"It's like... trying to move too fast after getting an injury. Your mind is ready to go back to normal, but your body (heart) is still too sore to move properly."
This miscarriage has been very different to the last one.
After losing Butterfly, I was immobile for days. All I could do was lie in bed, cry, try to sleep, and watch videos to distract myself.
This time around, not only do I have a job that I need to keep going to, but I also have been through this type of loss before. To use the old saying: "this ain't my first rodeo."
Even though it's not my first, it doesn't mean I haven't been tossed around by the bull quite a bit.
Everything about this loss was different--except the end result. Sam and I had actually been trying for a baby this time around. I honestly didn't think I was pregnant; I had been waiting on my period for a good week after it was predicted, but I was trying not to get my hopes up since I have whacky, irregular cycles quite often. I told myself that "If Aunt Flo didn't arrive by the start of next week I will take a test just to put my mind at ease".
The night before, I was really nervous to even take the test. What if it wasn't positive and I just wasted a test because I had gotten impatient with my irregular body? What if it WAS positive? What would we do then? I went around and around with my anxious thoughts until deciding to read my little advent devotional before heading to bed. This advent devotional incorporates different senses by giving you a piece of art to reflect on as you listen to a piece of music the author has chosen and read the scripture, a piece of relevant poetry, and the words the author has written about that day's topic. That night. as I pulled up the devotional I was going to read, the art piece was a yellow neon sign with the words "DON'T WORRY" glowing right in front of my face.
Okay God, I hear you.
I read scriptures about peace, about anxiety, and trusting God with it all. I felt a sense of calm as I turned in for the night--still curious as to what the morning would bring, but trusting that it would all be alright.
I woke up at 3:20 Monday morning and decided that it was as good a time as any to take the test. Get the negative news out of the way before I went straight back to sleep. I took the first test, setting it on the back of the toilet out of eyesight so I wouldn't look before the 3 minutes were up. As I went to wipe, the paper brought up a faint pink dot of blood.
I almost couldn't believe the irony. If I had only checked if I was bleeding BEFORE taking the test I wouldn't have taken it. I smiled wryly to myself and reached back to grab what I knew would be a negative test.
But it wasn't a negative test.
Two BOLD pink lines slashed their way through my vision and stabbed ice down into my heart.
"What?" I stared at the test, confusion and fear tangled inside of me, "What does this mean?"
I knew light bleeding was normal for early pregnancy, but spotting had never been my friend before in these situations. Judging from how long it had been since my last cycle, I was about 5 weeks starting into the 6th week soon. How common was it to spot on those weeks? I took out another test and tried that one to see if maybe the first one had been a mistake. But it wasn't.
In the bathroom I fell on my knees and prayed for this little life inside me, giving them over to God to do as He willed.
I returned to bed and told Sam the news. We both were excited, terrified, and solemnly aware what the bleeding could mean. We both prayed, and we were both unable to go back to sleep before Sam's alarm went off for me to get ready for work.
At Chick-fil-A, I was careful not to overexert myself. If I had to lift anything I made sure to only do it for short distances and try to use my arms more than my back and core. Throughout the day I kept checking to see if the spotting was still there. It was, but it looked even less than before, and that made me hopeful that it was going away completely.
During the lunch peak, I was put in the window as the person who passed people their food in Drive Thru before they drove away. By mid-afternoon, I could tell that my early morning was wearing on me. I had a weird glow on the right side of my eye that hindered how I could read the computer screens. I assumed that I was getting a migraine since I had struggled with seeing "sun spots" on previous occasions after getting a poor night's sleep. I was struggling to focus and people's names weren't coming clear to my mind and out my mouth. And then, in the middle of all that confusion, I felt it.
It didn't hurt. It didn't ache the way it usually did when I start my period, but I knew I was bleeding.
"Something's wrong."
I said it as a tingling sensation started in my fingers and numbness spread across my jaw.
"Something's wrong. I need to go."
Somehow, after an agonizingly long wait, and after getting the attention of my coworkers, I got away to the bathroom to watch my dreams die.
I couldn't move. It felt inappropriate since I was still technically "on the clock" at work. But I couldn't do anything but bend over on the toilet and sob and sob.
A coworker came in the bathroom and asked if I was okay.
"No." The truth punched me in the stomach. "No I am not okay."
It was so short. If I had only waited a few more hours, another day even, I wouldn't have ever known. I would have chalked it up to "Another late period" and gone on in my ignorance.
But I did know. I knew, and it didn't seem fair.
How could God do this to me? After all that about "DON'T WORRY", and peace, and giving Him all my anxious thoughts? How could He show this to me, tantalizingly close---with the possibility of a cute, Christmas announcement for the family on the horizon---and then a few hours later send it crashing down like it had been nothing?
I was angry. I was SO angry.
What made matters worse, is the talk Sam and I had when I had returned home and allowed myself a nap. We decided that it would be best not to try again until after Sam's school was over.
That was almost too much to bear. Gone was my hope for a baby 2020. Gone was my secret joy that we had been hiding from friends and family all this time. Rage and bitterness at the unfairness of it all were my closest allies during those dark hours.
The day after it all went down, I privately messaged our families to tell them what happened. Later in the day I posted about it online. As the messages of care and condolences came flooding in, I felt a new feeling overwhelm me.
Love.
Who was I, that so many people were praying for me, grieving with me, and reaching out to me? These were people I knew and people I didn't know. People across states, and countries reaching, feeling, breaking because I had broken. The bitterness and the rage melted away to a realization that almost stole the breath out of me.
"People are watching you."
People are watching you hurt, watching you fight with loss, and infertility, and recurrent miscarriage. People are watching you as you struggle trusting God for this new path ahead that is so different than what you wanted. They see how you will choose to trust or distrust Jesus during this time of tragedy in your life. Their eyes are on you, rooting for you to stand, to succeed, to keep going. What are you going to do with what you were given right now? Are you going to sink into your depression and bitterness toward God and distrust everything He leads you towards? Or are you going to learn and grow from even another loss like this into someone more beautiful, more compassionate, more loving, and more trusting than you could have been without it?
I don't say all of that to paint myself as this huge influencer that everyone is waiting on to learn spiritual truths from. But merely as a reflection into my thoughts on how I could respond to even this kind of disappointment with faithfulness. Before I was angry at the timing of everything, because: "If I had only waited, I wouldn't have ever known." But now I think that it is very evident that I was MEANT to know. I needed to know about this baby and this disappointment so I could see what God was going to do with it.
With Butterfly, her name came with the metaphors I wrote in the post where I talked about our loss. The whole "flying away" concept was something that seemed to fit that loss, since her little "cocoon" in my womb was empty when we saw it on the ultrasound.
With this baby, I almost wanted to distance myself away from it, since it had been so short lived, I almost couldn't bring myself to think of a name for it. Initially, when I was unsure if I was pregnant, I was calling him/her "my little 1% baby" so I would remind myself not to get my hopes up (as there was, in my mind, 99% chance that I wasn't pregnant). After this loss, though, calling baby #2 "1% baby" didn't feel right--almost like it was only 1% baby and 99% something else.
In the short hours before I had gone to work, I read up on how big a baby at 5-6 weeks would be. The website compared the baby's size to a sesame seed or an orange seed.
"Seed", God gave me a little seed.
I was reminded of the Bible verse in John 12:24 that says: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
This little baby is one we had to let go. We had to plant to see how it will grow. Our little seed of hope for the future. A marker of God's love, of our joy, and of how He is leading us to something more. Just as our little seed had to die and be planted, so too I am learning to die to myself and follow God. I pray through this, we will grow into something beautiful.
I will miss Baby Seed, just as I miss my Butterfly. I expect that the journey ahead will be difficult, but I have hope that I can look forward trusting God for whatever comes. This doesn't mean I don't struggle, I have plenty of fears about the future and doubts about MY abilities. But God is faithful, and has grace for me, even here. I pray when I remember Baby Seed, that He is the one I turn to.
So now, I am still healing, still learning, and still trusting. It will take some time to "go back to normal" but God will be right here, and I am thankful for that.
-RNM