I alluded to having a lot on my mind in my 11 week post.  I’m starting to write this on 4/26, and who knows how long it’ll take me to click “publish” on this one.  And I’m not going to rush it.  I have so many thoughts on this topic, but I feel like I can never adequately put it into writing.  But I thought I’d take a crack at it even though I don’t think I can do it justice.  Even though it’s not truly related to this pregnancy, there are always a lot of thoughts swirling in my head on this topic.  Especially being pregnant again.  And especially as a sweet woman from work is going through it now.

There is a lovely woman at one of my workplaces.  I’ll call her C in this post to keep it simpler and keep her anonymous.  She is actually the first person I told at that office about my pregnancy, even before the owners.  I remembered from some time back that it took them years to conceive their daughter, and I thought I had gleaned that they would like another child at some point.  So I didn’t know if they were trying again.  Having learned how hard it is to hear news of a new pregnancy when you want nothing more than to be pregnant yourself, I wanted to tell her first before I told everyone.  Just in case it helped to digest, if it was even a thing.  Or if not, then that’s fine, she could just know first.  I just wasn’t sure how I’d bring it up though without it being too random.  Then one afternoon when I was talking to her, she asked me how I was doing and if “anything exciting” had been going on.  We were alone, so I answered that I’m pregnant, so that’s some excitement.  She was very sweet and congratulatory.

I believe it was the following week when I showed up for work and she told me she was having some weird symptoms so she thought to take a pregnancy test.  And it was positive!  I learned that they actually hadn’t been trying this time.  She was so happy.  I was so happy for her.  WE were just so happy for US.  Since she wasn’t sure when her last period was, I sort of supposed she was farther along than I was, but we didn’t know.  When she went for her first appointment (I don’t think she saw the Dr at this one), she was pretty sure she had a period in February, so they tentatively called her due date November 10.  Same as mine.  I was so excited to have someone to share this journey with.  Especially her.  What a blessing to have a surprise baby when they tried so hard for their first.

We had a couple of weeks where we were just so excited for each other.  Comparing symptoms.  Laughing that we needed our own bathroom because when we’re both at work, between the two of us, we could just about keep the ladies’ room occupied (ok not quite).  At some point she had her first appointment with her doctor, and while she hadn’t had a scan yet, he estimated that she was about 8 weeks along (I was also 8 weeks).

Then if you recall the Saturday I skipped out on my last half of work because I’d started spotting lightly that morning.  It started a tiny bit early that morning before work, then again around noon.  I was scared, very scared.  I thought, “Please God, this can’t be happening again.”  I asked C to pray for me.  In the waiting room at the ER (I think I actually wrote about this in my post about it), I remembered thinking how hard it would be to face her at work if I’m losing this baby.  I wouldn’t be any less happy for her, not at all.  But how would I face her?  But how would I watch her every step of the way knowing that might have been me?  When she starts showing, I might have started showing.  When she gave birth, I might have been giving birth.  When she celebrates a first birthday, I should be celebrating a first birthday too.

When we learned everything was fine (or about as fine as could be), I wanted to let C know.  But I didn’t have any way to get in contact with her at that time.  Other than just seeing her at work.  When I went back to that office on Tuesday afternoon, C was gone for her first ultrasound, where I’d assumed they’d also estimate due date based on the size of the baby.  I was a little disappointed to miss her because I wanted to thank her for her prayers and let her know we were okay.  But excited to find out what she learned at her appointment.

And then I heard our office manager’s side of a phone conversation.  And it didn’t sound good at all.  After she got off the phone, I learned that they didn’t see a heartbeat.

Gutted.  I was gutted for her.  Part of me hoped maybe she wasn’t as far along as they though.  Maybe it was just too early.  But I also knew that this did not bode well.  I prayed for a miracle, but I grieved.

It feels stupid to say some of this stuff.  Like it wasn’t even my baby.  Who am I to say stuff like this?  Like anything I can think or feel can compare to anything C is thinking of feeling.  It just sucks.  Miscarriage is so unfair.  Or maybe it is quite fair because it does not discriminate.  Miscarriage doesn’t care what kind of person you are or how amazing a parent you’re going to be.  Miscarriage doesn’t care how happy you are about this new life growing inside of you.  Miscarriage doesn’t care how long you’ve been trying.  It completely, totally, and utterly sucks.

This was also my first taste of pregnancy guilt.  Not that I’d send mine back for anything.  But all the thoughts I was having in the ER waiting room when I feared I was miscarrying were flipped around now.  I felt so bad that she’d have to be around me week after week.  She’ll always be kind, that’s who she is.  But it’s got to hurt to see me progress each week while thinking that might have been me.  I hate it.  I hate it hate hate it hate hate it.  So much.  And these are horrible thoughts to think, and truly I wouldn’t wish miscarriage on my worst enemy.  But I started to think things like why C?  Why not someone who can get pregnant easily?  It is my earnest hope and prayer that, if they decide to TTC after this, that they can conceive quickly this time.

The whole thing made me kind of reflective.  Not that I don’t think about it often, even after finally conceiving again, but before this all happened with C.  Sometimes I feel bad that I talk about this so much.  I say “so much,” but it’s not like I talk about it all the time.  I think it’s more that nobody really talks about it.  SO MANY women have experienced it, but how often do you hear about it?  Why is this topic taboo?  Why are so many women suffering silently?  I’ve talked to enough women now, it’s not just something most people “get over.”  You move on, you cry less.  A lot less, most of the time.  But for many, if not most women, that baby is always in your heart.

This isn’t my first post on miscarriage.  I wrote about mine shortly after it happened.  But after pushing two years of trying again, things change.  I was devastated, for sure.  I’d undo it in a heartbeat right now, if I could.  There are songs I still can’t listen to if they come on the radio.  Some women feel some comfort by thinking, “if I’d had that baby, I wouldn’t have had this baby that came after.”  But that doesn’t even apply to me because I seriously could have had that baby, waited almost a year, then conceived with this baby too.

But back then, I had the advantage of optimism.  The foolish certainty that we’d conceive again soon.  And why not?  Yeah, getting pregnant with S took a little longer than average.  But the second pregnancy happened so quickly.  So why wouldn’t it happen again?  But I’ve touched on that in other posts, and to elaborate further would warrant its own post.

Some things, I didn’t write about.  Mostly because it was still too fresh to really have digested it all.  Afterward, people were as supportive as they knew how.  But it’s still kind of strange.  Part of me was eager to get on with real life.  But part of me just wanted to grieve.  Not many people really expect you to grieve when you miscarry.  Not like you want or need to.  Because to everyone else, it’s this abstract thing that never really existed.  But to me, it was my child I loved and desperately, desperately wanted to protect.  And yet I could not.  Everyone else’s life went on as before.  Neither mine nor Pete’s ever would again.  We were truly changed forever.  Unless you actually experience a miscarriage, you can’t really comprehend that the loss is perhaps not totally different from losing a child that you actually got the chance to hold in your arms.

One person met me for lunch to talk and offer support.  We got cards from two people.  I actually just came across them again the other day (this post is slow going–I’m 15 weeks + 5 days now).  And let me tell you–I treasure those cards so much.  Or rather, the sentiments in those cards, I really treasure in my heart.  Maybe because it means that baby was real to someone else besides me.  For this reason, I completely intended to get a card for C.  And I haven’t, yet.  And I feel like I’ve failed as a person.

A lot of people offered their prayer.  Which I did genuinely appreciate.  Other people try to offer words of encouragement.  Which, truthfully, there’s not a lot you can say that will actually make it better.  One thing I got from doctors and friends was the, “It was probably a chromosomal abnormality.”  Okay fair enough.  Rational Erin gets that.  But it’s kind of like this:

What you’re trying to say: “It’s not your fault.  There was nothing you could have done.”

What I hear: “It’s okay that you miscarried because the baby would have been a freak anyway if it had been born.”

So hey, not comforting.

Maybe most people take it more kindly than I did.  But at least I did recognize the actual intent, so it’s not like I was angry.  But I wasn’t comforted either.

In time, at least depending on who you’re around, you may also run into some of the comments discussed in this blog.  Which I encountered very little, thankfully.  I love that post so much not because of anything moral or political (as the blog post is also careful to point out), but because it is an extremely accurate insight into how it feels to lose a baby.

I think a lot of it is friends and family, as well-meaning as they are, just want to look on the bright side.  At least you have another child.  At least you have the promise of seeing your baby again someday in heaven.  It just wasn’t God’s will.  Your time will come.

Let me tell you,

Yes I have another child, but mourning the one I lost does not make me any less thankful for my daughter.  If your second child got hit by a car, what would you think if someone was like oh well good thing you have another kid.

Yes I have the promise of seeing my baby again in heaven one day, and I cling SO HARD to that promise.  But while I’m allowed to reassure myself this way, (depending on the context of the conversation), I might not appreciate it as much coming from someone else.  Because as happy as I am that I will see my baby one day, I would REALLY REALLY like to be able to see my baby RIGHT NOW.

My time will come?  Maybe it will and maybe it won’t.  It turned out that mine finally did.  But you didn’t know that.  Only God did.  I seriously had to consider the possibility that maybe it never would again.  And this baby does not really replace that one anyway, so what does that even mean?

And God’s will?  Well yeah maybe you have a point, but I guess I’m not so good yet that my will is completely aligned with His.  I just know I miss my baby.

I learned sort of indirectly from a friend not too long ago, don’t ever start a sentence with “At least….”  Because right now, in this moment, there is no bright side.

But I digress.  In my original blog post, I did write about how, as crushing as it was, it was a very real first-hand encounter with God’s sovereignty.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t consider prayer to be some way to manipulate God.  At least not consciously.  I can pray whatever I like, but sometimes God’s answer is going to be “no.”  I prayed SO HARD for that baby to be born healthy and safe.  This time, God said no, and I can come to terms with that.  But here’s the slap in the face: I prayed (and continue to pray) so hard every day for S to grow up healthy and reach an old age.  I think that gave me some sense of security.  I don’t have that now, and it terrifies me.  Because I know God can and does say “no,” no matter how good or noble or reasonable the prayer may be.  I think  maybe a lot of Christians pray stuff partly for all the right reasons, but also to feel some sense of security, whether it’s right or not.

Anyway.

Because of the secondary infertility, I had lots of time to reflect.  I actually started to think, maybe it was always going to be hard to have another baby, but if I had to experience miscarriage, maybe the fact that that pregnancy happened so easily was a show of God’s grace.  But still, lots of months to remember I’m STILL not pregnant.  Lots of months to remember I should have an ___-month-old by now.  Lots of months to get angry, cry, plead with God, try to comfort myself, etc.  In that time, I prayed a lot of different things.

So now I’m going to share with you something I didn’t tell anyone for a long time.  And that person was my husband.  Partly because it was an experience I wanted to treasure myself for a while.  And largely because it sounds totally insane.  So because it sounds so nuts, I’m very nervous about typing it out, but I just feel like I have to.  Even though I don’t know if I can really explain it in a way that 1) doesn’t make me seem like I’ve totally lost my marbles, and 2) really does the whole thing justice.  But I shall try.

One night well into our infertility journey, I really wanted to be pregnant, but much more than that, I was really, really missing my baby I never got to see or hold.  I kept thinking I wished I’d just gotten to see it on an ultrasound if nothing else.  Something tangible.  Something I could see.  Something to remember besides just “being pregnant.”  (It was for this reason I was REALLY glad C got to take home an ultrasound photo.  I really believe she’ll treasure that.  I envy it at least.)  That night, I prayed that God would let me see my baby in a dream or something.  I knew it was nuts.  I just really, really wanted to see my baby.  Just once.

Then I felt ridiculous and went to sleep.  The next morning, my prayer was forgotten.  At least by me.

Some time later (weeks? months?) I was rocking S before bed.  I would always sing her a song, but she got to where she would know all the words, so instead of getting sleepy, she’d just sing along.  Somewhere along the way, I’d realized that the old(ish) worship song, “There’s Just Something About that Name” was actually a pretty effective bedtime song.  I figured it wouldn’t work long because the lyrics are pretty simple.  But for now, it was kind of soothing and repetitive (Jesus, Jesus . . .) and she didn’t know the words.  So I sang it.  On this one particular night, as I sang, my eyes were closed and I was truly worshiping the Lord.  I thought to myself, “Yeah, it’s not magic, but there is something powerful in just singing the name of Jesus.”

At that moment, I “looked” up (my eyes were still closed), and I won’t say this was like a vision or anything like that.  But it was as if I “saw” my baby in Jesus’s arms.  It was so vivid.  I think I actually gasped.  I couldn’t see his or her face (in my heart it was a girl, but I still don’t feel like I “know”), but one thing I really took note of was that the baby had a lot less hair than S had as a baby.  I’m not one to really have super spiritual experiences, so this TOTALLY came out of nowhere.  But it was really real to me.  Tears were streaming down my face, and I slowly reached out, knowing full well I’d only feel air, but I couldn’t help myself.  Finally when my hand met nothing, I opened my eyes and it was over.  As crazy as it sounds, I truly believe that experience was a gift from the Lord.

It was some time later when I remembered my prayer.  I believe God went above and beyond in answering this prayer. It wasn’t even a dream; I was fully awake.  And yet it was more vivid than any dream I’ve ever dreamed before.  More real than anything that ever entered my imagination.  It’s not something I was even thinking about.  I wasn’t thinking about TTC or miscarriage or my baby in heaven or babies in general (other than rocking a sleepy two year-old).  I was just singing to God.  The whole thing caught me well and truly off-guard.  I still desired another baby.  So so much.  But after that, I felt a peace that I hadn’t felt in quite some time.

This baby I carry now does not replace the one I lost.  But I love this one just as much.  We pray for this baby just as much.  And we eagerly await his or her arrival.  It does bring some sense of peace in feeling that our family will one day feel complete.

God really does answer prayer.  Not always the ones I’d prefer.  And in this case, I will never understand it, not even a little bit, on this side of heaven.  But as much as I HATE miscarriage, I know He’s always taken care of me.  And He will take care of C.  And He will take care of you.