Miscarriage

I was halfway through my first pregnancy when my OB's archaic sound device couldn't find a heartbeat. She seemed non-plussed and suggested a follow up with the ultrasound tech. I had already seen and heard my baby at previous appointments, already announced to overjoyed friends and family that we were expecting our first child in June. At nearly 20 weeks, I found the her referral odd, but I didn't know enough to be worried. My boss was confused when I skirted the opportunity to make my planned announcement that afternoon in our staff meeting.

Two days later, in a cold room alone, two foreign faces told me that my baby stopped growing somewhere around 12 weeks. The heart likely stopped then. I hadn't technically miscarried, but I would eventually. I can still hear Phil's gasp and the crack in my mother's voice echoing in cavernous cell space.

At home, tears flowed as we sat on the couch. We turned to the only comfort that made sense for us, an old hymnal. Broken before God, we sang our pain and clung desperately to his offer of hope.

Insurance sent us to an abortion clinic for follow up care. I didn't know. I didn't know there was another way. I didn't think of the implications or taking a stand. Brokenness again and again—the standard ultrasound prior to the "procedure" to tell me I was "12 weeks along." Questions from nurses sensing my distress, "Are you having trouble with your decision?" The words, "My baby has already died," stuck like gravel in my throat. Hadn't someone mentioned on a chart somewhere that I was here because of a life ended, not to cause one?

I don't think I will ever understand how we mourn the loss of life in miscarriage yet deny its existence in the conversation about abortion. With every headline or hashtag or political debate hoping to normalize abortion, I am back in that waiting room, alone. Men aren't allowed past the reception window, so I shiver alone in my open-backed paper dress with four faceless women who don't want the children gifted to them. And mine is long gone. We are herded one at a time into the most terrifying room I have ever seen. It is an image too painful to impart to another and one I hope you never see. I wake, again alone, one in a line of beds partitioned by thin curtains. This numbing drive-through deposits me on weak legs onto a locker room bench. There are no tears left to spill as the feeling of emptiness washes over me. The person I once housed is really, permanently gone. It is just me. And yet there is a strange comfort in knowing that even here, in my darkest hour, forcibly separated from all my earthly loves, God's nearness beats a strong, steady drum.

Recovery. Painful confessions. An overwhelming chorus of "me too" from girlfriends, colleagues, aunts, and mothers. I had no idea how common the experience of miscarriage was, and I remember thinking, we have to talk about this. We need to know that there is an army of women at hand, ready to carry fellow sufferers through this familiar pain. 

June gave way to Eloïse, a delight we would not have known otherwise, born just four months after our original due date. In the depth of our loss that Christmas, I clung to God's promise: "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5). And as time passed, slowly but surely, I found its fulfillment.

Blessed be Your name On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name.

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in,
Lord Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord.