The Loss of Miscarriage

We buried our precious little one today. While our sweet little person wasn’t due to take their first breath until March 24 of next year, this tiny person was already a part of our lives. This baby had graced our dreams and laced our daily thoughts. We were thrilled to become parents yet again and for Benzi to be the world’s best big brother. However, this was not to be, at least not now.

While in Jerusalem we found out that at nearly 11 weeks our baby was only measuring seven weeks and the ultrasound tech told us, “there is no heart beat.” We were crushed. That short sentence seemed to hang in the air while it slowly suffocated our hopes and dreams. Finding out the baby you have been creating wouldn’t see the world is awful in itself; being in a land that is not your home only adds to the heart break and discomfort. But through it all God has been good to us. Through a miracle we had our tickets changed to come home early and while a week before it would have cost us over $1,000, on this day it was only $20. The trip home was difficult. Miscarrying on a plane is about as terrible as you would imagine. But again the Lord was good to us. He sent me flight attendants who were incredibly kind, understanding, and helpful. On one flight my tired little toddler reached up and stroked my cheek and kissed my hand.

 The first 24 hours back in Chicago we were so thrilled to once again be in our home that I thought for sure the grief would be mild. No one could have prepared me for the heart break and disappointment that was to come.

 While I was miscarrying a Facebook friend posted about supporting Planned Parenthood after all of the videos that came out. I was heartbroken to think that babies just like the one I was losing were being disposed of in such a callous manner and there were people who still supported the organization. If those “fetuses” were not babies the implication was mine wasn’t either. This was crushing. How could someone say my grief was not warranted, that my loss wasn’t really a loss?

I passed a baby that at one time had a heart beat, I passed a placenta that at one time protected my baby. What more constitutes a life and therefore a loss? To know that there were people who thought that I was passing nothing more than a glob of tissue devastated me. To hear people speak so flippantly about babies near to my own child’s size as unwanted and therefore un-human, was soul-crushing. I had already begun to rearrange my life around this baby. This baby was already Benzi’s little brother or sister, the one who would keep me up all night, and the baby for whom I shopped for cloth diapers and clothes. The limits that at one time frustrated me like, no deli meat and no sushi were boundaries I desperately wanted because they meant I would one day hold this precious one. Unfortunately the way I wanted to hold my baby would not be the way I eventually did.

The loss has been overwhelming and I’ve never experienced anything like this. My heart is still grieving, my body is betraying itself while my hormones rebalance and I feel like I’m living in someone else’s body. I find myself daydreaming of 18 year old Jessie and desperately wanting to go back in time, back to an era where heart break like this wasn’t known. I find myself talking to that 18 year old, telling her, “you have no idea the things you will face in life but you also have no idea how strong you are.”

This journey is still being traveled, the tears still flow freely, and I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. Seeing birth announcements for March babies rips at my heart. I never thought this would happen to us. Yet even through all of this, the Lord comforts my soul. I cry out to Jesus and He hears me. Not only does He hear me, he listens, and acts, sending me love letters through His messengers and His words. My sweet little baby may never be held by me but he is held by one greater than me, one who’s sandals I’m not fit to tie, one who loved me so deeply He gave up His own life. My strength is in the King of the Universe, the Everlasting God. My soul will bless the Lord and I will worship His holy name because when I cannot stand, I will fall on Him. He is my hope and my strength.