New podcast episode: The weight of grief
Life after Hadleigh - Samantha Coyne, LEND trainee, WVU Law student
Monday, June 30, 2025
**Content warning: episode discusses child loss.**
In this powerful new episode of the Adjusting the Sails podcast, Samantha Coyne—WVU Law student, LEND trainee, and devoted mother—shares the story of her daughter Hadleigh, whose life and unexpected passing reshaped Samantha’s entire sense of identity and purpose. From a complicated pregnancy and a rare diagnosis of Noonan syndrome to joyful moments of motherhood and exhausting advocacy, Samantha takes us on a journey of love, loss and resilience. She opens up about the isolation, medical challenges and systemic gaps that families of children with disabilities often face. Her reflections resonate with any caregiver whose world revolves around their child, especially when that world is shattered. This conversation is a raw and honest look at what comes next when the child you lived for is suddenly gone.
Adjusting the Sails is a podcast about the lives and specific challenges children with special healthcare needs and other disabilities face along with their families, caregivers and service providers, and how to manage those challenges. The podcast is a platform for all disability-related topics to be discussed and serves as a mediator between families and caregivers, allowing them to share their stories and experiences. Adjusting the Sails features guest speakers, panelists and a variety of program representatives and service providers to offer education and training to the listener.
This podcast is sponsored by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Office of Maternal, Child, and Family Health/Children with Special Health Care Needs Program and the West Virginia Family 2 Family Health Information Center and produced by the West Virginia University Center for Excellence in Disabilities.
Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the official views of the hosts, the Department of Human Services Office of Maternal Child and Family Health/Children with Special Health Care Needs Program, the West Virginia Family 2 Family Health Information Center, nor the West Virginia Center for Excellence in Disabilities.