Warning: This story includes details and images depicting stillbirth and baby loss.<\/p>\n
\n When Lauren Ensor and Matt Earle left for Nelson Hospital on the morning of February 12, 2024, they expected later that day to meet their daughter. They knew they were having a girl; they had a name,
\n Mackenzie, picked out and a home full of baby clothes, nursery furniture and soft toys waiting for her.\n <\/p>\n
Earle, a resource management consultant turned content creator and marketing specialist, was recording the trip to the hospital; you can hear in his voice the mixture of nerves, excitement and anticipation that most first-time parents experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were really happy. We were laughing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Except Earle and Ensor didn\u2019t get the happy ending most making a trip to the delivery suite do. \u201cMackenzie was beautiful and perfect, she just wasn\u2019t breathing,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
That day, Earle learnt a term he\u2019d never heard before \u2013 stillbirth. He and Ensor now know that in New Zealand, stillbirth \u2013 foetal death at or after 20 weeks of gestation \u2013 occurs at a rate of around eight per 1000 births, equating to approximately 450-500 stillborn babies each year. It\u2019s rarer after 28 weeks, occurring in about one in 400-500 births. Ensor was full term \u2013 40 weeks \u2013 when Mackenzie was stillborn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never experienced something that was so \u2026 unexpected because, I guess, I was quite na\u00efve,\u201d says Earle. \u201cThroughout the whole journey I assumed everything was fine. I\u2019ve had relatives pass away but they\u2019ve been older and there\u2019s been time to prepare for it. The speed at which we were thrown into this situation was quite different. We were in a club, a very specific club that nobody wants to be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, he found, nobody really knows what to say or how to react, even the people who have found themselves unwitting members. The question of what to say and what might be helpful played on Earle\u2019s mind as he sought to process his own grief. In the end, he came up with a solution befitting his years as a content creator who\u2019s been recording everything from attempts to rollerblade the length of New Zealand in 2014 to surviving a motorcycle crash in Bali.<\/p>\n
Processing the loss and grief<\/p>\n
Why not use the real-time recordings he had \u2013 like that trip to the hospital on the day of Mackenzie\u2019s birth \u2013 with reflections and knowledge gleaned after her death? He figured a podcast might also help others experiencing similar loss and grief.<\/p>\n
So, Earle, with best friend and business partner Josh Hall, made Confronted. It\u2019s an eight-part podcast shot through with laddish comedy and candid confessions; there\u2019s some gross-out humour and a whole lot of heart. Earle, in his conversations with Hall, looks back on how he and Ensor met, what shaped the person he was before becoming a father, how grief doesn\u2019t always look the way you and others expect it to, a trip to Europe in order to move forward and leave everything behind, and the vexed question of trying for a second child.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want it to be just me talking because it\u2019s a dark story, but I wanted it to offer hope, so having my longest and dearest friend to talk with and sometimes laugh with felt right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earle talks with Hall, who asks questions along the way, about his spiral into anxiety and trying to find a suitable therapist \u2013 a therapy session he tried left him feeling worse \u2013 and a drink-driving charge that stopped him in his tracks. <\/p>\n
Earle has a tattoo of Mackenzie’s foot print. The family visit Mackenzie’s resting place often, referring to it as Mackenzie Town. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Earle is particularly keen to reach other men confronted with baby loss. Initially, he says, there was good support around him and Ensor but it tapered off and what resources there were tended to be targeted at grieving mothers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think men are expected to be stoic, so we kind of get stuck and that\u2019s massive in New Zealand to different degrees. I think it\u2019s getting better because more people are talking about difficult subjects and emotions, but not enough in my view.\u201d<\/p>\n
The grief men carry after baby loss<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t surprise psychologist David Stebbing, who\u2019s been practising for nearly two decades. He says in that time few men have come to see him to talk specifically about baby loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most common thing in respect to this that I\u2019ve seen is couples coming, but there\u2019s an explicit kind of undertone or stated truth that they\u2019re there more for her than him,\u201d says Stebbing. \u201cThat might be perceived as a more legitimate way for men \u2013 based on societal expectations \u2013 to be seen as providing care but in a way, actually receiving almost clandestine care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, he says, the conversation will steer toward the male partner talking about how he feels. \u201cUnsurprisingly, they\u2019re really similar to his female partner. It\u2019s grief and loss. There\u2019s an inherent expectation that our children will outlive us and when they clearly don\u2019t, that\u2019s not only appallingly sad but appallingly shocking and life recalibrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Earle, Stebbing acknowledges more men are getting better at talking about feelings, emotions and the tough stuff of life but there remain stubborn societal rules that allow men few emotions. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re allowed to be happy, and they\u2019re allowed to be angry and horny and briefly sad, but more than that and [the perception is] you\u2019re kind of not doing your job,\u201d says Stebbing. \u201cI also think that a lot of guys are used to not talking to friends or family about how they feel. And what they have learned to do is compartmentalise and sort of suppress or repress feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earle says he\u2019s so far received more responses and comments from women, but some men have come to him for advice. \u201cI was asked for advice from someone who had a work colleague who was going through something similar. He wanted to know if he should buy them flowers and I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know but maybe supermarket vouchers would be more useful\u2019. It\u2019s more practical questions coming from men.\u201d<\/p>\n
While therapy wasn\u2019t right for Earle, and he and Ensor found joining a support group didn\u2019t work for them, making Confronted turned out to be his therapy. <\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I\u2019m always looking for the lesson. So the more time passed, the more I could reflect on what happened. I questioned myself about why I assumed everything was fine with Mackenzie, what\u2019s really important to me in life, what do I value?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was a process, a really gradual process of trying to find the lessons from the situation, trying to find the things to be glad to get up for in the morning. One of the biggest surprises was our family because something like this makes you drop all your barriers. We\u2019re not a family that says, \u2018I love you\u2019, at the end of a telephone conversation, but there was much more of that and much more openness during that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confronted ends on a happy and hopeful note. Spoiler alert: You just might cry tears of joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like it to be for people who are going through a similar experience, but if you\u2019ve only just gone through this it might be pretty intense, so listen to it when you\u2019re ready, when you\u2019re seeking answers. If it can help anyone, then I\u2019m super grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is observed annually on October 15.<\/p>\n