Miscarriages suck, by the way. I knew that it was a statistical likelihood that I would have one, and I knew there was little if anything anyone could do to prevent it, as almost all of the early ones are caused by chromosomal abnormalities. I didn't even feel like someone had died, so I wasn't exactly grieving. The horrible thing about a miscarriage is that you feel the excitement of expectation, then the nausea and discomfort of early pregnancy, and then the disappointment of knowing it's ending; you feel the nasty cramping like labor, and then you're done. Nothing to show for it but a terrible hormone plunge and a dead heart.
I have much to be grateful for. It hadn't progressed very far, so there were no fetal remains to identify. It was reasonably quick, and it resolved itself on its own without the need for medical intervention. I was able to work from home that day and the two days following, because I have an awesome boss who doesn't ask questions. And there weren't very many people to tell, because I hadn't announced the pregnancy yet.
We love being parents, and we really wanted the baby. We tried again. And it's happening again. I know I will survive and be just fine, and that the Holy Spirit will give me just the right amount of comfort I need to keep going, but right at this moment I'm not sure how it will unfold. I'm dreading what the next few weeks will bring. I'm dreading the pain, both physical and emotional. I'm dreading the person I will be--the person who wants to stay in bed and cry, avoid responsibility, and let herself acknowledge and process this pain that is an attack on her entire being.
And at the same time, I'm crying and praying over the poor souls in Haiti, over 500 of whom have just died in the hurricane.
Earlier, I would have buried myself in books. I would be binge-reading books with lame plots, very little style, possibly a little bit of substance. I want to do that right now, but I have to go to bed like a responsible adult, because my little one now has a chronic health condition and is recovering from a crisis from earlier this week. She will need me through the night and all through the weekend. I want a shoulder to cry on, but there is none, because everyone else has their own grief, and I should be the one consoling them. Only Jesus can help me. And I don't have enough faith to think he can heal me of this in the way I want to be healed, because I don't want to heal from it--I want to not have to do it again.
Some might glory in tribulation, but I still fear it, because it exposes me to the reality of just how weak I am.
If I had been able to keep this baby, if I had been able to keep either one of them, I would have loved them so hard. Just like I love my first baby. But I don't love them now. They are just inconveniences in the form of cramps and discomfort and gushing blood and hormones, and I feel guilty because how can you really grieve over someone you never met? I happily shared my body with them, but I never met them.
There is no envisioning this little embryo rushing up to heaven to rest from labor and care. I can't know for sure that it even ever lived, in the eternal sense. Obviously it was alive, and it might even be alive still, but did it have its own little spirit, half an inch long?
I hope the poor Haitians who survived this mess are comforted by thinking of their loved ones being safely in the arms of Jesus. It comforts me, at least. Faith doesn't mean expecting something to happen just because you believe in Jesus Christ and you want it to happen. There is no faith in events or feelings, only in Jesus and the eternity of His sacrifice. I do have enough faith to hope that whatever suffering those poor, dead souls went through, whatever suffering my ill-fated embryos went through, is going to somehow be made right.
