Remembering our daughter, the due date & our first marriage conference

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. Her memory comes with us everywhere. There's reminders of her everywhere. Parts of like the day that we met her. To be still. It doesn't get easier. Part of the meaning 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. Because 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 Podcasts 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 mornings. 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 like 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 perceiving 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 said, love this podcast. This is my comfort podcast. Whether I'm working out, getting 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 so awkward? I don't know why I'm 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 go. 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 were, there probably wasn't a couple. Maybe there wasn't. There could have been a couple younger than us. They took really good care of us. They put us in like the. We were in Platinum. Platinum. It was nicer than VIP. They put us in Platinum. They had amazing snacks for us. Really good food and drinks. Good seats. 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 day is 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'd take notes for everything on my phone and then I would also get distracted and respond to messages over email or work messages. And then I'm like, I need to be better about not doing that. I don't know. No, 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 to tell myself is. Which like anytime you're having a conflict in your marriage, anytime there's anything that's like splitting up, splitting you apart, you need to acknowledge the story that you're telling yourself, right? Acknowledge 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 I have to say. Instead of like get off your phone. 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's app. John Deloney. John Deloney. Plug. I'm plugging it right now. Thank you, John, for coming on our show. If you haven't seen that episode, it's a good one. It's actually a really 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 it is? I did it at like 10.45 p.m. though. No, no, no. That wasn't the prompt. No, no, no. That was an additional thing. Oh, this was today. No, it was yesterday. Oh, wait. What did you, what was it? Think. Is there anything that I did that was special? I can't remember. I was too tired. I was just like falling asleep as we did this. No, it wasn't at night. I guess it was at night. 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 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. The whole time. Wait, that's so sweet, Abby. I thought you- I love a 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'm not going to let go until you let go. You're a good man. You always let go. You're a good man. You always hold on until I let go. So, you're like a good man. Man, so I didn't know that was like a prompt. So that wasn't you reaching out. I really did need a hug. Oh, you did? 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. Ooh. Not in a naughty way at all. What is it? 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. Yeah. I think you've, you were really excited about doing those, right, babe? Mm-hmm. Okay. And I actually was looking ahead at our 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 true. We actually agreed on that at the money conference chat. 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. Second thing that's a caveat for me. By a week. So I moved it. It's still on the calendar. Is groceries. I'm going to spend what I need to spend on groceries. Three, because I'm shopping at Walmart. Walmart and Costco. Wait, why are we bringing up groceries right now? Why is that? That's, I'm a spender on that. There's never been one where 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. I will go crazy. I'll, I'll just go out. I'll go crazy. Yeah. Next is a small businesses. Yeah. Out the door. I don't care. I'm just like, it's, we got to support. Yeah. And you found, you found a local small business on Saturday that you wanted to support. I did some retail therapy. Yeah. And so what, how much money did you spend? I spent $558. Sorry. I never do that. Hey, you know what? I texted you and I said, is it 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 a 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. You're what a freaking pile of horse crap. Wait, Abby, a house houses are like the most expensive line. People mean when they say spendy, Matt, they're talking about the casual purchases. Okay. It depends on what you agree to this at the conference. We need to go back to the conference. Honestly, we got to go back and have another meeting. But, um, I do have to admit, maybe we're running into some hiccups because we did leave the conference a little bit. A little early. We did. Do you want to say why we left? We missed our kids. We missed our kids. We missed our kids. And I kind of got sad cause I was like, it's Valentine's day and I'm missing two of my Valentine's. Which was, I'm glad we left early. I miss them a lot. And I feel like my max is three nights away 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 wasn't super long. I was missing them by Thursday. Yeah. I was actually missing them. I cried before we left on Wednesday. And our podcast with George Campbell 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 than ever to not use a credit card, even though we never spend money that we don't have. We're always going to use a credit card. 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. Rather than just sticking on the typical 30-year mortgage track, I want to 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 I'm me too I mean like think about how good it must feel to have no debt oh nobody at all 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 and 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 wife 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 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 gonna be in the dunk tank and of course Griffin and Augie were gonna think that was the best thing ever they called my brother Coco I missed the dunk tank was it funny when our kids dunked 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 gonna be able to throw it right on the trajectory and hard enough to knock him so then Blake gave them permission 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 it and the guy turned around and at the exact time he chucked the dude in the back of the head of the softball how hard did he throw not hard not hard at all it's the reason it went straight up is because it kind of slipped out of hand and he threw it in the back of the head of the softball and he threw it in the back 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 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 I think you were overstimulated I was overstimulated overstimulated I will give you that but it was also about two 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 I'm fine with skipping naps for one day and just putting them that's that's fair so yeah I mean we got it was 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 I had you were ready to go so yeah but we did spend a lot of time there they had a petting zoo they had they got ice cream from the ice cream truck they got ninja turtle ice creams they had some good food and snacks the bounce out of the ice cream truck they had some 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 the our nephew CJ came too 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 like face art and Griffin of course got a tiger Augie of course got Spidey and CJ got a butterfly it was so sweet which 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 and well I bought them wait I bought them ice cream before from an ice cream truck wait you have yeah oh this is my first time I guess they come in our neighborhood all the time they do yeah so I so I 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 truck 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 I was thinking about that because the popsicle that Griffin ended up getting was probably oh lord like this thing might have had a hundred grams of sugar in it like it was just this massive it was just this massive you know it's just 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 ship a hundred maybe maybe closer to like 60 grams of you're kidding seriously oh yeah these things are loaded with sugar oh but it's just part of being a kid you know like when 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 like 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 know what you're 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 I just use apple pay yeah they take apple pay I used 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 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 you tell your friends 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 gotta get it on the calendar then babe let's do it text your friends because he's already gonna come back I think I scheduled him for a 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 um yeah and it's perfect I mean they love they love going back and forth yeah I think I need to go buy them a smaller skateboard because they're using a regular size one go to the local yeah there's a 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 you it's not even considered in the budget if you're supporting a local business yeah okay in my head that's the thing guys when we this is why I'm not in charge of the budget I'm excited for everyone to hear the interview with we did with George Campbell and his wife Whitney because like Abby's out here like I'm like it's okay to go in debt for Disney don't say like if you're gonna say that in front of anybody do not say it in front of George 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 gonna be able to convince me otherwise it'd be them so I think I gotta say it to them oh my gosh I feel like Dave Ramsey really is the the arch enemy of credit card companies I know you said when we were there that you were gonna 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 he's really gonna care that we paid off 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're just looking desperate interviews coming up so we do yeah we do wait we do what is what's the not fun but like oh yeah we have some wild ones coming yeah yeah so thank you for everyone that keeps coming back 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 gonna work yeah these are gonna work we're flying to Utah for it okay there'll be a little change of scenery you want to give your movie review of Wuthering 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 Wuthering Heights Wuthering it's not new but it's not the new adaptation you pronounce it Wuthering Heights I think it's Wuthering it's with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi Jacob Elordi yeah which apparently he's in a show called The Kissing Booth with this uh other girl that people Joey King thought Abby looked like 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 Elordi and Margot Robbie are in this 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 this episode is brought to you by PayPal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new PayPal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place and with purchase protection on eligible items biometric security and pass keys you're protected at every step download the new PayPal app to get started see paypal.com protection terms Pink Panther is here Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together and they want you to be part of it grab your friends and head to the activities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences and personalized products and discover custom playlists on spotify but just for you based on who you are and how you listen live your story with coach learn more at coach.com by the way we're gonna get some spoilers to the book so if you want to fast forward to the next talking points that's totally cool because we're gonna 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 we will still do with due respect there will be spoilers yes because there were some things different about the movie than the book yeah so I would have actually probably like 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 the main character dies and she dies like essentially while she's pregnant so she 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 told so many people that we were gonna go see this and I feel like any of our if any of our friends had known like that this was part of the movie they would have said something but no we were like the first of our friends yeah and I was like wow really was a terrible thing to watch yeah 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 I was so invested and then it got so disturbing with that element it just felt like I it ruined my day like I just saw like the the color flush out of your 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 they kind of ruined date night yeah say what 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 I get like another story where there's an element of pregnancy 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 not happy ending a sad ending like over and over again where it kind of like reinforces this idea of like oh what once you miscarry there's there's not gonna be a happy ending for you that's probably why well she literally died well yeah she's freaking died in the movie yeah yeah that was the ending but I 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 well that's what I'm saying you call this a rom-com is psycho it's not a rom-com it's just it's just a drama it's a romance 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 and to another man and then I was like that's not sexy anymore am I am I never gonna be aroused by infidelity am I a bad person that I was like rooting for them to get back together what it's just like no I think you're the majority I just make you they make the the antagonist the protagonist in these types of movies my loyalty like like when I watch 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 him on I think I have a stronger moral compass than you maybe you do you're probably a better person than me I think so but I do like these like anti-hero movies though 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 also not sexy not not related at all by blood but yeah it was weird that they're like they're kids step-sibling situation they're like yeah it's like they're step-siblings they're like sharing a bed when they were kids and then they're supposed to be like romantic I'm like 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 why did you think it was so hot when he licked her hand okay it was an isolated very 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 wait what what that'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 do we know 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 yeah yeah it's rated r which is actually certainly which is actually shocking to me because with no nudity i did 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 very well done i thought it was very well done here's my other thing um margot robbie is an extremely talented actress and that just had me the child actors in it were very talented as well every i mean the whole thing was good but i just felt so sad for edgar you because gosh that poor man didn't 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 uh for jacob belordi and margot to get back together but then 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 really bad communication maybe this could be a topic of discussion with with everyone listening in do you marry for financial security or do you marry for financial security i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know marry for romance i think as a woman in the in the 1800s it was like a difference between life and death to marry for money yes so people did all the time yes and i think that's why this book was so survival it was so controversial at the time that it came out because people didn't like the messages that it that it gave you know 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 god no i that's not even a that's not even like a concern at all no doesn't leave the house so i'm not worried i'm at our house i'm a homebody i think you're the only woman i talked to throughout the day that's not true other than other than producers that are in like texas in in 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 yep 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 but i also feel like we're really good at connecting after the kids go to bed yeah i think it's good that we 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 on we've done it twice now on friday nights and then they'll like that's what 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 maybe it's kind of a family trip though that's true it is um but anyway we um we went my mom asked if she could watch the kids for the night because that was actually the day of that we had scheduled for i hate talking about this i'm like so over time 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 day 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 weathering heights for the date because given the circumstances it was like 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 um 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 feel like a lot of people listening might also have appreciated that like little caveat there i'm not trying to like spoil the movie but this isn't something this isn't a plot twist that you want to be surprised by yeah and so um because i didn't appreciate being surprised by it like i said it kind of ruined my evening but um anyway so we went on a date night and um 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 the our daughter's due date was february 28th and i i'm honestly i'm okay with you saying her name i mean if you want to i'm okay with that too i've just i've just known you wanted to keep it 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 in the middle of the night and i 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 private or if we do you want to say it yeah i mean i think it's yeah i kind of want to honestly because i feel like I'm learning is that like the name is really what gives anybody humanity and like 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 I'm 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 has just sucked I named her Emerson Nicole um 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 middle name which was really meaningful for us and then also I'm grieving a baby I'm grieving a daughter I'm grieving like Emerson and so like this month her 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 um 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 um yeah can you talk because I don't even know where to go yeah no I yeah well thanks thank you for sharing that first of all well I just I think 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 and we would talk 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 tattoo it's on my lip Abby has a matching one with me um and so ever like when my dad said I was like I want to get a tattoo so I haven't I haven't actually gotten the tattoo yet but um I've I've been wanting to get a tattoo of her name on my arm and Abby's handwriting um 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 I think that's the best way like literally having her name written on my body I'm never gonna 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 is still scary yeah like but like trying to just like trying to navigate that you know it's tricky and it's complex um and so like they call her Emerson and they have like a little bunny with her name on it it says um 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 gonna do that we're gonna 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 a part and like visit there and so maybe that is like if you got to have like a gravesite maybe it's the gravesite maybe it's like um 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 you're like remembering the child you've lost and so um we're just going to continue to like 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 and we talked about that and 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 that was it did we see the rainbow for Superstition Mountains or was it our friend that we did okay I'm trying to remember who's like who saw it first because I was seeing rainbows a lot you were seeing rainbows our friends were seeing rainbows and all our friends started sending us the rainbows that they saw and um so actually like this is something really really sweet our family did for us so um this is just an idea if you have like a dear loved one that's walking through like loss like this um 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 um 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 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 meaning 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 it is so long like I've I've made peace with the fact that I'm gonna grieve her the rest of my life and so like there's no rush to this to to this stage you know where you're trying to memorialize and thinking of everything um 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 uh 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 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 at 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 part of you never does like you have to move on like you have 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 by 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 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 and it just feels right and appropriate so just like yeah I don't know it's just been it's like sucked so bad it doesn't 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 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 like we're always out of the house we're always out of the house we're always out of her memory comes with us everywhere and it's like there's reminders of her everywhere and so in parts of like the day that we met her like legit haunt me 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 um I think that Griffin asked was was my body gonna 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 lived done a lot of things yeah I lived a lot of life 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 going and I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what brief, you know? Yeah. Because I don't think it was, like, as deep as, like, 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 oh great sorry yeah i think that's why they make tissues and not toilet paper it's fine the other detail i think worth adding is it was so so nice of friends of friends of ours to show up um on the date that the c-section would have been which was the 21st and so your friend val brought you some ice cream um some like ones that from trader joe's that you really liked some mochi ice creams as well as like the ice cream sandwiches from trader joe's that have the chocolate chips around them um my brother and my sister-in-law who we're both you know very close with they brought crumble cookies for us which was super nice uh and then and then your friends from the the gym caitlin and ashley brought you like a care they did a dance on our they did a dance home security camera they did a dance on the home security camera i did not know that they did 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 moved their home security oh my gosh i did move their home security camera i can't believe i did that good lord um yeah so it's only up from here right only up from here i mean we we've gone through the hardest the hardest parts of it i obviously the 21st and the 22nd are the hardest parts of it but i think it's i obviously the 28th is not going to be a fun day yeah either um 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 doesn't 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 and then you're down yeah so fast and so hard and i imagine like yeah this is just always going to be hard like there's just i 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 for me like i just don't see a world where that won't be the same for me 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 i am yeah i learned so many lessons and i feel like that's what people mean when they say like everything happens for a reason like but i don't know i don't know i don't know it is true like i've learned so many lessons from this and i've got i've like gained so much empathy and this has been like a crazy lesson in patience for me because like i've never really had to be patient for some 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 is just like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know but i've 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 um knowing about miscarriage hearing about miscarriage it is it is very scary it does happen um and while it does happen it's one in four women who experience miscarriage in their lifetime so you're you're one of those four you know we're 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 don't think that it's it's that likely it's 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 i think the reason it shocked us so much is just because it was in the second trimester when 80 to 85 percent of them this is like some data that we have from our producer 80 80 to 85 percent of losses happen in the first trimester before 12 weeks so what we went through what abby went through very rare not common um and it's just like you know we just got 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 for forever um 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 um 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 um and we'll even be doing some in addition to the retail therapy that uh you know you did by supporting the small business recently i think we have some travel coming up that's scheduled i think we're hoping to have the travel scheduled around this week um 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 uh 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 totally i guess the question we should end on is like what does the future look like for us we've been through this awful thing it's been a really hard month that 2025 was a 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 meaning 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 do 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 whether and we know that there's so many comments and so many and it's not like that is just i for me that is honoring emerson and so like i'll continue to talk about it like and so um but obviously like well 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 gonna continue to live life as full as we can and 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 tick-tocks we've connected a lot over growing our family and the pregnancies that you've been through like i think that's that's where we found a lot of a lot of people that are here and so i guess the 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 part of our family and like this like you said one in 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 it didn't piss me off it hurt me yeah 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 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 i don't know 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 i think you answered it no i don't think you did anything wrong in the past no i 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 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 gotta 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 learned 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 abby and i've been thinking about doing um 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 um the footage of us telling people that we're pregnant with emerson because it was just like i started looking through it and i just got really sad um 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 um any uh resources that you guys know of please share them in the comments two that our producer came up with uh our pregnancy and infant loss support center it's csc.org 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 um 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 and you know do some good in the world so please let us know if you have any ideas in the comments any any charities that you think are really powerful doing a lot of good i am a maximizer i am someone that like whenever i give to a charity i look up their info their info on charity navigator i i do my research um and it's and it's not spur of the moment giving for me it's more so like year end giving where we we've then decided okay these are the charities that we're supporting so anyway all that being said um i think a documentary is coming coming i want to tell our story i want to tell emerson's story and i'm hoping that in some way it 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 pink panther is here coach and spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together and they want you to be part of it grab your friends and head to the tabby tour hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists exclusive experiences and personalized products and discover custom playlists on spotify built just for you based on who you are and how you listen live your story with coach learn more at coach.com this episode is brought to you by netflix's new series east of eden a bold reimagining of john steinbeck's masterpiece following generations of the trask family through love 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