Miracle

My 2013 did not start out with the bang of fireworks or a splash of champagne.  I did not cry out Happy New Year at the stroke of midnight.  No, instead, my heart cried out to God, why?  Why me?

I should warn you.  This post will be unlike most of my regular posts.  There will not be happy tidings or silly incidents involving my children.  This post will be raw and real and talk about things that might make people feel uncomfortable.  This post is about loss and hurt and aching.  Miscarriage is not something people talk about in our culture.  It is a silent suffering and so often people think you should just pick up and move on.  If you have never walked the road of miscarraige or pregnancy loss, you will never understand the depth of the grief or the pain of the loss.  I understand if you don't want to take the journey with me.  Everyone grieves differently and I understand if walking this road with me is too difficult.  It is not my intent to bring grief or hurt to anyone else through this post, but to somehow bring healing to myself.

Shortly after Thanksgiving God blessed Chris and I with wonderful, exciting news.  We were pregnant!  We were so excited (and a bit nervous, as I think everyone feels when they first find out they are expecting).  What a blessing!  A new baby, due August 6th.

Not long after we found out we were pregnant my mother's intuition started to kick in (or more likely, God started to prepare me).  Something was wrong.  Nothing felt right.  I had no symptoms of being pregnant.  I went to my first prenatal appointment somewhere around 6.5 weeks and discussed my concern with my midwife.  I also mentioned my concerns to my mom, Chris, and a dear friend that I trusted to pray.  All of them told me what I expected to hear: every pregnancy is different!  Do not worry!  Do not fear!  Choose hope!  I was scheduled for my first ultrasound for December 28th and as the day drew near the ugly fangs of fear settled deep into my flesh.  I could barely sleep or eat, I was distracted and emotional.  I began to feel a bit like I was in a daze.  I just knew I did not want to go to that ultrasound.  I knew the news would not be good.  Dread was heavy and there was no excited anticipation like there had been at my previous ultrasounds in other pregnancies.

December 28th arrived and my heart raced. Tears were boiling just under the surface.  Chris and I sat silently in the waiting room, both of us knowing what we were about to see.  We had the ultrasound and saw our sweet, tiny baby had stopped developing.  No tiny heart beat rapidly.   The room was quiet.  Terribly quiet.  All I wanted was to run out of there and cry.  The ultrasound technician didn't know what to say and didn't want to tell me our baby had died.  She tried to quietly reassure me--maybe my dates were wrong, don't panic, talk to the midwife first.  I knew she just didn't have the heart to tell me the truth.  Our baby was gone.

We met with the midwife and it was all a bit of a blur.  Options were discussed of how to end the pregnancy since my body showed no signs of doing so naturally.  I bit my lip and tried unsuccessfully to fight back tears.  It all felt so cold, medical, sterile, and uncaring.  I was told I would have to wait a week to have an additional ultrasound in order to confirm the pregnancy had truly ended and then I would be scheduled for a d&c.  Walking out of that room my legs felt like lead and I wanted to get to my car as quickly as possible.  Tears flooded me on the drive home. Our baby.  Our precious baby.  Gone.  And I had to walk around for a week as though nothing had changed, knowing all the while, that in my womb was just a shell of our baby.

There are no words to describe that week.  I felt like a robot.  A shell of myself just simply going through the motions.  The anxiety was high, the emotions were intense.  I just wanted all of it to end.  Healing couldn't begin until it all came to an end.  I couldn't put one foot in front of the other, yet I had to.  There were Christmas celebrations to still attend, my children didn't know anything of what had happened, I had to be their mom.

Thursday, January 3rd arrived and it was the day of my repeat ultrasound.  One last look at our sweet baby.  Still gone.  This appointment was a flood of tears and body shaking sobs.  Oh God....there is our sweet baby.  Why won't her heart beat?  Why does this have to happen?  We scheduled the d&c for the next morning, there was blood work, paperwork, hoops to jump through.  All of it very mechanical and cold.

The day of the surgery is also a total blur.  All I remember is tears.  A lot of endless tears.  I knew our baby was in heaven in my heart, I really did.  But the thought of the d&c....it just hurt.  Reading the consent form and seeing words like "tissue" and "removal" and "disposal" and "risk of infertility."  It was all too much to bear and the tears just poured down.  I felt so alone.  So empty.  Before the surgery my doctor said something to me.  He said that despite the circumstances, he hoped God still got all the glory.

That night after all the drugs had worn off I curled up in a tight ball and let the real, ugly, gut wrenching sobs come out.  Chris just held me and listened to the tears fall.  He asked if I wanted to talk and I choked out, "I'm not pregnant anymore."  And it hit me.  I'm not pregnant anymore.  While I spent a week in agony carrying my baby that I knew was no longer there, I was at least still pregnant.  Now I'm not.  It's over.  Our baby is gone.  Completely gone.  The floodgates opened and the emotions were hard.  As I lay there sobbing I cried out to God to show me how in all this He could possibly be glorified.  How was this anything more than just an ugly indication of how messed up this world really is?  Then it hit me.

This baby was a miracle.  A true miracle and gift of God.  You see, I'd never been able to get pregnant before.  Before we had Jacob we tried for nearly a year and a half.  I had tests done and nothing really showed anything.  There was no real reason I couldn't get pregnant, but it just wasn't happening.  I didn't ovulate.  My doctor prescribed clomid and it worked.  We got pregnant in March of 2007, only to lose that baby as well.  Four more months of treatment and we were pregnant with Jacob.  When we decided to try for another after Jacob turned two it was much the same.  We tried a while on our own with no luck.  I went back to the doctor who gave me the same medication we'd used previously.  Within three months we were pregnant with Joshua and Grace.  With this baby we had decided together we didn't want to use medical intervention again.  We decided to try with the understanding that if it happened, great.  If not, we'd be okay with our family as it was.  When we made that choice I truly believed in my heart I would never get pregnant again and while it hurt, I still had a small speck of hope.  Maybe, just maybe, it would happen.  Imagine my shock when we discovered we were pregnant after our first month of trying.  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this could happen.  It was a miracle.  And there it is.  God's glory in all this messed up, broken sadness.  He blessed us with a miracle.  A miracle!  This baby was a gift from God.  How humble and blessed am I to be honored to be the mother who carried this sweet gift, even if for a short time?

Dear Sweet Miracle Baby,
What a sweet, amazing, precious gift you were to us!  God blessed us with a miracle through you and our lives will be forever changed because of it.

Right now I feel like my life is crumbling.  No one would know what has happened to look at me.  My body shows no signs of having been pregnant or of suddenly losing the sweet life that was once inside me.  Life goes on around me like normal and normal hurts me so much right now.  I want you to know, sweet Miracle, that while the world spins onward and people move forward as though nothing has changed, I will not forget you.  I will not forget your sweet life or what it meant to us.  You have changed me and I will never be the same because of you.

When I look forward to and long for my life in Heaven with the Lord I picture my life with you.  What a day that will be, when I will hold you and your sweet brother or sister.  I will count your tiny fingers and your tiny toes.  I will look at your sweet rosebud lips and smell your fragrant baby skin.  And as I've done with all my babies, both in the womb and here on earth, I will lean my head down to your ear and sing Jesus Loves Me.  Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to Him belong.....

I love you little Miracle.  Goodbye, but only for now.

Love,
Your Brokenhearted Mommy

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

~Lamentations 3:22-23~