Pregnancy after a Loss

Pregnancy after a loss is the strangest thing.

As soon as you see the faint line on that pregnancy test, you live in the tension of hoping for what could be while also recognizing the reality of what may never be. You may hold the news tighter to your chest, you may not document it nearly as much, at least this was our case. Because the truth is, you don't want to get too excited too soon only to be taken down into the depths of despair yet again, and let's be honest, what do you do with the old ultrasound photo of the tiny baby you lost or the video you took of your oldest son as he expresses his sincere excitement over another sibling - I'm still trying to figure those things out.

A few days ago I had a dream that I went in for my 17 week check up at the Dr. and baby didn't have a heartbeat. I woke up just thinking, dear Jesus please don't let this dream come true, but for some reason I woke up with so much peace just knowing it wouldn't be our reality.

For those who may not know, I dream things that come to fruition...not always, but I can sense when something feels real like a premonition almost and when something doesn't. I truly believe God speaks to me through my dreams, I know it may sound strange, but it's happened so many times that even my friends are like oh..Malia and her dreams!

Most recently I had a dream that I had a miscarriage and Peter fell off a mountain, and that dream did come true. And just a few months ago I had dream a friend was pregnant after said miscarriage and in the dream I remember just being so excited for her and so at peace with where God had our family, and the day I told her about the dream was the day she had found out she was pregnant and she wasn't sure how she was going to tell me!

So I truly feel like God uses dreams to prepare my heart for things to come.

So on Wednesday I went in for my Drs. appointment, and the nurse had a hard time finding the babies heart beat, and I could tell she was a little flustered. She kept moving the doppler around, but we kept hearing my heartbeat. And I laughed and told her about the dream I'd had, and just said of course this would happen, still entirely hopeful, knowing he was hiding somewhere.

And she said, I don't want to cause anxiety, we can do an ultrasound if you want, and I said it's fine, and she went to get another nurse to see if she could find it. And sure enough, the next nurse came in and went a little lower and we heard it straight away, super duper low like always.

And as I type this, I'm just taken back to that moment. The truth is, I wasn't anxious at all as it just feels like a true reality...the loss of a baby.

And then my Dr. came in, and she has recently suffered her own baby loss, losing her baby girl just 10 days after she was born due to unanticipated brain damage. And we talked, and she asked me if I've felt connected to this baby, and I slowly replied in truth with tears in the corners of my eyes, "No." And it broke my heart to say that.

But the truth is pregnancy after a loss is the strangest thing. You hold the pregnancy and the baby differently. You cradle it differently. You hope differently. You feel like you've walked through fire, so if you had to do it again, you know you could. So rather than hold this baby and this pregnancy tighter, I'm holding it so loosely.

And I feel like I won't actually believe that a healthy baby is growing inside me until I'm birthing him and holding him in my arms.

And as beautiful as the past seven months have been walking through my own loss as people share their grief and their pain from msicarriages, still births at 25-35 weeks, losing a full term baby to brain damage, the list goes on. The grief and the pain is tremendous and real, and I feel like loss is my reality. I mean that's my most recent normal. A healthy pregnancy and baby isn't my most recent experience so it just feels strange. Like you're walking a tightrope waiting for something to happen.

But you want to know what all of this has taught us?

Each day is a gift, and each day with our littles is a gift, and each day this baby grows inside my womb is such a gift. And this gift is a gift some don't get, and the reality of that feels heavy on my heart some days.

So last night the husbad graciously took some photos of me to mark 17 weeks pregnant (Thanks Peter!!) and he snapped one of me just breathing it all in - the pain, the joy, the grief, and the hope.

May God continue to give us the wisdom and the grace to show up for people that have walked a path similiar to ours. And may He continue to give us the courage to share our hearts and our story with those who need to hear it!

Grief and Hard Things

 

My heart feels so heavy this morning, so I turned cartoons on for the boys, made myself a cup of coffee and crawled back into bed with my computer on my lap.

Friends, this week as I have shared the loss of our baby with others and the grief that has come with that, I have heard some really hard stories, and my heart feels so heavy as I reflect on those stories.

One mom shared that they've decided to just have one child, so they were thinking about downsizing their car and remaining in their smallish home, and I thought to myself, I wonder how they came to that conclusion. And then as I shared with her about my miscarriage, she shared with me about hers. She told me about her babies, and the twin that died in utero right after the first trimester, while I looked at the one who lived as she ran around the playground with my boys. And she told me about the miscarriages that followed due to her rare blood disorder.

Her vulnerability and courage was inspiring, and her grief was palpable as her voice caught as she shared how she's still wrestling with the thought that her daughter will be her only. She asked me what it was like taking two kids anywhere and she asked about their sibling relationship, and my heart just broke. Here I am yearning for another child, a third child, and she is yearning for just two, for what I already had!

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for - Epicurus

And then just a day or so later I heard another story, and if the first story cracked my heart a little, this one shattered it, leaving pieces all over the floor. This story began with a waiting game of a year or so of trying to get pregnant, then came the sheer joy and excitement when it happened! And I'd love to say, that baby is now outside of the womb and in her mama's arms, but that's not how this story ends or begins depending on how you look at it. This baby was born about a month ago via c-section, and her life ended just 10 days later as she was born with an unanticipated brain injury. And while that chapter in the story ends, the mamas grief lives on. One story ends, but another story of deep, deep grief and healing and restoration begins.

As I sit here in that grief, I'm just overwhelmed by all those stories that I have heard and all those I have yet to hear, all those stories of hurt, of pain, of deep, deep grief that have eventually led to healing and restoration as they live into what is rather than hoping for what will be or what could have been.

And as friends share with me their pregnancy news, I rejoice with them and the story God is writing for their family, while yearning for God to write another child into our story.

And amidst the waiting and anticipating and releasing and laying down, I'm reminded that this is what life is all about. Life is full of challenges, trials and tribulations. We all walk through grief and hard things, and our response to those hard things lies in our own hands.

We can choose whether we will turn toward Him, allowing for something new to be born, for someone new to be born, or we can choose to turn away from Him, turning inward in our grief, spiraling deeper and deeper down into the depths of despair.

Will we turn outward and pour ourselves out, revealing our hurts and aches and pains, exposing our vulnerable souls, while allowing God to transform us and heal us, showcasing His work within us to the world?

Will we cling to the hope that He promises, or will we get lost in our own grief and forget about all those promises?

Will we turn outward?

Or will we turn inward?

God is at work in all of our lives. Yet, do we truly believe this?

Do we create space to show that work even amidst the grief and hard things?

Do we open ourselves up to Him to allow Him to use our story and our grief for His glory?

These are the questions I've been asking myself.

I wrote this post about Grief and Sad things nearly 5 years ago to the day, while I was pregnant with Jack, never dreaming that I'd be the one walking through the loss of a child, never dreaming that God would write that chapter into our story. But He has, and now we get to choose how we respond to that loss, while trusting that God is at work in all of it.