Warrior Moms: Surviving Child Loss
A club no one wants to be in because the initiation is too big of a sacrifice: the loss of a child. Unthinkable. Unimaginable. Warrior Moms is local group in north Atlanta filled with strong, courageous, funny, and fiercely loving women who are surviving and thriving amidst horrific grief.
This podcast features Amy Durham and Michele Davis, two of the Warrior Moms, who will guide listeners through their grief journey. Every fourth or fifth episode will showcase another Warrior Mom, the trauma they endured, stories about their beloved child, and tips on how they get out of bed every day.
Each and every Warrior Moms' story is different, the children and the loss is different, but one thing they share is the decision to live. They have figured out how to live life putting one foot in the past and the other moving forward. Yes, it's beyond awful. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's worth it. And yes, they say, you can survive child loss AND thrive.
Warrior Moms: Surviving Child Loss
Melanie Hall -- Bennett Hall's Story: Ep 33
Melanie Hall shares her profound journey of grief after losing her son, Bennett, and how she navigated motherhood amidst the trauma, deep heartache, and being a mother to two children under two. She discusses the challenges of grief, the importance of community support, and the transformative power of writing as a healing tool.
• Introduction to Melanie Hall and her family
• Moving to Nashville and the challenges of pregnancy
• Details of the pregnancy and delivery of Bennett
• The experience of losing a child and the rush to the hospital
• Postpartum struggles and the impact on motherhood
• The role of writing in the healing process
• Birth of Josie and navigating fears and triumphs
• Faith and resilience amidst grief
• Supporting grieving parents and the importance of remembering
• Legacy of Bennett through music and family connections
Please visit Melanie's blog: http://www.ourmomentsofpeace.com/ and listen to their talented kids...all honoring their brother Bennett: https://www.thebennetthallband.com/.
"Dream Bird" by Jonny Easton
Thank you for listening to Warrior Moms podcast. It is an honor to share about our beloved children gone too soon, and we hope by telling of our loss, it may help someone in their grief journey. Please note that we are not medical professionals and encourage those listening to seek help from mental health professionals.
We'd love to hear from our followers!
Website: https://www.warriormoms.me/
Facebook: Warrior Moms-The Club No One Wants to Be In
Instagram: WarriorMoms.SurvivingChildLoss
With love,
Warrior Moms Amy & Michele
Hello and welcome back to Warrior Moms. I am Michelle.
Speaker 2:And I'm Amy and we're so glad y'all are here. I believe this is our first kickoff for the new year. Yes, we're dragging our feet this year, but we're back at it and I'm excited because this for multiple reasons, because we're doing something completely different this time with this podcast. This is someone that is not local to Atlanta, that is not in our group or that we know all about. I do know Melanie from gosh. We decided that we've known each other longer than we haven't known each other, which makes me feel young and hurt.
Speaker 2:Old, yeah, very old, but yes, it is somebody I've known for a very long time and have followed her story time and time again. We're also talking about an infant. This is the first infant that we've spoken of, so I know that that's just a whole nother level of grief and loss that we personally haven't experienced, or anyone in our grief has. So I'm looking really forward to it. So this is Melanie Hall and she is going to talk to us about her sweet baby boy, bennett. So, Melanie, tell us a little bit about yourself and all the fun things.
Speaker 3:Well, I live right outside of Nashville, tennessee, and I have three children. There are girls, one that's 17, one that's 15, and one that's 12. And we live here and we moved here, I guess, about 16 years ago. My husband's a local chiropractor in the area and, um, we moved here knowing nobody and we and left all of my friends and family in Georgia, which is really hard. That's where everybody I have 31 first cousins and they're almost all still there except me.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that is a big move. It was, but now you're settled. So how long have you been in Nashville?
Speaker 3:We've been here about 15 years, almost 16. I guess almost 16. So I've been here a long time. We moved here. My second born was eight weeks old when we moved here, so I moved here with two babies. I was 17 months old and eight weeks old Wow.
Speaker 2:You depended on each other.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, we started a business, so it was quite a move.
Speaker 1:Oh my heavens Wow.
Speaker 2:The Lord is the only thing that kept me going. Oh, it was brutal, it was so brutal and then after so y'all moved there and Kat and Presley were little, and then you had a third child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Kat and Presley are 15 months apart, and so we moved here. In. Presley was eight weeks. We moved here in July of 2009. Um, Presley was eight weeks. We moved here in July of 2009.
Speaker 3:And, and we were here about um, I guess three or four months and we were pregnant again and um yeah, yeah and um, you know when we when I think back on it, I just think I can remember how overwhelmed we were that we were pregnant again, um, and so a little bit about how we do. My husband is a chiropractor and so Kat and Presley were born at home, so we're very natural minded. We had home births. We, we use, uh, midwives, so we, our midwives, obviously, that we'd used in the past, were in Atlanta, um, so we had to do some research and some finding of help for this baby that we, this next baby that we were going to have at home, we hoped, and that was going to be 14 months younger than Presley, so then we would have had them like 15 months apart and then 14 months apart.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, goodness sakes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, so, yeah. So we were pregnant in the fall, and then Bennett was due. August of 2010 was his actual due date. I always say kind of my, you know, jesus gives everybody their own cross to bear and mine has always been.
Speaker 3:In child birth and also in just carrying babies, I struggled with all of mine, they all had I either bled or was on bed rest, or Kat was a 36 week baby. I mean, we just it was always hard, it was never easy. Then it was no different. We were. I was sick. The whole pregnancy, you know, never felt good and my kids were very small. So, and my husband at the time was working on starting a practice, and then also at night he parked cars, he valet parked cars to make money. So we were kind of here by ourselves, living in this rental house that was out on 15 acres it was all very new, you know, and um and so yeah. So we had a tough pregnancy, um, but I was pregnant, um with alongside my cousin Samantha. She was pregnant with me, my sister was pregnant with me and my very best girlfriend, um, who lives in Western Canada, actually was also pregnant with me, as she and I were due a day apart, oh my gosh. So, as hard as it seemed, it was kind of fun. We were all pregnant together, you know, talking about all the things and yeah, yeah, um. So I had um.
Speaker 3:When we got to just about, I guess, 20 weeks, I had had a couple of midwife visits where they had come and like found well, I bled early in the pregnancy, which I do all my pregnancies and then so they'd come at about 13 weeks and found the heartbeat. So we knew we were still pregnant and then I was already feeling, then it moved and you know, so I knew that we had had a healthy pregnancy going and then, at about 20 weeks, I started to bleed and so it was, you know, looking back now, I think we're, I think looking back now when you hear the end of the story you'll understand why. But I think what we should have done was probably just go on into the hospital. But at the time we I had bled with all my pregnancies and both Kat and Presley and we had had you know, we've carried them both to term and had these healthy babies.
Speaker 3:And so instead we um had the midwife come and she could not find a heartbeat. So she was like there's no heartbeat, and so I just think that, um, you're gonna, you just are going to basically just miscarry, and I'm not sure that the that that there would have been like a, how she described it was, she thinks that we lost Bennett much earlier and then I was just going to, like, deliver just tissue, basically you know that, what my body had not absorbed. And so she kind of stuck around with us and we were like, okay, well, and I'm very mentally tough. I mean, I had child, you know, birth my own kids at home, so I'm not you know, I kind of so I'm just like, okay, well, this really just sucks, but we're gonna just, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna do it.
Speaker 3:And I had two babies and we called my mom. My mom came in town and and, uh, because we knew I was going to have to miscarry like through the night. And so she came in town and, um, and I was kind of mentally prepared to just, you know, okay, we'll just move on. And so I went into labor and, uh, and it lasted much longer than we thought, and when I realized I was going to have to push, I knew we were in big trouble, Like I, all of a sudden I was like, ah, I said I can remember saying to Sean um, I think, I think this is a baby, Like I'm having to like push, you know, and and yeah, and so, um, sure enough, he came feet first and I said to Sean there's feet. And when I realized there there were feet, I was like on there's feet.
Speaker 3:And when I realized there were feet, I was like, oh, my goodness, like this is not what I thought we were about to do you know, and so, um, she, he was on the phone with our midwife in Atlanta and she, um, she was talking through it with him and she's like you're going to have to be super careful, make sure she doesn't hemorrhage, you know, because now we realize we're by ourselves and we realize we're not just miscarrying. You know, this baby that's basically been absorbed, we're delivering a child. So, anyway, we delivered, I delivered him, I had to, I delivered him and when I delivered him, my placenta tore away. So it went from oh, this is super traumatic. We just delivered this baby in this house to. I was hemorrhaging everywhere, so it went from one emergency to the next emergency it was terrifying.
Speaker 3:We just weren't prepared. We had been, we weren't. The midwife had just missed. It wasn't her fault, but she just was misinformed and it was. It was very dangerous, honestly.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Because your heart rate drops and oxygen and all of those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not having girls separate away.
Speaker 3:Still there, okay, the girls Right, yeah, so the girls are like in the front room with my mom, and so then I say to Sean, you're going to have to go, wait, mom, tell her we have to go to the hospital, obviously. And he drives me to the hospital and and I say to him, I say where's the baby, you know, and he's like I have him, I have it in a towel. And he had just wrapped the baby, you know, and he's like I have him, I have it in a towel, and he just wrapped the baby up and and taken the baby with us to the hospital. And so the hospital was very like emergent whistles and you know doctors and a dnc and it was. It was complete and utter chaos it was so much it.
Speaker 3:Just I cannot. We were. I was in such bad shape by the time he got me there, you know. So it went from worrying about the fact that we had delivered this baby to I'm trying not to bleed to death because I had two at home, you know. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Now, how long did that go on? Like you said, it was an emergency, so we were there.
Speaker 3:I can remember, we probably got to the hospital I don't know, maybe. I feel like it was probably close to 11 pm and I remember leaving at about 4 am Like they did let us go home, oh gosh. So, which was a huge mistake because I ended up having to go back, but it was yeah, yeah, so, yeah and again. So so we have the ridiculous. I mean now the story is just mind blowing, but at the time we were just in shock, you know yeah, you were taking it as you could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like anything.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, it was a lot. So we. So then I, I can remember I remember being in the hospital, I remember saying um to the nurse. I said she said is there anything I can do for you? And I said, can you tell me if the baby is a boy or a girl, you know? And she said, oh, sweetie, it's a little boy. And I was like, okay, you know, and that's kind of where I was just kind of like, am I like cause I'm just sitting there, you know, waiting to go to get a DNC and? And so they did the DNC and we left and um and uh, we drove home and you know, and and had this, these two other babies. I was still nursing Presley at the time. She was only 10 months old. So my, my milk dried up immediately after the DNC. So then it became an issue of feeding this little person that's used to nursing all the time and it was a really rough first few days, you know I felt terrible.
Speaker 3:You can imagine how bad I felt.
Speaker 1:Oh, my heaven days. You know, I felt terrible, you can imagine how bad I felt.
Speaker 2:Oh, my heavens, you probably didn't have any energy. No, you didn't have any. Get up and go. Oh yeah, I was just exhausted, yes, so how do you I mean thinking back on those days. What were those first thoughts? Were you just focused on Presley and Kat? Were you just focused on Presley and Kat? Were you like in more like did you? Did it take a while to start mourning Bennett? Like, how did that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that the first the well. For a couple of days I was really just kind of on another planet. They'd given me like a lure tab at the hospital, which I've now we know I'm allergic to, and I just could barely walk and I was kind of out.
Speaker 2:You know, I wasn't really you weren't there, no, and my mom was there and my mom, my sweet mom, went and like cleaned all the blood out of the car and she did all the things that mom would, because you can't take a car in with blood in, they will not clean it.
Speaker 3:If it's more than a quarter worth of blood you have to have a police report. So no one would help me clean my car. Oh my God. It was horrible it was just like a nightmare. So um, so yeah so I think I think the real. The first moment that I realized that oh man, that really happened was my um sister called, and I was so disappointed. So Bennett is my um grandmother's maiden name and my dad's middle name. So Bennett had always been my, your boy name.
Speaker 1:My boy name.
Speaker 3:And so I remember calling my sister and saying, um, well, this is my boy, right, so do I. And then I said to her do I have to use that name? Like I was so just torn between do I use it or do I not use it, because this is we were called. If it was a boy, that's who it was going to be. And he was William Bennett, william is Brett's, or William is Sean's brother, brett this is his first name, so it was after Sean's brother, and William is Sean's brother, brett it's his first name, so it was after Sean's brother. And then in my family and my grandmother, and oh, I just remember my sister saying, well, that's your boy, oh, that's what you were going to. And I just remember being so mad about it, just like oh, but she was right, but I was just like oh, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how are we at this stage? Yes, do I?
Speaker 3:really have to bury my Bennett. You know, yes, you know, oh, my gosh. Yeah, I knew he needed a name. Yeah, and I was just like then I'm trying to think of like another name. I mean it was brutal and then I felt so guilty. I was just so bad.
Speaker 1:The whole thing was just yeah, all the emotions just flying around, yes, just so bad.
Speaker 3:So I went through about a month, I think, where we really just were on another planet, like it was my poor. I can just remember Sean just going to work and just it was terrible, just kind of pushing through each day we had. Our babies were so little, I mean, presley was 10 months old and Kat was, you know two and it was just like you know, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't just stay in bed, not even for you know an hour.
Speaker 3:They need you. You can't. No, you got to get up and you got to feed them and I realized real quick you know, my mom even said it to me I realized real quick and I think I said this to Amy when she asked me to do the podcast that there's just not a lot of. There's a lot of talk, I feel like, about people like early miscarriages, people having trouble getting pregnant and people miscarrying babies. Yes, but man, when you lose a baby, like a baby that was moving, when you get far enough along that you birth a baby that has died just not a lot.
Speaker 3:You don't know a lot of people that did that. You know, you don't. There's not a lot of community for that. And I realized real quick. I was like how come nobody like it was like I felt like no one understood, like no one got it. You know and and and, for me, even Sean, who's a fantastic dad, but even Sean was like he had never even seen Bennett alive, so I was the only one who ever knew him alive. And it was so lonely, it was just the most lonely feeling when you carry something in you like that.
Speaker 2:There is a connection that a father will never have. And it's not against them, right, it's just there, is like you said, he can't get it.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, there's just no way to explain it. And so Sean had, we had a couple of. I had no community here, really, we had not lived here long enough, and my sister didn't come because she had a baby. So then my sister, my cousin, samantha, had just delivered February 17th, so Bennett was born on March 4th. So on February 17th Samantha had delivered a little girl. And then my sister delivered a little girl on April 26th. She was too far along, she was too far along and on bed rest. And then my best friend delivered a little boy on Bennett's due date.
Speaker 3:So then we just go through all these babies and all of this.
Speaker 1:What should have been. You know all those feelings yeah.
Speaker 3:And then they all feel bad, right.
Speaker 2:They don't want to celebrate.
Speaker 3:They don't want to talk about it. They're not telling me how they're feeling. Everybody feels. Anybody that gets pregnant around me doesn't want to tell you they're pregnant. And then you feel like a real jerk because yeah, we want to celebrate these milestones with you.
Speaker 2:However, you know there's a real sadness to it.
Speaker 3:There is yeah.
Speaker 1:But you still want to be a part of it because you love it. Then you feel left out. Right, you feel left out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, exactly, exactly. So it was a hard. It was just a hard time and I and I. So I started a blog. I like to write, and I'd never written. And my husband just said you know, maybe you should write stuff down. So in May we lost Bennett.
Speaker 3:In March, and in May I started writing and and I'm just going to read you this little piece of it, cause this kind of like sums up you know, so, um, it says uh, I live in a city where we know no one, 250 miles from my family and friends, oh, sorry, um, from from my sister and my mom. From my sister and my mom. It says I want my baby boy, I want to be pregnant, I want to have three seats in my car, I want to go and get him from where we buried him, bring him home, nurse him, snuggle him, love him. And I know that none of that's going to happen. And it makes me want to scream and cry and break things, and instead I've decided to write. Am I going crazy? Maybe Do I care? Nope, when you lose a child, you lose your mind, and when you have others to raise you better go and find it. So you know that kind of sums up where I was mentally.
Speaker 1:Will you read those last two lines together, melanie? Those were so powerful.
Speaker 3:It says when you lose a child, you lose your mind, and when you have others to raise, you better go and find it. And that that is there's, just like. No, I can't say anything more true than that. You know like that's, and you ladies understand that it's like you better get it together. You know you better get it together because these small people are watching you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got to find a strength you did not know was possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think that it was exhausting. You know you're trying to just like get through the day and I can remember like I mean I know you guys know it, but there's like it feels like somebody sitting on your chest for years, for years, it's like you couldn't get a full breath. Yeah, yeah, you feel like you have to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I always said I mean for a few years after Alec passed, it was seriously. People would say oh, how are you? I'm like I exist, Like I'm existing, my body is existing in this world. But I'm existing, my body is existing in this world. But, like I said, I was looking for my mind, like you just said.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Like you're trying to be the mom for these other people, these other kids and mine were so small and I'm like I can't just stop here, Like I can't you know, they were so small though. They probably don't remember any of that, do they't think that there's no way presley does? I will tell you that that cat is the oldest, and and one she's the oldest, so yes, she's very much that way, very intuitive.
Speaker 3:And cat, um, for years after that, would be worried when she was alone in the house and I think that some of that came from she got. She knew something bad was happening and then we would. And then we then, when she was alone in the house and I think that some of that came from she knew something bad was happening and then when she got up that next day we were gone and so she was trying. I just think that she knew that something had happened. There's no way to not know. And then when you're the oldest child too, I just think that the oldest children are trying to look after mom and honestly, sean says all the the oldest children are like they're trying to look after mom and honestly, sean says all the time he's like thank goodness for Kat, because I know I was probably half the time bless her heart on another planet and she's like she's been Presley a lot.
Speaker 2:You and Presley all the time.
Speaker 3:She's like she hasn't eaten in a while, Just like, oh God, I mean we all do that.
Speaker 1:I mean I told it on when I talked about my podcast my eight year old was making her own macaroni and cheese. Um, you know, because I couldn't get up to do it. I mean it's, it's part of those first.
Speaker 3:You know days, years, and it's so hard, it is, it's exhausting and I think, like I, said I, it is so hard, it is, it's exhausting and I think, like I said, I do think that I had a lot of people. I've had a lot of people over the years reach out to me and that had no people that have lost faith or that maybe are like, hey, you know, my friend, they just found out the baby has no heartbeat and she's going to have to deliver this baby. Would you be willing to talk to her on the phone now?
Speaker 2:the baby has no heartbeat and she's going to have to deliver this baby.
Speaker 3:Would you be willing to talk to her on the phone? And I have had, more than you would believe, opportunities to kind of stand in a gap for a mom and say like, hey, here's what I wish I would have done, here's how this is going to feel, here's what they're going to tell you this is going to be like, but here's what it's really going to be like, and I think that's huge. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for that opportunity. I'm grateful for what it did. I think to my faith, where I realized really quickly I'm a very, very involved mom. I homeschool the girls and I'm with them all the time. Very involved mom, uh, homeschool the girls and I'm I'm with them all the time and I think it, you know, in a lot of ways it was a great opportunity for God to go.
Speaker 3:You don't decide you know you don't get to decide Like I, I decide. And and that really um came in handy Um two years later when we got pregnant with Josie, because, um, josie is my, is my third, and Josie was a uh 24 week, what they call a micro preemie. She she was a result of another abrupted placenta, so, which is pretty common, I think um that if you abrupt once, you often can abrupt again, also life-threatening delivery, and she was in the NICU for 106 days and what you learned from Bennett was where did you go and have that baby?
Speaker 3:We went to an emergency room that was like a maternal emergency room, where they always have a NICU team and an OBGYN team 24 hours a day on site. So when we started bleeding with Josie, we went straight there. And so they were, they were able to give her a chance. She was 24 weeks. They were like we can't guarantee how she'll do, but we can, you know, and so it was a really really touch and go hard, hard, 106 days.
Speaker 3:But I will tell you that that, uh, it was, um, we were prepared for it. I mean, ironically, we were, you know, we were, we were like, okay, well, we've got this other baby now we've got this other baby and they've, they've kept her alive. She was was 24 weeks and Bennett was 20. So we were just four weeks past, which is a lot, and we were like she was the youngest gestationally at Centennial. That even went home when we were there. So she's an absolute miracle. But I think, even more than that, just what Bennett had done with our faith and our trust and what, where we were willing to go with Josie in that and just to kind of go. You know, I remember the doctor saying to Sean he was arguing with him about something. We argued with him the whole time that we were there and he was arguing with him about something and one of the doctors said you know, these babies only have a 50,50 chance of even being remotely normal.
Speaker 3:He says to her oh, gosh and Sean said we've already buried one and we just want to take this one home.
Speaker 1:So how about you just do your job yeah?
Speaker 3:Like we already didn't get to take one home Right and we'll take her. However, you can give her to us, that's right.
Speaker 1:We'll love her, no matter how she is. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned your family.
Speaker 1:What a reality check, you know, for that doctor too. Yeah, didn't he?
Speaker 3:put his head in his sleeve. Yeah, I mean, I just think it was. I just think that people, you know, they don't realize, like hey, look'd just like to take her home at some point.
Speaker 2:There are so many people, though, that that that don't have the I shouldn't say the attitude, but the blessing that y'all have to be able to see her and hold her and love her in those moments that yeah, we just want to take her. We don't, you know, there's some parents that are what was her size.
Speaker 1:Like I know little teeny preemies are like bitty.
Speaker 3:So she was one pound four ounces and she, um, and she was. She didn't breathe on her own for eight weeks and she had to have open heart surgery. While we were there and she, they were like she's probably going to be low tone deaf and she's probably going to go home on it. I mean, all they take, they prepare you because they just don't honestly do very well. Um, but they were wrong. I mean, she did great, but um, so while Josie was in so I'm going to read this to you guys too, cause this was something else I wrote while Joe was in the hospital and I had went and pulled this up for this podcast and um, it says, uh, there are no. So this is one night where they had called us. So three times while Josie was in the hospital, they called us and told us that she was probably not going to make it through.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:So three different times where they were like look, this is, this is probably it. And in this particular night, um, both the girls were really sick, really sick at home, and so I sent Sean to the hospital without me because I was like I mean, I can't, I can't they're burning up with fever.
Speaker 3:You know I can't leave them here, and and my brother-in-law, when Josie was in the hospital, had come to stay with us and help us with the girls, which was a huge blessing. But I'm their mom and so I wrote this the night that I sent Sean, and it says so tonight as my husband left. He prayed for our sweet girl and headed to see her and I checked on the two running fevers asleep in their room, and then I hit my knees. I was all tapped out. There was nothing to say because he already knows what I want and what I need, so instead I just cried with my head on the carpet until I felt enough relief in the pit of my stomach to get up again.
Speaker 3:There are no words for what is happening in my home. There are no words for the loss of our sweet boy. There are no words for parents who bury children. There is only Jesus.
Speaker 3:The only hope that any of us have, who are fighting or who have lost their fight is in him, a beautiful, matchless Savior who lives in a kingdom where there is no death or pain or fear or sickness, a kingdom that is filled with the children that we miss, a kingdom that I will one day call my home and I will hold my precious little boy who, I am certain, has his daddy's dimples.
Speaker 3:So tonight, as I sit and write and wait for the news about my sweet, tiny, beautiful miracle, I will cry out to him and beg him for peace in my heart and for breath in her lungs. And I know that without a doubt he hears me and he may not answer just the way I would like him to or as quickly as I would like, but he is listening because he loves me and he loves her and he made Josie hope and he and she is here, and only by his hand, and for that I will praise him. And even though I'm a weak mess, I will find strength in him when I know it, when I need it, knowing that I can do all things through him who give me strength. So, oh, my oh. So you know it was uh and and you know we got to keep josie josie's 12 and she's incredible.
Speaker 1:She's 12 right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and she's a walking spitfire of a miracle. She is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And everything they said about her, and not one issue that the doctors had said.
Speaker 3:They were completely wrong about all of it, you know. But I just remember I can remember that night so vividly and I just like got on the floor and I was like I said I've told my people this so many times I'm like I really believe in my heart that I laid on that floor and I said you can have her if you want her, you know Okay. I was like okay, you know what, I'm still gonna. I'm still gonna bring the other two up to trust you and to love you and to all the things that you're counting on me to do. And if you have to take her too, then just have her. And I promise you there's like a piece of me that's just like just me being willing to say that. It's almost like Jesus was like all right, keep her.
Speaker 2:You know, just like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you understand who's in control. Yeah, yeah yeah, okay, you know what? I think I'm just going to let you have her. You know so, and he did and we do, and so we have these three beautiful, talented girls and they're Amy knows they're a very successful country music band and the name of their band is the Bennett Hall Band.
Speaker 1:They named it after their brother and everything you told me that, amy, I forgot.
Speaker 3:Yes, so we have, we have. I'm not kidding you. Bennett's name is all over everything in our house. It's on posters and flyers and t-shirts and, and you know, stickers and hats, and I mean the boy's name is on everything Like everybody.
Speaker 3:He's with y'all always Every every interview the girls do, every, you know, he's brought up. Every every gig that we play, there's a giant banner with his name on it. And I just think back to when I called my sister and I was like, do I have to name him Bennett, you know? And she was like. She was like, yes, I think you have to name him, that you know. And now I'm like, well, of course I did.
Speaker 2:Of course I had to name him, that you know.
Speaker 3:I know it's just really amazing what God did with that. Obviously would I have rather just had been here, of course. Of course we all would have. I think that part of it being the only boy was just heartbreaking for me, just for Sean, and not that Sean's a great girl, dad, but there's a piece of you that just sucked. But all the time, all the time we're talking, we're saying his name, all the time, and I'm like what a better way to honor him and to let him have a legacy.
Speaker 1:And to carry him into your future all of your futures.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes I mean, even this Christmas, presley was like Mom, can I get a name? Can I get one of those name necklaces with Bennett's name on it? And you know she's 15 and a half and she walks around with her brother's name on her necklace.
Speaker 1:You know she never even met. Yeah, oh, I love it. Where can we listen to the girls'?
Speaker 3:music. You can listen to it on all places Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube and it's the Bennett Hall Band.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:We'll link that They've been on since they were knee-high, to a grasshopper.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, They've always been saying it. It's really fun. We're having a big adventure with it. It's been great.
Speaker 2:But I just think that's the cool.
Speaker 3:To me, that's just the coolest thing, the way that that turned out. And I, you know, like I said, I've been able to, you know, just talk to a lot of younger girls that have kind of been. I had somebody reach out to me that just happened to read the blog and then they, somebody had turned them on to it and she just reached out, just I mean, in the last six months, and she was like I was just wondering how do you, how, how were you pregnant again and how did you, how'd you handle your guilt about being excited about your next baby, basically? And I was able to help talk to her about it, you know, and what was your advice?
Speaker 1:That's what I was going to ask you.
Speaker 3:Well, I just I told her, you know, I was like I just think that God you just have to trust that God gives us the ones that he wants us to keep here on earth and and he, there's joy in birth. You know, there's joy in child raising and it's hard and messy, but there's so many great things about it and I don't think that God gifts you with a baby. There's so many moms that never get one. So it's like I think you just have to really be grateful for the ones you have and then, at the same time, I think you're honoring the ones you lost by being more grateful for the ones you've got to keep. And I've tried to do that with my girls, you know I've tried to, and Sean has too. We try, have tried to really, um, it changed us as parents.
Speaker 2:It changed who we were and you guys get that.
Speaker 3:It changes you. You're like the things that you even that you hear other parents that just don't really understand, or women that are pregnant, or women that have a newborn or whatever, and you're just thinking, oh please don't complain about that. You have no idea how much there's some moms that would really like to have a 15 year old. That's driving them crazy. Or a 23 year old that you're wondering if it's getting home. You know like there's so many of us that would like to be complaining about that that don't get to, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:You know, yes, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. And thinking back just that, I want to like capture this advice piece. So there's one side of it. But in those, you know, you said you were so angry and you, you know, you move in and you're you, you're pregnant with, pregnant with Josie. Like where do you? I guess what I'm trying to say is, like what did you do to sort of process that grief and anger Writing obviously?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did that and then I just I think that I didn't sleep well for years. I mean, I felt like I never, I mean for the whole, until I was pregnant with Josie again. Honestly, it was like it was just so hard for me to relax. You know, I had a hard time and I think I just did a lot of talking to God, you know, just like a lot of doing that, and then I was super. I tried to be really active with my other two and stay busy and and be outside a lot, you know, stuck inside and um, and just to do some things that were good for my mental health. So I wasn't so discouraged because I think there um well, I know it's discouraging there's, there's a piece of you and, um, whether you deliver a baby that's died or whether you have a child that that you know that's already been here and dies, that you feel like you failed. You know you kind of feel like I blew it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did it? Where along my life did I mess up somewhere?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think there's a lot of guilt that comes with that and I think that and then maybe, maybe, maybe we did, you know, maybe in some way we did fail. But you know what we're not, we have, we're not meant to be perfect, you know, and I don't, I don't know one mom you know that, I know that's that's not trying her best. You know, I feel like we're all trying our best with what we have to work with and we're all, and it is not easy for any of us, and I tell moms that all the time I'm like look, this is not easy like this. You just have to do the very best that you can, and and trust that God gave you you that baby. Like gave Amy Alec for a reason, right, like for, and gave me Bennett for a reason, and that loss was also for a reason, you know, and and and and how did you and your husband deal with the different grief?
Speaker 1:you know like just carrying your own grief, and then you have these babies and then this new very stressful, you know, baby and delivery with Josie. I mean, how'd you work through?
Speaker 3:that it was so hard. I will say we laugh about it. I can remember one night with Joseph in the hospital and oh gosh, sean has his own practice, so he's very busy chiropractor and it was so incredibly stressful and if you don't, it didn't work. We didn't make money he had. I cannot imagine the pressure he had on him. Plus, he goes to work every day and people know, so they're asking them questions all the time, you know, so we were not a whole lot of fun to be around if I'm being honest.
Speaker 3:And so I can remember when we laugh about it. I can remember when I yeah, I can remember saying to him one night I do not like you very much, and he was like that's all right, cause I don't like you either. You know, like we were just like, oh, I'm just so, but you know what he, sean has. He was very supportive in.
Speaker 3:However, I decided I was going to feel that day and I really appreciated that because I think that, just as a person and as a mom, I think a lot of times moms are just supposed to suck it up and keep moving forward, and there's like an expectation of that, and though I did do that, he but like if he came home and I just started to cry, he's like oh, a bad day, huh, you know, like he just was supportive of and he always has been, and it'll still get to me, like I'll still every now and then I and he's like, oh, are you thinking about our boy?
Speaker 3:And I'm like I am, I'm just so you know, I'm just yes, yeah, it is, it's sad and it's. The girls get older and they're so fun and I'm just thinking, oh my gosh, can you imagine if we had a 15 year old boy in this mix of crazy?
Speaker 3:And you know I kind of feel like you know, but again, I just think that we got the ones that we were meant to have and, honestly, if we had not, if we had had Bennett, I'm not sure we would have tried to have another baby and I cannot imagine my life without Josie. I cannot imagine I just cannot.
Speaker 3:She is unbelievable. She is one of the coolest people in the whole world and what she did to our faith and what she did to when she was in the hospital we had thousands. We had letters from all over the world come in for Jo. We had started this Facebook page and the people testimony people would send us about what she did for their faith and how she you know it just changed her. Her surviving and doing well changed so many people's lives.
Speaker 2:And I just can't. I can't imagine it. Melanie's hashtag for her is do you believe in miracles? She is a living, walking, oh my God, and so I just can't.
Speaker 1:Do you all still have like? Do you have your blog and your Facebook page?
Speaker 3:We do.
Speaker 1:You do. Oh wow, we'll get all of that for the listeners.
Speaker 3:We have her Facebook page and then I have my blog still and I send people. As a matter of fact, I just did this to another mom, but I send people. I have a mom that I'm friends with. She's fantastic and she just can't get pregnant. She just cannot. She just keeps trying, keeps trying, keeps trying. And I sent her to my blog and I was just like you should just go. Sometimes it's just good to read that somebody else had something that sucked you know, even if it's not the same.
Speaker 3:You know, Like somebody else, it was hard for somebody else, Because I think, honestly, the culture really, really glamorizes childbearing and nursing and childbirth and makes it act like it's just so pretty and so easy and so you should just be able to pop these babies out and you know, and get the monogram little thing on, yeah right, and they just they latch right on and you nurse them wherever you want to, and I'm like that is.
Speaker 1:With a bow in their head Exactly.
Speaker 3:And I think that it's so misleading for, and then then these young you know, this next younger generation, younger than me, anyway they get pregnant and and then they, and then they feel like they're not doing good. They're not good at it, I thought I was going to be good at it. They'll say to me and I'm like, oh honey, like we all thought we were going to be good, all their Facebook friends, all their Insta friends.
Speaker 2:they're all it looks like they're good at it. They are, and that split second. They're doing a good job, and that's what's so hard, though, and I know that having. Like you said, though, there's a whole group of people out there that do have these babies that never breathe outside of the womb, but nobody talks about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my mom said she cried. She said I don't know how to help you. She's like this is something she had lost, she'd had miscarriages and whatever she goes. I just I don't know. I have no idea how to relate to you. I don't know how to help you. And we had a friend her name was Marsha Leach that came along. Sean had met her and her husband. They're great people and and and they had. She had lost twins about the same, about the same gestationally as I had lost Bennett, and she brought me a book and she would bring me food and and and she would. It was just like, oh, there's somebody else that understands how bad this really sucks. You know, I was just so grateful for it. It was just one person, but I was so grateful for it.
Speaker 2:I think that's why we all find the connection, though, is that you latch on to people that have that connection, because there's nobody out there and you're, like, so grateful for. It's kind of like when you're in the desert and you find water, you know, I would just soak it up as much as I can, because Yep, I just don't think it's a community, it's just not a.
Speaker 3:My mom said that when her mom had lost a baby I think she may be twins, actually late like that and she said they just didn't talk, Nobody talked about it. He just kind of moved on to the next pregnancy kind of thing. And so she's like I just don't know how to, how to help you. And then my sister and Samantha, and then Meg, you know, and I can't imagine how bad they felt. You know they love me so much.
Speaker 3:And then, and then they're like oh, you know here's my new baby, and it's just like it was crappy. I felt almost as bad for them as I did, because I would have felt bad too it was just brutal.
Speaker 1:You do all of it and nobody can fix it. One of the last questions just what advice? What did your mom and your sisters and these good people in your life like? What did they do that really did help?
Speaker 3:I think that what I tell people all the time and I don't know that anyone maybe my mom probably did best at this, that did as good at this as I would have liked but I tell people we can't pretend like these babies were not born. Yes, you have to stop acting like it didn't happen. Yeah, you know, you got to go back and say, hey, uh, I know it's been his birthday or, like you know, you had to especially early. Like these moms I'm like, pay attention. So I have these different moms where I know the anniversary when their baby was born that I've talked to and I reach out to them on the anniversary. And I'm thinking of Charlie today. I just wanted you to know. Or I'm thinking of Sully today. I just wanted you to know, you know, because it's like we can't.
Speaker 3:I think that the best thing you can do as a friend is to not not say or not go well, just be grateful for the babies you already have. Yeah, oh, like, who came up with that? You know, it's just like. Or you know, or, hey, at least you got to have a couple of babies. I mean, some people can't have any. It's like, no, no, no, this was a person.
Speaker 3:You know, this was a person, and so I think that that would probably be my best advice for somebody who's you know, for somebody who's you know, come back and try and remember it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's that, amy?
Speaker 2:Sorry For one of our moms. I said one of the favorite comebacks for one of our moms. She's like they're like, oh, at least you have other children.
Speaker 3:They're like, oh, really Well which one would you like to get rid of?
Speaker 1:You know like can y'all not hear me at all. Right, I can hear you. Yes, you were freezing just for a minute there. That's why we're catching up, but we got you Okay, oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much, melanie. We appreciate, and well, I want to link all of your blog and Facebook page.
Speaker 1:Yes, and the kids the name of the band, so that you know listeners can find all of that amazing things. I'm just, I'm still so struck by that line about you know, losing your mind and you just have to go find it and there just is so much intention in what you wrote there and, um, oh, it just like cuts me so deeply because I know how hard that was for you not only to type it but to just really live that and I just thank you for sharing your journey and your faith and um, it's just, it's beautiful and sad and um, I'll remember Bennett's story for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate both of you having me in and let me be part of this um awesome podcast. That, I think, is a great support system for moms that need it.
Speaker 2:The world needs to know Bennett, and it is truly one of great grace, thank you, thanks, libby.
Speaker 3:I will send you the links of those things. Great, we appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, it was so nice to meet you.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Nice to meet you too.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to listen to the Bennett.
Speaker 3:Band. Thank you so much. Y'all have a great night.
Speaker 1:All right, bye.
Speaker 2:All right, bye people, bye. Talk to y'all next time.