I’ve mentioned something I’ve been wrestling with sharing on this blog for quite some time. It’s been a heavy burden in my life for nine months now. I haven’t shared it hear yet because it’s such a public place here. I’m not even sure if my whole extended family is aware of this burden – why should I share it with strangers?
It’s been on my heart for weeks, no, months, that maybe God wants to use my burden to touch someone else with my blog. He’s already given me a huge gift of grace by allowing me to connect with 3 other women. But maybe He’ll use it for someone I don’t even know. Maybe someone who will never meet me, and whom I will never meet…other than through the Internet. Maybe God will use my tears to show Himself to someone else. Or maybe it will just help me to heal by putting it in writing. Saving it in ink, validating it’s reality. Either way, I’ve decided to fight the fear of what might happen if I put this out there.
It’s a risk to type all this for everyone to read. It’s not something I’m comfortable sharing, and for the past 9 months, it wasn’t something I thought I’d ever want to remember. But with each week that passes, I realize that it’s not something I can ever forget – nor should I. God uses burdens, hurts, struggles to strengthen us. He brings us to a place where our only choice is to give up all together on everything, or realize that the only Thing that is worth anything is Him and His promise of eternal life with no more tears, no more pain, and perfect Love through Christ. Our loss has been, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Today, Eugene and I would have been due to have our first baby. And although I feel tears well up just thinking of the possibility of holding our baby, this morning I can’t help but to realize how interesting it is that God had it fall right after the day set aside to recognize the overwhelming amount of blessings He’s flooded our lives with; it just doesn’t seem possible to not be thankful today.
Back in February, two years ago, I was told that I had endometriosis. I had surgery a week or so after my diagnosis, and Eugene & I were told that endometriosis is the leading cause of infertility, but that my surgery should help that out. My doctor explained that this surgery offers a window of opportunity that holds the best odds to conceiving a child. We weren’t necessarily planning on trying that early in our marriage, but we knew we wanted a family, so we followed the doctor’s advice.
Six months of trying {which actually felt like 3 years of wondering if we could conceive}, I finally found out I was pregnant. I can’t explain how overwhelmed I was with joy & thanksgiving that God had created a miracle for us and allowed us to get pregnant. But at six and a half weeks, on March 13 {I didn’t blog that day}, I began experiencing pain and intense bleeding while at work. Frozen, on my knees in front of the sinks in the restroom at work, I begged God, and then I called my doctors office frantically. The doctor was out for the day, but the nurse told me to head to the ER if it didn’t improve soon. I left and went home. Things just got worse.
I went to the ER and experienced hours and hours of being at the last place I wanted to be while anticipating the emotional hurt that I knew in my heart was coming. I waited with my precious friend {for whom, I will be forever thankful for her heroic presence that day}. I was examined by strangers {doctors, but strangers} and moved to different rooms. and after hours and hours there, I was told that “we think you lost the baby.” There’s no answer, no cause, no reason. They said it’s called a “spontaneous abortion.” Hearing those two words was the worst sound. Couldn’t someone think of a nice name? It already sucks, but to hear the word abortion, and be reminded that some people actually choose to lose their baby – salt in the wound. My precious baby, whom I’d only known a few short weeks, yet loved so deeply already, had died. And to say that my heart broke in a terrible way is an understatement.
I wanted that baby so badly. It overwhelmed me how much I loved that baby despite only knowing about it for a few weeks. But the truth was, I had prayed for this baby for years . I’ve prayer that my future child would come to know the Lord, long before I even knew I had a husband. And to hear that this child for whom I had prayed, has just been taken from me was crushing to my soul.
From that day of our journey to today, nine months later, it’s been a process to say the least. Days followed by weeks of tears and hugging my husband through our loss. Telling our parents {who didn’t know we were pregnant} that we lost a baby, feeling so heartbroken that I wondered if I would ever experience joy again. I proceeded to praise the Lord despite getting drenched in the storm of loss. I struggled to pray words. I daily looked for guidance, fought fear, clenched to my faith. I filled all my spare time with my house, new roof, kitchen remodel, fixing bathroom. It was a huge blessing to have our house to occupy my mind; working kept my mind busy.
Now that this post has turned into such a long post that no one will read because it’s long and has no pictures, I should probably wrap it up. It’s hard to put 9 months of heartbrokenness, and healing, into words. That’s why I haven’t blogged this yet. I’ve tried so many times, but the words wouldn’t come, and for some reason, today they just won’t stop coming. I thought facing my due date would be the hardest day yet, but it’s not. Praise the Lord, it’s not. I’m okay. And just so say that was certainly something that I didn’t feel for a few months at the beginning. I’ve healed and continue to heal, and I owe so much thanks to my friends and family who have absolutely covered us in prayer. {Thank you so much.} That has made all the difference.
I am not thankful for the miscarriage, I never will be, and I never wish that on anyone. You can’t understand the pain of a miscarriage unless you’ve experienced it first hand. I am thankful, however, for how God has showed up and held my hand through the experience. He has been faithful, once again, in my life, and I am so thankful that I had Him through this. I am also thankful for the people who promised to pray us through it. I will never be able to adequately express how much it meant to me.
The biggest thing I want to be sure to clearly say is that: I believe God is good. I trust He has a beautiful plan for Eugene & me, and although I’ve walked around with a broken heart since March, I know that God is enough for me. I thought today would be filled with pain, but I’m so happy to say that it’s actually filled with praise.
God is good. I have clung to that for 9 long months, and I will cling to it everyday for the rest of my life. God is so good, even when our broken world is not. God is good!
