There is no way that I have found to gently start a conversation about a miscarriage. So we'll just start.
I see now why it's one of Those Topics that a lot of people just don't talk about. No one knows what to say. No one wants to really think about it, or discuss the details or emotions around it. It's sad and ugly and sensitive.
And I have wrestled with whether this is something I want to talk about or not. Whether I want to tell my story and spread my heart on a black and white typed platter.
But my God said yes. I need to tell it.
Everyone has a different experience with it if they have been through one.
Everyone handles grief differently.
But not everyone knows what to say. Sometimes I don't know what to say. I've stood in places and watched close friends hurt more than I can stand and been frozen with not knowing what to say. I've had a miscarriage and I often have no idea what to say.
There are huge chunks of things I wish I had written about before this. That I had recorded. The sweetest summer that we have had. The humor and incredible joy and peace we had when we found out we were pregnant. The video of when we told the girls. We soaked in life these last few months, and for that I am so thankful.
Shortly after the eight week mark, and right after we had told work and several close friends, I felt like something wasn't right.
How fast things can happen.
I called the doctor from work with hopes that they would tell me everything was normal, but they asked me to come in for blood work and an ultrasound. From the time I called to the time I was out of the ultrasound room was less than an hour and a half. With the new knowledge that our sweet baby was tiny. Almost three weeks 'behind' from where our due date should be measuring.
If I'm honest with myself, I already knew something wasn't right. My spirit was very unsettled. I would not have been shocked if they told me it was a tubal pregnancy, a phantom pregnancy. What I was not prepared for was when she told me that there was a baby, and found the heartbeat, perfectly situated where it is suppose to be.
"Could you be off on your dates by a few weeks?"
No. I was certain we were not off.
We met with the sweetest nurse practitioner who explained things as well as she could, answered the questions we did have. I remember her being so incredibly compassionate, and crying with me. I remember Ben never leaving my side. Asking the questions I couldn't ask.
I also remember that she said, "Come back in a week and we will do another ultrasound. If nothing has changed by then I strongly think it's 50/50. There will either be a very strong heartbeat, or none."
We prayed. We prayed so hard. I got down on my knees in a more intimate conversation with our God than I had had in a long time. For rapid growth, a strong heartbeat, for miraculous, perfect health for our baby. I knew this story, this baby, was crafted from the beginning by the Lord. I knew it had a purpose. I asked for what would be best and most glorifying to Our King, knowing that even the emotions and outcome of it may not be what I was asking for. But I asked. He tells us to ask, so I did.
I asked for covering. I asked for peace. I asked for my baby. I asked that He would walk with us every step of the way.
We shared what was going on with a few others and asked for them to pray with us. I'm certain now that I will never know the full power of how that divinely impacted how we walked through and continue to walk through this experience.
I told Ben at one point that I didn't want this to be part of our story. Selfishly, I wanted NONE of this. But sometimes it isn't about what we want, it's about what we need. And Someone else knew way more of what I needed and what was best for me than I did.
I found and clung on to 1 Peter 1:3-9 for some reason. It was my anchor.
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
The ironic and timely message of our church service that weekend - "Blessings of Trials" - was not lost on us. I looked at the outline when I sat down and just sighed. But looking back, I know that it significantly impacted how we were to walk through this.
Our trials can serve the plan of God in our lives. They
can be redemptive if we invite him in. They can be a catalyst to encourage others, and ourselves, to be bold in their service.
I guess that's where I am now. Emboldened. Because I don't want to see another mother shove this under the rug, or feel ashamed, without hope, or left alone in confusion and sadness.
Nothing transforms our characters like difficulty or pressure. And I held on with everything that I had left that my character would somehow be transformed to glorify Christ, and not the enemy that was trying really, really hard to pull me down.
I prayed so much, so hard, for days. I knew He COULD heal our baby.
But He didn't.
The waiting was hard. The unknown was terrifying. I tried to find constant distractions so my mind wouldn't go so fast to my largest fear. My mind almost couldn't comprehend it. The waves of emotion were hard. Acting normal in front of every one else was hard. The waves of numbness were hard. The physical experience of it was hard.
It was so many things and no really good words for it.
On August 12th I had written in my journal through really sloppy tears that I didn't feel pregnant any more. And I hated saying that out loud so much. I said that I was mentally steeling myself. Things had gotten worse. And I knew I wasn't in control. There was nothing I could do, could have done. I asked for peace and ultimately the joy that transcends circumstances because the only thing I COULD do was choose the Holy Spirit and invite him in.
Our pastor has said that our God is not intimidated by our anger, so I gave that to him too. Because, please Jesus, you can handle it a whole lot better than I can. I was so angry in some moments I wasn't sure what to do with it at all.
The next morning I called the doctor and they had me in for more blood work, explaining that depending on the levels it would be indicative of whether or not I was in the process of miscarrying. And three hours later they called me and I found out I was.
At that point I let my mind and my body just break down.
Thursday night was interwovenly the most vivid and most blurred experience. I had a miscarriage.
On Friday morning we went in for the confirmation ultrasound, and I just walked through the necessary steps.
The thankfulness and grief came in back to back waves. The grief over the loss. The thankfulness for my husband that prayed and prayed and did not leave my side. The grief over all that we had planned. The thankfulness for not having to have additional procedures. The grief over having to tell our two girls that the baby they had kissed in my belly for weeks was no longer there.
It was a day that I will never be able to completely articulate. But God in his mercy was so good to us. I had to hold on to that. My God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow. That was my constant.
And the weird subconscious thing about a miscarriage is that it isn't really
obvious from the outside
. If it is in the early stages of pregnancy, like mine was, it isn't like you look drastically different. There's no tell-tale sign or symptom that people can readily see. Sometimes society just assumes that if something devastating happens, it's going to be readily apparent. You should look different. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes you don't. And so we had to tell people, people we had shared our joy with, and now had to share the sadness, and that was so hard. Not sharing it, just saying it. That may have been one of the hardest. Saying it out loud, over and over. We almost had to build up a callous around it.
But through it all, we realized He had prepared our hearts, mercifully, for this. Each time we had to tell someone, it was a shock for them. We would see it all over their face, hear it in their voice. And then the moment of There Are No Words.
And that's ok.
- Sometimes there are just no words. And it's ok to say that.
But for us, we had several days to talk through and express emotions on where we were. To be in the situation and have to wade through it deeper and deeper. In some ways it felt like it softened the shock for us.
My Mom and sister, amazingly, were here on Friday. For Mom to be here from Japan, for her one visit of the year, at the time (to the day) where I needed her presence most, was a tender miracle.
The grief and sadness hits at very unexpected times.
The support of friends covered us. I honestly and tangibly felt covered by peace when I didn't even know what to say or the words to pray.
- Pray for others, intercede for them. It makes a difference.
There were a few close friends that were gifted with how to lift us up and support us during all of this. Texts or calls of words and encouragement, with no expectation of anything in return. Moments of just silence and crying. No one knows whether to bring food or flowers during something like this, so they did anyway.
- Reach out to them. There may not be many words in return. Keep reaching out some more.
The day of is hard. The days and days after are the more unexpected hard ones.
For me, the weird things were the unexpected emotions, the weird emotional reactions. Some times I just wanted to hide. To avoid people and their sympathetic faces, the glances. I avoided people in the hallway at church. I went into a meeting knowing half a dozen people in there were aware of what had happened, and I could feel an anxiety attack creeping up my throat.
Not because of anything they had done wrong. Not because of anything I had done wrong. It made no sense and I won't try to make it, it just was.
I fully realized that satan was attempting to attack my and deceive me with my own emotions when I couldn't walk into that meeting. It rationally makes no sense why someone who miscarried would feel ashamed, embarrassed or judged. But I did. And I had to fight it.
That's what I want people to know. That it's a fight for your thoughts, your praise, and your mind. That 'the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.' (John 10:10) and it can chip away at your armor unless you're ready for the battle and have people to help you fight it.
Thank God for my people.
And speaking of people, there was some unexpected things with those, too. Sometimes I couldn't hug them. Rather, I couldn't let people hug me. And I'm a hugger from way back. Call it self-preservation, I don't know. I have what one friend referred to as bizarre psychological tricks. But I knew that if they hugged me, I would crumble. And I just needed to be able to not crumble until I was ready. What I wanted to say was, "Please, PLEASE don't take how I am trying to cope personally. I love hugs. I love you. Just, no hugs right now." I put on regular mascara to go into work. No waterproof. If I had on mascara then that meant I could tell myself I was not allowed to cry. No runny mascara at work. Psychological trick/self preservation.
Throughout the two weeks of confusion before and during the miscarriage, and what felt I can only describe as walking on shaky ground, we found moments of laughter and joy. We have let ourselves feel all of it. We made fun of the really awkward "diagrams" in the OB's office. We talked with friends about how ridiculous picking out three and six year old girls' outfits can be at 6:00am. We made fun of ourselves. We let ourselves be normal.
For the baby we did not get to meet on this earth, I chose to trust in magnificent love and mercy, that the baby is now whole, healthy and precious. That the only parent that child will ever experience is Perfect.
But how that child taught us. How a tiny thing with a heartbeat has ministered to us. How we loved you, and how we grieved you here.
It was so hard for me to not be able to name my child. And I told myself that regardless, I knew this child was created for a purpose and had a legacy. And that's what I want to honor and take from this.
The story of God's gentle mercies. That his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. I know he wept with me through the pain and loss. and I see how through "grief in all kinds of trials" our faith continues to be purified.
We wanted this baby so badly. But what God wanted for us we trust is so much more.
When I poured out my grief about not being able to name my child, that's when I felt the peace and comfort pass over me like never before. Because in that moment I realized, my baby does have a name. Beloved Child of the King. And that's the only name it will ever need.
It has been weird, and sensitive. Painful and sad. Shocking and foreign. Binding and broken. It has been so many things and a process of learning who we are and who Our God is.
And sometimes you just need to talk about it. Sometimes through experiences we are called to help others, maybe this will help someone feel like they are not alone and to talk about it. Sometimes our God shows his love in the most mysterious of ways, but it's more tangible and tender than ever before. His mercies, every morning.
love,
daeon
