A Memoir (Epilogue)

(You'll find part one of my memoir here, part two here, part three here, and part four here.)

So here's the happy ending to the story.  In the next few weeks, I actually began to experience gladness that we had preemptively shared the news of the pregnancy.  SO many women and couples shared with me that they, too, had experienced a miscarriage of a similar kind.  Not only did they understand, and knew all the right things to say, but their encouragements gave me hope that one day we really would be able to make our dreams come true by having a successful pregnancy.

Three months later we tried again.  Again we got an immediate positive result on the at-home pregnancy test.  But we were on pins and needles for the first nine weeks-- the magic number at which point I had experienced the first miscarriage.

But I felt so different.  I felt morning sickness, and I rejoiced in it.  Food aversions taught me to hope.  I had to pee constantly.  Surely this meant that something was different.

They had scheduled an ultrasound in the ninth week of the pregnancy.  M and I went into the office together holding our breath.

As we entered the same ultrasound room, with that dim blue light glowing, I had a flashback moment of the foreboding feeling I had felt the last time I did this.  I prayed with all my might that sorrow would not be repeated.

Warm goo was squirted on belly.  Transducer came down.

And immediately she appeared on the screen-- the little kidney bean with paddle hands and feet that would eventually grow into our beautiful daughter N.  She wiggled and squirmed and flipped, and without the ultrasound tech even telling me, I could recognize the glorious fluttering in her chest that was her tiny heart beating.  My own heart leapt at the sight of her.  The joy of life permeated that screen and filled the room.  M squeezed my hand and grinned from ear to ear.

How much more was the joy of that moment appreciated because of how the Lord had led us to that day?

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I write this story because I want to remember it.  Nearly five years later, most of the details are quite sharp in my memory... but I'm pretty sure they'll fade with time.  I share it here for myself, but also as a memorial to the baby who might have been.

I also write this to send my empathy to those who have experienced multiple miscarriages, are unable to concieve, and any who have lost living children to tragedy or disease.  I know that their sorrow is much greater than mine.  I am in awe of your strength and courage.

I don't know whether that "blighted ovum" was actually a living soul.  I don't know if I'll ever figure that one out here on earth.  In some ways, that lingering confusion made it difficult to mourn for a "lost baby".  Another blogger wrote about her loss of two babies by ectopic pregnancy, and put it far better than I could have:

I'm not sure how everything in heaven works, but I often think that I have the potential of meeting our two babies lost when I get there. Eternity with two babies? This would be my heaven. 

Looking back, those two ectopic pregnancies seem like blips on the screen. At the time, they rocked our world. Our living children barely give me enough time to think of those who aren't with us. At times I feel guilty about this, but at other times think it may be God's way of helping to minimize my pain. When I dwell on it, it still hurts like crazy. 

But if I stand way back and look at the biggest picture, the grandest plan, this life on earth will be the blip on the screen and I may one day be reunited with those babies for eternity. And that just makes me smile.

Every time I remember my miscarriage, the blessing of my living children takes my breath away.  They are here, real, sleeping soundly in their beds as I write this.  Sometimes I just can't figure out what I did to deserve them.

Thanks for traveling down memory lane a bit with me.  More real-time updates are forthcoming!