by Clint Watkins | Nov 8, 2019 | Fatherhood, Hope
We had been confronted with the unimaginable. Our first child would continue growing in the womb, but he was diagnosed with a condition that guaranteed his death. Terror was added to agony as we were presented with the option to terminate the pregnancy. But the...
by Clint Watkins | Apr 29, 2019 | Fatherhood, Grief, Hope, Loss
The day had finally come. Three months of anticipation did not make our son’s funeral any less surreal or suffocating. My wife and I had somehow survived the week after returning from the hospital, our lives now reduced to mere existence. Sleepless nights. Colorless...
by Clint Watkins | Feb 18, 2019 | Grief, Hope
Since the day we learned that we would lose our first child, I have cursed the circumstances that forced me to be a bystander as my family suffered. I could do nothing to save my son’s life or protect my wife from devastation. But walking alongside Jillian in the...
by Clint Watkins | Jan 19, 2019 | Fatherhood, Grief, Hope, Loss
After we found out that my wife was pregnant, I began to think about what bedtime routines would be like with our first child. I knew I wanted to sing to him, remembering the countless nights my mom sang hymns at my bedside growing up. A ukulele seemed more fitting...
by Clint Watkins | Dec 25, 2018 | Fatherhood, Hope
Fatherhood has cut me deep with the intertwining of joy and sorrow. Losing Eli has carved out a permanent cavity in my soul, but with his brief life he filled my heart in the way that only a son can. And while these extreme depths of despair and delight are vastly...
by Clint Watkins | Aug 13, 2018 | Fatherhood, Hope
Knowing our son’s fatal diagnosis destroyed us. But we somehow had to reassemble ourselves from the ruin and face the decision that was before us: terminate the pregnancy or carry to term. Having a choice in all of this haunted our souls, thrusting us deeper into the...
