of friends we’d never met. I joke that I never eat as well as when I’m going through something this hard. Multiple people sent us terrific children’s books on grief. My work sent us a DoorDash card, and everyone on the leadership team reached out personally over the week. I was grateful for them, and over the next few weeks was even more grateful I had a job that wasn’t hourly or relied on tips.

When I picked up James’s ashes from the funeral home, they gave us some hand prints they took. I asked what payment forms they accepted, the director told me I didn’t need to worry about it, and that the funeral home would be covering the cost for us. I was once again moved by the compassion people can have, even for complete strangers. When you’re on the receiving end, it’s inspiring and makes me want to pay it forward. People really have great capacity for good.

Time alone doesn’t heal all wounds, but it plays a big part. The first month sucked. At least part of each day was incredibly hard. But by the second month, we started to have more good days than bad, and more easy moments than hard. By the third and fourth months, life took us in new directions with unexpected gallbladder surgeries, job interviews, our daycare annouincing it would be closing, and our air conditioner going out, so while we carried our grief with us, we had new challenges demanding our attention. We were also getting out more again, seeing friends, and planning for the coming holidays.

Although our daughter seems mostly fine and isn’t asking any hard questions, she has mentioned multiple times that her brother died, and that it’s sad, so I know she’s aware of what’s going on and processing what happened. We learned that it’s important to reiterate to her that she’s safe, and that she won’t be losing us.

Recovery was easier for me than my wife, and I can only imagine since she not only carried James to term but also carried all the physical reminders after he was born. She couldn’t stop wondering if she could have done something to prevent this, and feeling guilty that she was unable to. But she soon started seeing a really excellent therapist, and I'm happy to say she's doing way better now. I'm doing better as well.

James had a good life for the short time he was with us. He got to attend a really great Justice concert with his parents. Through whatever umbilical cord magic there is, he sampled some really great foods, desserts, and drinks with his mom. He got to hear his family laughing together, his dog barking, his sister screaming, and to twirl around a ton inside his cozy, comfortable, compact home. Thanks to his sister, he heard a lot of Yellow Submarine. He attended an Easter service at church. He got to swim in a few different pools, to go on a few different trips, and meet a lot of interesting people. His death was an accident that none of us could have prevented. He was and always will be loved, and he’s missed in a way that my words can’t articulate. We hope his Gangy and great grandparents are taking good care of him, and that our pets are keeping him company.

Thank you for reading. If you or someone you know is suffering major grief like this, the best thing I can offer is hope. You’re still here. Your story isn’t over, and it matters. Life can and will hold beauty and joy again, and this doesn’t mean forgetting but instead carrying their memory forward with you. You don’t have to be okay all the time, just don’t give up on yourself. This can and should be part of who you are, but don't let it be all that you are. There’s a lot that hasn’t even happened yet, and some moments and days still hold happy surprises.

• March of Dimes
• Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
• The Invisible String
• Star Baby