Good Grief

Matthew and I were expecting another baby. Never again will I use that term "expecting". Our baby died when I was only 14 weeks pregnant, it was such a tragedy to us. I sure didn't expect that. If we are ever blessed with another pregnancy I will hope for another healthy baby.

Miscarriage. The word never bothered me before. Now I hate it. I hate the connotations I feel the word carries. I especially hate the word when it's paired with "just" in a sentence. It may be "just" a miscarriage, but to us our baby just died.

You can't quantify grief. You can't say that someone who had a stillbirth, or who's child died is having a harder or easier time. I know my situation is a lot different than other people, but it's still my life and my loss. I'll grieve, cry, mourn, vent, and I'll take my sweet time at it if I so please.

There has been a lot of elements of sadness to this loss. One of them is feeling like I should get over it and wondering if people think I'm over it just because I can function. It's just a miscarriage after all right? I hate that I'm letting that part of it bother me so much. I always care too much what other people think, and here I am allowing it to add to my grief.

Mostly though I'm just sad at what really happened. We were going to have a baby, and now we're not. He died and I don't know why. I went through childbirth but I wasn't ready, my house shows no signs of it. And most of all we have no baby to show for it. My body and my arms are empty. It was our fourth pregnancy. Things change the fourth time around. I didn't take the cute pictures of my belly growing every month. I didn't ever get to hear the heart beat. I went to my first ultrasound but I went to make sure everything had "passed" out of me to prevent infection. I went to my ultrasound to make sure the baby wasn't there. It was so backwards, so wrong.

God gave us the gift of this child, and he's taking care of him for us now. He gave us another gift, a name. When I was about 8 weeks pregnant God gave me the name Caleb for this child. So even though we don't actually know if it was a boy, I still treasure that name. I had already started thinking of the baby as Caleb before he died. I had already wondered which of his two brothers he would look like. I had already started prepping the big sis that she might be blessed with a brother, because I knew how badly she wanted another girl in the family.

It's been quite the year of learning for me. I'm learning and growing and realizing that the whole point of this messy life has very little to do with me and my wants and my agenda. It has a lot to do with my mighty creator who is still shaping me and teaching me. It has a lot to do with how much that mighty creator loves me and cares about me. I know that he is sad for me right now. I don't really know how to pray through this grief, but I take huge comfort knowing how much God cares.

I realize this post is really choppy, sorry about that. I really wanted to get some of these thoughts out. Early pregnancy loss often goes un-noticed. I'm amazed at how many people have either told me for the first time that they had a pregnancy loss, or told me the story of their baby loss for the first time. I feel like I need permission to grieve, and part of that is because the people that have walked this road before me just got up and kept going and made it look like no big deal. So here I am admitting that it is a big deal. It's been two weeks and I cry all the time, and ache because of my emptiness.

There is a book called Tear Soup that explains grieving pretty well. I read it last year when Eva died. I'm not saying that I've been the perfect supportive friend to Anella, but reading up on the topic definitely makes it easier to know what to say, what not to say, and just a glimpse at what grief might look like for someone. I'm blessed with my hubbie who is so understanding and supportive. I also get the benefit of a friend well seasoned in making tear soup, who is willing to share in my batch even though it tastes different. Most of all I lean on God and his word and his truth. It's the only thing that matters.