Where You're Going

John Liddle:

Welcome in to the Where You’re Going Podcast. It is not about where you’ve been. It’s not about where you are right now. It is about where you’re going and who you’re becoming. I’m your host, John Liddle. Thank you so much for being along for the ride. And on today’s show, I’m really pleased and blessed to be joined by a good friend of mine, Chris Mycoskie is on the other end of the computer here. Chris, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it!

Chris Mycoskie:

John, we appreciate you asking us to tell our story today.

John Liddle:

Absolutely. And you and your wife have been incredibly open about your story of trying to build a bigger family over time. And this goes so far beyond what we’re going to talk about today with Hannah. Obviously, that’s the latest development and a huge one at that. But tell us, Chris, a little bit about the struggle to grow your family over the years.

Chris Mycoskie:

Well, sure. I think, like a lot of people, my wife and I, we waited for a long time to even really get started, just trying to line things up with our jobs, with our finances. That was a big part. We wanted to make sure that we were financially stable before we attempted to start a family. And it was a long road for us to get out of a big pile of debt before we began starting. So we finally began that journey in earnest and we got pregnant in 2015 and we lost our daughter, Angel, to a miscarriage. Got pregnant very soon after we lost her amazingly quickly with our son Austin. And we are blessed with that young man. He is a miracle and just an incredibly intelligent, sweet, wonderful boy and, yeah, just amazing kid. A couple of years passed after that and pregnant again and Austin was two years old. He didn’t understand it too much, but we were pregnant and we lost our daughter, Hope, to a miscarriage in that pregnancy. Fast forward to 2020 and pregnant during the pandemic hits and we just think, man, we’re going to stay close to home and we’re going to enjoy this pregnancy every second and just be close as a family. We’re going to really take advantage of this time together. And our baby girl was due in September of 2020. We’re going to ride this out over the summertime, a lot of good family time and woke up in horror one evening there that summer to my wife screaming and go to the restroom and she passes out and she had lost a lot of blood. And at that point, our daughter, Grace, we got her to the hospital, rushed her there, they checked, still had a heartbeat. Grace was okay. But a couple of days later, on a subsequent ultrasound, we had lost Grace and she was stillborn at 21 weeks. Cassie, my wife, her life was in peril during that whole circumstance as well and went into surgery for a C-section after Grace had died and I didn’t know if I would see my wife alive on the other end of that surgery. We stayed up all night long talking and praying and crying and not knowing if that was going to be our last night together emerged from surgery. And the first thing that she said to me, coming back into the room in complete tears, as I was too, “Our story is not over.” That’s what she said to me. And that’s hanging on the wall in our bedroom. We weren’t done. Our life as couple, as parents, we still had another chance.

John Liddle:

And if you don’t have goosebumps in hearing that, I don’t know what to tell you. It just goes along perfectly with what we’re trying to do at this show. We’re just here to give people hope that even in the toughest of circumstances, even in the worst of the worst, that there is always more and that the story is not over. It just brings tears to my eyes in knowing what you’ve been through to this point and then knowing what you’ve tried to do as well since then. And tell us about getting into the adoption process and trying to grow your family through adoption as well.

Chris Mycoskie:

Sure. Well, adoption is something that Cassie and I have talked about since we were dating. This is not something that we just decided upon because we couldn’t try anymore ourselves. It was something that I had on my mind even before I met Cassie. My mom was adopted, so I always had that picture in my head as like some part of my family, we’re going to adopt a child or children. And Cassie has a couple of cousins who were adopted, so been a big part of her life as well. So we thought we would have at least a couple of kids through the traditional methods, I guess you could say, before we started our adoption journey and after Grace and after Cassie’s surgery, it was not safe for us to try anymore in that way. So we let our hearts heal for a little while. We waited about a year after that time and then started the pursuit, locked on with a consultant who has stepped us through every bit of the way and did a multi agency approach and began that journey. And it lasted about two years until we finally got a placement.

John Liddle:

And I remember talking to you even before and I was aware that this is something you guys were going through, but I remember even about a month before Hannah was placed with you guys, you guys were down to the last few with another baby as well. And obviously that didn’t end up happening. But how hard is that process when you get a call that you might be in the running for this? It just doesn’t seem fair, does it, to families? And there are other families like yours that want to grow their family, and they’re very worthy of doing so, right? They’re great people and they have a heart for this. But it’s a competition without it being a competition. And that, in my mind, is hard to wrap my brain around.

Chris Mycoskie:

Well, you’re right that it is a competition. Through the agency that had been our primary one through all of this, the birth mother had pretty much all the power, and we had a beautiful glossy book about our family. And every family that’s looking for a placement that was in that same circumstance. We also would write letters to the birth mother. And in a few instances, as you mentioned, we were finalists for a placement. A few times we had phone conversations with the birth mother. One of those times, it almost sounded like the birth mother didn’t even want to bother having the other conversations because she was so excited to place her baby with us. And we thought that was the time. And as it turned out, she had those other calls and decided on another couple. And you never know. You don’t get an explanation on why you don’t get chosen. It could be because maybe we’re older than the birth mother wanted. It could be because we’re not the race that the birth mother wanted. You never know what it may be. Or in some cases, birth mothers would like to see a baby placed with a family who has already adopted children. So a myriad of reasons, but all those times we weren’t ultimately selected. And then we latched on with another agency that had for a very long time not had openings for prospective adoptive families. And that was ultimately the one where we had this placement. And in that one, they primarily deal with birth mothers and families who may have some language barriers or may not really have the desire to make that decision themselves. So we kind of went into that situation with that agency, knowing that usually the agency ultimately picked the family.

John Liddle:

It’s very interesting, me just not knowing about this scenario. I’m sure some of our viewers and listeners have a lot of experience with this and some won’t. So it is educational when you bring it up. But one of the other educational pieces is that this can happen just in an instant and you could be anywhere and you have to race to a spot to adopt to take on these kids, a baby in this instance. What was that time like for you and Cassie when you learned about Hannah?

Chris Mycoskie:

Sure. Well, yeah, a lot of times when we were finalists, it was for a baby that was due months down the road. So in that case, you would have had plenty of time to plan. In our case, we had the nursery ready for probably about a year. We were ready for that placement in case that call came that we were needed immediately. And this was one of those cases with our daughter Hannah to where not only was she already born, she was three weeks old. And the birth mother made that decision that she was going to place her for adoption. And it was a situation where she wanted it to happen immediately. So I was in Louisiana at a softball tournament at Louisiana Tech Conference USA and working a game. I was on the air on ESPN Plus. And because I was on air, my wife knew she couldn’t call me. So she texted me in the middle of my first game of the day saying, we’ve got a case. We are now a finalist. I told them that this is a case that we’d be interested in and we should be waiting on a call if we are ultimately the family that is chosen. She asked, can you drop everything and can we be in Houston by 10:00 tomorrow morning? And I started telling my producer, I told my on air partners, like, “Guys, I don’t know how you’re going to figure this out, but sorry, but if we get chosen, I’m gone.” It doesn’t matter at what point in the game we’re in. It doesn’t matter what the time is. I’m going to give you about five minutes and I’m hitting the road, going to go pick up my wife and son and we’re going to get to Houston in time for tomorrow morning.

John Liddle:

And so it’s a great place to leave it because you guys knew you were a finalist and then all of a sudden you were the ones and activate Team Mycoskie to get down there.

Chris Mycoskie:

That’s right. Got the call or the text, rather that we have been chosen, we have a placement. And my wife in all caps on the text message: “WE HAVE OUR PLACEMENT. WE HAVE OUR BABY!” And I again get that by text, which is insane. And we go to commercial for in between innings. And I get in the ear of my producer and tell my partner, “I’m gone.” And I decided to come back and I’ll send you the clip, John. You can hear how kind of out of my mind I was, but I did come back and because I wanted Hannah to see it someday.

Yeah, I was so excited. I got on the air and explained the situation a little bit. I don’t think I explained it very well because my mind was going 1000 miles an hour. I probably could have stepped back a little bit and written a better script, but it was n the moment. It’s like, sorry, guys, but enjoy the rest of your tournament. I’m hitting the road, going to go meet my daughter. So, yeah, I was out the door and called my wife as soon as I got in the car. On the way out of the press box, I am hugging every person I can see, by the way. I am so excited. Just every single person in my path and they had obviously heard what I had said on the air, so they were reaching out for hugs too. Surreal. And rushed back to our house outside of Dallas, picked up my wife and son. We got to Houston by about 01:30 a.m., found a hotel and woke up early the next morning to go sign papers and meet baby girl.

John Liddle:

What was your feeling and what are you guys talking about? You, Cassie, Austin as you head down to Houston.

Chris Mycoskie:

Just pure excitement. My son…and really, everybody had been anticipating this for two years and there were a lot of moments along the way, John, where my wife and I are like, “Is it time to stop? Are we ever going to get a placement? Is this ever going to happen?” And it was probably a week prior to that placement to where we had that conversation again. “Is it time to stop looking? Is it time to stop trying?” It pulls on your heart so much every time that you’re a finalist and don’t get chosen. It pulls on your heart when you go two weeks without getting a case and you think, “Is there another one out there? Is our baby out there?” But we had been praying for this baby for two years. And every night, pretty much when we put Austin to bed, our prayers included: “Be with our son or daughter wherever they may be, be with their parents, help them to make good decisions, healthy decisions for the baby, and allow us to come together as a family soon.” And so while Hannah was, it was a whirlwind when we finally got that placement, less than 24 hours from the time where we knew she existed, she was in our arms. But we had been praying for her for so long, it felt like that we already kind of knew her because she had been in our prayers for so long.

John Liddle:

So you get to meet Hannah, I assume you bring Hannah home and that was over a weekend, correct, that you got Hannah?

Chris Mycoskie:

It was a Friday when we got the call. Saturday morning was the placement and my brother in law and his wife and their kids all live outside of Houston. So we stayed with them on Saturday so we didn’t have to drive there and drive back. And we were obviously exhausted from arriving in Houston at 1:30 that morning. So got a good night’s sleep, as good as you can get with a newborn, and then drove back on Sunday morning.

John Liddle:

And when and how did you find out about Hannah’s prognosis? Because it sounded like, and at least from my perspective, it felt like you really had no idea that there was anything going on with Hannah as you accepted her.

Chris Mycoskie:

The only thing that the birth mother had told the adoption agency was that there was a concern about fluid on the brain in the hospital. But on the follow up, she was told by the doctors that everything was okay, that there was nothing to worry about, something that can be easily fixed. And that was, as we found out later, deception or misunderstanding, whatever it may have been from the birth mother, simply that it was just simply not the case. It was much bigger than that.

John Liddle:

When did you find out about Hannah’s condition and prognosis?

Chris Mycoskie:

So we got the initial one page of her hospital discharge on Monday morning. So again, got home Sunday…Sunday night bliss. We have our family in our home all together, everybody’s here, Hannah’s home. Just amazing moments over the course of that weekend from the call on Friday through getting home on Sunday. And like I said, the medical condition, all we knew was that it was a little scare. We’re going to get a follow up, we’re going to make sure everything’s okay, but no concerns. Got that one page on Monday was the first thing to trickle in and bunch of big words that we didn’t understand and sent that page to a friend of ours who had a sister that previously and still does work as a nurse. So she looked it over and the next phone call I get, it was from our friend calling us back and I was just assuming she was going to say, “Oh, she looked it over, it’s nothing to worry about.” Because again, we were told it was nothing to worry about. And she calls me crying, first words coming out of her mouth. You can tell that she’s been bawling. And she proceeds to tell me that her sister had seen this before and it’s awful. And she couldn’t believe that this was something that would happen to our family. All the while saying, if anybody can handle it, you guys can. But she said, again, this is going to be really hard. And that’s about as far as we got at that point. And my friend Andrea, who’s a saint, I’ve known her for 25 years, she was already in the car on the way over there because she knew we would need people to talk to and shoulders to cry on. And already on the way to our house, and I go to my wife and have to start explaining what she had told me. And our world just unraveled at that point. So at that point, we didn’t want to get too far into WebMD because that’s no good for anybody. But did pull up page one about hydranencephaly, which was her diagnosis, and didn’t want to read anything past that because immediately you see life expectancy for children with this condition is under a year. You see all the different things that they’re going to suffer through more than likely during that year. And I mean, crying like we’ve done in the past, unfortunately, for other circumstances, but crying and praying and all different kinds of emotions while looking at this beautiful, beautiful girl that is our daughter, and not really comprehending how she was dealt this hand, because, again, nothing appears wrong. And still to this day when we’re talking, John, she turned six weeks old a few days ago, and there is nothing to the naked eye that would give you any kind of idea that this condition was going on inside of her body.

John Liddle:

And, yeah, just such a beautiful baby girl and all the prayers that you’ve had answered and then this, like you said, just the pain that you guys have gone through before and reliving that, it definitely doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem anything. And I feel like I’m talking to you so soon after the fact. Just how long did it take you and Cassie to be like, all right, we’ve just got to go at this. There’s no turning back now? Because that seems like an incredible decision to make. And I’m sure you guys have very difficult times and very difficult conversations, but at the same time, you guys have been so public about, hey, listen, we are praying for Hannah and for her miracle, and we are believing for the best and we are going to take care of her. So how can you even transition? How did your brain transition from one to the other?

Chris Mycoskie:

I think I’ll probably have to explain that or figure that one out with a therapist later on because I really don’t know at this point. I guess. John, I tell you, during those initial hours, one of the calls we made, of course, was to our contact at the adoption agency that placed her, because they had no idea either they were going off of the birth mother’s word about the condition. And regardless of any misunderstanding, Hannah did leave the hospital initially under hospice care. So the birth mother, even if there was any kind of language barrier with that follow up appointment, which we don’t really believe there was, she had to understand because again, there were hospice nurses coming to her home almost immediately out of the hospital. So all that to say, the other part of that phone call with our contact with the adoption agency, they let us know that you can stop this process and surrender her.

John Liddle:

Wow.

Chris Mycoskie:

Because you did not expect this. You were not signed up for this. You made it clear in your intake. And we did because we’ve had so much loss in the past that we didn’t think our hearts could take anything of a condition that might result in a death this early in life. Which by everything we know about the history of this condition, it will be a very short life for Hannah. We’re praying for that miracle, trusting God to show us what that miracle will look like. But when that adoption agency person told me that we could surrender her and start fresh and we’ll find you another baby that’s healthy, I screamed at her, John. I had to go back and apologize later because I don’t want to ever treat anyone like that. But I was at the top of my lungs yelling at this woman because this is our daughter. I was yelling, I was crying. There is no point in this where we are going to surrender her. The moment that she came into our arms, she became a part of our family. And we are going to do everything possible to help her, to get her the best medical treatment possible, to make sure that she has the best life that she can, even if it’s a short one, and to love on her with every fiber of our being as long as we can. And she’s reiterated that in later phone calls. And my wife’s had to kind of calm me down. She has to say it. It’s probably just a legal thing because, again, they didn’t know and they’re trying to cover their butts a little bit because of the placement and some potential negligence there for not checking on the medical records as opposed to taking the birth mother’s word for it. But Hannah is our daughter. There is no question in my mind, and it has been verified to me, I don’t know how many countless times, both in my prayers and from medical professionals vocalizing it, that she is meant to be in our family. We don’t know where she would have gone had we not accepted the placement, had another family not accepted the placement. You don’t know what her future may have entailed. And I just know that it wouldn’t have been good. The quality of life would have been much less than I think, John, than what we can give to her in our home. And we’re going to give her the best.

John Liddle:

I know you will and I know you’re determined to and I’ve seen it from the word “go.” And it is just so just unimaginable the type of story that you guys are living through. And one of those parts is…I know Austin, your son, was so excited, is so excited to have a sister, and recently you’ve had to go through the process of explaining to him in words that he can understand about what’s happening with Hannah.

Chris Mycoskie:

We did. We waited until she had a neurologist appointment because up until that point, we had met with a neurosurgeon, and his role in this is if her head swells due to a fluid buildup. And I don’t think we’ve really explained what this condition is. John but hydranencephaly, essentially the majority of Hannah’s brain was destroyed in utero and replaced with fluid. So if that fluid builds up, there’s a potential for swelling and that would cause a lot of suffering. So the neurosurgeon would do surgery to insert a shunt to drain that fluid and relieve her suffering. He did a great job explaining to us about that, but wanted to wait until the neurologist appointment to really step us through what we can be expecting about life expectancy and answer a lot of questions that we didn’t yet understand. We wanted to wait until that conversation before talking to our son. So leading up to that appointment, though, I sought out Godly counsel on how to have that conversation with Austin. And from what I was told by Wayne Broderick, who is my longtime friend, my longtime pastor, no longer is because we don’t live close enough to the church, but kind of the longest tenured pastor of my life, I suppose you could say. So trust him like crazy and know him to be a man of great wisdom. He had actually studied something like this in seminary to where this was a mass loss of life in a community, and a lot of children were orphaned. And they looked at how the adoptive parents told these kids about what happened to their birth parents, those that were straightforward and explained it now in words that the kids could understand at their age level…those children in general grew up to be well adjusted, and many of them grew up to be followers of Jesus Christ. Those that received more of a fantasy type explanation that wasn’t really rooted in any kind of reality, they were not as well adjusted going forward and had a lot of emotional issues. So that’s the route I took. The former was the route I took, of course, with Austin. And he’s a smart kid, but a very rare brain condition is definitely beyond his understanding. But we broke it down into simple words and tried to explain what happened. And that we may not have Hannah with us for an extremely long period of time, but we fully believe that God has placed her in our family for a reason. And we’re going to love her and show her God’s love through all of this. And there were a lot of tears shed from all three of us, from Austin, from me, from mom, because he is crushed. He loves her. He’s loved her for two years since we’ve been praying for and really fell in love with her the moment he saw her that weekend and wants to teach her everything. That’s his goal. He’s the little seven year old teacher who’s already lined out her entire educational future and how he’s going to help her along with that. And that’s probably what made him cry the most in helping him understand that because of this condition, she is more than likely not going to be able to learn and to think she’s not going to develop in the ways that we do. So an awful lot of tears that day, but the days beyond that, he has just resumed his loving, caring, wanting to talk to her, wanting to be with her, wanting to help us with her. I’m sure more hard questions are going to come from him in the future and we’re going to get him into some play therapy to help him work through his emotions as well. This is a lot for a seven year old and he’s had a lot of loss in his life already. And when we lost Grace, when we lost Hope, he didn’t understand it yet. He was too small to really get it, but he was very much in tune with what was going on with Grace because mom was getting big, he was kissing her belly every night, he was talking to her a lot, and so that was obviously really hard on him. And he was four when we lost Grace. Not long after that, he lost his Gramps, my dad. And now with Hannah, he hasn’t lost her. He still has a sister. And we’re praying on that miracle. And she may completely beat the odds and be with us for a long, long time. We hope it’s a long, full life. And we haven’t told him the exact life expectancy or anything like that. It’s just a matter of loving on her every day and enjoying every single possible day we can with her.

John Liddle:

Absolutely. And I want to honor you guys as a family for just, I don’t know, you’re handling things that you never thought you would have to handle again, hopefully, or in a different way. And there is no playbook for any of this. And the way that you guys are just walking through it, I just want to honor you for that and just say, it’s incredible and it makes my jaw drop just the way you guys are doing that. And so how can we as a community come alongside the Mycoskie family and support you guys right now?

Chris Mycoskie:

John, it’s just praying. There’s nothing beyond that. And I say that right now, you hate to deal with the stresses that go beyond just the medical diagnosis. And right now we’re dealing with the usual stresses that a family has with a newborn in the house, the sleep deprivation and knowing the diagnosis and knowing what all the doctors say is to come, but it hasn’t come yet. So pray that we get to enjoy more and more and more good days beyond that now. We’re also looking at the potential financial ramifications for our family, trying to get all of this figured out. As far as tying into the Medicaid structure, that should not deal with income levels. It should deal with the condition and help families in that way and hopefully pay for a lot of these medical bills that go beyond our regular insurance. So that’s a point of stress right now. Pray for us to figure that out because we’re going to give Hannah every single thing that she needs and also want to make sure that we’re still in a financial position to provide for everything that Austin needs. I want to make sure that this doesn’t decimate our family financially. I hope I’m not coming back to you down the line saying that we need to do a GoFundMe and ask Where You’re Going listeners to help us with that. I really hope that the Medicaid and other assistance ends up coming into place. Our team at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas is tremendous and they’re trying to help us navigate that as well. Very complicated, but they have dealt with this in the past, obviously thousands of times over. So incredibly grateful for everybody on that team, from the doctors and nurses, receptionists and people in palliative care, the social workers, everybody there has been amazing. So pray for that team that they would continue to be blessed and that they would receive the right knowledge to help us through this as well. So that’s pretty much it, John. The prayers we covet greatly right now.

John Liddle:

Absolutely. And I was debating back and forth of whether to or not, so that means I should just do it. Let’s pray right now. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Chris and Cassie and Austin and Hannah and just Father, thank you for your plan, for your will. We do not get it when things happen that are not normal, not in the prescribed way that we think it should go, Father, but I thank you for the Mycoskies’ willingness to walk forward in one of the most difficult circumstances in their life. And Father, I believe that you will bless them for it. I believe that you will bless this time with Hannah. Give her as many awesome days as possible. Give her as many pain free days as possible, Father. Just hold off the effects, whatever that means, and just be with all the medical professionals along the way to give Hannah the most outstanding care she possibly can have. And please comfort the hearts of the Mycoskies and everyone near them as well. We don’t have the words, but just help us to be there with our hearts. And Father, I believe that you are there and you are listening and you are using this for your good and your glory somehow, even though it doesn’t make a bit of sense to us. We love you so much. In your name, Jesus name we pray. Amen. So, Chris, I really appreciate you letting us tell the story that’s still ongoing. So often we talk to someone who they’ve been through this and now they’re on the other side and they’re trying to grieve or they’ve grieved and you remember, this happened five years ago. You’re right in the middle of it, you’re living it every single day when you go home and overnights as well. And so thank you for letting us tell the story now so we can be with you all along the way and in any way help you through this. Thank you so much.

Chris Mycoskie:

I appreciate it. John and I thank your listeners in advance for lifting Hannah up, lifting our family up, lifting those medical professionals up. It’s going to take that great team, it’s going to take our great village around us to really power us through. And again, we pray that it’s for a very long time, we pray that Hannah gets that miracle and has a long, full, wonderful life.

John Liddle:

Absolutely, we absolutely do too. And miracles happen in all shapes and sizes and forms and I fully believe there are miracles to come and we’ll continue to pray for Hannah’s miracle. Thank you so much, Chris! Chris Mycoskie, Cassie and Austin and Hannah, can you imagine the faith that this takes to walk through what they are walking through right now? And thank you for listening to this today. I know that even just sitting there and listening to Chris’ words and listening to what they’re going through, I know that helps a lot. And that’s going to be a big theme of this show, is just opening our hearts to people and not only believing for ourselves that there is more to come and where you’re going is better than where you are right now, but believing that for others and pointing them to that. So I believe that for the Mycoskies. I believe that for you. I believe that for me. And I’m so grateful that you are along for the ride for today’s show.