Submitted by Andy (Alice’s dad)
Alice’s Story:
It’s been two years since the worst day of my life, the day my first child was born. That is a sentence I never thought I would write, but it’s my sad reality.
The first 5 months of 2021 was the most exciting time in my wife and my life together. Late the previous year we had decided to expand our family, and shortly after that we found out that she was pregnant. I remember she was so excited, she couldn’t wait until Christmas to give me my gift, a positive pregnancy test. Our baby girl, Alice we decided, was to be the first grandchild on my wife’s side (the 7th on mine, but the excitement was still there), and everyone was overjoyed with planning. Even better, her sister and brother-in-law announced they were pregnant only a month later. The whole family was abuzz getting ready for the two new additions, and planning out all the exciting things we would get to do now that there would be little ones running around.
I can still remember every doctors visit, and the nervousness coupled with anticipation that every single one brought. My wife and I had a miscarriage a few years earlier, and that experience had scared us into waiting longer for children. That feeling never went away through the pregnancy, and every little detail that seemed abnormal raised alarm bells. Alice was small, but through everything all the tests showed a healthy growing baby. I can’t count the number of times I had to talk my wife down, tell her everything was OK, being a bit small didn’t mean anything. We were past the 12 week mark, so that meant we had nothing to worry about, right? If only I knew then how wrong I was.
In early June, life was getting chaotic. We were putting the finishing touches on the baby’s room, the baby shower was right around the corner, and we were scrambling to make up for lost time on a daycare. So when my wife started panicking one week, saying that something felt wrong and she didn’t think Alice was moving, I brushed it off as nerves, assured her everything would be fine, and to not worry about it. But if it would help her feel better, I encouraged her to go ahead and call the doctor. I think my encouragement pushed her to hold off a couple of days, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that something about her reaction had me scared too. I still find myself reliving constantly, because deep down I’ll never know if those couple of days may have made a difference, and if my positivity may have cost my daughter her life.
That Friday, I left work early to drive to the doctor’s office. My wife had called early that morning, and they told her to come in right away (it had been a few days since she felt a kick at this point). The entire hourlong drive from work I was a nervous wreck. I remember thinking through every worse case scenario, making up my mind about who I would save if I had to make an impossible choice, but still trying to convince myself that everything would be OK. When I finally got there, I remember seeing the doctor in the hallway, and his sullen look and the words he spoke to me, “Did Stephanie tell you already?”, before quickly rushing me to the room when I answered “no,” confirmed our worst fears. There was no heartbeat, our daughter was gone.
The next few days were a blur. I remember going home and immediately taking apart the crib I had just put together the week before. I had to have something to do, to distract myself from the painful reality my life had become. Our families quickly rushed into town, and we scheduled an induction for the next day. We spent the entire weekend in the hospital, and the entire time I kept myself as busy as possible, making sure my wife was properly taken care of, that she would make it through and be alright. I did not allow myself to stop worrying about her, because it would mean I’d have to acknowledge the reality of what had happened.
That Sunday, June 13th, 2021, our daughter finally arrived, and with her every emotional wall that I had built up came crumbling down. I had always been told that you never truly feel like a father until you hold your child in your arms, and I can confirm with absolute certainty that that was true for me. Unfortunately, that moment that I had always built up to be the pinnacle of happiness in my life turned out to be my very worst. I still have flashbacks sometimes to that moment, holding my baby girl in my arms, unable to contain the flood of tears and despair, knowing that my job, to protect my family at all costs, had been a failure. Everything else in my life melted away, and all that was left was an empty pit where my heart used to be.
The next few months were the most trying of my life, and of my marriage. While my wife was a wreck, barely able to eat and under constant surveillance as her family and I worried about what she might do, I kept myself as busy as possible. I forced myself to be the rock, to keep our life together and be the support that she needed, even though deep down I was as broken as she was. I went back to work after a week, choosing not to share openly what happened for fear of having to relive it, but reliving it all the same every time someone asked me when I would be on paternity leave or when my daughter was coming. I was constantly worried I would be let go because I just could not maintain my concentration, and most days I didn’t care as I felt life could not get worse than it was.
Over time, my wife and I slowly built back the pieces. She worked with many counselors, grief coaches, and support groups, and eventually she convinced me to join one of them with her. Sharing my pain with others going through the same was a mixed bag, but providing encouraging words to others and having them tell me how impactful they were helped me to push myself down my own path to recovery. During that time, we also learned a lot about our friendships. Some of our closest friends before that time are people we don’t talk to as much anymore, and some people we thought of only as good acquaintances are now some of our most trusted confidants. You learn a lot about those around you when you see who is there to support you when you’re in need.
After a tough holiday season when we refused to celebrate (spending Christmas getting drunk and gambling away our money in Las Vegas), we decided we should try to rebuild, and almost immediately learned we were pregnant again. That pregnancy was unlike the first, we refused any celebrations, and barely did any planning as we wanted to let ourselves down easy when we inevitably lost another child. But despite our fears, our son, William (Liam), was born on September 22, 2022.
We are now nearly 9 months past our son’s birth, and despite the happiness of having a living child, the heaviness of having lost our daughter still weighs on us. Not a day goes by when we don’t think of her, and wonder how things would have been different were she here. Every new milestone that our son, or our nephew (who would have been 1 month younger than Alice had she made it to her due date) experiences is bittersweet, as the excitement of watching them grows only accentuates all the experiences we will never have with Alice.
Though life gets better, and dealing with the loss gets easier, two years on I know that the pain will never go away. Instead, I try to honor her memory to create a positive legacy out of a tragedy. For her birthday, we will be buying all the gifts she deserved and donating them to local children’s shelters and hospitals. I did not know about the sad dads club when I went through this, but I hope that sharing my experience can help others going through the rough time, and that Alice’s legacy can be making life easier for others going through the worst time of their lives.