By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

AKRON — Psalm Patrick Ingle is four months old this month.

Yet, he’s already helped make two families who lost children one “family,” as his mother Brittany Ingle said.

Psalm is the son of Brittany and Shane Ingle of Akron. In October 2018, their three children, Alivia Stahl and twins Mason and Xzavier Ingle, were killed in a bus stop accident on SR 25 outside Rochester.

Psalm was born via a gestational surrogate, Keri Fox of Warsaw. She’s no stranger to the pain of losing a child: her son, Gidieon Cook, was killed in a car wreck outside Harrison Elementary School in Warsaw in June 2019.

The two women had originally connected due to their similar losses, said Fox.

“In June 2019, my friend told me that (Brittany) wanted to connect because she knows my pain and she knows what I’m going through,” said Fox.

Fox didn’t hesitate to volunteer to be a surrogate three years later after she saw a Facebook post her friend shared from Brittany about Brittany looking for someone to carry a baby.

Brittany noted she and Shane started wanting another child a few years after their children were killed.

“My husband and I went through the grieving process, and we were just really lonely,” said Brittany.

She mentioned her home is a lot quieter than without the three kids, especially since the couple’s oldest child, Selena Stahl, has gotten older and is out of the house a lot.

Brittany checked in 2021 to see if she could still have a baby, but an earlier medical procedure kept her from carrying a child.

A doctor suggested that Brittany check to see if any of her friends or family could be a gestational surrogate for her and Shane, but she knew that wasn’t possible.

“I mourned that for a year because to me and my husband that was another loss, like officially getting the news that I could never carry or go through that pregnancy, everything with your spouse,” said Brittany.

In 2022, Brittany contacted Family Choice Surrogacy in Fishers. She then put a post on Facebook inquiring about women who wished to be surrogates, which led to Fox carrying Psalm.

Brittany said everything “fell into place” perfectly.

“I went from not even thinking this was going to be possible to someone so perfect came along who understood what I was grieving,” said Brittany.

The proximity of the two women’s homes meant Brittany could interact with Fox throughout the pregnancy.

“I got to really spend that pregnancy with her and bond with her even more. We did a lot of lunches and appointments,” said Brittany.

Psalm was conceived after an embryo transfer in January 2023.

“Everything happened so quickly and beautifully,” said Brittany. “It came in God’s time. I truly believe that.”

Fox said her due date with Psalm was Oct. 3, one day before what would have been Gidieon’s 13th birthday. It also fell during the same month as the five-year anniversary of Alivia, Mason and Xzavier’s deaths.

“It was just like everything was meant to happen the way it happened,” said Fox.

“He was born Sept. 25, a day before my birthday,” said Brittany of Psalm.

Psalm’s first name comes from the Bible verse Psalm 119:105. It reads: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

The verse was on a dog tag, which Brittany helped Mason pick out to wear the day he passed away.

Fulton County Coroner Jeri Good found the dog tag and gave it back to the Ingles.

Psalm’s middle name is Patrick, the same as Xzavier’s.

Brittany noted she could have turned away from God after her kids passed away. She ended up discovering the sermons of Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church on YouTube.

“I just started listening and listening and I started leaning more on God and literally, that church, that man saved my life because I literally had a different outlook. He made me see things differently,” said Brittany.

“And God has been with me the whole way,” she added.

She talked about the “blessings” she has now including baby Psalm and the MAXSTRONG Law, created by former State Sen. Randy Head, which enacted stricter penalties for drivers, who pass school buses, with their stop arms out.

“I think that there’s a reason for everything in God’s plan … and I want to inspire people that God is truly the way through the darkness,” said Brittany.

She said Fox and she are “family” now.

“We still do holidays together and it’s amazing. It’s so amazing; so I got not only a baby, but an entire family to go with it,” Brittany said.

She called surrogacy “beautiful” and encouraged women to do it if they could.

“There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others,” said Brittany.

She noted she can trust Fox to babysit if needed.

“We both lost our only sons and now we get to go through this together raising Psalm,” said Brittany.

She says she is already starting to tell Psalm about Alivia, Mason and Xzavier.

Brittany notes she can see parts of the three kids in Psalm.

“He’s a perfect mix of all three of them,” she said. “He has Alivia’s big smile and always smiling, but playing with him … I can kind of see a peek of the boys in him.”

“That is kind of hard sometimes because as much as a blessing as he is … it doesn’t take away the pain of my kids being gone everyday,” added Brittany. “I still so very much hurt for them.”

As a result, Brittany is “still calling for national bus safety (legislation),” she said, as laws are different all over the nation.

“If I could make MAXSTRONG a standard law across the 50 states, I think that would be great. I really want to push for that,” said Brittany.

As for Fox, she’s honored Gidieon by creating the Gidieon Orion Cook Memorial Fund through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation. The fund gives to a variety of community needs in Kosciusko County.

Fox said giving birth to Psalm and seeing him with the Ingles has helped her “heal a little bit” after Gidieon’s death.

“It’s never going to go away, but it’s always nice to see them smiling … because I’ve always wanted to make Gidieon proud, and I think this is something that would have made him proud,” said Fox.