Juggling Our Way Through Life

Miscarriage.  This is a word that I feel like isn’t talked about much in society.  When you hear the word miscarriage,  people almost go silent, they don’t know what to say or how to react.  Even people going through them don't always openly talk about them.  I am finding out lately that there are more people that I know that have actually had at least 1 and I didn’t even know about it.  I’m not sure why to me it seems like it’s not talked about much, but that’s how I see it at least.  

 Jeff and I didn’t have any issues getting pregnant with Cale and Aiden, nor were there any big problems during the pregnancy.  We have been trying for a third child for a while and in January we found out we were expecting.  When I started spotting a little less than 2 weeks later, we began to worry, but I talked it through with one of my best friends who said that can happen sometimes.  Then, by Monday, February 3, I was bleeding and called my doctor, went in for an ultrasound and found out I was indeed miscarrying our child.  I was 6 weeks to the day on February 3.  Now to some that may sound like it’s so early in the pregnancy, but we believe that the creation of a child begins at the beginning-at conception, and so to lose our child was devastating.  Jeff and I both grieved, didn’t know what to think, and didn’t understand why this had to happen.  But we were hopeful.  I trust God, always have, and I knew that at that moment our lives were in His hand, that our sweet little one was in heaven and honestly that He knew where we were going and as long as I held on to that, then I would be ok.  

My doctor didn’t see anything going on that would alert us to trouble with getting pregnant again, and said that miscarriages are common, and that we could try again soon.  This has been a growing process for me and Jeff.  I have really had to learn that I am not in control.  Some days I have full grasp of that and other days I am just trying to hold on to some glimmer of that.  But I will say, that the in the past few months I have been able to mostly just trust-not saying it’s been easy, but I trust God.  Fast forward a few months.  We find out we are expecting again in April.  This time instead of pure excitement, there is some excitement, but mostly anxiety.  Would this baby be ok?  I was feeling the normal symptoms of pregnancy until I started bleeding again and miscarried a second time on April 17th, exactly 6 weeks again. It was again devastating, but I also knew we had a crazy weekend ahead that to some degree kept my mind off of it.  We celebrated Easter on that Saturday and the day was jam packed, and left on the 20^th for our family vacation to the Smokey’s.  Vacation had a lot of good points, but it was also exhausting.  Physically I was overly exhausted because my body was still going through the miscarriage and emotionally I was just trying to hold it all in while on vacation.  It was a hard week, but good in some ways and we made a lot of memories with the kiddos.

I am usually a very emotional person, and to some degree held the emotion back while we were on vacation, but to some degree, even if I wanted to the emotion wouldn’t come out.  I really think God was protecting me, allowing me to get through our vacation, to enjoy time with family.  We got home Friday the 25^th and all weekend, I could feel the emotion building, but still couldn’t get it out.   Monday I went to work and on my way home, felt the emotion beginning to show.  I couldn’t even make it through dinner, and started crying.  I didn’t want the kiddos to see me bawling, so I went up to take a shower and I can say, I wept and I sobbed like I never have in my entire life before.  I grieved for the loss of our children.  I grieved all the excitement that comes with a pregnancy and the birth of a little one-holding them in your arms for the first time, nurturing and loving them.  It was so freeing to finally grieve and just cry out to God.  I also grieved the possibility of me staying home full time with the kiddos.  That was our plan-when we had a 3^rd kiddo, I would stay home and not go back.  Nothing was working according to plan, I was not in control, and that was hard too.  I knew that Sept 29 and then Dec 12 would be my due dates and there would be so much joy around those dates- and this joy was now gone.

So fast forward to now, today.  It’s honestly still hard.  The emotional aspect of it is better, but I feel like there are pregnant women and new babies all around me.  And that’s ok, and I am so happy for them, it’s just still bittersweet.  I like to think of our kiddos as sweet little boys (maybe because that’s all I know), and I am bummed I won’t get to know them here on earth.  But I believe in heaven, I believe that they are with God.  Can’t say I understand or will ever understand why this had to happen.  Why 2 times?  Why did we have 2 children easily and now all of sudden it’s a struggle and heartbreak?  If I linger in these questions too long, it gets me knowwhere.  So today, I have peace and I trust God.  I am sure there will be not peaceful, maybe even sad days ahead, but in this moment as I type this today, I feel peace.  I am loved by God, and I am a loving, helpful, responsible, trustworthy woman.  I will cling to these truths to get me through the times where I question everything.

As far as what the future holds, I don’t know.  Jeff and I still have a huge desire to have a 3^rd child, but we need a break.  My body needs a break, it needs to heal.  While I am hopeful we will have a 3^rd, in the back of my mind there is a reality that it could not happen and that is hard for me to fathom right now, so I don’t go there.  We just pray and continue to let God know our desire and love on our sweet boys we have here on earth with us.  Who knows when or if it will happen.

We didn’t tell Cale and Aiden about either miscarriage, but of course they have sensed the stress and seen the sadness to some degree.  Cale asks almost on a weekly basis when I’m going to have another baby in my belly and that is hard to answer.  And I think behaviorally for a while they were struggling too, even though they didn’t know what was going on.  They sensed our stress.  Looking back on it, during our trip, sleep was such a struggle for them and while it was infuriating at the time, I think they were off because Jeff and I were off.  God love them, they don’t know what’s going on and their little bodies are feeling the stress too.  I can say that now, things have returned to status quo around here.  Their stress level has gone down and things are calmer.

Jeff has been amazing through all of this.  While I have gone through the physical feelings of miscarriage and all that goes on with your body, he has grieved the loss of our children too.  He has cried and grieved with me.  He has struggled too with feeling the emotion and not being able to get it out.  He has questioned why.  He has held me and been by my side throughout each one and still is.  Honestly-the miscarriages have brought us closer.  I know it sounds cliche, but they have.  My normal tendancies are to just shut down and resort into myself, to try to ball everything up and not let it go, but with Jeff, this has really been a process we have gone through together.  I love and adore this man and the way he loves me and our kiddos!

I write this blog in general just to highlight our lives.  I make it into a book each year to keep for memory.  I don't know how many people even read this blog.  I don't care.  I write it mainly for me and although this is a story of sadness, it's also a story of growth in our marriage, freely grieving and knowing what that feels like for the first time in my life and feeling some freedom in that, and it's a story I want to remember, mainly because it's part of our story and also because the story is not over yet!

So if you do read this blog and you know of a friend or anyone that is going through a miscarriage, don't be silent.  There were some days that felt so lonely, even through Jeff and I had each other and a few close friends and family supporting us.  Many people didn't even say a word and that was frustrating at the time.  But like I said at the beginning, people don't know how to handle a miscarriage and many times just shut down/go silent because they don't know what to say.  All I can say is if you know of anyone that is going through or has been through a miscarriage, know that it is a loss of a life, it is hard and it is sad.  Check in on them, just send them a text, make them a meal, anything so they know they are loved.  Don't be afraid you won't have the right words to say, just let them know they are loved and being thought about.  Ask them what they need and if they say nothing in that moment, they may not even know what they need, so keep pursuing.  And know that it just doesn't end overnight.  I know that there will still be times in the future that Jeff and I will have sadness and think about our kiddos.  It's a process and I am not going to put a time limit on it.  Mother's day was bittersweet.  Their due dates most likely will be bittersweet too.  I don't know why I feel like miscarriage is a hush, hush word.  It doesn't have to be, it is something that needs to be discussed, needs to be processed and it's so helpful for those going through it to feel and know they are loved through this time.