Hey, welcome. Thank you for being here. I am so happy to be back. I’ve just got my youngest rainbow baby into kindergarten and I’ve hit the phase where all my kids are in school all day, and I’m not sure it’s been a big transition. It’s been a lot of emotions. There’s been a lot of stress. Um, But I’m really, really excited and one of the things I’m super excited about is I have more time to bring in some new clients.

So if you’ve been thinking about coaching, if you’ve been wanting some help figuring out how to do this life after loss or this pregnancy after loss thing. I’ve got some extra spots open and one of them is for you. This is the time. Now is the time I feel like back to school, whether you have kids in school or not, or whether you have living kids.

It’s just kind of one of those things. It’s almost like a new year, like the summer is all over the place and our schedules are all over the place and in fall we just wanna settle down and get cozy and. Really work on ourselves. And we’ve got pregnancy and infant loss awareness month coming up. We’ve got the holidays coming up.

We’ve got a lot of things coming up that can be really, really emotional and really draining, and I think , it’s such a good time to take care of you and to have the support you need. I always say that listening to this podcast is amazing. You get so much help here. But it’s like reading a book about snowboarding.

You can read a book, you can learn lots of things. You can learn what everything’s called and all the moves and how to, how to do it. But if you really get out there on the mountain with a teacher, you’re gonna learn how to snowboard. So that’s what I wanna be for you, is a guide. And someone who can see what you’re struggling with,

and I can help you and you’re gonna learn so much faster and you’re gonna feel better so much faster. So if you wanna talk to me, go in the show notes, there is a link, or go to smooth stones coaching.com, click on the big get support button, it’s right up at the top corner and it will tell you all about my programs, how much they are, how it works, and you just come talk to me and we’ll get you all set up and taken care of now.

Another reason why we’ve had a lot of emotions and a lot of transition going on is we recently just moved and we, it’s a long story, but let’s just say we sold our house. We’ve moved in with my in-laws. We’re so grateful. They offered to let us stay with them for a little bit while we’re in between choices of where we wanna be, and just kind of figuring out what’s going on with this.

Wild real estate market that we have right now. So we have moved a few times. We lived in a really small town when we lost Lauren and. We were pregnant there. I, I had the whole pregnancy. Everyone knew, and when we lost that baby, everyone mourned with us. Everyone knew our story. And then when I had a rainbow baby a year later, oh my goodness, everyone celebrated with us.

They were so invested, and it was like this cozy little cocoon of love and support, and I am so grateful. I always say that. If you’re gonna have something bad happen to you, that town was just like the place to do it. It was, it was so supportive. When we moved, I had a lot of things come up and, then we moved to a new town.

Six weeks after we moved, we lost River. And so I didn’t know anybody and I was pregnant during the move and I was scared during the move and, and we had to find a new doctor and there was like all these things coming up. And then to have this loss happen when we really hadn’t settled in was really, really hard.

People didn’t know our story. People didn’t know our backstory. Nobody knew we were pregnant. I hadn’t even told like family friends, really anyone. So the first that they heard about it, the first we had told, uh, was basically telling about our loss and people finding out that way, and it was like a really different experience.

Now, thankfully, I’m part of a church and a neighborhood where we did have support even from strangers and people that we didn’t know, which was such a blessing.

But now we’ve left that place. So I have moved twice. , and I just thought, I really need to talk about this because for most of us, we are not going to like, stay in the exact same home for our entire lives . We usually end up.

Moving for whatever reason to other places at some point. So if you have moved, this is for you. If you are gonna move in a little while and you kind of know it’s coming, this episode is for you. And if you’re kind of settled, honestly, this is still for you because it’s just likely that. At some point you will move, whether it’s 20 years from now or five years or like us, like we weren’t really planning on moving and then all of a sudden things changed and my husband got different opportunities at work and, and so we did.

So here we go.

Here’s a few moving tips I want to give you. Just overall. Now moving is like, if you look at studies and things, moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. You’ve got the packing, you’ve got the unknowns, you’ve got like the timing and the stress and selling your house and buying a house or renting or um, moving in with family.

All of these things. It can be really stressful. So some just basic tips are you gotta learn how to allow uncomfortable emotions for us in this move, it’s been a lot of waiting and, and being okay with not knowing. And our brain hates not knowing. It wants to know, like it wants to know where we’re gonna be and, and.

And what town and what home and, and how are the kids gonna do in school? And who are our friends gonna be and who are we gonna know and what’s the job gonna be Like? All of these questions, you gotta just learn how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and just let it be. Let it be there. Carry it with you.

Don’t make it a problem. Don’t focus on it. Just let it be. Feel those feelings. Let them come, let them go. It’s, it’s just part of the process. My next tip is to trust the process. Now I have friends I could, I mean, so many stories where they wanted to get a house and it fell through and they wanted another house and it fell through, and they just like, all these things just keep falling through, falling through, falling through, falling.

And really in the end, you are going to be where you’re supposed to be. Everything’s gonna work out. Your stuff’s gonna get there at some point, even if there’s delays and drama and, and all kinds of stuff, like it’s all going to work out. You just have to trust the process. So all the obstacles when you look at your house, I think there was a day as we were moving, we, we looked at the house.

I thought I was. Doing really, really good at getting ready ahead of time, getting things packed, getting things organized. I had a system and then there’s kind of a point where you’re like, oh my goodness, we’re never gonna get this done. Like, there’s no way we’re gonna get all of these items out of our house and into a truck.

It just, it was completely overwhelming, but you gotta just again, believe. We’re gonna make this happen no matter what. Whether we have to call in help, whether we have to, you know, , just throw away a bunch of stuff or, or give it away or whatever. Just understand you are going to do this.

You’re gonna make it work. Just trust the process. And then be where you are. It’s really easy to get caught up in. Like if you loved where you lived, it’s easy to be really attached to that and just, just so sad and there’s nothing wrong with being sad, like let yourself be sad.

But sometimes we’re like in the past, like, oh, in my last house this, or in my last town this, or, you know, these friends and this, and it, it just isn’t really useful or helpful if you’ve moved. Learn to be where you are now. For us, we’re here temporarily. I’ve put my kids in school temporarily. We don’t know how long it’s gonna be and so I keep telling them, be here.

, join the clubs, make the friends, like dive into life here. Like make your room cute and, and do all the things because this is where we are now. And living in this, oh, I’ll make friends six months from now whenever we figure out where we’re going. Right. That’s just, first of all, it’s, it’s not very fun.

And second of all, It’s such a good practice to be in, to be where you are and to really dive in. And I think I learned this a lot as we, my husband was in the military, we spent some time doing that full-time. He was in the National Guard, but we, we did live in California for a while as full-time military on a base and everything.

And that is something that you learn in the military as a military family, is you gotta dive in, you gotta make friends, you gotta transition, you gotta love people that are right in front of you and not just say, well, we’re only gonna pass each other for six months.

Uh, so why bother? Um, because that’s really lonely if you think that way. So, Dive into wherever you are, or even if you’re thinking you might move, sometimes you, you start pulling back. It’s like, just be where you are until you’re somewhere else and then be there.

Okay. A couple more I have is. You gotta take care of your nervous system. Now our nervous system is, you know, coming from our brain, it’s our fight, flight, freeze responses, and it can get really activated. Like I said, when, when I was looking around at all the things in the house, my nervous system was like freaking out.

So I had to do a lot of deep breaths and there were some days that were really emotional and I just had to take a lot of deep breaths, even like lay down or, or do tapping or do grounding techniques. I’ve, I’ve got some great ideas. I have a video on YouTube for taking care of your nervous system. You gotta do that all throughout the process.

We also wanna watch out for overwhelm. . We just get overwhelmed. There’s so many things. Right now, I am changing our address in every account that we own, and like updating billing address and canceling things and switching things. You can get really overwhelmed. Just calm it down, bring it back, ground yourself.

Remember the brain hates the unknown, but there are things you do know and come back to that. Come back to trusting that you’re gonna figure it out. It’s all gonna be okay. And then I want you to, as you’re moving, as you’re thinking about moving, as you’re deciding what to do, Use your brain to imagine an amazing future, especially when you’re moving after loss.

We have a lot of thoughts like, oh my goodness, I’m gonna be away from the grave. , I’ve gotta change the nursery. I don’t know if I’ll feel as connected to my baby. Um, all of these things we’re gonna touch on in a second, but,

but, Notice how your brain uses its imagination. To think of like the worst case scenario, or think of a whole lot of problems, redirect your brain and tell it to use its imagination for good. For example, I have kids, of course, they’re gonna be like, well, I’m not gonna have any friends. Nobody’s gonna like me.

Or no, you know, it’s gonna be so hard to to get in with kids that have known each other for a long time. It’s like, yeah, that’s true, and we can allow for that. We can allow for those fears and anxieties, but also they could meet their best, best friend. They could meet their future life partner. They could have like a life changing teacher here.

And why not imagine that? Why not give yourself the chance to say, I am going to find. My people, I’m gonna find my place. I am going to just have everything good here in the new location. ’cause that is just as possible and even actually more possible than all the problems that your brain wants to come up with.

So that’s really important. Imagine an amazing future. You always can do that. Use this anytime. Um, especially when you’re feeling really down, like your future is going to be amazing. I know it. It’s what I love to show my clients. If you can’t see it, I’d love to help you do that. Okay. I am, I’ve gone through, and actually I wanna thank everyone who contributed.

I’m in some Facebook support groups. I’m on Instagram. I ask people, you know, what are your concerns? ’cause I have my experience of moving twice after loss. Uh, but I wanted other perspectives as well that I could touch on during this episode, and people really responded and I’m so grateful. Thank you for that.

But here’s the thing, I can’t touch on every. Issue that someone has every struggle. Uh, but what can help with any struggle that you have is the self-coaching model. If you’re new here, go back to like, I think it’s episode six, the very, very beginning and it’s called How to Coach Yourself. But I explained the self-coaching model.

Basically what it means is we have circumstances in our lives, these things that happen. So for example, where we live, It’s a circumstance where your baby’s buried is a circumstance. Um, all the things in our, the, that are facts in our life are our circumstances, and then we get to decide what we think and feel about them.

Those feelings create our actions and our actions create our results. So we do have power over how we react. And so anything that you have, Especially if I don’t get to touch on it here. Just put it into a model. You can write this down on a piece of paper, circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result, and then you just break it down and notice that where you live, is not controlling how you feel.

What you think about where you live controls how you feel, and that is the most important distinction, right? Our circumstances don’t create our feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. That’s why. Say a hundred people can live in a small town, and some of them hate it and wanna get out. Some of them love it and wanna live there forever, right?

It’s not the town, it’s not how big the grocery store is. It’s not the scenery. It’s really what each individual person thinks about the town that’s gonna affect their, uh, experience there. This is really, really important. Because it gives us back that power. So especially if you’re feeling really overwhelmed and, and like you don’t have control over how you feel.

Remind yourself that you do.

Alright, let’s dive into these. Some of the questions and concerns that you might have when moving after the loss of your baby, specifically, right on top of all the craziness of moving. All right, we’ve got the grave. If you had a baby who was buried, did you bury them near you? Should you move the baby?

Should you exhume the baby? Like, what does that even look like? How much does it cost? Um, where would you bury them? Like, are you going to be in the next location a long time or you’re not sure? Should you exhume them and cremate them? There’s so many questions and these are things that we just, like, a lot of times we wanna say, I shouldn’t have to think about this.

I don’t want to listen. You just get to decide again where your baby is buried is a circumstance. If you think I’m leaving my baby alone, I’m leaving my baby behind, um, they’re gonna be forgotten, neglected, all of these things, you’re gonna have a lot of feelings about where that baby is buried

and it’s gonna be really hard. But if you know that like I’m gonna take care of my baby no matter what, what I want you to do is choose how you wanna feel about this decision as you make it, or if you have made it already, What do you want? What’s most important? What are your priorities and how, how do you wanna feel about where your baby is buried? Is it worth it to you to exhume them and to take them with you?

If it is, then you just work through those steps. If that’s not a possibility right now, then you work through the steps of finding peace about leaving your baby in the place that they’re, they’re buried and maybe being farther away from them. And you work through the steps to help yourself feel what you need to feel.

And that is so important. We wanna feel empowered, we wanna make choices, and we wanna understand that. Even though a grave seems permanent, like none of this is permanent. So say you leave your baby, um, you could always change your mind. You could always do something different. Right. And you can just make a decision, like, I’m gonna leave my baby where they are for now, and then see how that feels.

Or if, if you know for sure, hey, this is what I wanna do, I wanna take the baby with, then you just. Make sure that you’re creating the feelings that you want by thinking what you want, and that’s so, so important. Let’s talk about losing or breaking items. This is something that I was struggling with because I have like one pink plastic tote with most of my Lauren memories.

And then I had a few items that I had around, I had like shadow boxes and some, some different little statues and stuff and pictures. And then it’s like, do I put them all in the same tote, which was going to the storage unit? ’cause we have a lot of stuff in storage right now. Or do I split it up? Like what if something happens at the storage unit, everything would be gone.

Or what if I, I just had all these what ifs and really stuff might happen. Maybe you’re moving a nursery and you’re afraid like somebody’s gonna break something, somebody’s gonna scratch the crib, somebody’s gonna, whatever. Those are the times where you need to really, number one, calm your nervous system.

I know it feels really dangerous and scary to part with these things or to pack these things or to even take them off the wall, but you just decide what you feel best about, right, and you do your best to take care of them, and then you gotta kinda let it go because you know what? When you move, stuff does get broken and it does get lost and that can happen.

And so you just have to do your best and do what seems right. Like for example, for me, I’m like, well, I wanna bring the tote in my van with me. ’cause that seems safer than putting it in a trailer. But who’s to say something wouldn’t happen with my car? Or whatever. I mean, we just don’t know. There’s an element of we cannot control every variable, so we just do our best and we take on things.

Like for me, it’s like I want to pack that box. I want to put all of it in there. So I know for me that it’s okay, and then I can calm my mind and say, you know what? I know that I put in a bubble wrap and tissue paper and all of it so that things are gonna be safe. We really gotta take care of our heart and our nervous system, um, when we’re worried about losing or breaking things.

Another thing that can be really difficult is leaving the only place where your baby lived, no matter how long you were pregnant or how long your baby lived. For a lot of us, we were in a certain place and when we leave that it’s like, oh, this is the only place they ever were alive. And so we kind of feel like we’re losing those memories.

So I want you to think like, how do you feel about that? What would help and comfort you as you leave the place where they have lived? I think it’s really important just to acknowledge it. Just say, yeah, that’s a big deal. This is where all your memories are. This is the mirror that you rubbed your belly in every day.

This is where you took your selfies, like this is the place they lived and it’s okay that it’s a emotional to leave it. I just don’t see that that being a problem. I think where we might run into a problem is when we make it mean something like this is the only place they lived, and so if I leave, I lose all of that, but that’s not true.

On the flip side of that, you might be leaving the place where. They died where you had trauma, where you had really difficult memories. Uh, I, I know some friends who have lost babies to SSIDs and the police were there and the ambulance was there and there was C P R and there was chaos and it’s a lot. I actually know someone online who basically left their house and never went back.

They got a different house. They had people help ’em move out. They did not wanna even step foot in that house again after what they had gone through. And sometimes it’s like getting a fresh start. So if you have that situation where the home. Is really full of memories and trauma that you don’t like. I think it’s great to acknowledge and just say, you know what?

I need to let this go, and it’s okay to let it go, and there’s gonna be mixed feelings, but it can be a big relief because you’re letting go of some of those thoughts, right? You’re, we want to decrease the input. That is bringing us down, um, and bringing up triggers and bringing up reminders. But we wanna do this really consciously, right?

Really think about, I’m doing this as a gift to myself. I’m not running away from this house. Although, hey, you might have, you might run away from the house and that’s okay, but if you have a moment to process, To really just think this is a gift I choose not to use my energy, seeing reminders everywhere I go, and it’s okay to leave that place.

There’s nothing wrong with it. It doesn’t matter what other people think. It’s really about you taking care of you. And if leaving the home where your baby passed is the best thing for you, then it’s the best thing for you. You know what’s right and it’s okay to follow through with it. Absolutely. So trust yourself and give yourself that gift.

Another one is leaving friends or family who were there for you. Like I said at the beginning, when we left our little town, oh my goodness, I was so sad. And my biggest thought was they know Lauren. Like they know our whole story. They know our whole family, and. The people in the next town aren’t gonna know the same, like I had to leave my little cocoon and it was tough.

And so that’s another place where we wanna just give ourselves a lot of grace, let ourselves feel our feelings and understand that thankfully in this day and age, like we have so many ways to stay connected. And you absolutely can stay connected with these people. And yes, it will be different, but it’s gonna be okay too.

Like you are gonna figure it out in the next place. And, and there can be some good things about having, again, that fresh start in a new town where people don’t know. But I know that can be really hard where, where you’re walking around. Like for me, I had five living kids when we moved the first time and I was like walking into church and I’m like, everybody’s gonna think, you know, we just have this perfect little family with all these little kids and.

All this stuff. And then it’s like they don’t know what we’ve been through. They don’t know what the last two years of our life have been. They don’t know our backstory. And, and that was hard. Um, but it’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna figure it out, I promise. Just make a goal to really build that support system and to stay in touch with your support system.

I think the best thing about moving for me has always been, we’ve just loved everywhere we’ve lived because we chose to love it and we’ve gotten to know people and we just get to add more and more friends to my Christmas card list anytime we move. And, and I just think it’s a, it can be a beautiful thing if you let it be.

The other side of that one is meeting new people and answering questions about your family. What do you do? I have an episode on how to answer this question. Also, way back at the beginning, I should know these numbers. It’s like, it’s also four or six or somewhere right in the beginning, but it says, how many kids do you have?

This is a tricky question anytime, but when you move and you know specifically you’re gonna be answering a lot of questions about your family, it can be a little bit scary, and we might have some dread going into it. But dread comes from thinking that this is gonna be really hard. The way we get rid of dread is to have a plan.

So what is your plan? How do you wanna introduce your family? What is your criteria? Like, who do you wanna tell about your angel baby? Who do you not, when do you want to tell them? How do you wanna explain it? Like, do you wanna just get it out there right at the beginning? Um, do you wanna save it for people you feel close to?

How do you wanna do it? And if you have living kids too. I remember like my living kids had to go into school and , they’re gonna get asked the same thing, you know, tell us about your family and how many brothers and sisters do you have? And I had to prepare them, but I made a plan and I said, Hey, you can talk about Lauren if you want.

You don’t have to talk about Lauren. Either way is fine. You do what feels right to you. And that’s what I would say to you. You get to decide. You just choose and you go for it and take care of your heart. If you’re already overwhelmed and stressed and there’s a lot going on, you don’t have to share that yet or share it because it makes you feel better, and it doesn’t matter if it makes people uncomfortable or whatever.

I think that whatever you choose is gonna be perfect. And just go into it again with confidence. Just say, yeah, instead of dreading it, be confident. Just be like, yeah, I, I don’t know what I’m gonna say, but I know that I carry my baby in my heart and it’s all gonna work out. Let’s talk about, as we wrap up, another couple of things that people brought up, which were.

Keeping your baby with you or feeling their presence. We can get wrapped up a lot in their presence was in the house. And depending on your beliefs like where you are with that, you might feel like maybe their spirit’s with you, but would they find you at the new place? It’s, it’s really. Something you want to think about on purpose instead of worrying and wondering, think about it on purpose.

How am I gonna keep my baby with me? How am I gonna bring their presence into our new home? How am I gonna bring that light and that spirit and all of it into our home physically, right? If you have items for them. How am I physically gonna bring their presence into our home? And then that feeling of having them near you.

Now I really believe that our babies come with us. That they’re nearby us and they’re a lot more concerned with us and our family than they are with our location, like our physical location. Their spirits are tied to our spirits. The physical location means nothing to them. That’s just my thought. You are welcome to borrow it, but.

Yeah, you gotta make that new space on purpose and nest. I talk a lot about using your mothering energy or your parenting energy. But you can make that new space. You can really make the new place home by deciding that it’s home. Deciding the feeling that you want there.

And if you wanna invite in your baby’s presence, just do it. Do it by saying it. Talk about them, talk to them, say a prayer. Um, there’s something beautiful we do in our church, which is dedicating our home and we say a special prayer and just like dedicate that home to our family to bring in the Holy Ghost to bring in, if you wanna bring in the spirits of those you love.

Right. Make a ritual. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. If it seems kind of funny or whatever, just go in your gut, go in your heart and do what feels right to you and make. That house a home and make a space for your baby and understand that even if it feels a little clunky at first, even if it doesn’t feel settled at first, that’s totally normal.

That’s part of moving, it’s part of transitions. We just, as humans struggle with transitions, we struggle with change. And even if it’s a good change that you love, there’s still gonna be parts that feel clunky. That is okay. Let it be clunky at first. Don’t make it mean it’s always gonna be like that. Like if you get to the new house and it feels kind of hollow, that’s because your brain’s not settled there yet.

Your spirit isn’t settled, your heart, like you haven’t had the chance to make it home. But you gotta trust, like it’s not always gonna feel like this. We’re gonna get to know people. We’re gonna paint, we’re gonna set our stuff up. We’re gonna, we’re going to do all the things we need to do to make this home.

Because that is something we, as women especially, we’re so good at, we’re so good at making spaces home. And so that’s what I wanna leave you with is. If you are moving after the loss of your baby, if you have moved or you’re thinking about it, you get to make your house a home. You get to bring your baby’s presence in.

You get to take care of yourself. And take care of your stress and your nervous system and understand that even though this can be really like discombobulating, I guess is the word to move, it also can be a great experience in growing in meeting new people and being open to amazing, incredible opportunities.

You are amazing. You are doing a great job. And if you’ve struggled with the move, listen. That’s totally normal. You got this, you’re gonna figure it out. If I can help in any way, you can absolutely reach out to me on Instagram at amy dot Smooth Stones Coaching, or at my website, smooth Stones coaching.com.

Come over and talk to me and I wish you all the best. And I’m really excited, even though again, we’re like in my in-laws, we don’t know how long we’ve got all this transition. It’s a beautiful opportunity and I’m so excited and I’m gonna be right here where I am, uh, while we’re here, and really hopeful for the future.

So have a great day. I’m sending you lots of hugs. We’ll talk to you next time.