E8: Grief, Choice, & Parenting After Loss ft. Jane Armstrong (part 2)

This week concludes my conversation with Jane Armstrong, LCSW-S, QCSW, PMH-C. Jane is a TFMR & miscarriage mom, a native Texan transplanted in Colorado, & a clinical social worker certified in perinatal mental health. Following the birth & death of her first child, Frankie, through TFMR, Jane opened Both/And Therapy, PPLC to provide therapy & support groups to other TFMR parents. These services provide support around the unique barriers & grief of ending a wanted pregnancy, particularly in states where such care is no longer accessible. She also started her @tfmrsocialworker account on Instagram to raise awareness, reduce stigma, & help TFMR parents to know that they are not alone. She’s passionate about building community, eliminating shame, & honoring grief for TFMR families everywhere.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• survival mode, control, and turning to faith
• visible pregnancy while grieving and the harm of small talk
• legal fear, isolation, and engineered loneliness
• reasons families may end a nonviable pregnancy
• sacrifice myths, parental health, and competing needs
• loss hierarchies and why comparison harms
• language, stigma, and finding community
• continuing bonds and everyday rituals for memory
• resources for TFMR parents and dad-specific spaces

RELATED EPISODES:

E7: Grief, Choice, & Parenting After Loss (part 1)

BLAW 2025: Talking Platitudes with Miscarriage Mumma Support

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, let's have a private 20-minute conversation by emailing info@dadalways.com. 

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Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Alone in the Light by Great Oaks

Transcript

Shock, Control, And Faith

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think it has to do with that survival mode. You are trying to understand, you know, if folks are anything like me, where there's your world crumbled to dust in that moment where you learned your baby was sick. You're just trying to see through the fog and you're trying to understand what does it mean to live in this world where my baby can be so sick? Or what does it mean to live in a world where my baby died and hers didn't? Or, you know, we have this here in the States, it's a very American idea that if I just work hard and I do the right things, I will get the outcome I'm aiming for. And that just doesn't work in family building. You can do everything right and you can struggle with infertility because it's a medical diagnosis. You can do everything right and still have an ovary that doesn't want to participate, or your sperm are not doing what they need to do. You can get pregnant and have losses and not know why. You can get pregnant and eat right and exercise and stay away from toxins, you know, whatever that means, and still find out at your 20-week anatomy scan that baby has some congenital anomaly or they're sick. We do not have the control that we think we do. And I think when we turn to spirituality or higher power or faith in those moments, it's seeking that sense of control or that sense of something beyond ourselves to help us understand a world we don't recognize anymore and that feels scary.

A Father’s Inner Womb

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Hi, I'm Kelly Jafili, and welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss. That is so well said. As you were speaking, it reminded me of being with someone recently in my context at work. And her baby also has devastating, a devastating diagnosis and a devastating prognosis. And in speaking with her and her partner, the one thing that she kept saying is, as long as my baby is inside of me. And as a man, there is no categories that I have to even begin to understand what that is. I do think that for fathers, the womb that we have is within our imagination, within our heart, within our being. And so our babies exist uh within us in a different way than it exists within you as the carrier of life. But what what what is that? Right? How how do you wake up on a daily basis with this devastating uh diagnosis? You know that uh today, right now, my baby, my baby's safe because my baby is uh connected to me and I'm connected to my baby while also uh facing all of these conversations and considering all of these unthinkable things. What does that do to you mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally? What does that do to someone?

Living Pregnant With Terminal News

SPEAKER_00 4:07

I love this question, Kelly. Thank you, because I think that's the side that a lot of people don't consider when they bristle at ending a pregnancy versus continuing a pregnancy with a terminal diagnosis. They forget that you still have to live your life visibly pregnant, going to work, going to the grocery store, dropping off at school, whatever your life entails, knowing that that baby is not going to survive. Or if you have made an appointment, you know that baby is not going to survive. But the world around you treats you as if you're expecting a healthy living baby in a few months. So the story that's coming to mind is the COVID vaccine was rolled out shortly before we got Frankie's diagnosis. And as you may recall, there were two doses in that first rollout. And as a pregnant woman, I was eligible earlier than most for the vaccine. And so it was a drive-through thing where you know you rolled your car window down and they stuck you and you drove off.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah.

The Vaccine Line Two Ways

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Um, my first dose, you know, it's wild. My first dose was before that anatomy scan appointment where we got Frankie's diagnosis. So I was the happy pregnant woman rolling up, excited to protect myself and my baby from this wack-adoo virus that had been wreaking havoc for the past year. And I remember chatting with the nurse about, you know, when are you due? Is it a boy or a girl? And just feeling so excited, A, to talk to a human being in person because I hadn't had that opportunity a lot. Yeah. But I got to participate in the typical narrative of being pregnant in the world. My second dose was after his diagnosis and before we had, I think we had made the decision to end the pregnancy and were maybe waiting for an appointment. So I knew my baby wasn't going to survive. And the tone of that interaction, which remained the same from the other side. When are you due? Is it a boy or a girl? Is this your first? Felt completely different. So I'm answering, it's a boy and he's going to die in my head. I didn't say that second part out loud. When is he due? In July, but he's going to die in February. Just the it absolutely takes a toll to have this embodied experience that other people treat as small talk, which I would argue, even in the best of circumstances, pregnancy and family building and people's bodies are not small talk topics. But I had to determine in the moment, am I going to make this awkward for everybody? Or am I just going to hold the pain and the fear alone? And most of the time that's what I chose. Since then, I've become more likely to be honest. If somebody's going to ask me a question and not recognize that it's not a small talk kind of topic, I might go for it sometimes and be honest. You know, I have one living son now. Is this your only one? He's my only living son. His brother died in pregnancy. Put that out there and let him hold it and know that it's not just me holding it now. And maybe next time they'll think twice before they ask questions like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah. Thank you for volunteering to carry that with you.

Small Talk And Big Pain

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, yes. Thank you. I love talking about my other son. Thank you. But yeah, so the toll is immense and it's heavy. And adding in variables now, where my experience in early 2021 was right before the passage of SB8, which was the bounty bill in Texas, that basically Texas became post-row before the rest of the country with that bill that was passed in the spring and then went into effect that September. But people are afraid that they will be found out for accessing care legally in other states. They are afraid that they will be sued, or their husband will be sued for booking the flights, or their doctor will be sued for making a referral to an out-of-state clinic, where again, it is legal. You cannot aid and abet a legal action, but people are scared. And so there's another layer of, okay, this baby isn't going to survive, but here I am visibly pregnant, and people want to talk about it. But also, what happens if they know I went on a trip and the next time they see me, I'm not pregnant anymore? Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to make trouble for someone else for helping me? So there's a lot of isolation and loneliness that is both circumstantial and engineered. These laws are designed to make people feel like criminals and make them feel alone, and they do it really well.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Someone who hears this, and again, I keep bringing this other perspective into the conversation because I think that's where the richness of what we've been talking about emerges from. Someone might say, okay, so you go get the scan for 14, 15, 16 weeks. You get this horrible diagnosis. You're you're basically being told that your baby is not going to survive because his or her condition is so severe. If the child is going to die anyway, why not just go full term? Why not just go for as long as possible? Why make the decision to terminate the pregnancy?

Fear, Laws, And Isolation

SPEAKER_00 10:40

It's a valid question. And I would venture that a lot of families who are put in this position ask themselves the same question. And there are a myriad of variables that will influence the answer. One is going to be the impact on the pregnant person's health, because pregnancy as a baseline is not health neutral. It's not something that has no impact on the person's, the person who's pregnant, on their health. So sometimes there are risks of infection in continuing the pregnancy that could damage future fertility, other organ systems, or be potentially fatal to the pregnant person. There's the psychological damage that could come from that scenario I described before of being pregnant, but having to explain this baby isn't going to survive, or just carrying the weight of that and then not knowing when. So it could be that you live your life every day waking up. Is today the day my baby dies? Is that the last time I feel them kick or roll? Is this the last time I feel them have hiccups? Am I going to go to sleep and wake up and they've died in the night? That anticipation for a lot of people may be unbearable, the not knowing when. Everything went to her children. You know, she looks awful because she doesn't take care of herself, but it's because she loves her baby so much. What does that mean for her? What does that mean for those children you're placing above her? Can she take care of them the best she can when she feels awful and her own health is suffering, or if she is dead? No. So there's a lot of pushing against a story we might have inside of us that I'm supposed to sacrifice everything for my children, no matter what. I can also beg the question, which child, if you have living children when something like this happens and your own health is at risk, who am I sacrificing for? And how do I they're competing against each other in that scenario? So how do I choose? Some people are going to choose to continue a pregnancy that has a diagnosis incompatible with life, and they should have that right to choose. Some people are going to choose to end the pregnancy, and they should have that right to choose. Somebody's own decision is not a judgment on anybody else's. And I think that's critically important too. Um, I participated in a uh support group for pregnancy after loss, where all the folks in it had other different loss experiences than TFMR. And there was one who had carried a terminal pregnancy all the way through. Her baby lived for a few hours or a day. And I remember fearing that she was going to judge me when we shared our stories. She ended up being the person I learned the most from in that group and whose insight I valued most because, in a lot of ways, we had been through something similar. She made a choice. I made a choice.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

They were different, but we were both put in that place. And there was so much more connection and overlap than I had been conditioned to expect.

Why End A Nonviable Pregnancy

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Yeah, yeah. So I was having this conversation with one of the former guests on the podcast and miscarriage mama support. And she was saying that after experiencing her miscarriage, she joined a Facebook group where the comments, the responses to her stating that she had experienced a miscarriage were very weird. I found them very weird because someone, and this is her words, someone who had carried a baby, a pregnancy to full term, and then the child passed away afterwards responded to her and said, Well, at least yours was early, right? At least your loss was early. Someone else who, I forget what the context of the loss was, said, Well, at least you know you can get pregnant. And so in my mind, that raised the question, wait a minute, within the lost community, is there some unspoken about hierarchical structure that I'm not aware of? Are all losses seen as equally valid? Are they, do they all carry the same weight within their own context? Or what are your thoughts about that? And where does TFMR fit into that structure or hierarchy or its perception?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah. I mean, it's a very human thing to want to categorize things or figure out where they fit in relationship to each other. It's the way we understand the world. I would say in this realm, it's not the most useful, but that doesn't stop us from trying to organize the losses in this way.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

We love to organize as people.

Sacrifice, Health, And Family

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yes, exactly. We it's okay. Uh, it could be worse. That can sometimes be a way to comfort ourselves or feel sorry for ourselves, as the case may be. So, yes, I would say I hear this a lot from the folks I work with, and it seems to be a really ingrained hierarchy, even if you don't recognize that's there. So it seems like the later on a loss is, the more weight or importance it takes on. Um whether or not baby ever was alive outside of your body seems to have an impact if they took a breath on their own, if they lived for hours or days, things like that. And I there's a lot of, I think, reason for that. There's a lot of historical context for this where our perceptions of loss and pregnancy have altered tremendously over the last century and really the last you know, since colonizers first arrived here. But the um the idea of pregnancy being equated to a child is relatively new in our history and society. So I think that's where some of this hierarchy comes from, is this change in perception and understanding. It used to be that you know, children didn't live beyond a year or five years nearly as often as they do now. So they've become much more precious and much more maybe taken for granted their life and health, um, which I think has shifted some of this. But I think it is also a way for us to understand our own experiences. So, how what the gestational age of the loss is seems to have an impact. How that loss happened seems to have an impact. Was it a miscarriage that happened at home? Was it in the ER? Was it a stillbirth where you were in the hospital and delivered in rooms next door to screaming healthy children? With TFMR, it's unique in the sense of gestational age, I would say, is something that comes up a lot. Some folks might learn about things earlier than others and feel like they have less right to grieve in the same way or have fatal diagnosis versus a gray diagnosis. Maybe if my baby was definitely going to die, I'd have more right to be sad. But because I don't know for sure, but I made a decision, I don't have as much right to be sad. That I made a decision. Sometimes people feel like they can't grieve in the same way, or other people had it worse. But truly, I think all this comparison not only doesn't help, but I think it does a lot of harm. You can see this as well in the abortion debate, where, you know, we've talked before in this conversation about with TFMR, these are wanted pregnancies where this baby has been, if not planned for prior to pregnancy, they've been incorporated into the family or future. Um sometimes that can create a hierarchy within the abortion debate where a TFMR is a more noble abortion than somebody who was sexually assaulted or somebody who was pregnant and just doesn't want to be pregnant or doesn't want to become a parent. So these hierarchies, while they're very pervasive, ultimately I think they pit us against each other in really arbitrary ways where, again, there's a lot more overlap than we may initially recognize. Someone who's been through a termination for medical reasons may have been through a surgical procedure. They may have also labor and delivered just like someone who's going through a stillbirth. A DMC is a procedure a lot of people will have gone through in miscarriage management. It's the same thing a lot of folks will have gone through in a termination for medical reasons or a surgical abortion. These hierarchies are sometimes helpful in organizing the world, but they're not very helpful in determining who is allowed to grieve and who isn't, or who should have access to care and who shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

And in relation to that too, right, there is the sense of how the person who makes this decision, the family who makes this decision, the sense of shame, the sense of if that's even a thing. Or at least the worry. I'll say it in this way the worry for how others might perceive the decision that they've made. And there can be a lot of Guilt uh surrounding that. There can be a lot of stigma, there can be a lot of intense feelings on top of the already intense uh feelings that we've already discussed in even getting to that conversation. So how how does one navigate uh the perception, the outside perception while wrestling with the internal turmoil of making that decision?

Loss Hierarchies And Harm

SPEAKER_00 22:28

I think community is key to that. Being in community with other people who have been through something similar can help you understand your own perspectives, your own experiences in new ways. So if the only narrative you have of abortion is this narrative that has nothing to do with your experience where birth control failed and you're 10 weeks or less, so you're getting a pill that you're taking and it's over at home, versus maybe you had to travel out of state and go to a clinic where there were protesters outside who didn't know how much you wanted your baby and how sick they were or how sick you were. It can be really validating and empowering to hear other people and the way they understand their experience, particularly if they're maybe further along in their healing process than you are. I remember one of my lifelines in an online community was somebody who was over a decade beyond their loss and who had had a very different experience of that loss. But I remember she used the word abortion in her storytelling of her own experience. And I really recoiled from that the first time I read it. And I had this narrative of, well, it wasn't that, even though I went to a Planned Parenthood, it absolutely was. And again, in that baseline sense, it was the same. Just my motivation was different, or my the reason I needed that care was different. But it allowed me to examine some of that story that I hadn't examined before. And I had always been incredibly loud and proud about my pro-choice stance. I had been part of the People's Filibuster with Wendy Davis at the Texas Capitol in 2013. I, like so many other TFMR parents, had always assumed I want people to have the chance to make that decision for themselves, but I never would.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Um so the being able to see somebody else who had put in the work to understand themselves, who had faced head-on some of those really difficult questions and accept them was absolutely, I mean, perspective shifting and world-changing for me, where I could say, for the first time, here's this person who identifies their loss as an abortion and talks about her daughter in these very loving terms, includes her in her parenting of her living children. I want to get there. I don't know how, but I that's where I want to be. And so she really and others light the path behind them for those coming through it fresh. And um yeah, I think that community is really critically important for that part of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

That is something that completely transform anyone who is a part of this world from the inside out. You can't see the world the same way anymore. And that is a pain, a grief. It's something that becomes a part of you. We just came off of Baby Loss Awareness Week. The month of October is Baby Loss Awareness Month. We just had the 15th of October, the global wave of lights. And so all of these things, this whole entire month of October in which we're recording this conversation, uh, is geared at uh raising uh communal awareness about baby loss. What is the value of that to you? And I guess the question I also want to put on the table is does it feel uh just that uh for you who have to live with this pain and with this knowledge on a daily basis, that uh there are people who, if they are on social media, they may find out about it. And if not, then they can continue living their lives as is. Is that offensive? Does that feel just? Does that feel unjust? What what what is that for you?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

So many things come to mind. I one is a theme I hear a lot in the clients I work with, as well as my own experiences the loss of innocence and the desire, however futile, to get back to that place where you had no idea that October was this awareness month, or you understood cognitively that people lost babies, but it felt like this remote thing that only affected a small number of people and just how very sad for them. I can think about something else.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah, I can start that.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yes, exactly. So, on the one hand, I guess I would say enjoy that in a sense, if you are still able to. For those of us who cannot engage with it in the same way anymore, that's okay. It's also okay if you feel that pang of jealousy for folks who can disconnect or don't have to spend every day missing a baby they've lost or who are able to do that swipe away.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah.

Stigma, Language, And Community

SPEAKER_00 28:51

But I think for me, the the value of raising awareness like this is in letting people know who are on the inside how very much they are part of a broader community. I think almost everybody who goes through any kind of pregnancy or infant loss will feel alone at some point. Yes. Because even if they have all the support in the world, there is nobody else who is that baby's parent and who loves or misses them in the same way. Yes. And you're not alone. There are going to be a lot of folks maybe listening who have been through TFMR or other losses who don't have a community of support around them or have people who are actively and openly attacking them for their loss, which if that's you, knock it off, by the way. But I think what this does outside of our community is it allows people to see, okay, this isn't some distant, remote, sad person I am imagining. This is my friend, or this is the person who sits next to me at work, or this is me now, and I didn't know all of this was here. And it also allows the people on the outside to understand better how to show up for the folks around them who are going through this loss or are carrying it every day. A lot of times I think the people closest to us don't know what to say or don't want to make it worse, and so they say nothing. And a lot of times I hear from folks that that can be the most hurtful thing is to pretend their baby never existed, or pretend that they are not breathing anymore, or pretend that they have reverted back to their normal selves. So recognizing, okay, I know what this person's baby's name is. Maybe I can tell them that I thought of them, or I lit a candle for Frankie, and what would that mean to them? That is my favorite thing in the world when I hear Frankie's name spoken out loud by somebody other than me, because I say it all the time. So I can, you know, kind of drown myself out.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

But if I hear, even when my husband says it, which he says it with regularity, it's just lightens my heart for the moment. And Frankie's in the room with us.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

And that's a gift that you can offer those bereaved parents in your life to say, I thought about your baby, or I lit a candle for them, or I really wish they could be with us this Halloween, you know, or whatever it is, asking questions about how old they would be now, or knowing that you are not going to remind them that their baby died.

unknown 31:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

It's always with them, right? Like you, they won't forget, I promise. But acknowledging that or saying something can be a way to share the load as opposed to adding to it, which is I think what people are afraid of.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

As we conclude our conversation, Dad Always is a podcast, obviously, for to create and foster a space for dads who are grieving the loss of their child. But the thrust of the podcast is to encourage a new way to relate to the child whom they've lost, and how to continue parenting that child in this dynamic now where the child is not here. So, in what ways have you been able to continue being a parent to Frankie?

Awareness, Names, And Memory

SPEAKER_00 32:54

What a great question. This certainly wouldn't necessarily be available to everybody, but I changed my whole career and started talking about TFMR all day, every day. So Frankie is very present in my day-to-day. Though I have noticed sometimes that it's hard for me sometimes to take the therapist hat off and put on the bereaved parent hat and just be in my own grief or sadness. So I would say I love participating in wave of light and things like that where I can set an intention for that. Other ways, uh I have a memorial box for Frankie where we have, you know, his ultrasound photos. I have one footprint of his that is tucked safely in an envelope in that box. We just had family pictures taken last weekend, and in that box is also a little stuffed animal that we were given by my mother-in-law when we shared that he was a boy. So we'll often include that stuffed animal in our family photos. I have newborn photos with my living son with the uh stuffed animal next to him. The lullaby I sing to my living son every night uh talks about him and Frankie together. And I have a lot of other memorial items. I have a necklace with my son's initials on it, a tattoo, and let's see. We have a book that I like to read to my son Nolan, a flower that reminds me of him. He's all over.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

No, that uh thank you. Thank you for responding to that. What resources are there available for TFMR families in general? And are there any resources that are dad specific for TFMR dads?

Continuing To Parent Frankie

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yes. So for TFMR families in general, there are loads and loads of great resources. We could always do with more, certainly. There are some fabulous online communities like the ending a wanted pregnancy Facebook group, which is open to all parents. And these are these communities are typically vetted in some ways to keep them safe from interlopers. There are also some Facebook groups such as TFMR Mamas. There's also a TFMR Papa's group, which is targeted specifically towards dads. There are some fabulous virtual support groups out there. Postpartum Support International or PSI has some TFMR specific groups. None specifically for dads, but there are some that are inclusive of dads. These are free virtual groups that are offered several times a week throughout each month. I actually volunteer facilitate one of those. I have some virtual support groups available to TFMR birthing parents. For dads, and I I would love to hear your insight on this as a dad. There's kind of a tension with what's available, which isn't nearly as much as is available for the pregnant parent, but also engagement that it seems like dads are less likely to reach out for that support or access, whether it's therapy or groups or communities. So they're out there, but there's kind of a supply and demand issue when it comes to TFMR dads. And I'm curious if that's something you've seen in other baby loss spaces as well. But I have a resources page on my website. Maybe we can share in show notes or something like that that has TFMR specific or TFMR inclusive resources that I have personally vetted and trust. There's books, podcasts, these online communities, support groups, places to look for a therapist or group if you're interested, uh, things like that. So I'm happy to share that too.

Resources For TFMR Parents And Dads

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah, I think the point about dad's engagement in some of these spaces is a valid one. I'm part of a Facebook group for men who have experienced loss to miscarriage. And I've been both fascinated by the number of men who come in, whether they share their Facebook profile name or they post anonymously to just open up and say, hey, this is what's happened, and then other guys in the group, myself included, responding to uh the new guys in the group, hey, you can message me one-on-one or responding to the to the post. But then I don't know if there's any follow-up after that. I think it's sort of like a a one-time thing or maybe sustained for a short period of time and then until the next person shows up. Yeah. It's been a challenge. It's been a challenge even for me in thinking about how to create an active and vibrant community for bereaved dads. I think virtual groups are can be uh the beginning of something that uh accompany other things. Right. So it may be that we have to think about, or people who want to support bereaved fathers in particular have to think about a portfolio of different means to support dads. We can do the virtual, we can do the WhatsApp, and and we can also link up and go to Top Golf. We can do this, we can do that. So some form of in-person and virtual thing where we don't necessarily have to be talking about baby loss the entire time, but I know that guy who is doing that really silly thing next to me gets something about me without having to talk about or name it explicitly. And I think it has to be a combination of something like that in order to properly support to support dads.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

I love that for so many reasons, but not least of all because I think like there's a part of me that would love to offer more support for dads. Uh, my husband very lovingly once said something like, I don't know if you're the right vehicle. And I agree. It's, you know, because I I love talking about it, and a lot of my clients love talking about it. And that's not always the way for everybody to process. You know, I'm not the right fit for everybody, and I may not be the right fit for supporting dads specifically, but I love the idea of having some variety and options and the connection is there, whether or not it's acknowledged, which I think can be so valuable, particularly for men, but for anybody going through really lonely lost experiences like these.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Jane, I can't thank you enough for the time that we've spent in conversation and for sharing your story and your experience, your insights with me and listeners of this podcast. You stated where you have licenses in the beginning. So if anyone listening from those states would like to get in contact with you, how can they get in contact with you? And for people who are not in those states but still want to connect with you, how can folks get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 40:35

You can find me on uh Instagram at tfmrsocialworker. I post lots of content about termination for medical reasons, resources, etc. Um, I often post a link to scheduling free intro calls with me there as well. Or if you want to go straight to my website, you can find that at both and therapy.com. And if you would like to work with me but don't live in a state where I'm licensed, I do offer support groups for TFMR birthing parents that are open to anyone in the US. I have those pretty regularly, so uh that's one way for us to work together. Uh, if you're not in a state where I can offer you therapy. Um, and Kelly, I just want to thank you so much for inviting me. And I've really enjoyed this conversation, and I'm very grateful that you're putting these out there and supporting dads specifically, and the families at CHOP are very, very lucky to have you there as well. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Thank you for listening today. If you want to stay in the loop of what's going on at Dad Always, go to dadalways.com to join the email list to receive updates. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met. And the ones whose time with us was all too brief.