Podcast Summary
This Is Actually Happening – Episode 399: “What If Your Doctors Weren’t Allowed to Help You?”
Host: Whit Misseldine
Guest: Helen
Air Date: February 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This heartrending episode features Helen, who recounts the tragic and traumatic experience of losing her twin sons due to complications in pregnancy—aggravated and prolonged by legal restrictions on medical care in the state of Ohio. The main theme centers on how abortion laws can have unintended and devastating consequences even for those who desperately wish to continue their pregnancies, and the long-term grief, rage, and activism that follow such loss.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Helen’s Background & Medical History

• [01:11] Helen describes her childhood in Illinois, her close relationship with her parents and older sister, and her early passion for both figure skating and science.
• She discusses her struggle with body image, eating disorders, and perfectionism.
• Diagnosed at 18 with endometriosis—a chronic, painful condition threatening her future fertility, which contributed to feelings of betrayal by her own body and lack of control:

  “It felt like these kind of choices that everyone else gets to make were potentially taken from me before I even knew that I would want to have a choice in the matter.” (Helen, 05:20)

Relationships & Early Adulthood

• [09:30] Helen meets her husband, Zach, navigates early career and grad school, re-engages with her faith, and warms to the idea of having children.

Starting a Family

• Helen’s first pregnancy is smooth, resulting in her son William.
• [12:04] Helen becomes pregnant again, and, to her shock, learns she’s expecting identical twins.

The TTTS Diagnosis and High-Risk Pregnancy

• Helen is monitored for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a life-threatening condition for identical twins sharing a placenta.
• At the 18-week checkup, concerns over one twin’s heart lead to genetic testing and a flurry of urgent medical attention.
• After a recommendation, Helen and Zach travel to Cincinnati’s TTTS surgery center.

The Ohio Abortion Law’s Impact

• [34:20] Preterm labor begins; doctors are constrained due to Ohio’s second-trimester abortion bans, which prohibit intervention unless Helen’s life is at risk.
• Helen is not allowed medical assistance to deliver her pre-viable babies quickly. Instead, she is forced to wait, suffering:
  • Quote: “I was just confused and scared and a wreck...It was just silence. It felt like no one was coming. No one was coming.” (Helen, 47:44)
• The sense of abandonment and powerlessness is excruciating for both Helen and Zach.

The Loss of Theodore and Holden

• [49:20] When Helen’s decline finally meets the legal threshold, doctors are permitted to act. She delivers Theodore alive (for a few minutes), then Holden, who is stillborn. Helen hemorrhages and nearly dies but survives due to emergency intervention.
• The grief is compounded by how the law treated her sons differently: Theodore received a birth certificate; Holden did not.
  • Quote: “The state of Ohio had been so invested in these babies 12 hours ago that you were going to risk me hemorrhaging... Now Holden doesn’t even get the same sort of respect as his identical brother does.” (Helen, 53:45)

Aftermath & Long-Term Effects

• [56:55] Helen describes the combination of logistical nightmares, grief, PTSD, and anger following the loss.
• She confronts platitudes ("God needed another angel") and struggles with her faith, though recalling the priest’s comfort:

  “‘I think God is sad with you.’ That was like the one thing that felt true and comforting to me.” (Helen, 58:40)

• Reaffirms her pro-choice beliefs:

  “You cannot impose these laws and then step back and not deal with the fallout. It’s mind blowing that people can create these laws with one set of circumstances in mind and then not follow them through to their logical conclusion, which is people like me.” (Helen, 60:04)

Healing & Advocacy

• Therapy, peer support, and community help Helen process the trauma.
• Together with Zach, she starts the Marigold Foundation to help locally impacted families facing medical crises or infant loss.
• Helen finds solace in helping others, but acknowledges that grief remains ongoing.

Faith, Community, and Meaning-Making

• [61:49] Helen closes with a parable about the man in the flood, finding comfort in the people who supported her—seeing them as “rowboats and helicopters” God sent in her darkest times rather than waiting for an unattainable miracle.

• Acceptance does not mean resolution:

  “It still really sucks. I would have liked Theodore and Holden to be alive. I would have liked to not have had this constant trauma...I don’t feel like there really is this tidy way to tie things up.” (Helen, 64:36)

• Adopts a quote from Anne Lamott:

  “You’re never going to regrow that limb, but you can learn to dance with the limp. That’s what I’ve been trying to do over the last almost decade now.” (Helen, 64:59)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Powerlessness:

  "The hardest part of it was this feeling lost and feeling so powerless while it was happening." (Helen, 56:15)

• On Laws Interfering with Medical Care:

  "The Ohio law had no business being in my business...the method would have been different [in another state]. If I had been somewhere else, who knows if my life would have been saved as well. That's why it's up to a physician to treat a person, because they are the ones with that knowledge. But they had their hands tied." (Helen, 61:10)

• On Grief and Moving Forward:

  “When you lose a baby, a lot of people act like you lost the seed of something, but really you lost the whole tree.” (Helen relaying therapist’s metaphor, 59:48)

• On Faith and Community After Loss:

  “There are a million ways through a million people that God showed up for me.” (Helen, 62:53)

• On Acceptance and Advocacy:

  “I have made the best that I can from the situation that I’ve been dealt, and I’ve been able to form a lot of lovely connections with people...and it still really sucks.” (Helen, 64:21)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:11 – 07:00: Helen’s background, childhood, early ambitions
• 07:00 – 16:00: Early adulthood, diagnosis, marriage, and starting a family
• 17:00 – 28:00: The twin pregnancy and diagnosis of TTTS
• 34:20 – 47:00: Onset of preterm labor, doctors’ limitations, and trauma of medical legal restrictions
• 49:20 – 53:30: The delivery of Theodore & Holden, and medical emergency
• 53:30 – 61:00: Grief, anger, faith, and ideological revelations
• 61:49 – 65:44: Foundations of advocacy, meaning-making, and closing reflections

Conclusion

Helen’s story is an eloquent, moving testament to the complexities of pregnancy loss, the intersections of law, ethics, and medicine, and the unseen harm caused by blanket abortion restrictions. Her journey from trauma, through grief and anger, toward activism and communal support provides crucial insight into why reproductive decisions must remain between patients and their doctors. The episode does not offer a tidy resolution but instead underscores the ongoing, lived reality of loss and the nuanced forms of healing and meaning that follow.

Resources:

• [Marigold Foundation Instagram and Website (see episode show notes)]
• Peer support groups for bereaved parents
• Therapy specializing in fertility and loss

This summary is crafted to help listeners grasp the emotional narrative and policy implications of this powerful story, amplifying Helen’s voice for those seeking insight, empathy, or advocacy in the wake of loss.