I just finished writing an e-mail to a friend, and then thought that maybe you’d want to “read over my shoulder” as my children are so fond of doing.

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She wrote to me…

Sep 5, 2006, at 9:21 AM:

Hey, just thought I’d let you know that I ended up having a miscarriage Sunday evening. You would think that since it took awhile for me to know for sure I was pregnant to begin with that it would be easier to go through, but it has been hard not to let myself get down. I feel like I am doing better this morning with the whole deal & was doing pretty well yesterday, but, wow, I’m trying to figure out how people deal with this sort of thing multiple times. It makes me grateful that I didn’t experience this before I had children–I don’t even know how you dealt with that. I’m trying hard not to worry that it won’t happen again, but there are no guarantees & the older I get the more I wonder if it will be more difficult. Anyway…thank you so much, again, for being there for me & easing some of my fears.

I have a call in to Dr. M___’s office to make sure things are okay. I still have a small amount of bleeding & just want to be sure that everything is okay. They said there is only one nurse on duty so that it may take awhile to get things going. I should know something by late morning.

I’ll go for now & get back into school–this is our first day. I’ll talk to you later.

Love,
A___

And here’s my response:
September 5, 2006 2:26:19 PM CDT

Hi A___,

Thanks for letting me know.

A miscarriage is never easy, no matter when it happens. The first one was only moderately hard for me because everything was so new. I didn’t anticipate it at all. We got pregnant again right away, and of course I was much more nervous about it, but I was optimistic because the doctor said that these things happen all the time and it’s nothing to worry about. Once we got past the point where we’d lost the baby before, we relaxed and figured we were good to go. So when I miscarried several weeks after that I was devastated. That was the hardest by far! I knew at that point that things weren’t normal for me. Then when I got pregnant the third time, I knew it wasn’t going to last. Why should this one be any different than the first three? So I was mentally prepared for it and it wasn’t nearly as hard as the first two. Then things seemed to be ok, I had three babies and figured whatever was wrong with me was fixed. When I miscarried between Luke and Amelia I was again surprised. But I seemed to get over it more quickly than before, probably because I was busy with three little kids by then.

In some ways I think that miscarrying after you already have children must be harder, because you know what you’re losing. You know it’s the life of a child who would have grown and joined your family. When you haven’t had a baby yet, a miscarriage is sort of a loss of a dream more than anything. You’ve never felt a baby kick you or held your own baby in your arms. I remember when I was nine months pregnant with Laura, I remembered the babies we lost and I cried again for them. I know it seemed strange, because here I was heavily pregnant. But I was realizing what we had lost.

You’ll grieve for your child in different ways as time goes on. Right now you’re going through the initial shock and sadness. Once you think you’re over it, you’ll be hit again when you have your next period. Then you’ll be sad again during the holidays when you think of how you should be starting to look pregnant. In the spring you’ll be sad again when you realize you should be nursing a new baby.

But the sadness in our lives is what makes us gentler, softer, more sympathetic people. It helps us empathize with other people. It provides the bitterness that makes the sweetness even sweeter. Your babes in arms mean more to you when you’ve lost one. Heaven holds more intrigue for you as you imagine the child waiting there for you.

Allow yourself to grieve. Give yourself some space. Let Dan care for the kids while you have some alone time. Get extra rest. Your body needs to recover from this pregnancy, no matter how brief it was. Things were already changing inside of you, and now they’re going to be changing back. Your hormones are all mixed up right now.

Don’t rush yourself. Maybe school could be a little flexible while you work through this miscarriage.

Some people won’t understand what you’re going through. They might tell you to “get over it” or they might try to encourage you by saying, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle!” Another useless bit of encouragement is, “All things work together for good!” You don’t really want to hear any of that right now. You just want to cry and work through all those thoughts swimming in your head. “What did I do to cause this? What if I hadn’t eaten that certain thing or overexerted myself last week?”

In the end, it will all be ok. Time will smooth over the barbs of pain. It will always hurt, but not always as sharply as it does now. And someday you might have a glimpse into some of the reasons God allowed you to go through it.

Love,
Christie