Experiencing Miscarriage

Angel baby.

For some reason, I’d felt exempt from cradling these two words in my heart forever. But now? As of four weeks ago, I now know that I’m not. I’ve joined the sea of individually hurting stories who’d also squealed (or who’s husband squealed) at the second line fading in on the pregnancy test — those who’d hoped and wondered and dreamed, only to be told weeks later by an otherwise silent ultrasound technician that there was no heartbeat.

I know that there are many who will never share their stories like this. For some, it remains a private topic. But in the days following this news, all I longed for was to know that I wasn’t alone in my crazy tides of emotions and numbness. I longed to know the stories of others who had experienced this kind of complicated loss, to validate that my pain and my loss were, indeed, real.

And so, I hope my story thus far can be a comfort to someone else. Sharing only four weeks in, I know there will be much more processing to come; but reading the rawness of others’ stories is what helped me come to terms with my own need to see this as the grieving that it is.

. . .

I was almost 8 weeks, and my husband had gone out of town for a few days for work. Of course, everything always seems to go awry on the days he is away, and my 3-yr-old was up sick all throughout the second night. As I laid on the floor next to Oliver’s bed, my hand resting on his puke bucket waiting to spring into action (real life, friends), I just knew something was wrong in my womb as my lower back starting cramping. Silent tears started streaming down my face as my throat closed and my heart tried not to sink — not quite yet.

The next morning, Oliver and I found ourselves at my doctor’s office (thankfully he was feeling much better). I answered all the questions and the nurses all seemed to be trying to keep my hopes high: “well, a lot of this is very common, you know”…“are you sure your tests were positive?”…”I’m sure everything’s just fine, but let’s take a look…”

When they said they’d need to do an internal ultrasound, I leapt with both excitement and dread, because I remembered doing this around the same week with Oliver and seeing his tiny little life and butterfly heartbeats inside. Oliver sat on a bench in the room watching a little video to distract him, and I sat there, hardly able to breathe, drowning in my own thoughts.

The technician was silent. As was I. I didn’t want to frighten Oliver. But the tears felt like bolts of lightening without being able to release the thunder. The problem was, I knew what I was supposed to see, and I wasn’t seeing it anywhere. Before I knew it, she was telling me about the process of miscarrying and how long I should expect it to take naturally. “This is very common,” she said, with the best of intentions. But words whirled around me like blended echos in a cavern, and I could only lock in on one of them: miscarry.

Miscarry? No. That can’t be right, this baby was due on September 27th. I loved that date. I was going to wear flowing dresses all summer and find refuge in a swimming pool during my 3rd trimester. The baby’s birthday would be at the best time of year in the Pacific Northwest. All three pregnancy tests were screaming positive! My first pregnancy was so easy and healthy. How is this all the sudden the end of all that dreaming?

. . .

You know that party trick when the waiter comes and quickly pulls the white tablecloth out from under a fully set table? I felt like the feature of this scene, except it’s the “nailed it” failed version where everything crashes onto the floor. I am the table, my pregnancy is the white tablecloth, and my plans and hopes are the full table setting that has been broken and spilled and scattered.

Regardless of how common or early these losses are, the reality is, I am now grieving a soul that I imagined to be with me for a lifetime. From many doctors’ perspectives, they were cells that stopped progressing the way they should. But from my perspective, it’s the loss of that moment in September when Oliver was going to hold his first baby sibling. It’s the loss of letting my new 2-month-old sit in front of the Christmas tree like a little bug enamored by the lights. It’s the loss of a life, no matter how tiny or early. From my perspective, it’s a deep, deep disappointment.

Reactions to miscarriage are just as diverse as the women who experience them. Some are relieved. Some are, like me, devastated. I think this may have been why I’ve had so much trouble validating the depth and the impact of my sadness. But somewhere in there, it seems almost every woman ends up feeling guilty for something. Guilty for feeling relieved. Guilty for having a glass of wine or a caffeinated drink “now that it doesn’t matter.” Guilty for having lifted something heavy or for not being able to focus at work in the days following. This guilt was and is also something I am not exempt from, but I’m realizing that it all stems from the heartsickness of my hopes and my body letting me down.

The following weekend, I wanted everything on my Grand Mental Checklist of Life to be completed. I sent Josh to the paint store, we went Marie Kondo on our closet (why is nothing sparking joy?!) we ordered blinds for our house, finished shelves in a linen closet and then organized that closet. I also got sucked into an Instagram sale and sank into a little retail therapy. I went into nesting mode on steroids, except rather than being motivated by preparing for a new baby, it was stirred by a desperation to control any circumstance I could outside of my traitorous body. Inside of me, life was deteriorating. No shelves we built or space we organized or clothing we folded could change what was draining out of me.

I continued to work as normally as I could that next week, thinking that going into a regular routine would be key in helping me. Working for me is full of physical exertion, however, as I’m often on a platform leading worship amidst hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people at our church. That next week, it was hard for me to even inhale and sing properly without my diaphragm pushing against my aching uterus. It turns out, emotion and anger translate well into a microphone — and I knew following that day that I couldn’t continue to act normal when I felt just the opposite. I fully know in that moment on the platform that the Lord was surrounding this mess and allowing me to start to feel my desperation. He was cementing into my mind and my heart that he was walking with me in the middle of my human process.

Just a day or two before I learned I was miscarrying, I happened to catch a special news interview regarding misconceptions of miscarriage, highlighting a working woman expressing how much she’d wished she had taken time (or had been offered time) away from work and demands to grieve and recuperate and heal from her miscarriage. Her story directly opened my eyes—though I didn’t think much of it in the moment—preparing me to accept that time and space will be needed just around the corner for me.

That’s the thing about doing life with my God, my creator. The one who sees and knows and is moved by compassion at the anguish of his own children. The one who’s been with me in my greatest aches and disappointments thus far and who’s continually ushered me into places of strange new beauty and understanding. He’s right there in the middle of it all.

In the midst of my deteriorating ability to fill the cracks of my persona, he’s reminded me that I’m valued and that I’m surrounded. He’s kept people and community in the forefront of my grief and surprised me with their kindness, their words and their gifts. He’s validated that producing work doesn’t make a difference when it comes to healing the soul. He’s given me my 3-year-old Oliver who senses my sadness and brings me his favorite corner of his blanket and a husband who knows me deeply in every way.

Last week, Oliver starting grunting in frustration from not being able to do something the way I had done it. I asked him why he was frustrated, and he said with growing volume at every syllable, “ I just…don’t…know…how to DO IT.” And I responded to him saying, “buddy, that’s ok. I know it can be frustrating, but some things are a process that you learn.”

“What’s process?” he asked. Of course he would ask that. Of course, as I’m also in the midst of my own frustration in not knowing how to do this, he would ask me to reiterate what process means. “Process means that something takes time and patience to figure out,” I said with a sigh.

I’m not about to wrap up this post with a God bow; I’ve learned my lessons in trying to redeem things too quickly in life. But I also refuse to go through this without claiming that I’m not alone, on a divine level and on a human level. God is with me, and people are with me; in my limited, human process, he’s the foundation that will continue to stay steady. I am not alone.

And neither are you. If you have a desire to connect, please do not hesitate. I’ve reserved graphic details of this process for more private conversations, but I also know that it honestly helps to be able to ask about what really happens in a miscarriage from another person.

Don’t forget that we are better together. To all of you who have miscarried—perhaps on even more severe levels or numbers than I have—I’m deeply sorry for your losses and I am truly with you.

Peace,

Jamie L. Robison