Seven weeks ago, I was happy and never thought for a moment I was pregnant. I was starting the summer and enjoying my new found success. We returned from our first vacation in a couple years to Turks and Caicos, and we had an amazing time. We were strong in love and reminded just how blessed our lives were. We realized we had it all: a family, a home, jobs we like, a fuzzy dog who was impossible not to love and supportive family and friends. We realized and reflected how God seemed to just be showering us in favor and looked forward to the future. This year we were planning on adding to the family, another little squeaky, snotty, person who we knew we would love just like the first.
There is something about thinking you're pregnant that gets you excited, planning, and dreaming. We talked names, planned to change the rooms around, and talked about what we needed. We planned when to move money, the maternity leave, and how to tell the world.
Last week, I was alone at the doctor to hear the heart beat and check on the baby's growth. A strong heartbeat, but smaller in size than we thought. I thought 8-9 weeks, the ultrasound showing 6.5 weeks. I thought, well, maybe I was wrong on my timing, maybe it was later. The doctor was hopeful but realistic that maybe something was not right and we should just wait two weeks to see and do another ultrasound then. And I left. Deflated a little but hopeful. Maybe just maybe it's just the ultrasound or my recall on dates. Maybe because I've had this double ear infection most of the summer and haven't felt like myself the baby is a little small. Maybe if I would have caught that fever I had the last 24 hours a little sooner...
Within 24 hours, the baby was gone. No where to be found on the ultrasound, and our little dream, our little plans, our little names and little idea of our child were gone. The pregnancy had terminated itself, and it was over.
You know, I rarely read a blog or articles about miscarriages. They happen in 1 out 4 pregnancies. Like some how we shower women with love and affection when they have a baby, but they are supposed to hide away alone at home in silence when they lose a pregnancy. I think what amazes me most is that I am still, sitting with, so now what? I don't feel depressed or heartbroken, just feel like my favor with God has dried up for a moment. The high wore off that I was getting everything I wanted in life outside of winning the lottery. That "sun is shining and birds are singing" carefree me is slower for a minute, quieter, more thoughtful for a bit. I am trying not to let my head wrap around the fact I was carrying a person inside of me, not just a sack of cells. A heart beat was there one day and gone the next. A little person. A little piece of me and Chris. A child. Just because it doesn't have a name or a birth certificate doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning. Because our relationship started when I first dreamed meeting this being, sharing life with this being, and loving this being like I did with my K.
And while I don't look for pity, I want to figure out what it looks like to move on in a healthy way. I don't want to deny I had dreams and plans for this little one, but I also want to be real that this journey of being a mommy isn't over just because of a miscarriage. This hope for a big family and this hope for more joy and love is still strong. We are so blessed, even still, even without this little one. We are still loved. We still have everything we need, but we are still bummed, still sad, still disappointed that it wasn't meant to be.
It all happened so fast. Like a blink. I just felt the need to write, not because I am alone and broken but because I realize that this whole journey as a woman is lonely. It's lonely and grieving to have, to lose and to not know what's God's plans are for your family. It's hard to trust that a few cells forming together will create a healthy child. It's hard to know if you're doing things right or hurting yourself. It's hard to know if you caused it or if your guilt is just part of the process. It's hard to know when it's time to give up or time to move on or time to just enjoy where you are. Being a mother is part of the core of every woman whether she has a child or not. Like somewhere in there because we are capable of being a mother, of loving, of nurturing of attuning, we can fathom that we might be doing our jobs wrong or missing what the whole point is.
I am healing today. Grieving some, but more so resting and dreaming a new reality for the next nine months: Trips to the zoo and the pool, cuddles on the couch, and peanut butter crackers on the porch. I have all I need to find joy but I have to refocus my mind on the joy I already have. My heart grieves today for women who desire a child, try for children, lose children day after day, year after year. Because it's hard to hope in one hand, and experience reality in another. I want to know how to normalize that so that people start to see that while there is blessing there can also be sorrow. While there is faith there is also disappointment, and while there is love there is also loss.
