How has Dad Always helped you redefine fatherhood after your loss?

How do you live after your baby dies without feeling like you’re betraying them by surviving? That question sits at the center of my conversation with Azher Rubanni, a father who lost his son Hashim in a full-term stillbirth 20 years ago. We get honest about what many dads feel but rarely say: the pressure to be the “strong one,” the instinct to suppress emotion to protect your partner and kids, and the quiet fear that if the pain ever dulls, you’ll be forgetting your child.

Azher walks us through the day everything changed, including the moment he decided, in a hospital car park, that he would become the supporter no matter what it cost him inside. We talk about telling his three sons their brother would not be coming home, the cultural forces that tried to keep children away from grief, and why inviting kids into the truth can build trust for life. We also explore how different grieving styles inside a marriage can create distance, and why the workplace can become both a refuge and a trap, especially for fathers who feel they must “perform” competence while falling apart.

Then we shift to what helps over the long term. Azher offers a powerful alternative to the language of “healing” and “moving on”: reconciliation. He breaks it into three parts:

1. reconciling with yourself
2. reconciling with your child’s memory
3. and reconciling with the relationships you still have.

If you’re navigating stillbirth, miscarriage, baby loss, or parenting after loss, this one is a grounded, candid conversation for fathers and the people who love them.

Subscribe, share with a dad who needs it, and leave a review telling us what part hit home.

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, let's have a FREE private 30-minute conversation.

Go to dadalways.com for more information.

Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Sunfrost by Cody Martin

First Bloom by Moments

Farewells by Shimmer

How has Dad Always helped you redefine fatherhood after your loss?

Today I conclude my conversation with Ross Knight, a pastor and husband, who learns, painfully and honestly, that trying to be “the strong one” can become a way of disappearing from your own grief. We talk about miscarriage from a father’s perspective, the invisible pressure to keep functioning, and the moment he realizes he has been so focused on his wife’s trauma that he never stopped to ask himself a basic question: how am I doing?

We walk through the realities of IVF and male infertility, including genetic testing and a chromosomal translocation that makes the odds of a healthy pregnancy brutally small. Alongside the science is the emotional fallout: guilt, shame, and the craving to regain control by fixing everything fast. We also get into why so many couples suffer in silence after pregnancy loss, especially when you’re trying to protect your partner, your privacy, or your community role. When he finally shares publicly, the flood of responses becomes proof of something many grieving dads need to hear: you are not alone, and connection is not weakness.

Faith is part of this story too, not as a neat explanation, but as wrestling, surrender, and the long work of relinquishing what you cannot control. The turning point comes with a hard, hopeful pivot toward adoption, and he shares why adoption is not a consolation prize but a real path into parenthood, love, and purpose.

If you know someone navigating miscarriage, infertility, IVF loss, or adoption after baby loss, share this conversation with them.

Subscribe to Dad Always, leave a review, and tell us: what helped you most when you finally stopped suffering in silence?

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, let's have a FREE private 30-minute conversation.

Go to dadalways.com for more information.

Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Nowhere Left To Turn by Ghost Beatz

How has Dad Always helped you redefine fatherhood after your loss?

The part of baby loss we don’t hear enough is what happens to dads when everyone assumes we’re “fine.” This week I speak with my friend, Ross Knight, for a raw conversation about infertility, IVF, miscarriage, and the quiet ways grief shows up in men who are trying to hold everything together.

Ross shares the road from early marriage hopes to the shock of a male factor infertility diagnosis and the stigma that can come with it. We talk about the pressure of fertility treatment, the real cost of IVF, and the painful imbalance many couples face when the wife’s body carries the medical burden even when the fertility issue isn’t hers. Ross also reflects on being a pastor during all of this, managing public responsibilities while suffering in silence at home.

Then hope arrives fast: a positive pregnancy test, early ultrasounds, telling family, and finally letting themselves picture a future. Under COVID restrictions, appointments become harder and lonelier, and one day a string of texts signals that something is wrong. What follows is the moment no parent is prepared for: walking into a room and learning there is no heartbeat. We unpack the aftermath, the DNC decision, the clash of grieving styles in marriage, and the line that changes Ross’s internal world weeks later: “How are you doing with all this?”

If you’ve faced miscarriage, pregnancy loss, infertility, or IVF, this story offers language for what you may not have named yet and a reminder to check on both parents.

Subscribe for more conversations about fatherhood after loss, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help other dads find the support they’ve been missing.

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, let's have a FREE private 30-minute conversation.

Go to dadalways.com for more information.

Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

"Those Were The Days" & "Young Love" by Nu Alkemi$t