Here is the piece I told you about in
my previous post. I'm ready to share it! Let me know what you think...
Because
Angel Lived
Because Angel lived, a voice was
born… Let me explain…
It was my 34th birthday – and one I will never forget. I was pregnant with our second child, and my
husband and I had an appointment that day to see my OBGYN. I was eager to finally see the baby. At that
point, I was only seven weeks pregnant, but that didn’t matter. We had already started cleaning out the guest
room to make room for a new crib just brought home from Babies-r-Us. My husband and I had talked about possible
names for him or her. At only seven
weeks old, this baby was already dearly loved and desperately wanted. However, my ultrasound that day brought
devastating news.
The baby’s heart rate was
slightly slower than the doctor would have liked to see, and he or she was
measuring about four or five days too small.
The doctor tried to reassure us that it was probably too early in the
pregnancy to determine anything. She
guessed I was most likely not seven weeks along – probably less; although, I
knew my timing could not be off. I could
tell; she was concerned. And after she
prescribed some progesterone and asked to see us again in seven days, I knew at
that moment we might not ever get to bring our second baby home.
I was a nervous wreck that
entire week. I prayed to my Lord Jesus to save the baby. I cried and begged to
be spared the loss of a child. While waiting for the days to pass until my next
ultrasound, I read everything I could get my hands on about complications in
the first trimester of pregnancies. I
shouldn’t have done that; my quest for knowledge only brought me more
anxiety. And on August 5th,
2010, I saw our precious angel again –
this time with a still heart.
I felt lost and alone. The nurse
put me in a room down the hall until the doctor could come and talk with
me. And so I sat there in shock. And after the doctor came and explained that
there could be no way of really knowing why I lost the baby, I cried. Something in me – praise God – had the presence
of mind to ask for one of the ultrasound pictures that had just been
taken. I’m so glad I did that.
I left the office that day with so many questions racing through my
mind. How should I behave? What should I
do? What would we tell everyone? How do I grieve? Should I grieve? What had
just happened? I was so confused.
After that tragic ultrasound, I scheduled a DNC, but my body took
our angel from me the day before we were to have the procedure. It was over.
Our second child had come and gone. Upon
hearing this, most friends and family responded with statements such as, “It’s
normal. Happens all the time to many women” or “I’m sure you’ll get pregnant
again soon.” Others tried to reassure me
by saying, “It (the miscarriage) was probably a blessing in disguise. There
must have been something wrong.” And still others admonished me to trust in God
and His perfect will.
Although the above comments may help some women deal with the pain
of miscarriage, these attempts to comfort me – surprisingly - only angered me.
I wanted to cry out in response, “I don’t want to get pregnant again soon with
another baby! I want THIS baby!” Or better yet, “Please don’t tell me the death
of my child was a blessing in disguise! Really!?” But even more than that, I
wanted to understand how something so horrible, so physically and emotionally
painful, could have ever been my loving God’s perfect will for me and my baby.
I felt as if I was lost in a terrible blizzard, and I could not find my way
out.
My family and friends only wanted to comfort me during my time of
grief, and those aforementioned words were all they could think to say. Despite my frustration, I understood the
comments after my loss were coming from those who had good intentions. I knew this to be true because before my
loss, I had offered up those same condolences to friends of mine who had
experienced miscarriages. At that time,
I didn’t know how to comfort a woman who had just experienced the loss of a
baby. Nothing in our society teaches us
how to help a loved one move through the darkness that is pregnancy or infant
loss; on the contrary, society encourages baby loss mommas (BLMs) to grieve quickly
and quietly while everyone surrounding that poor soul is to never again broach
the subject of that loss with the affected person – ever again.
Miscarriage…early infant loss…it’s a taboo subject.
After my loss, life continued on as if nothing of any significance
had happened. After all, I would be
pregnant again soon, right? Time to move on. I slowly realized that is what
everyone wanted me to do. They expected it.
Move on, Jamie. Don’t talk about
it. What’s done is done.
That is when I realized, I couldn’t just move on. My baby had lived.
She – as I’ve come to believe the baby was a girl – lived. Angel – as my
husband and I named her – lived. And her
story – our story – needed to be shared.
Ultimately, I knew what I had to do.
I needed to share Angel and share what I had learned through my
experience…
Because Angel lived, I had a realization that the society in which
we live is one that forces the unrealistic expectation of silent grieving upon
women when it comes to the loss of a pregnancy to miscarriage or still
birth. And so because she lived, I have
shared Angel’s story – the story of my loss – on my blog, in my church, and
amongst my friends and family. I have
shared our story with the hope that perhaps one day women – mothers - won’t
feel as if they must hide their grief and thus hide their children which were
lost too soon.
Because Angel lived, a voice was born. The voice of a woman who now admonishes
fellow grieving women to no longer suffer in silence but to reach out for
emotional support and to honor the lives of their beloved children with their own
voices. So if you are reading this and have been through the pain of a
miscarriage, still birth, or early infant loss, I encourage
you to share your grief surrounding your loss, to share your story, and so
share your child. In this way, perhaps we
can change the current “off-limits” status on this subject to one of
“open-discussion.” So that if someone
suffers a loss, we – everyone - may know how to best comfort her. So that the mother who has just lost a child
can acknowledge her grief and heal more freely.
And so that the children lost too soon can be honored and remembered. Because they lived.
Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
