Saying Goodbye to My Baby Boy: The Decision That Changed Me Forever

Recently someone told me in a comment “I get the feeling you might have a deeply personal story that started this path.”

I have hinted and mentioned a tragic event happening in 2017 that triggered a wave of changes… and the most I’ve shared about what happened so far is in this post.

I know the power of stories. They shape who we become.

So today I will share about the most pivotal chapter of my life. I’m sharing it with you first and foremost because it’s important to me that you know who I am and how I got to where I am today. I believe understanding someone’s background really lays the foundations for meaningful connections.

So here it is.

I guess for context I’ll give a quick rundown of my relationship with Rosie. I met her in 2010 in Australia, when I was 22 years old. In 2011 after we both graduated, we moved to Paris together where I got my first job. We bought an apartment in the South of France in 2014 and got married in 2015. After our honeymoon in 2016, we decided to start trying to have a baby. A couple of months later, Rosie was pregnant. We were over the moon. Unfortunately a few days later she miscarried. That was a reality check.

But the real story starts now.

A couple of months later we decided to try again and got pregnant straightaway (hey at least we seem good at that 😅). Pained by the 1st experience, we didn’t get too excited as we knew miscarriages happened.

After the 12 weeks scan, we finally let it out. We were over the moon. We shared the news with our family and our friends. A few weeks later we found out we were gonna have a little boy… I was ecstatic 🤩

We started to plan for everything, talking about names, what we needed to get, where would the birth happen and all that.

At 22 weeks, early April 2017, we went for a new scan where they thoroughly control the growth of the baby.

That’s when the story took a turn.

The doctor told us that some bones were not developing as they should, and that she could see something strange with the baby’s heart. She sent us to see a heart specialist and another doctor in another hospital to investigate.

The following scans confirmed her original diagnostic. Our baby had very short “long bones” (such as the humerus, femur, tibia, and fibula), very short ribs, 6 fingers on each hand, his heart was not developing as it should and was missing vital parts (the “wall” in the middle separating the 2 sides), and a bunch of other things.

The following days and weeks are still a blur years later. But long story short, we went through countless blood tests, DNA samples, scans and appointments. Finally, we were told that our baby boy most likely had an extremely rare genetic disorder called Ellis Van Creveld.

It’s a very rare condition, therefore poorly documented. But after hours of research and discussions with experts at the hospital we had a good understanding of the condition, what was going on, and what we could expect down the road both for him and us.

Considering the situation and the gravity of the condition, we were given the option by the medical staff to terminate the pregnancy if we wanted to.

Here is the big word. ABORTION. We had to make a decision. Let me tell you, any decisions that I had to make in the past that was stressing me out seemed insanely futile compared to this one. I don’t think I will ever have to make a more difficult decision than this one… at least I hope not.

We talked a lot. We cried even more. It was shit. It was hard. There is no word to describe the emotional turmoil we were in. I don’t wish that on anyone.

I think we made the decision fairly quickly. We had a good understand of what would happen if we carried on the pregnancy, and what would happen after the birth in the case he would survive (which was not guaranteed)… and we ultimately decided that we didn’t want to go through that.

Pause here: if you are about to lash out in the comments after reading that to tell me how awful you think we are, please don’t waste your time or mine, just close this window, even unsubscribe if you want to and move on with your day. Thank you.

We called the hospital, we told them about our decision and we made the appointment. But before that, we had to go and sign the papers. For me personally, that was - just after the abortion itself - the most difficult moment in this all thing.

I needed to sign a paper saying that I agreed to end the life of my unborn child. It was our choice, my choice, and to this day I don’t regret the decision, but it was still hard AF. I can still remember vividly the little office, where we sat and the actual signing of the paper.

I don’t know if I should write this because I know some people use this word to attack people online. But if I have to be honest, since I’ve signed this paper I felt like I killed someone. I’ve always wonder what would happen if I had to take a liar test and I get asked “did you ever kill someone”. I know it’s fucked up, but this entire situation was fucked up.

We had the appointment for a Wednesday, and were told to go the day before. I think we barely slept that night. We cuddled, and enjoyed one last time feeling our baby boy kick and moving around inside Rosie.

I won’t go into the details of the actual procedure here. If you want to hear about it, we recorded a podcast a while ago on Rosie’s channel. What I will say is that it was much worse than I/we expected and that we were not prepared for it. But we went through it. We were able to hold him and take pictures with him.

We spent 2 extra nights at the hospital I think. In the difficult pregnancies ward… with babies crying day and night… I cannot tell you how painful and damaging that was for us.

That was early May 2017. A month after finding out.

From there, the following months are a bit of a blur. I had to deal with the funerals and all the paperwork involved. I had to do my best to support Rosie while dealing with my own shit at the same time.

Eventually I went back to work, having to leave Rosie alone while she was on maternal leave. I have very few memories of those months if I’m being honest. I was surviving. I had to hold on the fort. Something I remember from those times is that we had a few therapy sessions at the hospital. Those sessions were held in an office - once again - on the same floor than where we had to stay during the abortion. Walking there every time and hearing the sounds of the ward was more damaging than the session was helping.

In November, 7 months later, Rosie told me that she couldn’t stay where we were any longer. The weight and heaviness the apartment carried was too much. Years later she told me she thought about ending her life during those months. We needed a new start. We needed to escape this reality, at least for a bit, to rebuild ourselves. A move to Miami through my work was in the pipeline, but the timeline was unsure.

I called my employers (and friends) and had a honest conversation with them. A month later we were in a plane to Miami to start a new life.

I will always be grateful for them, in a way they saved us because Miami changed us, transformed us.

For the first time in months, we felt a little sense of joy and excitement. We spent a lot of time outside, in the sun, by the beach, exploring this wonderful city. It was a breath of fresh air! Eventually we met some good people, we went to yoga classes, I started a daily meditation practice, I read books, I let go of the guilt I felt and I started to accept what had happened. After a while I felt a little happy again which was a strange feeling - like I wasn’t sure I was allowed to be happy again after going through this… but eventually, I healed.

📸 Christmas Day 2017 in Miami, just the two of us

So, how this story started the path I’m on today?

Until then, I thought I was doing amazing in life. I was married to a woman I loved, I owned a place, I had a car, I had a good stable job… I was on track to check all the boxes like I’ve been told to do!

But suddenly, all that seemed very futile, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. When death becomes real, when you have to make such a hard decision, when you lose a child, you realize what’s really important, what truly matters.

Then, I came across a quote that put everything I was feeling into words:

“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

This quote completely encompasses the transformation I felt.

Through a lot of inner-work, I realized that until then, I was living life in autopilot. I was following a path that was expected from me. I had never questioned what I really wanted out of life. I thought being a good citizen, following the trend and what everyone else was doing was the right thing to do.

Since then, I made a promise to myself - or in all honesty more to my baby boy than to myself - that I will live the best fucking life I can get.

I’m not special. I’m not over-talented. I’m not financially rich.

I just know that life is precious. I experienced it. I saw how hard it was to create a new life (since then we had 2 other miscarriages, reinforcing even more this feeling). So I know how lucky I am to be alive and to be able to write those words.

Therefore knowing that, I cannot ignore it. I cannot keep living a life decided by others, where I based my decisions on other people’s opinions and where I keep postponing happiness to tomorrow (or retirement)… because you know what? TOMORROW IS NOT GUARANTEED. Life can take an unexpected turn at ANY MOMENT.

Now that I know that deep in my core, I cannot forget it or do nothing about it.

So here, you have it. This is why I said goodbye to the tradition path and chose to travel the world, live in my own terms as much as possible… this is why this newsletter is called Beyond Ordinary… because I want people to understand that there are options available beyond the ordinary ones… and I want as many people to realize that without having to go through a tragic event like I did.

The day I will be on my death bed I want to be able to look back and feel like I’ve done everything I wanted, that my life was an awesome movie and that I lived every moments of it.

I owe it to myself, and to my baby boy. And if even one person reading this rethinks how they want to live their life, then sharing my story will have been worth it.