Though the doctors initially suspected the pregnancy was ectopic, further testing and symptoms led them to believe the pregnancy was actually located in the right place but just wasn't genetically viable.
I miscarried the baby at home, just like I did the first time. It was painful, and unpleasant, and sitting alone in my bathroom I remember thinking, "it wasn't supposed to be like this. I made sure it would never be like this again." And yet, there I was, three and a half years later reliving one of the worst moments of my life.
Since that moment five months ago, I have been on a journey of healing that looks very different than it did three and half years ago.
I am sure you've seen the posts celebrating "rainbow babies" that pop up all over social media. Precious babies, born after a pregnancy or infant loss, that signify hope and joy after an incredibly difficult storm. I myself am mom to one of these precious "rainbows" and for that I am forever thankful. Looking back, I can see how my pregnancy after loss gave me a way to cope, to move forward, and to heal. The minute my baby was born, I felt a sense of wholeness that I had been searching for ever since the miscarriage.
But what happens when there is no rainbow baby? What happens when you don't get to try again? What happens when your arms are left aching for a baby you never got to hold? How do you move forward?
I didn't expect to grieve so deeply. The pregnancy was entirely unplanned, and yet from the moment I saw those two pink lines, my baby was wholly and completely wanted.
Most surprising to me, was that soon after the miscarriage was complete, I found myself overwhelmed with feelings of desperately wishing for another baby. It didn't matter that it didn't make logical sense or that we had already decided two years ago that we were done having children. I only knew that I had lost something incredibly precious, that I felt empty, and the only thing that I knew to do to heal my aching heart was to have another baby.
I have a good friend who lost a baby a few years ago, around the same time that I did. It was an unplanned pregnancy, but she went on to have another baby even though she had thought she was "done" because, as she put it, she "couldn't end on that note."
I understand her now better than I ever could have before.
I didn't want to end on that note.
I didn't want to end on grief.
I have found that the community of women who lose a baby and do not go on to have another baby is much smaller than the community of women who welcome a "rainbow." Type into Google "how to get through a miscarriage" and every single post talks about how to know when you're ready to try again, how long to wait, and what to expect in your next pregnancy.
I even went so far as to talk with my doctor, who confirmed what I already knew. It would be far too risky to try again, and that chapter of my life needed to be closed for good.
And so I found myself in a foreign place. How do you grieve a miscarriage when you cannot look forward to having another healthy baby?
I felt lost. Like a ship crashing around stormy waves without a clue as to how to reach safe harbor.
I was angry at God.
Why did this happen? Why did He let me get pregnant if He knew I was just going to lose the baby anyway? Why did He pick my birthday, of all days, to find out that I was pregnant? Now every future birthday will be connected to the baby I lost. A day that is already connected to my dad, that I already dread facing one day without him. Why did he let this happen when He knows some days I can barely catch my breath thinking about how sick my dad is? What did I do to deserve this?
It felt personal. Like a trial picked out especially for me. I was desperate to understand, but none of it made sense. What was I supposed to learn from this? And why did the lesson have to be taught this way? Was it to make me more grateful? How could I possibly be more grateful than I already am? Was it to remind me that I am not in control? Believe me, the illness my dad and brother and sister share remind me of that lesson daily.
What was the purpose of this loss? How could God let this happen?
The first time I ever remember hearing about God I was ten years old. My mom had just broken the news to me that Santa, was in fact, a work of fiction. Sensing my disappointment in the loss of magic in my life, she brought me into her bedroom and sat me on the edge of the bed and told me in measured tones that although she had taken away something that wasn't ever actually real that day, she wanted to give me something real that I could hold onto for the rest of my life.
And she told me about God. I don't remember anything specific she said that day, except that I could tell she was completely sincere, more sincere than I had ever heard her before. And I walked away from that conversation believing that there was a Creator who loved and cared about me, and that I could turn to Him in difficult times.
It's a gift I have carried forward with me the rest of my life.
But I think maybe, on that day that I lost Santa and found God, I made an unconscious association between the two. Looking back, I can see that there have been many times in my life that I have expected God to fill in Santa's big shoes, giving me good gifts and rewarding me for good behavior. And sometimes He has, blessing me above and beyond anything I could have dreamt or imagined. Just a look at my three beautiful children and my breath catches in my throat over God's generosity towards me. But whenever He does not act as Santa most assuredly would, such as allowing my dad, brother, and sister to be diagnosed with an incurable and progressive disease, I am angry and confused. It doesn't jive with my understanding of God as good and just.
And so I have been asking myself these two questions for the past eight years, ever since my dad was diagnosed, and especially the past five months: Is God really good? And if He is good, then how could He have let this happen?
I have been on a journey to find the answer to those questions. It would take several blog posts to explain, but the word that I kept stumbling upon was "hope." The first book I read after the miscarriage was Anne Lamott's "Almost Everything: Notes on Hope" where she talks about gratitude as the antidote to grief. It was a good start, because in the moments that I could focus on gratitude were the rare moments I felt like I could take a full, deep breath in the midst of the storm.
And though it helped, the waves of grief kept hitting me unexpectedly, both about my dad and about the baby. And so, I was asking Google about how to grieve one afternoon (because googling is so much easier than prayer some days) when I stumbled on an article by Nancy Guthrie. The article resonated with me, as it talked about what "not to say" to someone grieving. Something in me prompted me to type her name into the search bar. And when I read her life story, I felt chills run up my spine.
Nancy had given birth to a totally healthy boy, and then a few years later went on to have her second child, a girl, who she named Hope. But upon Hope's birth, doctors realized something was wrong, and she was soon diagnosed with a fatal genetic condition and was not expected to live even a year. Nancy took her baby girl home and watched her slowly decline over the next several months until she passed away at seven months old. Not wanting to put their families through such a tragic situation again, her husband had a vasectomy. Two years later they received the surprise of a lifetime when Nancy discovered she was pregnant. With only a 25% chance the baby would be afflicted with the same syndrome, they were hopeful. But weeks later doctors confirmed that this baby also had the same genetic condition as their daughter. They buried their rainbow baby six months after he was born. She didn't have any more children after that.
So much of Nancy's story resonated with me. The decision not to have any more children, followed by a pregnancy that ended in grief, and the deep knowing that there would never be another "rainbow baby." I could fully relate to the roller coaster of emotions and the questions that followed. I decided to read some more of her articles. I was struck by, and almost angry, at the way Nancy wrote with such peace. She wasn't angry with God. What did she know, that I didn't?
I decided to let the subject drop.
A few months later, a friend, in whom I had confided my struggles with grief, texted me with a podcast she had listened to about grief that she thought I would find encouraging.
Guess who the guest speaker was on that podcast? Nancy Guthrie. My friend had no idea that I had ever even heard of her. I felt a nudge in my heart that I should listen to the podcast, and open up my heart to what she had learned in her journey.
So I listened. Through tears and gobs of tissues, but I listened. And that podcast changed my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. In the podcast Nancy talks about how the God of the Bible has promised to make all things new. That one day there will be no more tears, no more death, no more grief. But that until that happens, we are inhabitants of a world that has been wholly affected by sin.
As a Christian, my understanding of sin is sort of like this. God made the world and it was entirely awesome. And then He made man, who was also fantastic, but who had a free will to choose whatever he wanted to choose. And, in a story about an apple that shouldn't have been eaten but was, man chose to go his own way, instead of the way God had asked him to go. And the result of that was that man could no longer live in the presence of God, who is perfect and without sin, because the "I'll do it my way" sin separated him from God. And it wasn't just that man was kicked out of a beautiful and perfect garden, the disruption caused by man's choice to do things his own way affected the whole earth. Things weren't quite so awesome anymore.
Now, if you aren't a Christian that might sound like a load of looney stuff. But it frames the way I see things.
What I'm really saying is, things aren't the way they were meant to be.
No news there right?
And so, as I listened to Nancy I heard her talk about how we long for things to be made right. We struggle against this curse we are under where things in this world are broken. And it isn't just "bad people" or "sinners" who face brokenness. We all do. War, famine, disease, difficult relationships... all of it is a reflection of our brokenness.
Miscarriage too. Nancy talked about how after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God told Eve that she would experience "pain in childbirth." Many times we read that and think it means the actual pain of labor. But Nancy said that it wasn't just the physical pain of childbirth that was being described, it was everything having to do with bearing children. The pain of miscarriage, infertility, and even grown children who break our hearts. It all reflects the brokenness of this world.
And so I started to feel a shift in my thinking. If Nancy is right, that we live in a broken world, and that to experience pain, and loss, and grief are all part of this human experience, then why am I so indignant that I have been asked to face these trials? Why am I so angry that I haven't been spared this pain, when it is simply the price of admission to being human?
And I came face to face with the fact that I have been believing in a Santa Claus God. One that I expected to save me from all my troubles, give me a happy ending, grant all my wishes, and assure every experience I went through was for a specific lesson or purpose. But that isn't really who God is, and it isn't how this world really works.
So what now?
Well, Nancy says the story doesn't end there, and that the ending is what everything hinges on. She clings to the verses in Revelation 21 that say
"God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
These verses are describing a day in the future, when God creates a new heavens and a new earth to live among His people. There will be no more sorrow or crying or pain. And that's why she has hope. Not because she hopes one day to have more children, not because she hopes she has "paid her dues" and nothing worse will ever happen to her. Nothing is going to erase the pain she went through. Nothing is going to make sense of why she had to bury two precious babies. But she has hope that God is going to make good on His promise to make things right, to wipe her tears and make all things new. That He is working in His time and with His power to create a new heavens and a new earth in which death has no victory and grief has no place.
That's a big leap of faith. It all hinges on what I can't see, or feel, or know in the tangible sense of things. And yet it resonates with me. That God took the first step already, in sending his own Son to pay the price for our sin. I get to experience that part of his plan right now, the forgiveness for all my shortcomings and the closeness I get to feel to God because of Christ.
But the part of the story that really matters to me? God isn't done yet. He is going to make all this other ugly stuff right. This unexpected second miscarriage and unrelentless progression of muscular dystrophy and the ache of all the trials yet to come in my life.
Grief doesn't get the last word. And I don't have to end on this note.
And so I am clinging to hope. It isn't hope that suddenly my dad will wake up with his DNA chain fixed and healthy again. And it isn't hope that hinges on having another rainbow baby. It isn't hope that I can touch or feel or hold. It's a hope that is somewhere over the rainbow. A promise I choose to believe God is going to make good on. And for me, that perspective has changed everything.
Note: If you'd like to listen to the podcast that I listened to, go to https://journeywomenpodcast.com/the-podcast Episode 15: The New Heavens & The New Earth
