The Moth Radio Hour: A Brave Front

What does a confident smile say to you?

And maybe more importantly, what does it say about you?

With smile generation, it says you're taking care of more than just your teeth.

Because confidence doesn't just start and stop at a bright smile, it's about your whole body wellness.

Because oral health issues have been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and even cognitive conditions.

When you care for your smile, you're investing in your future.

With smile generation trusted providers, you're not just another patient, you're a partner.

Smile Generation empowers you to understand the connection between your mouth and your overall health.

So you can stop issues before they start.

Here's your chance to take the first step.

Smile Generation is offering a $59 new patient special.

That's a comprehensive exam, cleaning, and x-rays, a $290 value.

New patients only.

Offer not valid for TRICARE or Medicare Advantage.

May be covered by insurance subject to plan restrictions.

Book by December 31st, 2025.

Visit smilegeneration.com slash moth for full terms and to book now.

The moth is supported by AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

This condition can cause polyneuropathy, like nerve pain or numbness, heart failure or irregular rhythm, and gastrointestinal issues.

HATTR is often underdiagnosed and can be passed down to loved ones.

Many of us have stories about family legacies passed down through generations.

When I was five, my mother sewed me a classic clown costume, red and yellow with a pointy hat.

It's since been worn by my sister, three cousins, and four of our children.

I'm so happy this piece of my childhood lives on with no end in sight.

Genetic conditions like HATTR shouldn't dominate our stories.

Thanks to the efforts of AstraZeneca, there are treatment options so more patients can choose the legacies they share.

This year, the Moth will partner with AstraZeneca to shine a light on the stories of those living with HATTR.

Learn more at www.myattrroadmap.com.

From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Jay Allison, producer of this radio show.

And this time, Bravery, stories of the moments you've trained for and moments that catch you off guard, will hear people rise to the occasion or make great sacrifices or just manage to keep on going.

Our first story is from Les Strayhorn, who told this in Austin, Texas, at the Paramount Theater.

Here's Les live at the Moth.

So

I grew up

in a segregated town,

in a segregated county, in a segregated state in the south in eastern North Carolina.

I wondered

to myself if I'd ever get off the farm because my dad was a farmer and my grandfather was a farmer.

And so I thought, I'll be a farmer too.

In 1965, I graduated from the last segregated eighth grade class in my county.

About

a few days later on Sunday,

we went to church, you know, as a family, like we always did.

About halfway through the service, my father got up and told everyone that

he was nominating me and my two cousins to be one of the first people, black people, to go to the all-white high school.

Well, this was a surprise to me.

He hadn't talked to me about it, but I did remember that we had a conversation.

It was about desegregation and integration.

Desegregation, he said, was a legal term.

Integration, however, requires some personal sacrifice.

To be one of the first, we needed live bodies.

And apparently, I was going to be one of those live bodies.

My cousins and I all met at the bus stop

together.

We were assigned the first seat on the bus, right across from the bus driver.

I suppose it was because

we were going to feel a little safer, but I really didn't feel safe.

You know, kids filed by, some made jokes, some were quiet, like the bus driver, but some

were kind of coarse and unruly and kind of bullyish.

In the very back, I'll call him Joe, and his cousins

used to insult us.

every day.

It was a five-mile bus ride.

They insulted us five miles.

This went on for a few weeks and finally I was kind of getting fed up.

Now my dad

was running for the local Board of Education.

He was also a voter rights advocate and one of the things he said to me was, okay,

so you can't get kicked out of school.

You can't fight in the hallways.

You can't be a troublemaker.

So I'm going, well

what can I do he said well I want you to think about it and I'm sure you'll come up with something

well I thought about it nothing

you know I thought about it some more nothing

so the next day the three of us were on the bus as usual

and

Joe and his cousins started talking about they were going to go out for football.

And I thought, huh,

he's going out for football

I can go out for football and just maybe just maybe

I'll get a chance to shut him up

so after my physical and after we were issued equipment first day of practice oh I did practice on my cousins You know, we had no pads, no helmet, but they just let me hit them.

You know, just so I'd know what it felt like, because I never played football before.

You only see it on TV.

Well,

that first day of practice, Joe was a defensive lineman.

So I wanted to be across of him, so I became an offensive lineman.

So

he lined up and I lined up and I made sure that I was across from him on the first drill.

And we both got down.

And he mumbles a threat to me.

And that just kind of got me angry.

The whistle blew and I drove him off the line of scrimmage and

pushed him down.

So he got up and went to the back of his line and he was mumbling to himself a little louder this time

and

he got in line.

So I got in line.

So he saw where I got so he went into a different spot.

So I went into a different spot.

So finally, we met each other again and I drove him off the line of scrimmage.

And he mumbled something in the back.

And then this went on all the way through practice.

But finally, you know, practice was over.

But

the next day, and the week after that, and the week after that, same thing.

So finally, I looked up one day and Joe wasn't at practice.

He had quit.

And I tried to turn my equipment into my coach.

And I said, well, you know, I've done what I set out to do.

You know, I can quit now.

Hey?

And coach said, no, no.

You know, we need good football players.

You're a good football player.

I need you.

Please stay on the team.

Well, that was the first time that anyone at the school had really told me.

that they needed me.

I went home and talked to my dad about it and he said, son,

take advantage of opportunities when they come your way.

My coach also said,

you might be good enough to play college football.

And I told my dad that and he said, oh, they might pay for it.

So I went, well, you know, yeah, you know.

So

I went back and I played.

And I learned how to play better and I got bigger and I got a little faster and we started winning games in high school and finally

the scouts started coming by from college.

They would talk to my coach, they would talk to my dad, but my dad didn't really talk to me much.

So and I was wondering well what's going on with this college thing.

So in my senior year I got letters from 10 or 15 different colleges, which kind of confirmed for me that I was doing okay.

And the TCU horn frogs from Fort Worth,

they were number one on my list.

I wanted to be a horned frog just because I liked the name, right?

When I said it, it sounded funny to me.

He's just like, horn frogs, ha,

you know.

But I talked it over with my mom and my mom said, no, les, you can't leave the state.

I said, okay.

Well then, where can I go?

She said, you can go to that school that's 50 miles away so your father and I can come to the games.

So that turned out to be East Carolina University.

And that's where I was, oh, we got some ECU fans.

Thank you.

Sorry, go pirates.

So

my dad dropped me off on the campus.

I got the scholarship.

He dropped me off on campus and he said, okay, Les.

Don't call home because you know we don't have any money.

I got none to send you.

Okay.

So if you run into trouble, go talk to your coach

and

be brave.

So I followed my dad's advice.

My first year went well.

So my junior year and my senior year, I started getting letters from professional football teams.

And I had never thought about playing professional football before.

It didn't seem like one of those possibilities for me because I'm a farm kid.

I pick pick up 100-pound fertilizer sacks and throw them all day.

In my senior year, however,

I was told by my coach that I was going to be drafted.

And I went, well, who's going to draft me?

He said, well, the Dallas Cowboys.

So,

you know, in the last drive, last round of the draft, then they had 17 rounds.

I was like plus 352 or something, you know, on the list.

Cornell Green came up to see me and said,

you are going to be drafted because we're interested in you.

We need you.

He took me out to dinner, bought the best steak, most expensive steak on the menu, and that sealed the deal.

I went, I'm a cowboy.

So

I'm off to Dallas.

The Cowboys were the first time that I really had a team that was kind of like half and half.

It was like a little less than half black and half white.

I didn't feel like a minority anymore.

I kind of fit in.

But I still didn't have that confidence, you know, that you need to be a professional football player.

I remember my first practice.

You know, we were out in California at training camp.

I'm like number six in line.

I'm a running back, by the way.

So I'm out there with Walt Garrison and Calvin Hill and Robert Robert Newhouse and this crowd.

And they're all good.

And I'm looking up at all these guys that are like 6'7, 6'8 ⁇ , 285, 290 pounds.

And I'm like 5'10, you know, barely 200.

And I'm going, I'm not going to make it two days out here with these people.

But it didn't turn out that way.

So what happened was when we actually started competing, I started thinking, maybe I can.

I knew that I could make the team on

after a Monday night football game with the Washington Redskins.

Then, they were the arch enemy, right?

So, we were both in contention for the NFC East Championship.

And

it was a close game.

So it came right down to the wire.

The Redskins won in Washington, 14-7.

We only lost four games that year, and that was one of the four.

Coach Landry, however, came by

after everything was settled in the locker room, and he actually came by and said, Les, you played a good game.

You did well.

You're going to get more playing time.

At that point, I really felt like I belonged to the NFL.

Thank you.

I finished my playing days with the Cowboys and wound up playing in the Canadian Football League for another four or five more years, ending with a devastating knee injury.

After it was all over,

I kind of thought about the whole career and I thought about my dad and I also thought about Joe

because without the motivation that I found from Joe,

I wouldn't have had my accidental football career.

So I kind of thank Joe for that and I also thank my dad who said,

be brave.

Thank you.

That was Les Strayhorn at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas.

Since Les left professional football, he became a Brooklyn resident where he lives happily as a retired social worker.

You can find him taking walks with his wife of over 30 years.

Les says that he passed his father's message of bravery on to his own daughters, and he says proudly that they take risks and follow their own paths.

We asked all the storytellers in this hour what bravery means to them.

Les said, bravery is doing the thing that scares you, taking a deep breath and doing the hard thing for yourself.

Nothing is more rewarding.

Confidence is your benefit.

Coming up, a district fire chief faces his worst fears during an out-of-control blaze when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

I always get excited about dressing for the fall.

Chunky sweaters, crisp new jeans, a great pair of boots, and Quince has it all.

Right now, I've got my eye on a classic wool coat, a slouchy suede shoulder bag, and yeah, maybe a new pair of sunglasses.

What I love about Quince is that they offer designer looks and quality, but they make it affordable, so I feel good about treating myself.

Quince works directly with ethical, top-tier factories, cutting out the middlemen, so you get luxury quality pieces at a fraction of the price of similar brands.

A few of their sweaters and pants have become staples in my fall wardrobe.

They're cozy, stylish, and make getting dressed effortless.

Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash moth for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e dot com slash moth to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com/slash moth.

Today's show is sponsored by Alma.

I know I'm not the only one who turns to the internet when I'm struggling.

It feels like there are so many answers from how to learn the ukulele to how to improve my mental health.

But what I've come to realize is that while I can use the internet to strum a stunted version of La Vian Rose, When it comes to taking care of my mind, there's no replacement for real human relationships.

But even finding a a therapist can feel like an inevitable online black hole.

That's why I'm so happy to share that Alma makes it easy to connect with an experienced therapist, a real person who can listen, understand, and support you through your specific challenges.

You don't have to be stuck with the first available person.

Trust me, it's important to find someone you click with.

They can be nice, they can be smart, they can let you bring your chihuahua, true story, but they also have to be someone who really gets you uniquely.

When you you browse Alma's online directory, you can filter by the qualities that matter to you.

Then book free 15-minute consultations with the therapists you're interested in seeing.

This way, you can find someone you connect with on a personal level and see real improvements in your mental health with their support.

Better with people, better with Alma.

Visit helloalma.com/slash moth to get started and schedule a free consultation today.

That's hello A L M A dot com/slash M O O T H.

Fall's here.

Kids are back in school.

It's officially the start of cozy season, which means it's time to slide into the most comfortable socks and slippers, tees, and underwear out there from my beloved Bombus.

They're made from premium materials that actually make sense for this time of year.

They're so soft.

Think merino and rag wools, luxurious supima cotton.

And you can order them from over 200 countries around the world.

I make it a point to shop my values, so I love that for every item I buy, Bombus donates one to someone experiencing homelessness.

Over 150 million items have been donated thanks to customers like us.

And the quality is so good, I'm not buying one pair of socks for one fall.

These are socks that take me fall to fall.

Nothing disposable in my sock drawer.

Head over to bombus.com/slash moth and use code Moth for 20% off your first purchase.

That's bombbas.com/slash moth.

Code Moth at checkout.

You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Jay Allison and this time we are hearing about bravery.

Bravery's child can sometimes be sadness because the catalyst for bravery may be a terrible and traumatic event.

Our next storyteller is Michael McNamee, who told us about such an event in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he served as district district fire chief for 16 years.

Here's Michael live at the Hanover Theater in Worcester.

December 3rd,

1999.

It was a Friday.

Firefighters in Worcester, Massachusetts were working their 14-hour night shift.

At 6:13,

an alarm came in for 256 Franklin Street,

the Worcester Coal Storage Warehouse.

I knew the building.

About a week before, I'd been driving by it with my wife, and I said, Do you see that building?

It scares the hell out of me.

As a district chief,

my responsibilities

were to be in charge of any fire-related activity that happened in the northern end of the city.

When the alarm came in, I was several miles north of the warehouse.

The building itself was built around 1906.

It was 80-foot tall

with 18-inch thick brick, solid brick walls that were designed to hold in the temperatures within that building,

had limited egress and access.

with virtually no windows above the second floor.

It was a firefighter's nightmare building, is what it amounted to.

The first arriving companies

reported that they saw smoke coming from the roof.

All this tells us is

there's a fire going on somewhere within that cavernous building.

They quickly located it on the second floor and it involved a fairly large area.

The 25 firefighters already on the scene mounted an aggressive interior attack.

When I arrived, I sized up the situation on the second floor, gave a couple of orders, called for a second alarm because we were going to need more help.

That brought more companies to the scene.

I immediately went upstairs above the fire to the floor above, traversed the whole floor.

The fire had not yet gone up.

We still had a chance at confining this thing.

The conditions in the building were just lightly hazy.

The central elevator shaft was acting like a chimney and taking most of the smoke up and out of the building.

I returned back,

retraced my steps, went through a large area, then through a second large area, and then I found myself in a smaller area facing three doors.

I just said, which way is out?

I should have paid more attention on the way in.

I tried the first door, passed through a room, got to a dead end, solid wall, no stairway at the end.

Second door, same deal.

I came back to the large area, stood there for a few seconds.

The third door just didn't look right.

And suddenly, I heard noise coming from the direction of the third door.

The firefighters climbing the steel stairs.

I headed toward the noise, passed through a narrow room, found a door at the end, went through and found myself in the stairwell.

Relieved.

I returned to the first floor

and

the attack was still going on.

About 30 minutes into the operation,

I looked up the stairwell through the haze, and suddenly, within three to five seconds, tops,

that entire stairwell from the second floor up

charged with thick, acrid black smoke.

Visibility on the upper floors dropped to zero.

Now, my responsibilities as an incident commander is to coordinate the fireground activities at the scene

and to provide the resources necessary to get the job done.

Things were not going well.

I called for a third alarm.

We needed more help.

Shortly after this, a radio message came across

from our fire alarm.

They reported that

homeless people had been living in the building.

This changed everything.

Now it went from a firefight and expanded to a search.

Firefighters on the roof started a top-down search.

Firefighters on the lower floors worked from the bottom up.

A short time later, I got a radio message from one of the crews working top-down.

They were lost, disoriented.

They couldn't find their way back to the stairwell.

I had positioned myself at the base of the stairs.

Just outside the stairwell, several firefighters were waiting for orders.

It's a firefighter's nature when they hear a message like that that they're going to want to rush up those stairs and try to fix the problem.

If that happened, things would have been reduced to chaos.

There would have been no accountability.

And

it wouldn't have been any way to track who was operating where.

So I started to send teams up.

The team radioed again from up above.

We're two floors below the roof.

Two floors below the roof.

We don't know how many floors are in this building.

It's windowless.

It's a monster.

You couldn't run outside and just count.

So I ended up sending a team to the third floor, to the fourth floor, to the fifth floor.

They were told to tie ropes off of the railing in the stairway.

They'd crawl on their hands and knees into the building and search, feeling in front of them and beside them as far as their arms would reach to see if they could feel our people.

They would do that until their low air alarms would sound,

then they'd reverse direction, follow the rope back out, go to the stairwell, and be replaced by another fresh team.

In the meantime, we had constant communication, radio communication, with the lost firefighters.

One radio message they sent, I could hear their low air alarms going off in the background.

That wasn't good.

We didn't have a lot of time though.

When that low air alarm goes off, you have two to three minutes of air left.

And once out of air,

nobody would be able to remain conscious for over a minute in that toxic atmosphere.

Things were getting desperate.

I told them to activate their pass alarms, devices that we wore, that emitted a loud, ear-piercing screech if a firefighter remained motionless for 45 seconds.

They did that.

The searches continued.

They sent one more radio transmission.

We answered them.

When we called them again,

no reply.

The searches continued.

Several minutes later, another urgent message.

A report came down from a crew working on the fourth floor that they now were lost, disoriented, and could not find the only stairway that served the six floors in that building and the roof.

The men kept going up, determined, selfless,

hands and knees, crawling, searching.

Meanwhile, Through all of this, the firefight is still continuing.

Conditions are deteriorating.

The fire was winning.

A lieutenant that was descending

from up above, doing his search up above, reached the bottom of the stairs, plopped down on them, took off his helmet, his facepiece.

He looked up at me and said, Chief,

I couldn't make the fourth floor.

His gear was literally steaming from the intense heat that he'd just been exposed to.

I physically took a step back

and took a full minute to contemplate the next move.

I could not let myself become emotional.

If we continued this operation,

we were going to lose more of the people that went up.

I went to the doorway.

There were about a dozen firefighters staged just outside the stairwell.

I looked at each one of them.

I knew some of their wives, their kids.

The anxiety was palpable.

I thought hard, then said,

that's it.

It's over, we're done.

They were not ready to accept defeat.

A wave of pure anger came towards me.

What do you mean we're done?

We're not done.

We're going up.

And some of them started to take steps toward me.

I physically put my feet and my hands against the door jam

and I said, listen.

We've already lost six and we're not going to lose any more.

It was like they'd been collectively kicked in the gut.

Heads dropped, shoulders slumped,

silent.

I then ordered all personnel to evacuate the building

and told them, come on now, let's go outside and set up for a defensive operation.

Silently, slowly,

They left.

The fire raged, contained contained within that cauldron of brick, until the third through the sixth floors and the roof had collapsed into a 25-foot-high pile of tangled rubble

that was sitting on four to six feet of compacted ash.

Once the fire was controlled,

a round-the-clock operation to recover what would become known in the fire service nationally as the Worcester Six

from that horrible place.

Meanwhile, while this was all going on, a memorial was held.

President Clinton,

Vice President Gore

came.

35,000 firefighters from across the country

Canada and Europe marched six abreast in a procession that stretched for over a mile to that service.

All along both sides of the route, the crowds were thick and absolutely silent.

The only sound you heard was the uniform sound of the marchers' feet as they went down the street.

It was an emotional day.

The memorial had been planned

with the anticipation that by that time we would have recovered the six.

But the reality was

by the time the memorial came up, we still had four buried somewhere in that rubble.

Eight days later, we were looking for our last person.

His wife approached one of our chiefs, handed him a bottle of Sam Adams beer, and said,

here, put this up on the deck and he'll find you.

Well, we did it and a short time later, we found them.

The amazing thing was, all of a sudden one of the searchers said, look, and he pointed to high up on the brick wall.

And a large piece of insulation that had been hanging up there through the whole process suddenly was in full flame.

The fire was out.

It had been out for days.

And this thing just spontaneously ignited for a reason we can't explain.

We had a ritual that we followed when we were removing

one of our found firefighters from the deck, which is what that level became known as.

Two opposing lines of firefighters would stand facing each other, helmets over their hearts

as a symbol of honor and respect,

while the body of their brother was carried on a stretcher in between them to the waiting ambulance.

As we were passing this last man down over the deck, one of the firefighters just silently pointed.

When we turned around,

that flaming mass of insulation

had extinguished without a trace of residual smoke.

We'd completed our mission.

We'd returned all six of them to their loved ones.

Six wakes and six funerals were held the following week.

2,000 firefighters showed up at each one of those funerals.

Each one of them got the honors and the rights that they deserved.

I'm fourth generation Worcester.

I always knew this city had grit

and attitude.

But the way I saw the people come together

during that

tragedy and afterwards showed that Worcester has a tremendous heart.

It was a life-altering situation for so many of us here in the city.

Here we are now, almost 17 years out.

We have moved forward, but Worcester will never forget.

Michael McNamee was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, and appointed to the fire department in 1972.

The Worcester cold storage fire occurred in his 27th year on the job.

A little over a year after the fire, he was appointed the department's first safety and health officer and spent the last eight years of his career developing policies and practices to make the job, quote, as safe as a dangerous job can be, end quote.

Michael retired in 2009 after serving for a total of 37 years.

He and his wife now live on Cape Cod, not far from where we produce this radio show.

When we asked him about his definition of bravery, Michael said, Bravery and hero, I believe, are tossed around too casually these days.

We are trained to do the job that we do.

When your efforts are successful, you're a hero.

But despite the same effort, if it doesn't turn out as you hoped, you are a, yeah, I was there.

When we return, our final tale of fortitude from an expectant mother.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by Pierre.

AutoTrader is powered by Auto Intelligence, the hyper-personalized way to buy a car.

AutoTrader's tools sync with your exact budget and preferences to tailor the car shopping experience totally to you.

Budgeting lets you input your info to see listings in your price range.

Search and inventory helps zero in on your dream car.

You can choose from new or pre-owned, the style of the car and features like engine size, color, all the way down to whether you want a trailer hitch.

Go ahead and get picky.

Don't worry about scrolling endlessly.

AutoTrader powered by auto intelligence only shows you vehicles based on what you can afford and what you want.

And pricing shows you which listings are the best deals.

So you can feel like you're winning the negotiation without negotiating.

You can even choose how to close the deal at home, at the dealership, wherever.

AutoTrader powered by auto intelligence makes the process of buying a car less of a process.

Try it today.

Visit auto trader.com to find your perfect ride.

When the weather cools down and the days get shorter, I just want to make my home feel extra cozy.

And Wayfair gets it.

I recently picked up a great comfy armchair to read in, some soft new sheets, and a fluffy throw blanket, so I'm ready for the fall.

Wayfair is really the go-to spot for everything you need to cosify your space this fall.

They have a huge selection of furniture, decor, bedding, and even kitchen essentials.

Everything's curated by style, with options for every budget.

My delivery was quick, free, and totally hassle-free, which made setting up my cozy corner a breeze.

Whether you're looking to refresh your living room, stock your kitchen for fall cooking, or just add a few seasonal touches, Wayfair has you covered.

Cozify your space with Wayfair's curated collection of easy, affordable fall updates, from comfy recliners to cozy bedding and autumn decor.

Find it all for Wayless at Wayfair.com.

That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.

Wayfair.

Every style, every home.

RX.

You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show.

This hour we're hearing about courage, and our final storyteller is Robin Utz.

Robin told this story live in Boston, where we partner with public radio station WGBH.

Here's Robin at the Wilbur Theater.

I was pretty sure about my husband right off the bat.

When I met him, I loved how he talked about the things that he loved so much.

He would have me come over to his apartment and we'd watch Soul Train YouTube clips until late in the evening and he would look at me with these adoring eyes and say, It's the happiest place on earth.

And I was like, it really is.

It took me no time to know I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him and it took pretty much no time to realize I wanted to have a child with him.

And the happily ever after has been easy.

We're still as in love today as we've ever been.

But the child part

has

not been so easy.

It was after four years of trying,

two rounds of in vitro,

three frozen transfers from those in vitros, and a miscarriage that we finally got pregnant with our daughter, Grace Pearl.

And we were just ecstatic.

The pregnancy went like a breeze.

And before we knew it, we were at the anatomy scan, which happens a little over halfway through the pregnancy.

And I could not wait.

I wanted that profile shot.

You know, you get the little like side profile that everybody thinks about with an ultrasound and Jim wanted to see it too, so he came to the appointment with me.

And

we were having a nice time.

We were just chattering about where we were going to get lunch.

And it took me a little bit to notice that the ultrasound technician, Nicole, was not saying a lot.

She was kind of making concerned noises and She goes, there's not a lot of amniotic fluid.

I want you to roll on your side, and I'm going going to talk to the doctor.

So I do that, hoping that it'll prompt Grace to move to a better position.

And she comes back and tries to scan again, and no change.

Grace has not moved.

And she says,

there's no amniotic fluid.

And I'm sorry, I know that's not what you don't want to hear.

And I'm like,

it's not.

Okay.

All right.

And so she leads us down the hallway to go talk to the doctor.

And and I Google.

I Google, you know, second trimester, no amniotic fluid, and what stares me back in the face is 80 to 90% fatal.

And I'm like, shit.

It does not improve when we get into the doctor's office.

There is a waiting room in the doctor's office that is full of newborn pictures that my doctor has just delivered, most of them featuring her, and they're all smiling.

And she comes in, not smiling, and introduces herself to Jim, my husband, as Jen.

And I'm like,

shit.

Not Dr.

Meyer, Jen.

That's not a good sign.

She explains the following.

Our daughter's kidneys are huge.

They're full of fluid-filled cysts.

Basically, they're not working.

And the way that babies work when they're in the womb is

amniotic fluid travels through the kidneys and is urinated out, goes through, it is swallowed by them, and it cycles.

And without that cycling, their lungs will never develop.

They can't breathe.

She explains that the prognosis is not good and we burst into tears.

To

Confirm this, she has scheduled an emergency second ultrasound an hour later, also in this hospital.

And for now, she lets us leave out a side door so we don't have to go through the waiting room full of expectant mothers with their full bellies for all of our sakes.

I walk past a half-eaten birthday cake on the way out.

We get outside and it is an unusually warm November day and people are milling everywhere.

And I cannot believe the earth has not stopped taking their lives with it, just stopped in place.

And I can't even stop.

My parents knew that this ultrasound was happening right then.

and I can't not call them and tell them what's happened.

So I call and my mom answers within a second, and she's like, how was it?

And I'm like,

not good.

And she drops the phone.

I can hear her sobbing.

My dad picks it up a few seconds later and asks what happened.

And I do my best to tell him while Jim's rubbing my back.

and silently crying next to me.

And my dad asks if he can be there with us for the second ultrasound and we agree.

and that's where we meet him in the waiting room for the second ultrasound.

He gives us each huge hugs and makes jokes about the reading material and I'm so grateful he's there, dad jokes and all

and soon we're taken back for the second ultrasound and it's about two hours of detailed pictures of our daughter.

She shows us the kidneys and the little black dots on them, which are the fluid-filled cysts.

And she shows us that there's no black background, which is what amniotic fluid is.

So there is not going to be that profile picture.

The doctor comes in and introduces herself as Dr.

Gray, and my dad goes, like Gray's anatomy.

And I'm like, I don't think he's ever seen that show.

I always loved that he was being humorous in that moment.

And she asks, what we know.

So we explain what we've heard so far.

And she said, that's right.

There are two outcomes for your daughter.

She'll either be stillborn, having been crushed to death by your body, because there's no amniotic fluid, or she will be born and the wheels will come off.

I remember that phrasing, the wheels will come off without working lungs.

She'll never survive and she'll die within minutes, hopefully in my arms.

My dad thought to ask,

what are the odds for a baby like this?

And she looked at him and said, none.

And she looks at me and says, your baby would be the first if she made it.

She then starts to explain the laws around abortion in the state of Missouri where I live.

She says that you have to first sign consents, which aren't always easy to schedule because only certain people can allow you to sign them with them.

Then you have to wait 72 hours, I guess, to consider what you're doing.

You also can't have an abortion after 21 weeks,

six days.

I'm 20 weeks and six days when this happens.

And there's an upcoming weekend and a Thanksgiving holiday.

So we have no time to think about it.

We have to decide almost immediately if we want to be able to do this.

if we choose to, in time.

She leaves the room to give us a moment and we all just burst into tears.

We're all hugging one another and just inconsolable.

And I think about it, and I'm just like,

what choice do we have?

She's going to die 100%.

And if we don't terminate this pregnancy, she will suffer 100%.

And I look at Jim and I'm like, we have to terminate, right?

And he's like, Of course we do.

Even my dad, who is raised Catholic, agrees it would be cruel to do anything else.

The doctor comes back in and we tell her we've made our decision and she says, I didn't want to sway you,

but your risk would go up seven times if you didn't do this now.

And that's just the risk of being pregnant.

She explains that they will have somebody call us as soon as possible to get the signed consents scheduled.

because we're so short on time and we're lucky to be able to get in the very next day.

Jim and I go to a facility where a doctor in Scrubs meets us and takes us back to a conference room.

And there are papers laid out.

Before I can even look at them, she even pauses us and she says, These are state-mandated forms.

They're not medical.

They contain judgmental language that is designed to make you feel bad.

It is not how we feel about you.

I look down and I'm asked to be to sign saying that I have been offered to hear my daughter's heartbeat.

I listen to my daughter's heartbeat on a home Doppler every other day.

I have a recording on my phone.

We're asked if we had been offered to hear or to see an ultrasound.

I'd had three hours of ultrasounds just the day before.

And I also had asked for extra ultrasounds because I wanted to see her any time I could.

Then I opened a packet, and on the very first page, in bold, indented letters, it says, human life starts at conception.

You are ending a separate, unique human life.

And my grief was interrupted by outrage.

Nowhere in this documentation was how much Grace would suffer.

None of it talked about the increased risks to my health.

It was all just biased on one side.

I wanted to light them on fire,

but I assigned them.

I had to.

And that started the 72-hour clock.

That was

the longest time in my life.

It was a slow marching through time

where My friends seamlessly cleared their calendars to invite me over to do jigsaw puzzles and drink tea with them.

My parents came over and they removed every stitch of baby clothing and items out of our home.

I took pregnancy-approved sleeping pills.

I hugged Jim harder than I thought possible and hoped we could just meld into one person.

I cried and cried.

and cried.

And the night before the termination, I asked asked Jim how he wanted to say goodbye to Grace.

While I thought about this, I thought about how sure I was about my decision.

I knew other people might make a different choice than I did.

And there was a part of me that wanted to give birth to her and hold her, but I couldn't imagine doing anything but what we were doing because it felt cruel to do anything different.

It was so definitive.

And I never thought I would have an abortion, but I've never needed to think about it.

Jim said he wanted to have a dance party for her.

Our own little soul train.

And he made a playlist of songs he'd always wanted her to hear and always wanted to teach her about.

And so, in our pajamas, late at night in our living room lit by candles, we danced with Grace.

We played riot girl music

and some rolling stones and

laughed at let's spend the night together because we'd always thought it would have a little different meaning with a newborn.

And when Mick Jagger sang, baby, I patted my little baby bump and we sang at it.

And we slow danced to sitting on the dock of the bay, which Jim has always said is a perfect song, just the way that it is.

We had to be at the hospital at five in the morning the next day

And in the operating room, as the pre-anesthesia cocktail hit me, I looked at my doctor in the corner and

I was like, I need you to know

that I love my daughter.

I'm doing this because I love my daughter.

The nurse rubbed my arms, and I was gently turned and laid back on the operating table, and they put my headphones in.

They had told me I wouldn't be asleep.

And so we played Grace's playlist.

And that's how we said goodbye to her.

I'm pregnant again.

It's a girl again.

I'm so excited.

I can't wait to see what she's like

and to teach her things.

I can't wait to hold her hands while she's learning to walk

and to braid her hair and to teach her about one of my favorite songs, Harvest Moon.

I really want her to grow up in a world where she's valued,

where her humanity and dignity and her ability to make the best decisions for herself are respected.

Thank you.

That was Robin Huds.

Robin's daughter, Hannah, was born just a day before she was due.

She was 6 pounds, 10 ounces, and 20.5 inches long.

Robin says, Grace lives on in Hannah, as Hannah means grace in Hebrew.

Robin and Jim plan to tell Hannah about Grace someday.

They want her to know that they loved Grace and that you can love someone very much before you really know them.

Robin still works as a patient and reproductive health advocate.

She feels strongly that we need to support reproductive rights all the way down the line.

When we asked how she feels, when people tell her she's brave for telling her story, she said, it may feel like it takes bravery, because some people are willfully ignorant and lack curiosity these days, but I know a lot of that comes from fear, and that propels me to share more and more.

The stories in this hour have been about bravery, but there's bravery in every moth story, the courageous act of getting on stage and telling about the vulnerabilities at your core.

If you feel like attempting that act of bravery, you can tell us about your story by recording a very short version right on our website, themoth.org.

That's it for this episode.

We hope you'll you'll join us next time, and that's the story from the Moth.

The stories in this show were directed by Meg Bowles and Michelle Jalowski.

The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Janess, and and Jennifer Hickson.

Production support from Emily Couch.

Moth Stories Are True, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.

Our theme music is by The Drift.

Other music in this hour from Blake Noble, The Westerlies, and Neil Young.

You can find links to all the music we use at our website.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX.

For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

What kind of programs does this school have?

How are the test scores?

How many kids to a classroom?

Homes.com knows these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent.

That's why each listing on Homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student-teacher ratio, school rankings, and more.

The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Homes.com's dedicated in-house research team.

It's all so you can make the right decision for your family.

Homes.com.

We've done your homework.