Adulting

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Hey folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risking Will Hear Adrienne Bain. And I'd be like, in that moment, that I'm not in to BDSM, because I don't like the feeling of being a hoarding and horrified at the same time. That and more.

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Now here's the show. Hello, kids. This is risk. The show where people tell true stories.

They never thought they dared to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and this is galactic behind me now. We are calling this week's episode adulting. Oh, couldn't even get it out of my mouth.

Adulting. It's a stupid word. It's one of those words that's really fucking annoying. But do you know what?

So is being an adult? I couldn't bring that out of my mouth either. Clearly. Clearly Dr.

Young would notice that I have some sort of block around being an adult. But all three of today's storytellers made it over that hump. Now in a little bit, we are going to hear from Tyson Robert, a story that he recorded with us when risk was last in Milwaukee. He really poured his heart and soul into it and it really showed.

But before that, a story by Adrian Bain, who is... She has her own podcast called Strangers Abroad, and you can look it up at Strangers Abroadpodcast.com. Now, I'm calling this story. There will be blood.

And you can consider that title a sort of hint about the contents of the story. Here she is now this is Adrian Bain at the last risk live show that we did in New York City with a story we call There Will Be Blood. Hey guys. I have a question for the uterus owners in the room.

Have you ever felt so lonely that you thought your cup or your day was your best friend? No, not alone on that one too. Okay, that's fine. Okay, so I went up 25.

I moved to New York and I was... Yes, it. Lonely. This is a large city.

And I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. I had a few friends here, but I was working at a blurry shop and I had this little passion project as a podcast I was working on. It's called Strangers Abroad. You can download it on Steter Adkins Abroad wherever you're podcast.

And so I didn't know what I was doing with that at the time. But I had a few friends here and I'm about to move into moving here. We went out to a party in Williamsburg and that was the first time that I heard Jose's voice. It was like this deep rumbling like hearing a thunderstorm off in the distance.

And she had this very like 90s Alec Baldwin vibe and I was like, I want to go talk to that. So we go up to you telling me start talking and he just has like a very sensitive to voices and stuff like the podcast. And he just has this voice where he could read the encyclopedia to me and I am wet by Albuquerque. Like I was into it.

And so he you know, he started chatting and he used to be an editor of magazine and for into psychology and writing and all these things. I'm like, oh my god, this guy is amazing. And by the time that the party is over and we are the last ones out, I knew what our wedding cake would be. We're gonna be chocolate with a white frosting and rice.

It's a much. So you know, we go out on a few dates for like a month or so and I think we hook up on every date. It's just like awesome. We're really getting along with each other.

And it's just like such a chemistry and we go up to movies one night and we go back to his place and he just did not. He's like, I need to tell you something. I'm like 15 years older than you and I think we should be totally like. I was like, oh, the pain of that disappointment fortunately distracted me from calculating the age difference between him and my father.

But before I could like really think about it too much. But I'm kind of looking for a woman who's like a little bit older and wanting to settle down sooner in your millennial. And just wrong. So he's like, I think we do have such good chemistry together and I want to keep hanging out.

We both are writers. You can help me with my stuff. I could kind of mentor you and I could help you with your podcast. And I was like, okay, yeah, so that's okay.

That's cool. Not one of my other. Okay, that's cool. So our relationship started evolving in really interesting ways where you know, we would and after new ones working on his stuff because like he had real deadlines and by the time we get to my podcast we would both be pretty tired.

So we would go to his little apartment in Brooklyn and we would like take a break and make it as bad and we would Netflix and that's it. Just Netflix. And I would fall asleep and we would kind of have these platonic sleep overs and we would wake up the next morning not spooning but like, like, fussing each other like feeling like a lot of back in the heat. And we would kind of fall into the rituals that you do when you are, you know, we wake up with a lover.

We would talk about our dreams and maybe do funny voices and get dressed and we often go out to cafes and like start working on our writing and stuff and there was this one day where we were doing a little banter with the barista because we just like learning with people and she was like, you guys are so cute. And he goes, oh, she's not my girlfriend. Which is not what I wanted to hear at the time. But I knew that room wasn't built in a day and you know, I would just have to be a little bit more patient.

So I started doing more like taking his mail out for him or cleaning his room or being just like an overall emotional atlas for like 40 plus years of issues. But my real friends at the time were like, what the fuck are you doing? They're not 40 something else in the apartment and he's not eating or pussy out. Like what is going on?

But I just, I have this dream. I just, I have this little writers coven that hides in value and we would make all this every morning with our chickens like I wanted that. I am really wanted that until one day. I go over to his apartment and we're going to work on like a video for one of his writing courses.

I said to his apartment, he's got a roommate and it's, you know, I step into the living room that's kitchen, that's your idea, that's right, whatever. Cause we live in classes in New York and his bedroom is like attached to it and it's just really one giant room with a little divider and roommates room is to the right and we're supposed to film a video. So I have written a script and he takes a look at it, tosses it aside and starts to think that he's waiting right here from who's lying is anyway and just starts improvbing and it's not bad, it's so bad and we're doing the take after take and I'm like no, I'm out of UCB classes and fix you. And you can tell that I'm getting a little tense.

You know that I'm like, oh my god. So he's like, okay, I heard of this one little trick where it's not only being videotaped from like the shoulders up. What if we just took our pants off to play just like ease tensions? And like I see what the trick is.

But like, yeah, I'm going to take my pants off. So I take my pants off or sitting on the couch, not touching but again like a lot of that you, and we do a take and it works. Like actually it works. We want to do it one more time.

I was like great, this is what I'm done with this. I was just watching this watch and I'm freaking worried. So I get up. I'm disappointed.

I don't wear a cute underwear and I turn the lights off and I sit back down next to me and we start watching. And just to side note, I'm not like a super traditional girl. Like I don't need to talk with us or flowers, but it can't be nice before you start finger blasting me. And all of a sudden, he's just like hand in hand like no, it's not over but I'm like, well, can you have happening?

Like it's happening. I'm not going to be upset about this. So he scoops me up. He throws me to the bed.

We're just like two squirrels, right? We're just like four months of sexual tension. And so finally after about like, after about like 15 minutes, he gets this weird like panic, oh, but I didn't laugh at the door. Can you just get up and I'm laughing at the door just in case my roommate.

I was like, I guess it's so kind. So I get up. I flick on the lights. I look back at my conquest.

And I've never seen so much blood. I have never seen so much like you know the scene from the shining where the door's open. It's just a river. It looks like we had an empty chum.

I've never seen like a lot of blood on a living body before but it's more like it looks like a hot to house you to hire him to just be a naked man right around cloud of blood. It was so, so oh my god. It was so mysterious. We flip each other and we look at our own bodies.

And we look at the bed and we look at our, and he's not screaming. And I realized in that moment that I'm not into BDSM because I don't like the feeling of being a hoarding and horrified at the same time. So after a minute he breaks the silence and he goes, I'm going to take a shower. I'm like, okay.

So he goes into the bathroom. He turns the shower on. And I look at it and I'm like, it's not. It doesn't look like.

Because I'm not early and he screams and he shouts from the bathroom. You're copyright. You D. My cover I give D was setting the boundaries that I wasn't able to do.

He was not having it. Now that she was like a lady praying to seem to be habitating our lives as quite as. She was being the best friend that I needed because she was preventing me from making all the bad decisions with men that not even my real friends could do. She was not having it but me.

I was mortified. I was like, what is this, like power inside me? I'm not controlled. All I wanted to do was get laid.

And he's like, we need to go to hospital and I'm like, yeah, let me just give it the moment. That's what I was going to put off for me. So I run into the bathroom and I jumped into the shower and just watching all this blood off watching all this blood off of me and I'm like, wow, this is what it looks like to a film cycle only I'm a stabber. And so, you know, I take a while, I take a little talent and I stand in the tiny hallway and I'm like, oh my god, what the fuck?

I just need to be like breathe for a second. And then I had this weird feeling, like day two on your period with really heavy and you just feel like a chunk of it come out of you. Well, I had that feeling and then he turns around and he's like, hey, can you clean up the blood in the hallway? And I look down and I'm bleeding his blood.

So now the blood is coming out of my body. I do on a monthly basis. But someone else's blood, it's just, like, it's just like his power. But anyways, if you look me to go and I'm like, I need to take care of myself too.

So we find someone's a close, I throw something on me junk into a cabin and tell her to go and she's like, what the fuck, what the fuck is it happening? I'm like, hey, I have a fucking man who are much bigger than you. And with more aggression and this has never happened before. It's like, I don't know what's going on.

I don't know what's going on. I'm like, what, no, did you not feel anything? And he's like, well, I felt a poke. I was like, oh, poke?

I was like, hey, we're closing soon. It's time to wrap up. Hey, like, you should never feel something so hard and like the softest place. Like, what do you mean?

A poke is like, and he's like, well, I want you to finish. I was like, oh, my god, men are single-circuitism. Like, they could be getting their dick side off, but the chance that they could come on, it's power thing. So I'm just like, what?

So we get out of the cabin. We tip the cab driver and it's not allowed to clean up. And, hey, folks, this is Kevin. Let me explain what happened at this particular point when Adrian was sharing the story that night in New York.

One of the members of the audience sitting close to the stage, fainted. And it turned out the audience was super, super helpful. We were able to, you know, get him some juice and get him up and had an EMT arrived to take him away and make double triple sure he was totally okay. This is the third time someone has painted at a risk live show.

I know one of the times we don't know what it was all about, but two of the times there was blood in the stories. And, you know, that's just the thing is the risk part of the risk of listening or attending the live shows is that if you're swamish those bodily fluids, they do have a way of showing up in stories because of the ways that they show up in life. So anyway, let's get back to the story. You can hear how we handle the from there.

Okay. So we go into the hospital, sending good vibes. So we get into the hospital and we look like an eye couple because he's holding himself like a G. And I'm walking in both like I don't want my thighs to touch.

And we get up to the receptionist and she's like, hi, how can I help you? And we explain this situation and she just kind of like casually writes us down like it's with her last or your penis of the day. And we sit down and then finally the doctor comes in and takes us in and he gets a subtle calculation down and the doctor leaves for a second and he reaches his hand out and I take it but it just it feels like an obligation. And I was kind of tired of cleaning up his mess.

So the doctor comes in and he starts talking to me and he's like, let me just assess your relationship like you know how long of you've been together like as a matter of how before and I was like, oh he's not my boyfriend. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're just probably not what you wanted to hear at the time because I realized that the love that I was so craving from him would have to come from within. Thank you so much. I was hooking up at the girl late one night, nothing too serious but mad at that nice, except for a poke that I felt once or twice and suddenly...

One kilo night. You're on the gash! The city has been aisle gash! He's a gash!

It made my life blood splash! I need medical help at the flesh! She's a gash! This fix my penis gash!

Shh! Shh! It was my wedding night, July 25th 1998 and I was really super excited to get back to the honeymoon suite. So I'm there with my wife Colleen.

We opened the door and we go in and she's 20 and I'm 21 and we're virgins. I know. So we're like really... Don't have a clue.

What the fuck to do? How do I like it? So we take each other close up. How does this work?

Do I help you with the buttons? Are you supposed to do something with my zipper? And I'm just sitting there. I have no idea what to do but one thing was really apparent and that was that I was painfully aroused.

I don't know how we ended up getting naked but we got naked. I don't know how we got in bed but we got in bed and I'm just reading with my hips. It takes some sort of divine looking for water and we're very Christian. So I'm just like, holy ghost is going to guide it in but it hits a wall.

Like nothing was open and I'm applying pressure and I'm pretty sure it goes there. So like now I'm pulling the covers back and I'm looking and I'm pushing and it's starting to hurt and like it takes it to the pen and I feel it's shutter. And I look up and she's crying and immediately retreat and then I'm going to go on and put her in my wife and I look at her and she looks at me and there's tears in her eyes. And I just say, well it's been a really long day.

So I roll over and we turn out the lights and I listen to her cry herself to sleep and I'm lying there awake quite literally pitching a tent. And another thing that this is how this was supposed to go. We're looking pretty sure like we live the life and we're really wholesome and true and Christian like we waited to have sacks until our wedding night as it makes it special. Or at least that's what I told all my friends and we were like, you're gonna like buy a car without taking the test drive man.

And I was just like, I'm lying there and I'm just doing what I've done when I got my phone and I was like, I wouldn't go away. I was like, well I'm just gonna pray and it goes away. Because I even then I was like shameful about like even touching myself and I was just like praying finally subsides and like finally falling fall asleep and I just think, well there's always tomorrow. Seven years later, I showed up at my buddy Jo's house.

I was walking the door fucking throw to the side and I'm like, Jo, I feel like I'm fucking Sam. And I said, oh, and I said, oh, and I said, oh, she's like, all right, well hold on a second. So he goes like, get you, come back two beers and he goes up and I'm like, down line. And he's like, okay, well what's going on?

I have to tell somebody, what's going on? I'm coming up on my 28th birthday and I said in your wedding anniversary. I'm still a virgin. I've never had sex and I'm fucking losing it.

And he said, I know. He said like, I fucking see her man like, let me find out I do something. Like never, I mean like you put me on and I'm like, no, never. He's like, not even like, never.

Nothing? Nothing. Well, what happens? Will we try?

And it's like she closes up and like nothing can go in like not even a pinky. He said to me, he's like, uh, well have you guys told me about this? No, nobody. And he said, well, have you ever looked it up online?

Fuck! We didn't have the internet when we got married. He wasn't a thing. I mean, then we got the internet every time we were like, porn.

And then maybe my piece was right off my nose. But uh, it was like, no fuck, I didn't even ever think of that. He's like, well, what do your conversation with her like? Well, I say, clean.

I really think that we should talk to somebody about this. Can you please just tell your sister or talk to your mom or your doctor? Maybe they had something like that. Maybe this has been something for me.

Look at me again and her eyes come up all the tears. Like this is private. So, I mean, we did a lot of praying, but like, it never got better. He's like, so wait a second, you've never told anybody.

And you've been just dealing with this all by yourself. Like, yeah. It's like, oh, I guess that makes kind of sense. It's like, you've been changing.

I'm not reminding him of like conversations I have with my mom. When I visit, when you got Tyson, you know, you're going to go to church anymore. Tyson, why is it you always like, seem to be drinking now? Tyson, why don't you stay home at night with your wife?

You're going to ruin your relationship. Say it out all night with your friends. He's like, mom, I'm fine. But then I would be driving home from her house and I'd be like, what the fuck am I supposed to say?

Like, no, I can't find my wife. I can't find my wife. I can't find my wife. I'm telling you about it.

What am I supposed to fucking do? Like, yeah, my face is fucking crumbling. And I'm really fucking depressed. And I'm super fucking angry.

Oh, god damn fine. And you know, I'm going to drink. That's why I drink and feel real fun. But at least a minute, I'll stay home with your wife.

Great. I can sit there and stare at this person. And I love and want to really fucking be with my pants. It's not going to go out with my friends.

You know what I'm saying? I'm going to be in the same home. So we googled it. And it turns out there's an aim for what this is.

It's called vaginismus. It's a well-documented disorder that is an involuntary tightening of the vaginal walls. Sometimes they know what it's called. Sometimes they don't.

But like, the commonalities are like, really super painful sex if it can happen at all. And in its worst cases, it's completely shut and nothing can go in. We're in a ladder group. But I did say on the website, there's treatment.

Usually it takes two to three months. So you have to go talk to the right people, doctors, and therapists. There's treatment plants. We follow the treatment plant.

And in like three months, we get to the day. And it's like, we think we can do it. So we're going to have sex. Finally, I'm 20 AM.

You'll lose my virginity. I'm like, super excited. It got better. This is how I had to lie perfectly still in maintaining the erection.

While my wife tried to mount me and slowly working inside of her. And if I would move or feel like in the moment, it would cause her harm. And we would have to start over. So millimeter by millimeters, you would have to lower herself down the pony.

And I get to look at her. Cruising a pain. Sometimes we take a four or five or six minutes, just to get all the way down. And then rest before we can try to carry on.

And the whole time, I'm supposed to slide there in like maintaining the erection. So yeah, the new improved sex was fucking awesome. It's a dramatic chore. I've been married for seven years.

For the next three, we probably had sex maybe 30 times. In 10 years, I'm about to tell you what anniversary. And by this time, it's getting a little bit better. We can manage to navigate that awkward first part in about two minutes or three minutes.

It's getting a little bit better. And hey, let's start a family. So we have unprotected sex once. And while the sexual details were difficult, the functional reproduction, I work fine.

So she got pregnant right away. And so then we weren't really having sex again. And then she gave birth. And she got injured.

So I have this little awkward. You tear. And it hurts. And then you have to go through healing period.

So we have that situation. So several months after getting birth, we've got this child. And I'm like, do you think we can try it again? And it hits a wall again.

And we're fucking back. It's where we want again. And it's whole time. I'm like, fucking enraged.

So I just wanted to have one kind where I could just be passionate with the woman I loved. And have that like, oh, we're really into each other. We're drug off our love. We can just experience every little thing.

We're in the back of my mind. I'm fucking pissed off. I'm just like, it took three months of treatment to get there. But it took seven years to get to the three months.

Three months, seven years. What the fuck? I'm looking to lose it again. I'm back this way.

I'm like, all right, it's hard to treat again. It's harder this time. Because it hurts more. So I'm working.

I'm having my job. And you have an alley for work. And I was drinking. And there's a young intern there.

And we're alone. And I'm looking at her. And she looks at me and says, I've always really wanted your attention. I've got something else my attention.

So I never wanted to. I took all my fucking principles and my faith. And everything about the person I was. I fucking throw out the window.

So cheated on my wife. And then she'd again, like the next day. And I was like, this isn't going to stop. So I was like, two or three weeks, maybe four hour long.

And that's my wife. And I never leave separate lives. But I'll never leave you. I know I assured you this countless times in our conversations.

And we maybe have these conversations with me. And I'll say things about things. I'm not going to leave you. I think she only ever heard.

I never even heard the other parts. But when I said, I need a divorce. We're the best brandaged trust. It's the best brandaged trust.

It's the best brandaged trust. It's the best brandaged right world. We had an 11th month old. Nine year old yet.

I'm leaving. I felt like a fucking cursed. It wasn't until years later. After a debacle of other things in a divorce.

And when I finally went and got some therapy. And I'm depressed. And I have problems. And it wasn't until then.

I was playing my wife. Why don't you get help? Why don't you talk to somebody? You know what I've done?

I could have just gone and talked to somebody. Hey, I don't know what's going on. I don't know if I'm going wrong. But I know that I'm really upset all the time.

But hey, do it. See, when it comes to vaginism, it's like, I thought I was a victim. No, she was a victim. I was just a lateral damage.

But just playing her and put her on her. But we have this child. This wonderful person. And she's the delight.

She's the delight to everyone. And we're raising this child together. We're good co-parents. And the guiding light in the way we raise our child is like, trying to make sure that, like, hey, that's what?

Questions are all right. Ask questions. If you have problems, you're never alone in your problem. There's always going to be somebody who's going to have a problem like you do.

It's OK. Talk to somebody. So while I'm going all through that, and I did learn some things, I guess the moral of this story is, like, Google things. Thank you.

This is risk. This is love-like. Behind me now. I'll tell you, we first had them on the show in 2010, way back in the early days.

And they just emailed me today to say, hey, we have a new album now. Maybe you like this song as well. And I know it's on the right way. Many nature is the name of their new album.

It also sounds like some of the stories I've told on Rensk. Now, before that, we heard from Tyson Robert. That was a remarkable story that we shared at our Milwaukee show just several weeks ago. And before that, a little interstitial by our episode editor, Jeff Barr, that song that he created a version of the Monster Mash, Jeff, that's Jeff.

Stinging. That is Jeff. Singing and howling and moaning and crying. So that is what our episode editor sounds like.

When he's imitating Bobby Pickett, imitating Boris Carla. Our final story on this week's episode comes from our recent show that we did in Indianapolis. This is Suzanne Binford, who you can find on Twitter at Sue Binford, and here she is now with a story we call Butterfly. So excited about this.

I even shaved my legs. So I make amazing kids. It's my thing. Some people cook.

Some people sew. I make good people. When I was pregnant at 40, I already had two older children. I had a tour who was 14 every second of 14.

Killer eye roll, wicked sense of humor, well developed smart ass jean. And then I also had a son Leon, who was 10. And he was just this little ball of energy, never met a stranger. And this is really sweet soul.

And so my husband and I were ready to give the world a third amazing kid. I felt like with my experience already being a mom and my perspective, I really expected that this was probably going to be a pretty good one. The thing that I didn't expect was that I miscared it six weeks. And I wasn't terribly discouraged at that time, so I got pregnant right away.

Five weeks later, I miscared again. And that's when I thought, okay, well, I just need to give my body a little break and recover from it. And so three months later, I got pregnant again. And I went last a little bit longer.

I was in until seven weeks that I miscared. And that's when I really started to get discouraged. I had had two really healthy pregnancies, so I didn't understand why my body wasn't doing this for me. So we waited a few more months and decided to try again five weeks came, six weeks came, seven weeks came, and everything was fine.

And so 12 weeks, we weren't quite passive first trying to serve, but we really felt like we were really safe. So we told the kids, and Tori, the one with the belly felt as smart as Jean, says, you know, I'm not going to think that's my kid you're raising. And my son was like, yeah, I'm not going to be the baby anymore. So he was really excited about it too.

We call our parents, and so we're starting to make plans. But two days later, I miscared again. And that was when I just really felt like maybe I was done with this. You know, we tried.

Because if you keep in count, that's four miscarriages. And I've been pregnant for a year. And I was mentally exhausted, and I was physically exhausted. And I was tired of the hormone fluctuation.

And I just really didn't think that I could do it anymore. That's six months later. We decided to go ahead and give it one more shot. And clearly I'm fertile.

I had to get pregnant right away. And we really waited. We waited until the first time I was done. We had an ultrasound at 14 weeks.

We could see this little baby in there who's developing this really strong, strong heartbeat. And so we felt a little safer. We were cautious. But my clothes were starting to get tight.

So we felt like it was probably time to start telling people. So of course, Tori and Lea, we told first. And they were super excited. Tori was 16 at that time.

So she wanted to make sure we had a car seat in her car for the baby. And Lea, I wanted to know if he could stay up late nights with the baby. So we really started to get plans. And we found out it was a girl.

So we picked a name. Her name was going to be Brynn. It was four letters. It was four letters.

Four letters. So plans were really going on. We picked a theme. We could have a theme for an earthuring.

So butterflies was our theme for the nursery blue butterfly specifically. So Lea was helping me put the nursery furniture together. And Tori was helping my mom so. The butterfly didn't get the butterfly pillows for the room.

And we were really, really starting to get excited. It had been a long time since they were going to baby in the house. So house kind of problem myself for that too. And I think it was about seven months along.

I was standing in the kitchen with the kids telling them stories about when they were going to get a lot of stories. We were kind of getting about whether Brynn would be giving us some stories like that too. Lea used to lean against my leg. And he'd look up at me with this little face and go, oh no, hold you.

If you want me to pick him up so we were talking about that. There was also the time that Tori, oh, this tells. She was listening to an audio book with my mom. And there was a character in the story.

She called another character, stupid. And she said, Grammy, that's a bad word. Mommy says it's a terrible word. We shouldn't say it.

And it makes people feel bad. My mom was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm really sure I'm going to call people stupid. So Tori's out for a second. She goes, but she's okay.

So Tori's about to talk about those stories. I'm wondering what kind of stories is Brynn would be giving us. And then Tori got kind of quiet. And she looked over at me and she wrote my belly.

I was pretty big at that time. And she said, mom, I'm going to miss out on all the good stuff. She only had a year left of high school. And she was going to be going off to college shortly after Brynn's first birthday.

And she was so sad that she wasn't going to be there. So I shared her that she wasn't going to be too far away. So we of course have lots of visits and lots of videos. And she was absolutely going to be present.

We weren't going to leave her out of this. So she felt okay with that. And so nine months for those of you who've been pregnant, feels about three and a half years. Nine months pregnant.

Three and a half months, they're having daily talks with Brynn. Trying to coax her out. I have my own private pet talks with her. We were ready for this.

And there was one late night I'd been in her nursery kind of prep and stuff. And I went to bed probably around the night. It was late to remember being really exhausted. And I laid down.

I could feel her shifting around in there and kind of rode the sides of my belly to settle down. And then we drifted off the sleep. And when I woke up the next morning, she was really still. And sometimes took her a while until we got back.

So kind of rode the side of my belly and that went to work. And she was usually very active when I was in the shower. So I hopped in the shower. And it was still really still.

So that's not maybe a shot of sugar. So I tried to one-shoe some that didn't work either. And so I called the doctor and the doctor said they're the hospital. So we got to the hospital and walked into labor and delivery.

And the nurses do. The nurses do. We're sure everything's okay. But what they don't know about me is I'm not a warrior.

I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I'm not the one who runs to the hospital. And every little paying or every little twitch, I'm worried. And so they take us into a room.

And they pull out the ultrasound machine. They spark a little boo on the lawns. And they make several sweeps over my belly looking for what Brynn's doing in there. And then the nurse excuses herself when she goes to get the doctor.

And the doctor comes in and she makes those same sweeps over my belly. And I knew when she was digging that wand into my ribs. And it was slightly painful. And then what she was going to say before she said it.

And she could barely look me in the face when she said I'm sorry. There's no heartbeat. And so she gave us our options of what to do. We could go home and wait for labor to start.

They could induce labor. They could do a serious section. And she said, I'll leave you to decide. I know you've got some really heavy decisions to make.

And so she walked out of the room. And it was so silent. And that room, it was like this super loud silence. And my husband and I kind of talked about our decisions.

What we needed to do. And then all these realizations came flying at me. That I was going to have to give birth to this little girl. And I wasn't going to get the take her home.

And my body was going to think that I was going to have a baby. So I was still going to make a milk. And I was still going to have the hormone fluctuations. And I was still going to have the 80 blues.

And I didn't know if I could do it. I knew how to do late nights. I knew how to do that. I broke low out.

And I knew how to do sore nipples. And I knew how to do teenage attitude. But I had no idea how to do this. And I had no idea how to get my kids through this.

And so we talked through our options. And we decided to go with our original birth plan, which was to get our dula in there and unmedicated birth. Because it was the small amount of control that we had in the situation. So my husband went home to shower.

And we decided he was going to tell the kids. And I called my dula. And she showed up like a freaking champ with her bag of dula tricks and love. And it was summertime.

She brought a bowl of peaches. And then my husband brought the kids to me. And they came into the room. And they were so quiet.

They just shuffled in. And they were crying. And they ran over to me. And I just hugged them.

And then I waited outside while I labored. And it was 14 hours. And in that 14 hours, there was this moment that I really, really hoped that when she came out, she would still be okay that she would scream her little lungs out. And everything that I'd been experiencing up into that point was just going to be a dream.

But it didn't happen that way. And when she was born, it was the quietest birthing room. You can imagine it was just so fucking quiet. And she was so beautiful.

Our curly hair. And she had these long limbs, long arms, and long legs. And her cute little toes. She was so precious.

And we got two days with her. We got to spend two days with her. And so Tori and Liam and my husband and I all stayed in the same hospital room and parents. And my sister came in and out and they visited and we all held her for two days.

We just took turns and we slept. Nobody wanted to lose them. And then we just held her and just stared at her. And soaked in every little detail.

Because these were the only moments we were going to get with her. And then I had to leave. And that was the thing that changed me. I got to hold her for two days.

But now I had to give her up. And I cannot tell you the pain that I felt when I had to lay her in the hospital. It was incredible. It was just like this big gaping hole in my soul.

The French I was saying when they missed someone, it's too muk. And it means you were missing from me. And that's what it felt like. Like this big piece of me had just been ripped out and put in the hospital that's in it.

And that was the hardest thing I had to do. I was leaving her there. I could hold her without her. And I didn't know what to do with myself.

I just felt like this empty shell of a person walking around. I used to stand in her room. And it was full of all of her furniture and all of the butterflies. But it was so empty.

And I felt so empty. And somewhere along the way, the butterflies gained a meaning for me. They symbolized change. Caterpillar's grow wings and become butterflies.

And they fly away and so did my little girl. She wasn't going to be there anymore. But that gave us something to keep with us was the butterflies. So we have butterflies all over the house.

And that's become, I think, for us. A simple for grand for us. We celebrate her. We celebrate her birthday.

We hang a stocking at Christmas time. And we left her. And we miss her. And toy did go to college.

And she was there probably three or four weeks when I got a text from her. And she had been walking to class and saw a blue butterfly. And she sent me a picture of it on her way to class. And that just hit me right in the gut.

But it was just so sweet. On Mother's Day, the first Mother's Day after her, before we had minute school, she bought flowers. And she wrote on the card, Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. I love you.

Love, Brynn. So the kids have kept Brynn very present with us too. One in four women experience infant loss. But we don't talk about it very much.

Not to prepare because you can never prepare for anything like that. But for those of us who do experience it, it's been the secret. Like they used to not even let parents see their children after they had them. I had a friend who also experienced the loss of a baby.

And she never got to see her son. Never got to see him. And there's people who don't even know they have siblings. And I just can't do that.

I can't imagine that. I've got three children. Touring Liam and Brynn, Tori and Liam have a beautiful little sister. And we miss our little butterfly baby.

And we want to love her. Elle, we don't want to love her in secrets. Thank you. Yeah.

Just get poppin. Why are we looking for here? I still hold his time. Try right now.

My way here. See, I'm having me for real content. I'm just so glad to know I'm going to be all around. That is all for this week's episode, folks.

This is Alabama Shakes Behind You Now. And we just heard from Suzanne Binford. Don't forget to pick up the risk book. Go order the risk book on Amazon and get copies for your friends as well.

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Hey, everyone. I'm here. Oh, thank you for going to do. Thank you for going to do.

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