I Lost Four Babies. A Life-Changing Call Gave Me Chills

By the time I reached my early 30s, I was a breath away from achieving what was, at that point in my life, my most audacious dream. Though I was born in the Midwest and grew up on the East Coast, I was a Hollywood studio executive for a company creating incredible, meaningful films for social impact—and I quickly moved up the ladder.

I had a job that didn't even exist a decade earlier, one that married what drove me—social impact—with what had captivated my imagination since I was a teen—the movies.

At the same time, I served as a board member of Nature Sacred, a foundation my parents had founded some years earlier out of deepening concern over how technology seemed to be separating us, to our detriment, from nature. Our work centered on guiding communities in the process of creating healing green spaces, what we call Sacred Places, in places where nature was lacking and acutely needed.

It was in this role that I found myself in Joplin, Missouri, in 2012, one year after a historic and devastating tornado claimed more than 100 lives. There, I first met Chris Cotten, then head of the city's Parks and Recreation Department.

I joined a team from Nature Sacred to speak with him and others in Joplin about creating a garden with the expressed purpose of helping the community process and heal following the recent trauma.

What Chris had seen—what that community had endured—was unfathomable. That experience, Chris' story, Joplin's story, left a deep imprint on me.

I carried it with me—back to my office in LA—where I pinned a note on my corkboard that read: "Chris' story." I wanted to help him tell it. Around this time, I was offered my dream-of-a-lifetime position, which included a seat on the film company's greenlighting committee. I would be helping decide which movies were made.

It was incredible, if all-consuming. My days were filled, as were my weekends: Meetings with writers and creatives, award dinners, and cocktail parties. As the SVP of Impact managing film, TV, and digital, at any given time, I was overseeing 40 campaigns. I was thriving.

And my dreams were growing—I was growing. I discovered I was pregnant, and I couldn't believe my joy. I had my dream job, and I would soon also have twins. Like a childhood fantasy come to life or a Hollywood script, my best friend was pregnant too—also with twins, no less. With due dates just weeks apart, we chatted daily about nausea, birth plans, a future full of playdates, and joint family holidays.

Then, in a moment, it was over.

I had lost the babies to miscarriage. I couldn't bear the thought of telling my friend, so I held onto the secret far longer than I should have. My yearning for a child was so strong, it was physical, and the absence and longing felt like a literal hole inside of me.

Almost a year later, I was pregnant again. This time, the joy and anticipation were shadowed by anxiety and fear. And like far too many other women, I would soon be devastated yet again.

While the first miscarriage had drawn my husband and me closer together as we grieved and comforted one another in the shared loss, the second time was different. I was gutted, just as the first time, but my ego was also bruised. It was then I realized: Maybe a biological child of our own was not possible.

I turned inward with my grief, isolating myself, and I dove deep into work, into a space that didn't challenge my sense of self.

At the same time, I quietly explored alternative therapies, special diets, meditation. We decided to try again, and I became pregnant a third time.

Meanwhile, I was experiencing a growing sense of disquiet with work. Leadership at the time was making decisions that were not aligned with the values that had given my work meaning. I had remained committed, though, working as doggedly as ever.

It was December when I miscarried the third time.

That experience collided with the realization that I wasn't willing to give so much of myself to work that was no longer synchronous with who I was and what I valued in life. And I somehow knew that if I were to make this particular dream of a baby come true, I needed to change my course.

I left my job the following March, open to new possibilities but with no particular next step in mind. That's when I got the call. It was Chris Cotten on the line: "I don't know if you remember me, but I was just diagnosed with PTSD because of what happened in Joplin."

His therapist had suggested that, to help him heal, he should tell his story. And the first person he thought of, he said, was me. I had chills.

My husband, having overheard the conversation with Chris, knowing I had wanted to make a film about Chris after my first meeting, said to me: "Let's help him tell his story. I'm in."

In 24 hours, we had a team. Six weeks later, we were on the ground in Joplin shooting Butterfly Angels, a short documentary.

While there, in between interviews and shooting, I spent hours in the garden named for the butterflies many survivors reported having seen in the midst of the tornado. Those moments in that now incredibly peaceful setting were a balm. I knew that I was exactly where I was intended to be.

On our last weekend in town, my husband and I were having dinner, and I ordered a hard cider. He said, "I don't think you should drink that. I feel like you may be pregnant."

Simultaneous waves of dread and hope washed over me. The next day, we were back in Los Angeles. I went directly to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test; it was positive. I had been pregnant when we landed in Joplin.

I had the feeling that everything that I had experienced in helping share Chris's story, this town's stories, and my time in the garden was part of this new, budding life inside of me.

I was carrying Wyatt, who turned six years old this year.

After leaving what had been my dream career, this new journey coincided with my early experience of motherhood, an enduring sense of gratitude, and a deepened understanding of nature's power. Yes, I'd had the happiest of endings. But the journey had changed me. My path was clear.

Though I had grown up steeped in nature, devoted time on the Board of an organization dedicated to connecting people with it, it was my own struggle that reminded me of the profound ways that nature can aid us.

This was what I wanted to devote my professional life to helping to see that others might have the same opportunity to experience the unique comfort and solace that nature brings—how it impacts our resilience, how it connects us with one another, how it helps us heal.

Alden E. Stoner is the CEO of Nature Sacred, a foundation enhancing community well-being via its expanding national network of 100+ contemplative green spaces. She is also the producer of the book BenchTalk: Wisdoms Inspired in Nature, highlighting 25 years of visitor journal entries from these Sacred Places.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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