Holding Space for Grief: A Conversation with Rachel Dickey

Grief after pregnancy loss can feel isolating, confusing, and deeply personal.
And so often, women are left wondering where to turn, what to say, or how to keep going.

In this episode of the Purpose Beyond Motherhood Podcast, we sit down with Rachel Dickey, a labor and delivery nurse, mom, and author, to talk honestly about navigating pregnancy loss and learning how to live alongside grief.

Rachel shares her own story of loss, how it reshaped her understanding of motherhood, and why advocacy in healthcare matters so deeply for grieving parents. We talk about honoring children who are no longer here, the different ways men and women grieve, and how faith and Scripture can become anchors when answers feel out of reach.

This conversation is for the woman who has experienced pregnancy loss and is still trying to find her footing.
 For the one who needs permission to grieve honestly.
 For the one who needs to know she’s not alone.

If that’s you, this episode was made with you in mind.

Connect with Rachel
Rachel’s heart for grieving mothers extends beyond this conversation. You can learn more about her work and her book using the links below.

Grab her book on Amazon 

Visit her website 

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Transcript

Holly (00:01.486)
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Purpose Beyond Motherhood podcast. My name's Holly and I'm here with my wonderful co-host, Nicole.

NICOLE (00:11.528)
Hey.

Holly (00:12.952)
First of all, we wanted to say happy new year. And it's happened. We did it guys. We're starting another year. We are really excited today and we have a really special guest that's going to be a blessing and a great pace setter as you start your new year. Her name is Rachel Dickey. And I'm gonna let her introduce herself to you because she has a wonderful book she's gonna tell us about. And we think she will just be.

NICOLE (00:15.966)
Happy New Year.

Yes.

Rachel Dickey (00:30.215)
Mm hmm.

NICOLE (00:37.034)
Yeah.

Holly (00:38.924)
Such a blessing to our listeners. So Rachel, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you have going on with your book.

Rachel Dickey (00:45.07)
Hi everyone, I'm Rachel. I'm so glad to be here with you guys today. Thank you, Nicole. Thank you, Holly, for having me on today. A little bit about myself. My husband and I have been married for 12 years now. We have three boys together, two here and one in heaven. Our two boys that are here with us are 10 and eight, so fifth grade and third grade. So we are busy with all the things right now.

sports and music and all the festivals and all the things. Our son Asher, we lost in 2018 at 18 weeks gestation. So we are patiently waiting to get home to be with him again. We live in a little small town about an hour north of Charlotte, North Carolina called Salisbury. We live way out in the country on a hobby farm. We have about 25 acres.

We love growing our own food. We have big orchard with apple trees, blue-ray bushes, raspberries, chestnuts, pecans, all the things. We have about 25 chickens right now. That number kind of fluctuates back and forth all the time. We've had turkeys, we've had guineas, and we actually just started a new adventure this year with cows. We added three cows to the mix.

Holly (01:50.126)
Wow.

NICOLE (01:54.09)
Cool.

Holly (02:03.31)
So cool.

Holly (02:07.778)
NICOLE (02:08.221)
goodness.

Rachel Dickey (02:08.77)
So this has been, I know it's really, really fun. Lots of work for sure, but man, we love it. I think pigs and sheep are next, so we'll see. But yes, super, super busy with that. I am a former nurse. I started out in cardiology, but my real love was for labor and delivery. I loved having the privilege of helping moms bring new life into the world.

Holly (02:20.578)
That's so cool.

Rachel Dickey (02:37.166)
but that also did come with the heartache of helping them deliver their babies that had died as well. So after I became one of those patients and lost my son, I really had a strong passion to write a book for moms who have gone through pregnancy loss. I kind of quickly realized at the time there weren't a whole lot of resources for that community and really just wanted to be able to provide something to be able to help them.

I'm thrilled to be here and share a little bit more about that book with you guys.

NICOLE (03:12.298)
Thank you. Okay, two things came to mind when you were sharing. So the first thing, because I know I'll talk about me, not anybody else, but just I love how you introduced your family and how you said that you have three children. You have two here and one in heaven. And I think that our listeners, and I had trouble of saying that and just being in the right space.

Holly (03:26.03)
Mm.

Rachel Dickey (03:26.284)
Hmm.

Rachel Dickey (03:31.117)
.

NICOLE (03:41.493)
Just can you maybe encourage our listeners of just like, Rachel, how did you get to that point that you just felt so confident and like, this is my family and so prepared and your heart is good to whatever their response was, was it? know, because it's almost like you don't want to say anything because people, they get weird, you know, and we can't be ourselves. And so talk to us a little bit about that. Like, please help us.

Holly (03:53.24)
Good.

Rachel Dickey (04:03.648)
Yes. Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (04:09.933)
Well, I will say I've not always been like that. I absolutely wrestle and have wrestled with that same dilemma of when I meet someone, do how many children, and they ask that question, right? How many children do you have? That's such a hard question to answer. I remember in the beginning, especially after I had lost Asher,

Holly (04:10.222)
It's good.

Holly (04:26.878)
yes.

Rachel Dickey (04:35.647)
if I chose to only answer that I had two children, you know, feeling this immense amount of guilt that came later, right? It just like weighed on me where I was like, well, now it seems like I'm just forgetting my son and that I've just made him not a part of our family, right? Not true at all. He's always still a part of our family. But I fully understand what you're saying where you meet someone and they ask that question and it's, I think,

still to this day, it's been seven years since we lost him, but I still to this day have to ask the Holy Spirit for discernment on what answer to use. Usually I can kind of read the person as far as are they, do they seem like they're gonna be willing to listen to that full story and respect it. With you guys, I know I can absolutely share that story and I'm so glad to share about my son and share that I

NICOLE (05:13.514)
Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (05:32.108)
Asher's mom. But I think I do still rely on the Holy Spirit to really help me discern. And I think, like you said, too, it's a mental thing. I know there were some days where I was like, really heavy in grief, where I'm like, I don't know if I have the emotional capacity to be able to say, and I have three kids and then go through his whole story about, well, where is your third? So I think it is a day by day.

Holly (05:57.282)
and

Rachel Dickey (06:01.963)
process and relying always on the Holy Spirit to help us. Yeah. Yeah.

NICOLE (06:06.322)
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah.

Holly (06:08.546)
That's good. That's super helpful. Did you have another thing you were going to ask her? Okay. Well, this is a little bit strange, but I was just, as you were talking about being a labor and delivery nurse, when Asher passed away and you were, what was the overlap there? Were you going back into nursing during that time or what did that look like?

NICOLE (06:14.568)
I do, but no, you go.

Rachel Dickey (06:15.779)
you

Rachel Dickey (06:32.331)
So at the time when I lost him, I was actually staying at home with my boys. I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old when we got pregnant with Asher. And so at that point in my life, I was staying home. And so that made it a little bit easier, not necessarily having to go back in. And the gift for me that was there was that I knew the hospital. I had worked there.

Holly (06:39.118)
Okay.

Holly (07:00.27)
Mm.

Rachel Dickey (07:01.033)
I knew the nurse that took care of me and the labor and delivery staff were so great about giving me this particular nurse because she had also lost her son at 16 years ago too. So she was right there, she knew my pain. She could help me in all those ways. But I will say it was so surreal walking back onto that unit being this type of patient. And so getting through delivery,

Holly (07:10.732)
Hmm.

I guess.

Holly (07:25.549)
Mm.

Rachel Dickey (07:31.019)
And, you know, being wheeled out of the room in a wheelchair, knowing and seeing the other rooms, knowing what's going on in the other rooms, hearing a newborn baby cry in those other rooms, right? All of that hits you and that weight hits you. it's, it was almost kind of a surreal experience. Like I hadn't been there before, but yet at the same time it was such a familiar place too. So yeah, it's tough, very tough.

Holly (07:50.318)
easy.

Holly (07:58.287)
Yes, saying that I had to, I've, well, you know, I don't know if y'all do this, but I black out things that I don't want to think about. And I'll be like, we're just not going to do that. But as you were talking, I had a flashback to, I remember having to walk in and I hadn't had any children physically in my arms yet. So I went in for my DNC and I remember having to walk in and it was all the bassinets lining the hallway. And then I had to like walk down past them. I'm like, I wish there was a way.

NICOLE (08:08.17)
You

Rachel Dickey (08:23.498)
Yeah.

Holly (08:29.24)
that you didn't have to do that part, like that they could take you in a different anyway, but that just triggered my brain, you sharing that. So thank you for that. And the Lord has redeemed that, but it was just, yeah, that is such a heavy, it's just hard. That's really the only way to describe it.

Rachel Dickey (08:31.774)
Yeah.

And yeah.

NICOLE (08:44.074)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Dickey (08:44.074)
Yeah, yep, 100 % absolutely.

NICOLE (08:48.764)
And Holly, that was really close to what I was going to say, too, of just, Rachel, just your perspective really on both sides of just as a. I don't want to say patient. I don't know what the right word is, but you know, how how can we advocate? Yeah, how can we advocate for ourselves when we do have to walk past that hallway or they put us in a room, you know, next to someone who has a living child, you know, but then to on the flip side of that.

Holly (08:52.311)
Okay.

Rachel Dickey (09:00.842)
you

Holly (09:03.093)
that crossover era.

Holly (09:12.59)
Hmm.

NICOLE (09:18.218)
what can the hospital staff do to just either learn or, you know, because it sounds like your unit was like, they were very in tune with this community, but not everyone is like that. You know, so just would love your perspective on just, you know, how can we grow and get better? But then when we are that woman, how can we also advocate for ourselves?

Holly (09:25.614)
Sure.

Holly (09:37.23)
Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (09:42.89)
Sure, yeah. So on my unit when I worked there, the staff worked really hard to, like our unit was kind of an L shape. So we had a long hallway of rooms on one side and then the bottom section that was kind of the L had three rooms down there by themselves. So we, if we ever had a patient that was coming in that had had a demise, we would work really hard to put them down on that small little section of three rooms where it was a little bit more isolated.

in the hopes that they wouldn't hear that newborn baby crying or see that pregnant mama coming in with the labor with a live birth, right? So I think they do a phenomenal job of that. We got to get a small care package. My nurse did a great job of getting Asher's little teeny footprints. Sometimes that's really hard to do.

Holly (10:36.846)
Ugh.

NICOLE (10:37.584)
yeah.

Rachel Dickey (10:40.103)
you know, just giving us moments after he was born of just holding him and taking him in. You know, my brain, even though I knew kind of what was gonna happen, like this is gonna happen next and this is gonna happen next and this is gonna happen next, my brain was so overwhelmed with grief that I really couldn't even think about that. And so I remember my nurse coming in and saying, hey, would you like us to call?

Now I lay me down to sleep to be able to come in and take pictures. And, you know, my brain didn't even think of that, right? And so I'm so grateful for her to be able to do that because we, we really tried to push for patients, even if they said, no, I don't want pictures to be able to say, just take them and you can have them in envelope. You don't ever have to look at them, but they're still there. So I think staff do a really good job of, trying to help moms when they're

Holly (11:21.774)
Really?

Holly (11:28.408)
Hmm.

Rachel Dickey (11:37.391)
so heavy with grief and they're in labor, They're about, you're still going through labor and all the pain and all the things, trying to help them come home not so empty handed. And I think too, I've really seen at least in the last seven years since I've had Asher, just this influx of there being more care packages, there being kind of more resources.

that the hospitals are trying to bring in. My book is one I just had our local labor and delivery reach out and said, hey, I heard about this book. I would love to be able to offer this, like just not sending them home empty handed, having them some kind of So I really, I'm loving that I'm seeing that in this community where there's so much more being offered and they're trying to meet moms where they are and be able to send them home with something at least.

Holly (12:20.995)
Mm-hmm.

Holly (12:37.364)
so good. Yeah, I think that piece of something in their hands is so helpful.

Rachel Dickey (12:43.656)
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. I think too, if to Nicole to kind of answer your other question of, know, what can we do as patients to advocate, right? If your hospital's not providing that, reach out and just talk with your nursing staff at least, right? If they're not bringing it up for some reason, then yes, be an advocate for yourself and say, hey, what is there that I can

can, what resources can I, you know, cling to? What, you know, are there community groups that I can go to? Is there counseling services that you guys know of through the hospital? You know, what are some of the, or what resources do you know of that I can, I can take with me and help me kind of get through this? And they should be able to provide something. They should offer it in the first place. Sometimes things get busy, but

Yeah, you can absolutely advocate for yourself too.

Holly (13:47.631)
That's Yeah. I think that's probably the number one lesson I learned with going to fertility doctors was I had just to say what I wanted to happen or ask the questions that were, I felt silly asking, just do it because you're already there and you're already paying the money to see them. So you might as well just ask what you want to know.

NICOLE (13:48.157)
Awesome, yeah.

Rachel Dickey (14:08.156)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Definitely.

Holly (14:12.0)
Okay, so tell us about your book.

Rachel Dickey (14:15.623)
Sure, absolutely. I'm excited too. So this book was birthed kind of out of the depths of grief following Asher. I remember sitting on my couch after losing him, talking with God, holding my Bible in my hands and just saying, Lord, I need answers. I know that you are good. I have no doubt within me that Asher is in heaven with you, but

Holly (14:19.277)
Hahaha

Rachel Dickey (14:44.663)
I need you to lead me to the places in the Bible that tell me this. Like I need to just see the scriptures in front of me. I need this concrete, tangible evidence in my hands. And I wished that there was a book written by a mother who had walked through what I had walked through, had walked in my shoes that could help me navigate the roller coaster that follows after pregnancy loss, and then had everything in scripture kind of all in one place. And that's...

That's when I first felt the Lord saying, I'm gonna ask you to write that book, actually. So after I lost Asher, I kept a really detailed journal. It was my way to really process my grief. And so as I started kind of flipping back through some of those things that I had written, I kind of just started writing our story. And then,

After about a year of it, when I really felt him saying, it's time to create this book, had felt him kind of shift a little bit and really make this more than just our story. He wanted me to add in, you know, what are the ways that the Lord has helped? What does scripture have to say, right? We're gonna include all of this in there. So there's eight chapters total.

The first seven chapters each speak to something different that a mother might experience after she's lost a baby. And each one of those chapters begins with an excerpt from my journal. So it's very raw, it's very honest, and there's lots of emotion in there as well. So one of the chapters, for example, is about grief and what this particular type of grief can look like, because I think

Holly (16:19.406)
That's cool.

Rachel Dickey (16:34.279)
It is very specific with the loss of a baby during pregnancy. I think there's lots of questions that moms ask like, you know, is it normal to get emotional when you hear a newborn baby crying across the grocery store, right? Or is it hard for you to look at another pregnant woman and not be sad, right? All of these things that many of us experience and just wanting to know that others are experiencing that too.

And then wanting to include what scripture says about grieving, right? Is it okay for us as believers to grieve? And I think we see over and over again, so many beautiful examples that yes, absolutely it is, right? God created us to be emotional beings. And one of those emotions does include sadness over the things that we love and we cherish. And so absolutely, yes, we can express that grief over the things that we love.

Another chapter is navigating marriage after loss. I knew my husband and I were gonna grieve after his death very differently for a myriad of reasons, but just wanting to help mothers understand why men and women grieve so differently, right? Down to biological differences or just the way that we were raised, our beliefs around things that can all influence.

how we greet the loss of our babies and then can end up causing strain and stress on our marriage sometimes. And it's hard to navigate that. I remember multiple people coming to me after I lost Asher and saying, all right, now you and Austin need to make sure that you take care of your marriage because marriages can end after losing a baby. And I was like, I've just lost my son and now you're telling me I could lose my marriage too? Like, you know.

I knew where they were coming from and they were sharing truth, but that was hard to hear. So I wanted to just provide a chapter that can kind of help navigate through some of those hard things that you can experience in marriage, trying to understand each other, trying to understand each other's grief and how to kind of work through that. Another chapter is a little bit about the history of pregnancy loss. Why it...

Holly (18:28.334)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Dickey (18:55.407)
has been such a taboo subject for so long and how that's kind of influenced the way that we talk about it or don't talk about it today. Even down to why people respond with certain things and certain sayings after you lose a baby that can end up being really hurtful, right? Some of those statements like, God just needed another angel or you'll be a mom someday soon, at least you have other children, right? All those things where

Holly (19:25.774)
Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (19:25.952)
Yes, they're trying to help us, but man, those are hard statements to hear. And many of them are not biblical and they're not truthful. So I wanted to go through and just offer, hey, let's look at this with the backing of scripture, right? Our babies, as beautiful as it sounds, don't become angels when they go to heaven, right? And it's something even better, right? We...

NICOLE (19:31.347)
Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (19:50.477)
it tells us in scripture our bodies are gonna be like Christ's body, right, after his second coming. And the other part of that being God doesn't need anything, right? He didn't need to take our babies to populate heaven with more angels, right? So really wanting moms to be grounded in the truth of scripture when they hear some of those statements, letting them know.

NICOLE (20:04.04)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Dickey (20:16.292)
I know that person said, you'll be a mom someday soon, but the truth is you were a mom that moment the baby was conceived, right? And you'll always be a mom to that baby. Another chapter is the chapter talking about everything that scripture says about unworn babies. So I really wanted to help answer some of those heavy, heavy theological questions that moms can wrestle with afterwards.

Is my baby in heaven? Am I gonna see them again? How do we know that life begins at conception? Does God love unborn babies, right? Really wanting answers to those, because I think even as believers maybe who have been walking with the Lord for a long time, we can wrestle with some of those hard questions when tragedy is kind of put right in front of us, right? Our faith really gets tested and it's, man, do I really?

believe what I've always believed for so long now that this is sitting here in front of me. So really wanted moms to have that tangible concrete evidence in front of them, knowing that yes, we get to spend eternity with our babies in heaven. That life does begin at conception. So no mom will have a question even if she had an early loss of was my baby a real baby?

know, the rest of the world is telling us that it was just a clump of cells, but here's what scripture tells us, that life begins at the moment of conception. Another chapter, this was actually one of my, ended up being one of my favorite chapters, was a chapter on suffering and why God allows suffering in the lives of those that he loves and kind of what that means for us when...

man, Lord, we love you and we've been walking with you for a long time. We know that you are good, but in my other hand, I'm holding something really bad. And so getting to that crossroads in life of I know you are good, but this is also not good. So where do I go? What do I do? Why are you allowing this? And then a chapter about just how to honor and cherish your baby. We...

Rachel Dickey (22:35.028)
ended up cremating Asher. So we have his ashes here at home with us and we had a small memorial in our backyard where we planted a tree for him. And so we were able to put some of his ashes at the base of the tree. I also have a garden that I started when I was pregnant with Asher. And so I've named it Asher's garden now that has flowers that were gifted to me after we lost him and things like that. just different one to.

give options and ideas for moms on ways they can honor their baby and remember them and carry them through. And then the last chapter is a bonus chapter that was written by my husband. So it's a chapter for dads. We got multiple confirmation while I was in the writing process of, or in the process of writing the book that we needed a chapter for dads. And so my husband went through,

Holly (23:14.798)
Nice.

Rachel Dickey (23:28.159)
He said, I really don't want to write this. I'm not a writer. But I said, you need to do it, please. And so I think it's really great and super helpful for dads to be able to have that because I think they kind of get overlooked after loss a lot and their grief is still there too. So he wanted to provide a chapter just sharing his experience and kind of what the Lord showed him through all of this.

Holly (23:33.91)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel Dickey (23:57.311)
That's the synopsis of all of it. It's a lot, but it has been an incredible journey and the Lord has been so gracious to be able to make all of it happen.

Holly (24:15.32)
I love that. Those are amazing topics. When we were talking to you before you were telling us about the book, I was going to ask you what are some ways you honor Asher's life. So I'm like, I need to get that book and look at it. And I've got a few friends that need it too. So thank you for doing that and putting the work in. That's amazing. It's awesome.

NICOLE (24:18.215)
Yes.

NICOLE (24:30.858)
Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (24:35.446)
Yeah, absolutely.

NICOLE (24:35.976)
I know, because you kept saying what was in the book and I was like, my goodness, yes. So it's like all of those things are so, important. And I really, really love and just appreciate it just that you said that it is based on scripture, because I think that there's so much noise out there right now of just of the universe and the world and all the things. And so how can we really

Holly (24:38.828)
Yeah, sounds like, yeah.

We need that.

Holly (24:54.67)
Good.

Rachel Dickey (24:58.497)
Mm-hmm.

NICOLE (25:05.694)
just be able to grieve and lament, but also heal and have hope through the word of God. And so I'm excited to read your book. Because again, everything you kept saying, I was like, yes. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Holly (25:16.408)
Same.

Rachel Dickey (25:16.873)
Thank you.

Holly (25:19.36)
Yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad your husband did the bonus chapter because that I think the guys sometimes are kind of like, well, what the heck? Like, I need something too. So I love they all did that. Tell him good job. I know it was probably scary, but he did it.

Rachel Dickey (25:19.969)
You

NICOLE (25:24.796)
Yes!

Rachel Dickey (25:29.545)
Yeah.

Yes, I will. Thank you. Yes.

NICOLE (25:35.274)
haha

NICOLE (25:40.638)
Right? I know. And Rachel, so just, so can you tell our listeners then, you know, how can they find you? How can they find the book? All the things.

Rachel Dickey (25:49.555)
Yes. So the book is available on my publisher's website, leafwoodpublishers.com. It's also available on the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BooksMillion, and Walmart websites as well. And if you're local to the Charlotte area, Fred & June's is a little mom and pop bookstore in Morrisville, North Carolina. They are gladly carrying that now too. And we're working on getting it in some other places as well.

But you can definitely get it on those websites. My website, Rachel C. Dickey.com has all the links there. So if you want to go there, you can have quick links to be able to get to all of it there. And yeah, or I've also got my social media is Instagram. It's Rachel underscore Dickey to be able to find it. There's a link to that as well in the bio.

NICOLE (26:51.124)
Amazing. So we will put all of those links and everything in our show notes so our listeners can find you, they can get the book, and then share it with friends. Yeah. We are really grateful for you. Yeah.

Rachel Dickey (27:01.985)
Awesome. that would be great. Thank you guys. I'm grateful for you guys. So grateful to be here today. Thank you so much. This was wonderful.

Holly (27:02.196)
I that. Can't wait to read it.

NICOLE (27:10.879)
Thank you. Okay, friends, so we will see you next time on the Purpose Beyond Motherhood podcast.

Holly (27:11.022)
Thank you.