Hello again!
After being relatively quiet about what's been happening in our circle for a while, I suddenly got the hankering to write a little blog post. I wanted to write not only inform those that like reading longer content about life for the Miller Family, but also so I could process things for myself.
Where do I even begin?
The biggest change is quite obvious, and something I have wanted to talk about for a long time. We are expecting our little one to arrive in about 3 1/2 months. It has been 7 years since our first pregnancy ended in loss, and 2 years since we had another miscarriage with Matthias. Being pregnant for the 3rd time with our history has been really difficult for me mentally and emotionally. In the early days of our pregnancy, I struggled daily with anxiety about having another loss. And now that we are well into the 2nd trimester and rapidly approaching the 3rd, I still feel fearful at times.
I have been part of the loss community for so long, I have heard all the stories of things that can go wrong, and I have woven a good deal of my identity into that world as a loss mom and as a bereavement doula. Now that my season is changing, it is hard to lean fully into that joy and that excitement that anticipating a new baby brings without a good deal of personal wrestling and healing.
Brene Brown calls the feeling "Foreboding Joy"-- where we start to feel the most afraid at our happiest moments. It's because joy can make us feel vulnerable; and that is the space I have had to navigate for 5-6 months as I open up my heart to this new baby and all the new things that come along with being pregnant again after loss(es). There are so many things I have gotten to experience for the first time during this pregnancy--things I sometimes feared I would never experience--hearing our baby's heartbeat, seeing him moving on the ultrasound, feeling him kick and roll inside my belly, making a baby registry... These things that have become precious to me because I have wanted them for so so long.
When I think about the early days of this pregnancy, I grieve a little bit, because I can see in myself someone who was so guarded and so anxious about getting her heart broken again. Sometimes I worry that those fears took away some of the joy that I would have otherwise been feeling at certain milestones.
Through all my fear, the Lord has remained close with his mercy. I try to pick a "word for the year" every December/January, and the word for 2022 was "Mercy". Did you know that the same word for "mercy" in Hebrew is also the root word for "womb"? I did a little studying this year, and when I discovered that correlation, it brought a little healing to my heart. God has shown us mercy not only with this little one that we have so longed for, but also in many other ways this year--ways that I did not expect.
Brene Brown says the practice to help fight that "Foreboding Joy" is gratitude.
And I am so so grateful every day and every moment for this baby, and for the mercy shown to us.
-RNM