This life is not all joy. It isn’t supposed to be. I’d much rather share stories of happiness and success than to tell you all again that we’ve lost another baby. Yet, here we are. Two healthy, easy, wonderful pregnancies and births, two perfect little boys growing up every day, followed by two inexplicable and completely unforeseen losses, back-to-back, with only the temporary surprise and excitement of a quick pregnancy to separate them. Last week, at about six weeks pregnant with Baby #3, Take Two, we put a second “L” in our column in less than three months, which leaves the score at an unsettling fifty percent.
Two for four.
Half and half.
Fifty-fifty.
Those are not great numbers, and although I am taking the miscarriage well and have so much to be grateful for, it has at times seemed pretty cruel. We delayed our follow-up appointment with our lovely midwife after the first loss, because I laughingly told her that there was a chance I’d gotten pregnant again. Since I had not had a period since the loss, I wasn’t charting or recording any information about my cycle, but I was “feeling pregnant” and dealing with a few of the common symptoms that had always told me I was pregnant in the past–colorful dreams, breakouts along the jawline, and a sudden loss of appetite, just simple signs that may or may not have meant a thing.
Except they did, and I WAS pregnant again, immediately after losing a baby. How wonderful! It felt like a new covenant, a healing, gracious thing that I am still so thankful we had, even though it wasn’t meant to last. I started having a little bleeding and went straight on to the hospital midwife to get checked out, and even though she found that my hormone levels and ultrasound matched a possible conception date, I never regained the feeling that this was going to work out. My levels rose again between the serial blood draws, but it was discovered that I had low progesterone, and they prescribed a supplement. I think that was wise, but I suspect it just came too late to help this pregnancy “stick.” That familiar, unpleasant process began in earnest last Thursday evening, and thank the Lord, we were at the beach.
Our trip was a great distraction and we all had a genuinely awesome time. My boys showed me how much they’ve grown and all the fun we can have now that they are a little bigger, and it was such a blessing to be able to participate. I was so glad to have closure, to know for certain that it was over, so I could enjoy our rare time at the beach as a family and not have that constant itch at the back of my mind.
It’s been harder this time, just in terms of physical symptoms. I suspect we were much farther along when something ultimately went awry than the last time, and my hormone levels aren’t crashing immediately as they did before. I am getting, this time, the same setup that so many women have with miscarriages–that blend of taxing physical results which clearly prove I am no longer pregnant, plus the nagging hormonal and physical side effects making me still feel very much like a pregnant person. I’m tired and fat and in a constant state of feeling a little behind the curve cognitively (due in part, I think, to the nasty summer cold I’ve been treating with NyQuil and sinus medicine for several days now), and still in that out-of-breath condition common to pregnancy. That is tough to surmount, but I am finding a silver lining in my complete lack of pain and relative emotional comfort.
The past couple of weeks and the last day or two in particular have been full of turmoil and extreme change in many areas surrounding Gage’s and my life (although, praise the Lord, not within our relationship), and that coupled with the miscarriage and the sickness and the beach trip and the changeup in work schedules which always comes with vacations, we feel the fallout all around. To me, it feels very surreal and dreamlike and like some things are not really happening or happened a long time ago and I’m only experiencing the memory of it. Even with the echoes of this loss, our house and our relationship seems like the only rock in the middle of a shifting sea, and I am so thankful for that.
With that said, I should offer the same information and a sort of disclaimer like last time: We’re OK. We’re OK-er than I could’ve hoped in my wildest imagination.
We didn’t “try” to get pregnant with Drennin, or Zane, or either of these two babies we’ve lost, and we don’t intend to “try” now or in the future. We aren’t sure about the progesterone, or if we will plan to use that in the future if we get pregnant again. We are not going to use birth control for six months or a year or whatever as a “break.” We chose the path of trusting God with our family size, and we are not going to abandon that choice now that it has gotten steep and rocky. Even though it’s not all joy, not all round bellies and sweet-smelling babies. I cherish the promise that God will make me a mother again, and I believe it will come in His time.
The struggle is part of the climb, and I want to leave any of you who are suffering too with the following encouragement:
The Bible gives us example after example of the struggle that is expected when you try to live a righteous life, and (fortunately for us) gives plenty of ammunition for how to fight back and keep our peace when it rises against us.
In the eight through tenth verses of 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, Paul writes, “We are pressured in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; hunted down and persecuted, but not deserted; struck down, but never destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be shown in our body.” That’s a pretty strong depiction of the way it feels sometimes, but there are so many other encouragements found throughout the text, like in the first chapter of James, where we’re reminded to look at each of those terrible moments as joys… “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
So we’re supposed to fake it ’til we make it, and defy the losses, counting them as joys, victories, battles won along the way to triumph in the war.
I’m building steadfastness at a rate James would be proud of. ❤
Life in the Miles 