This month (October) is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness
Month. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan
designated this special month proclaiming, "When a child loses his parent,
they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are
called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to
describe them."
In December of 2002, I found out for the very first time
that I was pregnant. I made this
discovery on a whim while shopping with some girlfriends, who coaxed me into
taking the pregnancy test right there in the store’s bathroom. When I saw that it was positive, I was so
excited. But I didn’t know how to share
the news with my husband. I think I knew
deep down that he would have wanted to be the first to know, rather than my
friends. They helped me come up with
what we thought was a fun way to tell him . . . but unfortunately it didn’t
soften the sting that he had missed out on being the first to know. He was so disappointed that I found out
without him.
I regret that, to this day.
Just a few weeks later, I began to experience some cramping
and spotting. Fear engulfed me. Within 24 hours my husband and I found
ourselves at a clinic (not my doctor’s office), having an ultrasound. The sonographer didn’t say a word to us, but
I could clearly see a tiny blob on the screen, surrounded by my womb. That blob was my baby. When the doctor called me later that day, he
said it was too early to tell if I was going to miscarry. It was pretty early in the pregnancy, and
maybe that’s why they couldn’t find a heartbeat.
So we waited. For
several weeks I spotted, but there was no more cramping. I tried to hold out hope that everything
might be all right. I had friends
encouraging me to have faith, to “name it and claim it.” So I tried.
And I prayed – hard. I poured
over the scriptures. But the fear still
engulfed me. In a bit of irony, I had
even put together a Christmas drama for our church, and I played the role of
Mary. It honestly felt like torture to
have that balloon under my costume pretending to be pregnant, and to carry that
little baby doll as if it were my child.
For Christmas my husband and I traveled to visit my family
in Georgia. Despite the instability of
the pregnancy, we shared the news that we were expecting with the rest of the
family by wrapping a note up as a present and letting my younger brother open
it. Everyone was excited right along with
us. But I remember that night explaining
to my sister and my sister-in-law how things weren’t looking good. And I remember crying in the shower the next
morning, singing that song “You Are My Hiding Place.” And weeping.
When we returned to our home in Colorado, I visited my
doctor and had another ultrasound in his office. My husband couldn’t come with me because of
his job, so one of my best friends went with me. I’ll never forget that day, and the doctor’s
voice when he said, “Well, I’m sorry to give you this news around the holidays,
but there’s nothing there.” I felt like
the world was literally crashing around me.
I walked around in a daze for the rest of the evening until my husband
got home from work and I fell into his arms sobbing.
After that I didn’t really want to talk about it with
anyone. A wonderful woman from our
church even came to visit me at our condo one day, but I hid in the bedroom
while my husband told her that I didn’t feel like visiting. I wish I could go back and change that
day. I think it would have helped me to
open up to her. Especially when my body
actually completed the miscarriage at home two weeks after the doctor told me
that nothing was there.
It was several years later before I truly began to
heal. I got pregnant again fairly
quickly, and every day I was completely consumed with fear. Terror.
I went back and forth between being angry at God and being angry at
myself, thinking that either God was honestly cruel, or that it was my own
fault I had miscarried. I knew I was
depressed and that I needed help. But no
one had the answers I craved. So I began
to ask God for help. In between my bouts
of hating myself and feeling rejected by God, I asked Him to show me someone
who could help me.
Eventually He brought a friend to mind. She referred me to a wonderful couple who
were lay counselors, and who ended up spending an entire day with me in 2005 (months
after I had delivered two healthy children, my full-term daughter and my
premature son).
As we talked and prayed through my entire life, I dreaded
the part where I would have to tell them about my miscarriage. But they were very sensitive and let me take
my time. They led me through a time of
conversing with God about those dark days.
They encouraged me to go back to that worst moment in my mind – that moment
in the doctor’s office when I knew for sure that the baby was gone. They told me to picture Jesus there with
me. Because HE WAS THERE. When I did, what I saw was my wonderful
Savior standing beside me, holding my baby.
I feel like this was the Lord’s way of telling me, “Yes, this baby was
real. But he’s with me now. I’m taking care of him.”
If I am honest, there have been moments where I have doubted
that vision. I have doubted that my
miscarriage was real, that there was truly a baby there. But every time I do, the Lord quickly brings to
mind the feeling I had when I first envisioned Him holding my sweet little one. I cannot deny that experience, and I cannot
deny that He spoke to me on that day about many, many things.
It is painful for me to go back and relive these experiences
as I tell this story. But I feel
compelled to share the Hope that God has given me in Christ. And now I can say truthfully that I look
forward to meeting that precious child in Heaven one day. I like to think that he (or she) will meet me
right at the gate.
You are my hiding place.
You always fill my heartWith songs of deliverance.
Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
I will trust in You.
Let the weak sayI am strong,
In the strength of the Lord.
I will trust in You.
