Miscarriage – Hand Me Downs

You stand and wait, glancing around the room. Maybe you tap your foot just a bit and shuffle your weight from leg to leg. You hear a bell chime and you watch as the doors slide open with a swish. Without hesitation you step on and select your floor. The doors swoosh shut and you feel the pull through your body as you’re lifted up through the elevator shaft. Stepping onto the elevator is kind of an example of how faith works. You can’t see the cables that hold the metal box of death, but you know they are there and you trust them.

Hebrews tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. You know the elevator is going to take you to the floor you select without crashing to the ground even though you can’t see the cables and pulleys. But what happens when you’ve gotten on the elevator and it’s crashed. What do you do when your faith has been shaken. When you struggle to ‘see’ past what your eyes see?

Over the last four years I have had to fight hard for my faith. Sometimes harder than I ever expected. There have been times that my vision has been so trained on what I’m seeing in the natural that it can be challenging to refocus my sight on what’s happening in the supernatural. In other words, it’s hard to trust what I can’t see and trust in Gods plan, when things around me look and feels terrible. Does this make me, or you if this is your struggle too, a bad Christian? No, it makes us human. God knew that we would have times where we would struggle to keep our eyes on Him and off the circumstances around us.

This exact situation happened in Matthew chapter 14. The disciples were in a boat in the middle of a lake and they were struggling against the wind. The boat was rolling about on the waves and when they looked out across the water they saw Jesus walking ON the water toward the boat! Initially they were scared and still not reassured when Jesus told them it was him. Peter called out to Jesus, “If it is you, call me to you” and Jesus did. Peter stepped off the boat out among the waves and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.

He was doing great at first, step after step, he got closer and closer to Jesus. Then, he glanced around at the storm swirling around him. He saw the waves crashing beside and behind him, he felt the wind rushing against his cheeks and he started to sink. His faith floundered and he began to sink. He thrust his hand up and cried out to Jesus “save me”! Jesus took him by the hand and together they made their way to the boat and climbed in.

So what do we do when all we can see with our eyes are the waves? When we can’t hear Jesus through the roar of the wind, when our bodies are being pummeled by the storm? We have to choose to look back at Him, reach out our hand and call on His name. And sometimes that’s hard! It can be SOOO hard! When I look at the things around me reminding me that we are four plus years into the journey to grow our family and we still do not have our child into our arms, I can feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the water. I feel the sting of the salt water in my eyes and feel the burn of it in my throat. My body feels heavy with the weight of the stormy waters around me.

2 Corinthians 5:7 says that we should walk by faith, not by sight. I, or maybe even you too, have to look past the physical, the damaged elevator, the wind and the waves, and trust what can’t be seen. I have to make the same choice Peter made; reach up, cry out and get rescued. And I have to do it time and time again when I start to sink. Im making my choice, to walk by faith and not by sight, because let’s be honest, what I can physically see can be enough to cause me to start to sink.

Tonight my eyes see an empty crib and clothes with tags still on. But my faith sees a bed that’s ready for the child God has for us, clothes that are soft and comfy prepped and ready to keep that child warm. My eyes see a still rocking chair with no one to cuddle in it. But my faith sees a place where stories will be read and lullabies sang in the glow of a nightlight. My eyes the unanswered prayers of a big brother and a big sister. But My faith sees the love that has grown in their hearts for this little sibling that they have prayed diligently for over the last four years.

What are you going to choose? Are you going to get back on the elevator? Step out onto the water? What are you going view your surroundings with; your eyes or your faith?

It’s in the quiet moments that I hear it the most. The soft pop and hiss of tiny fractures spreading across my aching heart. It reminds me of that first step you take onto thin ice. You feel the millimeter of give beneath your boot, and hear the thick crack as the ice groans in protest under your weight. Your stomach plunges, your heart races, your breath rushes out in rapid steamy gasps. Frozen, you wait, knowing that at any minute you may plunge into the icy depths unsure if you will resurface.

It’s in those quiet moments that I know it’s coming and right now there is nothing I can do to stop it. I know as time goes on I will be able to slowly ease back from the edge, creeping ever so lightly to a different and stronger path. But for now, I fall, over and over into that frigid painful water, struggling for breath, tears blurring my vision, fighting against myself while I attempt to gain my footing in flailing failure.

I know I’m not alone in this; a myriad of women have been exactly where I am. Many others are still here with me, picking up the pieces of their hearts, attempting to mend them. To put them back together as they were before. But, hearts can’t go back as seamless and as perfect as they were before a miscarriage. There will always be little chips, cracks and craters that remain. Little pieces of yourself that were lost along with your child.

Miscarriage is never an easy word to say. It’s a word that brings nothing good with it. It’s a word that makes people uncomfortable. One that is spoken in hushed whispers and with solemn expressions. A word that carries pain and sorrow; a life changing word. It’s a word that steals away the innocence and bliss of pregnancy and leaves in its place fear and questions. It’s a word that thrusts you into an unfamiliar and scary new world; one you don’t want to be in. It’s a word that is often hard to say, even by those who have endured it.

Why is it so hard for us to speak freely about this? Not just for myself but for other women as well? Why is there such a hesitation to share our loss, our grief? Miscarriages are not uncommon, they’re not new and they’re not going away. So why do so many women feel like they have to suffer in silence, only sharing with a handful of family members and close friends? Why do we feel we can we only find solace within the secret groups of other mothers whose hearts are chipped and cracked like ours?

Maybe it’s because we’re subconsciously afraid that we will rub off on someone. That our bad luck can spread from person to person like a nasty unseen virus. Maybe it’s because we know how much it hurts. And we’re afraid that if we say the words out loud to someone who has been there as well that their heart, despite all the repairs, will begin to crack and creak as they are reminded again of their loss.

Maybe it’s because hardly anyone knew that we were pregnant? Most women wait until it’s “safe” to share the news of the secret new life growing inside of them. Having been a Labor and Delivery nurse, I know that no one is safe. Ever. But if we haven’t told anyone about the baby, how do I tell them when its gone? Because that’s a really easy conversation to have. Do you say “So last week I was pregnant, and this week I am not” or “Please excuse my pallor and mascara runs, I lost my baby, the one you didn’t know about”.

Maybe it’s because, right now we have near constant physical reminders of our loss that we can’t bear to see sad eyes, or hear “I’m so sorry” or “It wasn’t meant to be” or “there was probably something wrong with it anyway” or “you can always try again”. Maybe it’s because we want just one place where we can go and play pretend. Imagine that we are not shattered, pretend that we’re whole and perfect; that we’re not holding ourselves together with sheer will and Oreo cookies.

Maybe it’s because in a society that is so centered around choice that a determination of actual “life” has yet to have been made and that we are afraid our baby “doesn’t count”. That our loss is no real loss, our heartbreak is just our own making. Or maybe it’s the fear of being blamed. That somewhere deep inside that person who we have just told, is thinking it must be our fault someway or somehow. We had to have done something wrong, or definitely didn’t do everything right to be where we are.

Maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe it’s just fear. That saying the words out loud will send us plunging through that thin ice again to drown again in our tears. Or a fear that talking about will make it easier and that easiness will mean we are forgetting. Not forgetting the hurt or sorrow, but forgetting the baby that flew away from this earth before we did.

Maybe it’s because it really just sucks. And it hurts. And because we can’t say the words without crying. And because maybe we’re tired of crying, but feel guilty if we aren’t. It’s a crummy roller coaster ride full of ups and downs, that leave us feeling dizzy and disoriented.

It’s in the quiet moments that I know, regardless if I talk about it or not, say the words aloud or not, that I will slowly pick up the pieces of my heart and fit them back together. They won’t be seamless, it may be hard to get them to stick together, and there will always be gaps, but it’s in those places that I will tuck the little life that was a part of me for too short a time. It’s in those places that I will place the lifetimes of hopes and dreams formed during the too few moments we were together.

It’s in the quiet moments, that I hear it the most. That soft hiss and pop of breaking hearts. It’s because of those moments that I know the silence must be broken. I have had a miscarriage and it hurts. I am slowly putting the pieces back together and while I do I remind myself that “He consoles us as we endure the pain and hardship of life so that we may draw from His comfort and share it with others in their own struggles”. You don’t have to be alone in those quiet moments, I am here if you need me. We can heal together.

Tag: Miscarriage

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Deafening Silence