The Fog of Pain and Grief

Todd and I found out we were pregnant and expecting our 12th child on November 16th 2015. We were excited that the Lord had blessed us once again! Sadly, the pregnancy ended in miscarriage. In total, we have now had 14 pregnancies with three ending in miscarriage. I have now experienced three different types of miscarriage; ectopic, partial-molar, and this miscarriage has not been officially diagnosed or labeled..

At my 7 week ultrasound everything looked good. I was having my normal morning sickness for about 6 weeks and then it suddenly stopped. I tried to just put it off as no big deal and hoped it was just a sign that my pregnancy was going to go easy, but in the back of my head lurked shadows of fear and questions.

My first real OB appointment was Friday, January 22nd but the Tuesday before the appointment I started to show signs that were indicative of miscarriage. Todd and I prayed that this wouldn’t be the case but on Friday our fear turned into reality. We all knew what to look for as the image of our baby appeared on the ultrasound screen. There was no heartbeat. The doctor immediately stated the obvious, “It’s not good”. Our baby had already gone to be with Jesus.

The Doctor said he would need to do a surgery because I was 13 weeks along and had plenty of blood supply left. He felt it wouldn’t pass well on its own. After the ultrasound I stepped out of the office and into the fog of grief. Saturday and Sunday were probably two of my worst days I have ever lived (with the exception of my ectopic pregnancy in 1999). My body continued with the miscarriage and I also developed a fever associated with it all. I was both brokenhearted as well as miserable from head to toe. On Monday, January, 25th I had a D&C. Three weeks later, I am still in recovery.

As I am coming out of a long fog I’m beginning to realize a few things I have come to realize…

Pain doesn’t have to be minimized.  In the last few weeks I have had several people begin to talk to me about painful things that are happening in their lives but quickly retract their experience as small or even illegitimate saying things like: “What am I saying, what I’m going through is nothing compared to what you have just been through!” I just want to shout! YOUR PAIN IS VALID! Your pain hurts. You have every reason to cry out to God and others about what is happening in your life.

I have also had to fight the urge to compare and minimize my pain. I questioned myself, “Why are you sad?! You have 11 healthy beautiful children!” My inner critic chided, “You never even got to know that baby so why be so sad.” and added, “There are thousands of couples out there that don’t have any children and can’t have them on their own… get over it.”

Pain is pain… and it all hurts! Don’t minimize your own thoughts and emotions because you feel your pain isn’t “bad” enough to complain about. It is all real and it is ok to be sad.

God’s way is Good!  As our storm played out I had an ideal of how it would go or who might step in and help. Even in my fog of pain and grief I attempted to think things through and plan out how things might go but the way things actually went were beyond what I imagined. God had a good plan and brought people into our situation to help and to show us his grace and love.

We experienced help and comfort in ways I didn’t dream of. For instance, I was so blessed by my sweet friend who came by the house on Saturday. She gave us a huge amount of food for dinner and then came up stairs and entered in to one of my weakest moments (physically and emotionally). What an amazing gift to have her hug me and just cry with me. Another friend came two days after the surgery. She brought loads of groceries and stayed to help me with the kids.

I hate to slow down. One of my most shallow thoughts during the miscarriage has been, “I don’t have time for this!” Or “I just don’t want to be going through this!” (as if I had a choice in the matter). I was forced to slow down. Though I was flat on my back, my eyes were open. I saw my wonderful husband step up. I was amazed that he was able to somehow become both strong and vulnerable all at the same time. I was so blessed to get to see Todd this way. I also saw that my kids (even though it is sometimes hard for them to express it) really do care for me. I was worried about how worried they were for me! At moments I was worried that the experience was going to “scar” them. But they were realizing that mom is human and I was grateful that they were able to enter in and at some level each of them was able to share in the grief. I can look back and see that it was a good thing for them to see me that way. I believe it helped them understand that I feel pain and my heart can break. Of course, they witnessed my slow but steady recovery and how God is making me strong again. They have seen that pain breaks us but God comforts and heals.