The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Approaching her due date, remembering our daughter & our first marriage conference

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

As they approach the due date of the daughter they lost last September, Matt and Abby open up about how this season has truly felt, how they’re coping with grief in everyday life, and what healing looks like while life keeps moving forward. If you or someone you know has experienced pregnancy loss and needs support, these are the resources we mentioned in the episode: The Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre: https://PILSC.org Postpartum Support International: https://postpartum.net This episode is sponsored by Huel and Square. Huel: Limited Time Offer – Get Huel today with my exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code UNPLANNED15 at https://huel.com/unplanned15 New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show! Square: Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/unplanned! #squarepod Chapters: 00:00 - Matt & Abby 02:16 - Life Update 18:09 - Wuthering Heights 29:12 - Our daughter's due date Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you to Time for Learning for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Schooling is one of the most important decisions you make for your children, and I'm really excited about the option time for learning. We are coming to that point where our kids are getting ready to enter pre-K, and there's all these decisions to make. And I love that we're in this day and age where there are so many options, but I'm also very overwhelmed by it. But I'm really excited about Time for Learning because they have everything you need to teach pre-K through 12th grade at home, but with all the core and elective classes offered in a traditional brick-and-mortar school. I love that option because you get the structure that you would like with a traditional school format, but with the personalized intimate setting of homeschooling.

And that's because Time for Learning believes in harnessing the flexibility of homeschool to help families explore passions, travel, and hobbies without the constraints of traditional school hours. It can also be used for more than homeschooling. It is also used for school or summer learning to address learning gaps or maintain skills. It was created by experts for parents with over 1 million students served. Time for Learning is also super user-friendly. It can go on your computer or on your phone.

and they have really easy to read calendars for the day or the month. It also has a progress bar so you can see where your kids are at, what they've completed, and what they still have yet to do. I think it's a really, really great options for families that are looking for that flexibility and that nuance in their child's education. So if you're also curious if Time for Learning is right for your family, visit timeforlearning.com. That's Time Number 4 Learning.com to explore their curriculum and find the perfect plan for your student.

You can get started with a monthly subscription to see just how much your kids enjoy learning on their own terms. Her memory comes with us everywhere and there's reminders of her everywhere and parts of like the day that we met her. Humped to be still. It doesn't get easier. Part of the meeting making for me has been talking about it publicly. This has been very healing for me. Anyone that's sick of hearing about it, like move on.

It's not for you. I kind of was still hanging on to like this separate life where I was like still pregnant. We were going to announce her name on her birthday and stuff. And so now that we've passed that date like it's okay in my mind. I mean, I don't care if we keep it private. What's up, dudes? And welcome back to unplanned. Here we are again. We're back guys. On the blue couch. And you guys are still here. Thanks for being here still. We've been doing this for three years. I can't believe that. And especially thank you to those of you that are choosing to give us a good rating and review.

Yeah, the people that are still leaving reviews on Apple Podcast and Spotify and commenting on YouTube. It's still really important. And like I said on Always Here, if you don't listen to Always Here, which you probably should, it comes out on Friday morning. So you have plenty of time between Wednesday and Friday to listen to both of them. But what I say is that it doesn't just benefit Matt and I. There's like a whole team working on putting these shows up and they're closely following how these episodes perform, how you guys are preceding them. So for them too, like I really appreciate you engaging in that way with our content. And I'm especially wanting to shout out Hannah Vick today. She gave us five stars, which was so kind, so generous.

Thank you, Hannah. And I love this podcast. This is my comfort podcast, whether I'm working out, getting some. some work done at home. I love listening to this couple. As a young wife, I love hearing the authenticity and realness. Thank you for everyone that left nice reviews. That means a lot. Well, here we are. Here we are. We're married. We're still married. We're still married. Why are you being awkward? Try that again. Okay. Well, we're married. Why'd you say that? You leave the episode. This is what happens when we plan our episodes.

Okay. Matt just has to act awkward. Okay. I'm weird. Okay. Okay. You guys. So, Valentine's Day weekend was recently a weekend. Wow, that feels like a while ago, but it really wasn't that long ago. We went to Nashville for Valentine's Day. We went for an interview for this show. And then also, we stayed a little bit later to attend the Money and Marriage Conference with the Ramsey Solutions Company.

And we were the youngest people there. Yeah, we probably were. Do you think we were? I think we were. I don't think there probably wasn't a couple. Maybe there was it. There could have been a couple younger than us. They took really good care of us.

They put us in, like, the, was a V. Platinum. It was nicer than VIP. They put us in platinum. They had amazing snacks for us. Really good food and drinks. They took really good care of us. I was a little worried about my attention span.

Oh, really? Yeah, I started to get antsy sitting still for so long. Maybe it's because my whole days I never sit down. Do you understand this? This is the longest I ever sit down in my day is if we're happening to be recording a podcast that day. That's true. My butt is never in a chair that long.

Well, I felt bad because we were really close to the stage and I take, notes for everything on my phone and then I would also get distracted and respond to messages, you know, over email or work messages. And then I'm like, I need to be better about like not doing that. I don't know. I feel like we got some good stuff out of it, though, some good takeaways. There's a lot of great teachings that we learned while we were there. Yeah, what was your favorite? I think the one, and this is, I'm kind of stealing this from you. But what I choose to tell my, the story I choose to my, the story that I choose to tell myself is. The story I'm choosing. The story I'm choosing to tell myself is. Which like anytime you're having a conflict in your marriage,

anytime there's anything that's like splitting you apart, you need to acknowledge the story that you're telling yourself, right? Ignorledge the part that you're bringing to the table. Because oftentimes I think in conflict, it's easy to point fingers at the other person rather than say the story that I'm choosing to tell myself is blank. Well, I think the other thing too, like that's all true and that was a good point you made. But also, in like I think about in our premarital counseling what? I think about in our premarital counseling. Our counselor told us that the issue is not the issue.

Yes. And I feel like it's that same principle also kind of applies to this where it's like sometimes you could be telling your partner, hey, like get off your phone or things like that. But then it's like you're not really getting to the deeper issue of why that's bothering you. And so this phrase like this line allows you to go that like step layer deeper right away where it's like the story I'm choosing to tell myself is that you don't care about what I have to say.

What? No, I do care about what have you. Instead of like, get off your phone. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that was a good takeaway. A good line. We need to start practicing that more.

Something else that I took away is I downloaded the Together app. Oh, you downloaded the Together app. And I used it on you yesterday. That's John. That's John's app. John Deloney. Plug. I'm plugging it right now.

Thank you, John, for coming on our show. I used it last night on that. It's a good one. It's actually really. a great app. I love it so far. Yeah. And so it gives you a prompt for something to do with your spouse every day. And I did a prompt on you yesterday. Do you know which one of it? You did it at like 10.45 p.m. No, no, no. That was like, that was an additional thing. Oh, this was today. No, it was yesterday. Oh, wait, what did you? What was it? What was it? Think. Is there anything that

I did you? Think, is there anything that I was too tired. I was just like falling asleep as we did. No, it wasn't at night. I guess it was. I can't remember what. I don't know. Tell me. My prompt yesterday was to give you a 30 second hug. And I gave you a 30 second hug. We can do hug a lot so maybe it didn't stand out. Wait, yeah. I don't remember. When was that? I hugged you right after we put the kids to bed for 30 seconds. I literally held you and counted. Oh. The whole time. Wait, that's so sweet. Abby, I thought you, I love the task. I thought you, you know what's really funny now? I'm remembering you hugging me last night. And you know how

the Disney rule, the rule they make for cast members at Disney is you don't let go first. You didn't move. I didn't even say I was doing it. I thought you were just like feeling really down. I was. Because it's been a hard month. And so I just didn't let go because I was like, I was like, I'm not to let go until you let go. You always hold on until I let go. So you're like a man. I didn't know that was like a prompt. So that wasn't you reaching out. I really did need a hug. But once I saw that, I was like, yeah, I want a hug. So I have another prompt I'm going to do on you tonight. Not in a naughty way at all. It's very good. It's not, it's very clean. It's very clean. Wow. But, you know, speaking of this marriage and money conference we went to, we learned about budgeting and having

monthly budget meetings, which I think you were really excited about doing those, right, babe? Mm-hmm. Okay, and I actually was looking ahead or a calendar. You put it on the calendar, but we're going to be in Flagstaff. I know. With our family, so we're certainly not going to do it. So we need to adjust it, right? So if it's not going to work, we have to plan ahead and say, hey, when can we adjust?

That's on you. When can we adjust? No, it's on us right. Let's figure out the time. Okay. So the budget meeting can't happen while we're in Flagstaff. Okay. What's ironic about this is that I'm not the spender in our relationship.

That's not. Not true. We actually agreed on that at the Money Conference chat that I'm the saver. Okay, I wouldn't even give myself the word saver, but you're more spendy than I am. Do you want to talk about what happened on Saturday? Sure, I'll talk about it. What happened on Saturday, babe. Okay, there is a few caveats to this.

Okay. I should say. One is thrift stores. I feel like at thrift stores, I get unlimited budget because it's a thrift store. I just moved our monthly budget meeting. That's a caveat for me. By a week. So I moved it.

It's still on the counter. It's groceries. I'm going to spend what I need to spend on groceries. Three, because I'm shopping at Walmart and Costco. Wait, why are we bringing up groceries right now? Why is that? That's a spender on that. There's never been once.

I've been like, whoa, babe, you spent too much on groceries. I know, you never said that about the thrift store either, but those are my things that I will go crazy. I'll just go out, I'll go crazy. Yeah. Next is small businesses. Yeah. Out the door, I don't care. I'm just like, it's, we got to support.

Yeah. And I like the stuff. You found a local small business on Saturday you wanted to support. I did some retail therapy, yeah. And so. What how much money did you say? I spent $550. I'm sorry. I never do that. Hey, you know what? I texted you and I said, it's okay if I spend a lot of money today. And you said, depends on how much and what it's on. Yeah. And I was like,

clothes for me and the kids and it's a small business and $500. And you said, sure. So we did talk about it. That's a budget meeting in my opinion. Okay, let me let me say this with caveat. I absolutely love our house. I love that we live here. I love our neighborhood. I love our community. I love it. But why I think you're the spender is I was team pay off our house. That is not counting. That does not count. What do you mean? What a freaking pile of horse crap. Wait, Abby, houses are like the most expensive line item. But that's not what people mean when they say spendy, Matt. They're talking about the casual purchases. Okay. It depends on what like you point you're coming from. The fact that you agree to this at the conference, we need to go back to the conference,

honestly. We got to go back. Okay. And have another meeting. But I do have to admit, Maybe we're running into some hiccups because we did leave the conference a little early. We did. Do you want to say why we left the conference? We missed our kids. We missed our kids. And I kind of got sad because I was like, it's Valentine's Day and I'm missing two of my valentines.

Which was, I'm glad we left early. I miss them a lot. And I feel like my max is three nights away. Yeah. And we got there late on Wednesday. And then we stayed Thursday. And then we stayed Friday and left Saturday. So yeah, we did plenty of time away.

We did three nights there. I was missing them by Thursday. Yeah. I was actually missing. them. I cried before we left on Wednesday. And our podcast with George Camel was really good. I just hope that we can find the third video angle because we are team scrambling right now. We don't, we're missing one of the videos. But yeah, we did an interview with George Camel. That went super well. I felt more motivated in that interview with George and ever to not use a credit card, even though we never spend money that we

don't have. But like, gosh, credit cards are so convenient. I'm just a huge fan of their no nonsense, no BS format for personal finance. I was very motivated though. to pay off our house early. Yeah, I was motivated as well. You know, sticking on the typical 30-year mortgage track. Yeah. I want to like really send it and see how quick we can pay off our house. Yeah.

So maybe that's, I think that's a goal that I have. That is good. I feel motivated. Yeah, I honestly got teary-eyed when I was watching some of those families do their debt-free scream. Yeah. It actually made me emotional. It's cool.

I'm so proud of them. Me too. I mean, like think about how good it must feel to have no debt at all. Oh, nobody, nothing. Yeah, you got no student loans, no car payment. no house payment nothing you just own all your own stuff yeah and then your time is your own then you can you can spend your time how you want to spend it and you don't have to work extra just to pay off stuff that you bought that you couldn't afford you know but obviously a house is I think if you have debt on a

house that's totally normal that's totally cool I mean we have that I don't know I really don't know many people at all that have paid off their house but that's the ultimate like feeling of freedom in my opinion yeah I agree to just own your house so yeah we did come back to see the kiddos, had some heart pizzas with them on Valentine's Day night, had some chocolate covered strawberries. That was super fun. We took our kids to a carnival yesterday, which was super fun. Both of our boys got their faces painted. They did some bounce house activities. Well, we went to this carnival because my brother works for the husband and wife law firm here in Arizona. So if you live in Arizona, like I guarantee you probably know that name. It's kind of

fun that he like gets to do like some of their marketing. Yeah, their billboards are everywhere. If you ever drive, like every said, if you ever drive through Arizona, you'll see billboards that say husband and life, husband and wife, law team. They have fun social media too. And Blake, Abby's brother got the opportunity to be in the dunk tub. What's it called? That was like our main motivation for going. Of course, we want to go to support Blake in like his work event. But then also, like he was going to be in the dunk tank. And of course, Griffin and Augie were going to think that was the best thing ever. They call my brother Coco. I missed the dunk tank. Was it funny when our kids dunked him? You weren't there? No, because I was waiting in line for our barbecue.

So Blake was in the dunk tank and then we were given a soft like they gave our boys softballs and of course they're not going to be able to throw it right on the trajectory and hard enough to knock him. So then Blake gave them permission to like run up and hit the button. And you know that they were getting back in that lot. They dunked him probably like six to ten times. It was so fun. And one time the guy handed Griffin this big old softball and Griffin's little hands and Griffin threw and the guy turned around and at the exact time he chucked the dup back of the head of the softball. How hard did he throw? Not hard.

Not hard at all. The reason it went straight up is because it kind of slipped out of his hand anyway, so it wasn't like going fast. But it was just funny. Okay. Genuine question for everyone listening. When your kids are having a great time at an event like a carnival, do you, A, try to get them home on time for their nap so that they like actually nap and don't get super overtired? Or B, let them stay as long as they want.

and sleep in the car. I think it depends on their age. And I feel like they're at the age where they can stay as long as they want, but you were like, we need to go. Well, okay, it was about... I think you were overstimulated.

I was over stimulated. I will give you that. But it was also about 2 o'clock. And then we had a 30 minute drive home and they're, which was going to make them an hour and a half late for a nap. I'm finally skipping naps for one day and just putting them early.

Oh, yeah. That's fair. So yeah, I mean, we got, it was hard getting the boys out because they did not want to leave. They were having so much fun. I was like, just let them play. but you were ready to go, so we left.

But we did spend a lot of time now. They had a petting zoo. They got ice cream from the ice cream truck. They got Ninja Turtle ice creams. They had some good food and snacks. The bounce houses were great. I feel like if we would have stayed, Griffin would have loved doing that rock climbing wall. Yeah.

And it was so cute. Our nephew, CJ, came to. And so Griffin and Augie and CJ went to get their face painted, which, how fun is that? They also had a photo booth. And they got to pick out their own face art. And Griffin, of course, got a tiger. Augie, of course, got Spidey, and CJ got a butterfly. It was so sweet.

Did you know that was Griffin's second time ever getting ice cream at an ice cream truck? I took him for the first time a few days ago. We were at the park. Oh, I bought them. I bought them ice cream before from an ice cream truck. Wait, you have? Yeah. Oh, this is my first time.

They come in our neighborhood all the time. They do, yeah. They hit up those playgrounds like crazy. They do. No, they do. And it's smart though because Griffin and I were at the playground. And I'm like, Griffin, do you hear that? He's like, yeah.

There's something about the ice cream. when it just happens, it's like they catch you on that, like, spontaneous thing where it feels like you hear it, they show up, it feels like, oh, it's meant to be. Like, we have to buy ice cream right now. And also, it just really is sad to tell your kid no to the ice cream truck. Yeah, I was thinking about that because the popsicle that Griffin ended up getting was probably, oh, Lord, like this thing might have had 100 grams of sugar in it. Like, it was just this massive, you know, it just, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

I don't even know what you call it, but it's it's all decked out, it's decorated, it kind of looks like a rocket chip almost. A hundred? Maybe closer to like 60 grams of sugar. You're kidding seriously? Oh yeah, these things are loaded with sugar. Oh, that's not good. But it's just part of being a kid, you know? Like I had popsicles as a kid. I had ice cream as a kid. You can't like deprive your kid of the joy of the ice cream truck just because it has 60 grams of sugar. Now you probably shouldn't get your kid ice cream truck popsicles or ice cream every day. No, it's like once a month. Not even though. But he was so happy. He was just so, so happy. Like, he was skipping on the way over to the truck, and there was a bunch of other kids that were there too. So fun.

It's funny, though, because now you don't even need, like, I used to have to save quarters for the ice cream truck. That's what I would use to buy my ice cream is, like, save a bunch of change. Did you pay? I just use Apple Pay. Yeah. Apple Pay. They take Apple Pay.

I used our credit card on Apple Pay. Anyway. Don't tell Dave Ramsey that. What are your thoughts on the fact that I got both of our toddlers, private skateboarding lessons on a half pipe. That was so cute. We need to host those. Like we host swimming lessons. We need to host skateboarding lessons. I think a lot of our friends would join in. You think so? Yeah. Tell your friends. Well, is that guy interested in adding more kids? He definitely is. Oh, I already got like six signups. Oh, seriously? I'm not kidding. We got to get it on the

calendar then, babe. Okay, fun. Let's do it. Text your friends because he's already going to come back. I think I scheduled him for time like in a month to come. But he could probably do like a two or three-hour time slot if we have enough kids that could do a lesson. Oh, yeah. And it's perfect. I mean, they love going back and forth from the- Yeah, I think I need to go buy them a smaller skateboard because they're using a regular size one.

Go to the local skate shop here in Arizona. There's a bunch of local shops. And then it's budget free. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Budget free. So you just, it's not even considered the budget if you're supporting a local business.

Yeah. Okay. In my head. That's the thing, guys. This is why I'm not in charge of the budget. I'm excited for everyone. to hear the interview we did with George Campbell and his wife Whitney. Oh yeah.

Because like Abby's out here like, it's okay to go in debt for Disney. I'm like, don't say. Like if you're going to say that in front of anybody, do not say it in front of George. Hey, if I'm anything, I am consistent. Don't say it in front of Dave Ramsey's like people, you know. Well, you know what? If anyone is going to be able to convince me otherwise to be them, so I think I got to say

it to them. Oh my gosh. I feel like Dave Ramsey really is the arch enemy of credit card companies. I know you said when we were there that you were going to, say the ultimatum like have we paid off our house and this year then Dave has to come on our show and you never said it I need to pitch that to Dave if anybody knows Dave let him know that we will pay off our house and do a debt-free screen because he's really going to care that we paid off for our own yeah he probably doesn't care but in Ramsey solutions then we can interview him

if he says yes we'll pitch it we'll try our best we need to pitch it to George at this point we do we do we do we do what's what's the other one not fun but like really yeah yeah Yeah, we have some wild ones coming up. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for everyone that keeps coming back every week. I'm not trying to tease you, but I just want to make sure it happens before I say it. Yeah.

Like, because you never know. These things can always fall through. I hope not. This one's going to work. Yeah, this one's going to work. We're flying to Utah for it. So there'll be a little change of scenery. Do you want to give your movie review of Weathering Heights?

I feel like you should go first. You're really good at movie reviews. I know. I feel like we had a whole debrief about this. I feel like we agreed. Well, first of all, it was very sensual. with no nudity. If you haven't heard of the new movie Weathering Heights,

Wuthering? It's not new, but the new adaptation of Wuthering Heights. You pronounce it Wuthering Heights? I think it's Wuthering. It's with Margo Robbie and Jacob. Allorty. Jacob Allorty. Yeah.

Which apparently, he's in a show called The Kissing Booth with this other girl that people thought Abby looked like. And they think that you look like them. And they would say people would comment on our TikToks that they thought we were similar to the people from the kissing booth. Anyway, Jacob Allorty and Margo Robbie. are in the steamy rom-com, but it's also, it's dark. It's not a rom-com.

It's dark. It's not a rom-com actually at all. Thank you to Hewle for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. Matt, can you believe that we're already two months into 2026? I can't believe it. Can you Hewle and believe it? Oh, my goodness. But you know what?

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New customers only. Thank you to Hewel for partnering and supporting our show. Support for today's episode comes from Square. And they've got big news. During Square's bi-annual releases event, they launched a wave of innovative new tools to help local businesses run faster, smarter, and more profitably. From AI, that answers your toughest business. questions to tech that simplifies food orders and tracks every dollar. It's all live and it's

built for businesses like yours. Whether you're starting fresh or scaling fast, Square helps you keep up and get ahead. Our experience has been really cute with Square because we were buying hot chocolate and this third grader had Square because his dad hooked him up and wanted to support him doing his own hot chocolate business. You know what? They raked it in that season. And it worked for them too because, I mean, with Square you can pay with credit card and I never have I never carry cash. Also, Square launched its most powerful tools yet, designed to give local businesses a competitive edge without the complexity. If you're ready to sell smarter, run faster, and stress less. Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com slash go slash unplanned.

That's S-Q-U-A-R-E.com slash GO slash unplanned. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. By the way, we're going to give some spoilers to the book. So if you want to fast forward to the next talking points, that's totally cool because we're going to spoil the end of the movie. But here's the thing. It was written in 1847. Okay, yeah. So if you haven't read the book yet.

But we'll still do the, with due respect, there will be spoilers. Yes. Because there were some things different about the movie than the book. Yeah. That would have actually probably liked to know. So what was different about the movie was that the movie ended where the book is essentially halfway through. And that's where the main character dies. and she dies like essentially while she's pregnant.

So she miscarries and she dies and there's a lot of blood and it's super dark. And we didn't, I wish somebody would have like gave us a trigger warning because we just had no idea going into this movie. I told so many people that we were going to go see this. And I feel like if any of our friends had known like that this was part of the movie, they would have said something. But we were like the first of our friends to see it. And I was like, wow, really was. a terrible thing to watch. Yeah. And it's just so disturbing because and here's the thing too. I was really enjoying the movie. The movie was like great. It was like very steamy but with no nudity.

Great to watch with your spouse like I thought because I feel like guys would also think it's very entertaining. The soundtrack was amazing. The acting was really, really good. Everything about it was so good. And I was like so invested. And then it got so disturbing with that element. It just felt like it ruined my day. I think I just saw like the color, out of your face. Yeah, the life drained out of me. So that was a sucky way to end date night. Like, it was, it was a great date night up until that point. And then it was like, well, Rick. That did kind of ruin date night. Yeah. I couldn't really recover after that. Yeah. I feel like it didn't bother you in the way that it bothered me, which probably makes sense.

I think when you see like, gosh, there's a really good book, The Wedding People that I got you, which, like another story where there's an element of pregnancy loss. But not as big as this. one. And yeah, I don't know. Like, it's sad. It's hard seeing all these stories where it's just like, a not happy ending, a sad ending, like over and over again where it kind of like reinforces this idea of like, oh, once you miscarry, there's not going to be a happy ending for you.

That's probably why the movie was. Well, she literally died. Well, yeah, she freaking died in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. That was the ending. That was literally the ending of the movie also. There was nothing else.

And this is so dark too. but I mean the book at least she still dies in the book but her daughter lives in the book okay once I'm saying you call this a rom-com is psycho-man it's not a rom-com it's just it's just it's a drama it's a romance though yes but it's a tragedy you really didn't like how there was infidelity infidelity like it was really sexy until she was married into another man and then I was like that's not sexy anymore am I am I a bad person that I was like rooting for that I'm not really a bad person that I was like rooting for them to get back together. Ew.

What? It's just like... No, I think you're the majority. They make you the, they make the antagonist, the protagonist in these types of movies. My loyalty runs deep. Like when I watched Breaking Bad, I wanted Walter White to keep making meth. I was like, let's go, Walter. No, he was ruining his family.

I know, but it's like when in the movies where the antagonist is the protagonist, I don't know why. I just want to cheer on. I think I have a stronger moral compass in you. Maybe you do. You're probably a better person than me. I think so. But I do like these anti-hero movies, though.

Well, the other thing that got me really taken. out of it was the fact that they were like low key brother and sister that was a little weird so that was not sexy not not related at all by blood but yeah it was weird that they're like their step sibling situation they're like yeah it's like their step siblings they're like sharing a bed when they were kids and then they're supposed to be like romantic but hey he took he took the whipping for her he yeah okay he got beat up by the dad brother brother yeah that's true once you're in the brother category You can't get out of the brother category. Okay. Why did you think it was so hot when he licked her hand?

Okay. It was an isolated experience. Why did you, why did you get the hots for Jacob? We're not saying that. You made me say that to my friends at the gym today and I was blushing as I was telling us. What? What? Because it's what it's part of the movie. You just have to watch it, okay? If you're an adult and probably don't, if you're an adult, don't watch it with your mom. Don't watch it with your, probably don't. Sorry, I don't think you should watch it with your sister-in-law. What is it rated? Honestly. What is Weathering Heights rated? Do we even know what this is?

Definitely are. It's a gothic romantic drama. It's a gothic romantic. Yeah, it's rated R. Which is actually shocking to me because with no nudity, I would have thought it was PG-13, but I guess it's because of all the dark stuff. The themes were so mature. I will say the movie poster was sick.

Like, I thought they did a great job. The whole thing was very well done. I thought it was very well done. Here's my other thing. Margarabi is an extremely talented actress and that just had me. The child actors in it. were very talented as well. I mean, the whole thing was good.

But I just felt so sad for Edgar because, gosh, that poor man didn't deserve anything that happened to him. Same with Isabella. I really did feel, see, at the same time, like, I was rooting for Jacob Bellorty and Margo to get back together. Honestly, he kind of turned into like a major villain. I felt so bad for Edgar getting wrapped up into everything. Yeah, I'm like, then also, here's the thing.

It's never romantic to have really bad communication. Okay, let's talk about this stuff. They have really bad communication. Maybe this could be a topic of discussion with everyone listening in. Do you marry for financial security or do you marry for romance in love? I think as a woman in the 1800s. It was like a difference between life and death to marry for money. Yes. Yes.

So people did all the time. Yes. And I think that's why this book was so. That's survival. It was so controversial at the time that it came out because people didn't like the messages that it gave. I also don't. I mean, infidelity is never okay. Yeah, true, true.

Literally never. But they love each other, babe. No. That doesn't matter. No. They shouldn't. I like it. You're a good person.

You're great. Well, I guess we both know who is going to step outside of our marriage, more likely to step outside of our marriage. Oh, my gosh. No. That's not even like a concern at all. Medicine leave the house. So I'm not worried about it.

I am at our house. I'm a home buddy. I think you're the only woman I talk to throughout the day. That's not true. Other than producers that are in like tech. and our team. All of our team is all over the world. So the people that work on our shows, I just, we just chat over the Google meet. Yeah. But the reason we went for a date night, I mean, I guess this is taking a harsh left turn, but that let's just bring it back to why we

went on a date night. Yes. I feel like we haven't actually been that good about date nights. If I'm totally honest. Yeah, we've been busy. We've, we also feel like we're really good at connecting after the kids go to bed. Yeah. I think it's good that we're starting to do more date nights. Excuse me, we've also been dropping the kids off at your parents' house on... We've done it twice. We've done it twice now on Friday nights. And then they'll like, that's what Abby... That was a Saturday. Oh, that was a Saturday. But it's what Abby used to do with her grandparents when she was a kid. She would go to her grandparents' house on the weekend just for a night and her parents could have some alone time, going to date, whatever. We're doing that now too. And it's awesome. It's not every week,

but we've done it a couple times. We should start doing it every week. Can we do that while we're in Flagstaff? I would love to do that. A little date. May. It's kind of a family trip though. That's true. It is a family trip. But anyway. We went, my mom asked if she could watch the kids for the night because that was actually the date of that we had scheduled for. I hate talking about this. I'm like so over-talking. I mean, I think it's good to talk about it because it is like the, it's still hard. Yeah.

So my mom asked if she could watch the boys, which was really, really kind because that was the date of like our daughter's C-section. So like we were pretty certain we were going to meet her that day. and so we got to do a little date, which was really unfortunate that we chose to see Wuthering Heights for the date because given the circumstances, it was actually probably the worst thing to watch to make you spiral if you've experienced a late-term miscarriage. So know that ahead of time, because I do know that a lot of you started following along potentially

or started joining when we started talking about the loss of our daughter and our miscarriage. So just know that because I'm going to be. I feel like a lot of people listening might also appreciate that little caveat there. I'm not trying to like spoil the movie, but this isn't some, this isn't a plot twist that you want to be surprised by. Yeah. And so, because I didn't appreciate being surprised by it. Like I said, it kind of ruined my evening. But anyway, so we went on the date night and, yeah, I feel like this whole weekend has just been kind of the worst.

And I feel like almost the anticipation of it was like equally bad. honestly you handled it honestly babe you handled it really well that is not true the 20 yeah so basically our daughter's due date was February 28th and I'm honestly I'm okay with you saying her name I mean if you want to I'm okay with that too I'm okay with that too I've just I've just known you wanted to keep a private so I'd never said it well no I think honestly I didn't really know why I wanted to keep it private but I just wanted to trust my instinct like and I think I just realized this weekend like when we came to the day where we were supposed to have her it was because I kind of was still hanging on to like this separate life where I was like still pregnant and like we were going to announce like her name on her birthday and stuff and so like now that we've passed that date like it's okay in my mind I mean I don't care if we keep it right bit or if you want to yeah I mean I think it's yeah I kind of want to honestly because I feel like what I'm learning is that like the name is really what gives anybody humanity and like her.

her humanity is what makes her loss like so painful, you know, because it wasn't, that's why I hate the, I hate the term, okay, I shouldn't hate the term, but sometimes the term pregnancy loss really rubs me the wrong way because it's like, I'm not just grieving a pregnancy. I'm grieving, a human, I'm grieving a baby, I'm grieving a daughter, I'm grieving like Emerson. And so like this month is just sucked. I named her Emerson. Nicole. I actually had a stillborn sister who was a year older than me and her name was Emily Nicole. And so we named Emerson kind of like they share that mental name, which was really meaningful for us.

And then also our nurse that was literally an angel to us when we delivered her. Her name was Nicole. So it also just felt like so appropriate, you know, at that time and like meaningful to our family. but I will say like picking out that name after knowing that her heart wasn't beating. Like that was just a, you never want that experience to be something you and your baby are experiencing. But can you talk? Because I don't even know where to go. Yeah, no. Yeah.

Well, thanks. Thank you for sharing that, first of all. Well, I just, I've been thinking for so long about like how. we can honor her and remember her and we talk about like you know I feel like with all of our other baby art like our two other babies all our friends and family knew their names before they were born and we would talk about them a lot before they were born and then we just kept it private like from social media until then and so now it's like in a way like she's given that same honor as our our other two kids, you know.

Something cool that my dad said he wanted to do was to get, like my dad doesn't have tattoos. I have one tattooed on my lip. Abby has a matching one with me. And so ever like when my dad said, I was like, I want to get a tattoo. So I haven't actually gotten the tattoo yet. But I've, I've been wanting to get a tattoo of her name on my arm in Abby's handwriting. And I don't know if that'll be my only tattoo that I ever get. I don't know.

but when you mention like remembering her, I think that's the best way. Like literally having her name written on my body, I'm never going to forget that girl. Yeah. You know. And like talking about her with our kids in a way that's like not scary. It's like either way.

It's like it's still scary. Yeah. Like but like trying to just like try to navigate that. You know, it's tricky and it's complex. And so like they call her Emerson and they have like a little bunny with her name on it. It says what it says like loved for a lifetime Emerson Nicole and it has her birthday and it has and the kids like sleep with this little bunny and they call it their Emerson bunny. And so that's a really like tangible way that we can like talk about her and we always say that we have that bunny to remember her by. and like I don't know I think there's a lot of the things that we're going to do that we're going to just keep private because it just doesn't feel necessarily right to share but I would recommend like something that we're doing that you could maybe do if you also just find yourself in this horrible position is to find a location that feels significant for you and that baby that you're missing so much and then find a way for the whole family to be apart and like visit there and so maybe that

is like if you got to have like a gravesite, maybe it's the grave site, maybe it's like just like something that's just symbolic or there's some other reason why this location is really significant to you and if you're like remembering

the child you've lost and so we're just going to continue to revisit a significant location as a family and like invite our whole family there for sure in September. Well, I mean, we, after the miscarriage we saw, after we lost Emerson, we started seeing rainbows a lot.

I think this is a common thing. And with the rainbows, though, there was a friend of ours, I believe, that sent us a picture of the rainbow over the superstition mountains. Am I correct in saying that? Well, we had a lot of friends at. Was it, did we see the rainbow over superstition mountains or was it our friend that saw? We did. We did. Okay.

I'm trying to remember who, like, who saw it first. because I was seeing rainbows a lot. You were seeing rainbows. Our friends were seeing rainbows. All our friends started sending us the rainbows that they saw. And so actually, like, this is something really, really sweet our family did for us. So this is just an idea if you have like a dear loved one that's walking through, like, loss like this. They had someone they know do like a hand beautiful painting for us with a rainbow and mountains.

and it was so, it's so beautiful. And so we hung that in our house this month. So we can always look at it and just like remember her and also use it as a visual aid for our kids too. You know, I think a lot of the same things that help kids also help us, you know. It's just like visual reminders are great. I have my necklace on with my charm that has my three babies on it. And so it has Griffin, Augie, and Emerson all on the necklace. And I kind of use that to talk about with the kids too.

We just have been thinking a lot. And I feel like I put so much pressure on myself too. And I think I put that pressure too early on. Like I was not in a place in my grief journey to like really get to like making meeting and like doing memorial stuff. Like I wasn't, I put so much pressure early on. And it's like if you're in the fresh stages like don't do what I did. Like there's no. This grief journey, I hate to say it.

It won't always be this painful, but it is so long. Like I've made peace with the fact that I'm going to grieve her the rest of my life And so like there's no rush to this To this stage you know where you're trying to moralize and thinking of everything But it is something that's really important for me to do Oh is my nose running out of my nose I don't But so don't rush yourself or don't put pressure on yourself like I did

because it, it's just on, it's, it's, it's a long journey. And it, I'm not always like this, but just the anticipation of like the end of February. And like actually being in the end of February has honestly been like, the shittiest. Like, yeah. And so, but, you know, we get up every day. We still do our day because life goes on as much as it feels like a party, you never does. Like, you have to move on. You have to continue living.

And so that's what we're doing this year. And that's what we've done since the losses that we've continued living and continue to get therapy. I'm meeting with my like mentor tomorrow who also lost a baby at 18 weeks. And we talk about our daughters. She talks about her daughter and we call her my name. We call Emerson by name. My friends text me that. And that's really meaningful to me.

And so, yeah, it wasn't like it was just some big secret. it, but I just couldn't figure out why I didn't want to share it for so long. And then I figured it out this past weekend. It just feels right and appropriate. So I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. It's just been, it's, like, sucked so bad. It doesn't. It doesn't get easier.

I, you know, I really think that if I would have heard someone's story like mine before I experienced it, I would have been like, that's really hard. But I. I don't know that I would have understood how hard it is. And it doesn't mean that. Like, like I said, we're still living. We're still every day. It doesn't look like sad and weepy.

It looks like a lot of plans. And we're doing a lot of traveling. And like hanging out with our kids every day. We're always out of the house. Going to carnivals, going on like short trips. I mean, we've been staying very busy. But like she comes with us everywhere. Her memory comes with us everywhere.

And it's like there's reminders of her everywhere. So in parts of like the day that we met her, like, legit home to be still. So yeah. I think the way that you explained losing her to our kids was really good and really age appropriate. It was as simple as our boys, like explaining to our boys that her body just stopped working. Yeah. And obviously then the question I think that Griffin asked was, was my body going to stop working?

Yeah. He said, I don't want my body to stop working. And I think you very gently, lovingly said, you know, one day, did you say, like one day everyone's body stops working? Yeah. And I said, hopefully it's when we have done a lot of things. Yeah, lived a lot of life. But it's really important that we take our, like, take care of our health as much as we can

and we take care of our safety as much as we can and just like kind of keep it brief, you know? Yeah. Because I don't think it was like as deep as like, I don't. I'm scared of dying. It was literally just like, you know, just like curious follow-up question, you know. And so, and I know that he's not like, he's still. Sorry, you got a little toilet paper on your eye.

Oh, great. Sorry, yeah, I think that's why they make tissues and not toilet paper. It's right. I don't know. It's right. The other detail, I think, worth adding is it was so, so nice of friends of, friends of ours to show up on the date that the C-section would have been, which was the 21st. And so your friend Val brought you some ice cream.

cream, some like ones that from Trader Joe's that you really like, some mochi ice creams as well as like the ice cream sandwiches from Trader Joe's that have the chocolate chips around them. My brother and my sister-in-law who were both, you know, very close with. They brought crumble cookies for us, which was super nice. And then and then your friends from the gym, Caitlin and Ashley brought you like a care basket. They did a dance on our home security camera too. They did a dance on the home security camera? I did not know that.

They did. Really? It's on the. It's on the. That's hilarious. Yeah. You never told me that. I'm just finding this out right now.

That's really sweet. She said it's because you moomed their home security camera. Oh my gosh. I did moon their home security camera. I can't believe I did that. Good Lord. Yeah, so it's only up from here, right? Only up from here.

I mean, we've gone through the hardest parts of it. Obviously the 28th is not going to be a fun day. Yeah. either. But a part of me is like ready to get past this point because like I feel like I can put some of this stuff to rest. But this just shows that the grief journey just does is not linear. And like everyone tells you that.

And then you experience it. You have so many good days in a row that you just like are like, oh, like maybe we're done. And then you're just like freaking knocked back down. Yeah. So fast and so hard. and I imagine like yeah this is just always going to be hard

like there's just no way it's never going to not be hard and I think it's going to get easier but I feel like if I were to like talk to a friend down the line or if I meet someone and we talk about our babies that we never got to meet like it'll always evoke tears from me like I just don't see a world where that won't

like still just sting so bad, like the pain of that. So, it's just the worst. It's literally just the worst. And so I just, yeah. I've learned so many lessons. And I feel like that's what people mean when they say, like, everything happens for a reason. Like, but it is true.

Like, I've learned so many lessons from this. And I've got, I've, like, gained so much empathy. This has been, like, a crazy lesson. and impatience for me because like I've never really had to be patient for anything like this in my life like we have been so privileged like I got married really young we got we had we were blessed with fertility that just out of nowhere you know for nothing that we've done that has been really good and then to like experience this has just been a lesson in patience I never wanted to learn but here we are and I think just to maybe

calm some fears. People might be feeling listening to this right now. Knowing about miscarriage, hearing about miscarriage, it is very scary. It does happen. And while it does happen, it's one in four women who experience miscarriage in their lifetime. So you're one of those four. You know, we're a part of that dumb club that has been through something like that. But don't think, like, if you're pregnant right now and you're worried, like don't think that it's,

It's that likely. It's rare. It doesn't happen that often, but I mean, yeah, you still have one out of four, which sucks. And I think the reason it shocked us so much is just because it was in the second trimester when 80 to 85% of them, this is like some data that we have from our producer, 80 to 85% of losses happen in the first trimester before 12 weeks. So what we went through, what Abby went through, very rare, not common. And it's just like, you know, we just got a delta bad hand, you know, while the miscarriage has been really hard. And it's been something that I think we're still going to be talking about forever. It's been good just to, like, I'm glad that we were in therapy already when that happened. I'm glad that we've been still going to therapy. I think that's been really helpful for me, really helpful for you, not only doing, solo therapy but couples therapy all all of the therapy we're doing we're doing every type of therapy there is so that's been really good and we'll even be doing some in addition to the retail

therapy that you know you did by us before the small business recently I think we have some travel coming up that scheduled I think we're hoping to have the travel scheduled around this week the week that we were going to meet our daughter but the you know with dates and coordinating with family members as well as coordinating with there's like a brand that's going to bring us out overseas later in the coming months we're just uh we're we're here for now but i think it'll be good during the like they're on the 28th we'll be in flagstaff with with our family with the kids and i think that'll be good to just get away for a little bit that day probably i guess the question we should end on is like what does the future look like for us we've been through this awful

It's been a really hard month that 2025 was a hard year. Honestly, a big part of like meaning making for me. I said this from like the first episode we ever made about losing our daughter is that like a part of the meeting making for me has been talking about it publicly. And while there's a lot that we have kept private and like we'll continue to keep private, like this has been very healing for me. And so like, I don't know, anyone that's sick of hearing. about it, like move on.

It's not for you. And we did. Like, I mean, that's just as simple as that. Because it's for the people that it's for. And like, I have met so many women because of it. Like, not because of it, but that have, like, shared their story or shared about their babies because of being public about it. And that's just a small percentage of, like, we know that there's so many comments

and so many. And it's not like that is just, for me, that is honoring Emerson. And so, like, I'll continue to talk about it. Like, and so, but obviously, like, I keep saying, like, life keeps happening. And we just carry the grief with us as we do the next right thing, you know? And so I think we're just going to continue to live life as full as we can. And also just like with this new, like, deeper understanding of, like, what a blessing. life is. I'm so conflicted now too because a lot of how we've connected with all the wonderful

people here listening to our podcasts, watching our YouTube videos, TikToks, we've connected a lot over growing our family in the pregnancies that you've been through. I think that's where we found a lot of people that are here. And so I guess a question for you is like now that we've been through this miscarriage, now that you have experienced loss, how does that change how we approach that in the future. All of that is true. But sometimes loss is a part of growing your family. Yeah. She's still a part of our family. And like this, like you said, one and four women experience. Like, this is a part of the journey for so many people. Yeah. Like, as much as we hate it, like, it is part of the journey. Because I think about people that watch, it must be hard to see pregnancy

content. Right. If you're if you're someone that's experiencing miscarriage has been through a miscarriage. I know for you, especially right after it, it, I know it pissed you off to see pregnancy content. It didn't piss me off. It hurt me. And that was my like I don't know if this sounds like such a jerk thing to say, but like that was my responsibility to filter like what I was putting in my brain afterwards, you know. And so, um, no matter what. pregnancy is a celebration like it is a it is a joy there's there's so many hard aspects and I understand that there are so many realities that women face while pregnant that make it so much more complicated they're not all fun they're messy they're hard they're deeply challenging

and there can even be sadness and anger all mixed up in there but no matter what like the privilege of growing a baby and growing your family that way it is always something that should be celebrated and if there's anything that's made me realize that it is experiencing loss and so like pregnancy will always be no like something to be celebrated something to be talked about and that's why it was so healing for me also to throw baby showers for my friends even while I was still you know grieving it's not because I'm like some superhero it's because I know now how freaking amazing and what a blessing it is that they're able to to carry a child like that, you know?

So I don't think there will really be, I think obviously there will be things that I do differently, personally, like, as I navigate it. And there's, I'm sure my content will look differently post-loss, pregnancy, pregnancy post-loss versus, like, before because I'm different. So, like, my content will look different. My content has always been a reflection of me, obviously.

Like that's not, I'm not unique in that. But like, it's always been a reflection, but it's like, I don't, is the question, like, do I think I did something wrong in the past? I think you answered it. No, I don't think you did anything wrong in the past. No, I don't think so. I wonder if it just, like, changed your perspective. And I think, I think you acknowledging that, uh, I mean, I think it's cool that you just took personal responsibility for the content you're consuming. So I think for you just, when you were getting fed pregnancy content, you just, I think you got off your phone.

I'm not a mental health expert, but I think if you were to talk to many, a lot of their things says, like, we still have to assume agency, right? Like, there's things that are outside of our control, like experiencing loss, but what's inside of my control afterwards is consuming things that are not going to continue to hurt that same area over and over and over and over. And so, yeah, there was, I mean, I didn't use anything for, I don't know how many weeks. and then even now I just I severely limit it and I just learn to regulate it myself too with what I can take and that's not revealing some like weakness in me and it's not revealing like that I have some unresolved parts of me it's just it's just part of it like part of living life when you've been changed so dramatically like life looks different afterwards we've talked so much today about so so much something else that actually that actually

I mean, I've been thinking about doing more so me because I'm still in the I'm in meaning making. I want to make meaning out of what has happened. I'm considering making some sort of, you know, short documentary similar to the type of videos that we've like made. I don't know. Like we we have our birth story that's up on YouTube, but we don't have our miscarriage story. And I feel like that's a story that I'd like to tell. And I haven't even started the video. There's so much footage to go through. There's so much. It's also really sad, too, I'll be honest, looking through the footage of us telling people that were pregnant with Emerson because it was just, like, I started looking through it and I just got really sad. But I want to make meaning out of it.

And so I guess what the reason I'm saying this is if there's like any charities, any, any resources that you guys know of, please share them in the comments. Two that our producer came up with are pregnancy and infant loss support center. It's P-I-L-S-E-S-E-S-E-E-L-S-E. And there's also the postpartum support international. It's postpartum.net. I just want to make meaning out of this horrible thing that we went through and that one out of four women go through. And yeah, I just think you guys are awesome. We feel so grateful for you being a part of this community.

And hopefully we can take this awful thing that happened and, you know, do some good in the world. So please let us know if you have any ideas in the comments, any charities that you think are really powerful doing a lot of good. lot of good. I am a maximizer. I am someone that like whenever I give to a charity, I look up their info on charity navigator. I do my research. And it's and it's not spur of the moment giving for me. It's more so like year and giving where we've we've then decided, okay, these are the charities that we're supporting. So anyway, all that being said, I think a documentary is coming. I want to tell our story. I want to tell Emerson's story. And I'm hoping that in some way can provide resources to people that have been through the same thing or will go through the same thing and just don't know it yet

that's all i have love you babe love you