In 2008 I experienced the joy of a positive pregnancy test and then the loss of our baby through an ectopic pregnancy. It was heartbreaking and traumatic in all the worst ways. About two years later, we experienced it all over again.
I remember in the early days of life after loss, I wondered if I’d ever go through a day without thinking about our baby. I would cry every Sunday in church as I wondered how God could ask me to walk through this pain. I dreamed of heaven and the joy of a reunion with my children. I imagined their faces and wondered what they would be like when I finally got to meet them face to face.
Seeing pregnant women was always painful. I both longed to hold the newborn babies of my friends and felt ripping grief when I was able to. Diaper commercials would make me cry, even though I was using diapers daily as a foster and adoptive parent. Any talk of death or grief brought me right back to those first fresh moments.
In those early days I wondered how this grief would change over time. I wondered if it even would or if it would always feel the way it did the first moment I realized that life was slipping away.
Here we are, ten years later. I can still remember the grief of finding out my babies had died, but the grief has shifted into something else. I struggle to find the words, but it’s almost like a feeling of fondness. It’s like missing a good friend who moved away. My feelings are almost all centered around the hope of our eventual reunion and not nearly as strongly focused around the loss that brought me to that point. I’m excited to meet them and I don’t feel sad when I think about them. I feel fully confident that they opened their eyes for the first time and found themselves in heaven. I don’t begrudge them that and I’m happy that someday I’ll get to join them there.
I have had the beautifully redemptive experience of birthing two healthy children after our two losses. I know that isn’t everyone’s experience and I think it has colored the way I see what we went through. I’m also blessed to parent four children through adoption. Life has kept me busy with all the moments of motherhood I dreamed would be my life. When we first experienced those losses, I had no idea the very big plan God had for our family. In my most fearful moments, I worried those babies were my only chances at growing our family. I can see now that I wasn’t just grieving the loss of those children, but grieving my dreams of a big family— dreams that God eventually fulfilled, just not in my timing or how I anticipated.
There are moments now I almost feel guilty that I don’t still feel the grief the same way I once did. It’s a wound that has in many ways healed, but sometimes I miss the pain because the pain felt like the one tangible reminder that those lives existed. If I wasn’t carrying the pain, was I still their mother? I felt responsible to keep their memory alive in my heart and in our family.
I have tried to tell myself that remembering them with fondness is a gift I can give them and a gift I can give myself. I don’t have to try and bring up painful memories to prove my love for them. It’s okay for me to be thankful for their lives, to be excited to meet them again without having to daily experience the pain I once felt.
On the days my babies died, there became a massive chasm between us. I fully believed they opened their eyes in the perfection of heaven and I was left in despair, guilt, feelings of failure, and intense grief. Our experiences in that moment could not be farther apart. Over the years, that chasm has seemed to shrink. They are still living in beauty and perfection and each day I feel my heart walking closer to them, moving in that direction. They feel integrated into our family and our experiences as we talk about them, include them as part of our story and imagine with joy what it will be like to know them. My first feelings when I think about them are no longer sad ones, but hopeful ones.
If you are in the first days after a miscarriage, I want to offer a sliver of hope. Someday you may be able to see God’s hand and God’s plan in the pain you’re walking through. You may not ever “get over” the pain you’re feeling, but you may find that pain sweetening with time and becoming a part of your story that you honor and cherish rather than one you avoid. You don’t need to rush to try and achieve that state of healing, you may even feel guilty when it comes, but it may come nonetheless.
There is no “supposed to” in this journey. It may be painful for years. You may struggle with bitterness, anger, sadness, resentment, depression, and whatever other feelings dominate your memories of your loss. That’s okay. You don’t need to feel guilty about the feelings you wrestle with as you heal. You may not feel the depths of despair you think other people are experiencing. You may be able to smoothly move from grief to joy. That’s okay. You don’t need to feel guilty for what your healing journey looks like. It is unique to you and your circumstances.
So ten years later, I still wish I could have held those babies. I wish I could have been their mother in the same way I get to mother my other children. But I can see the plan that looked so murky in that moment. I can see redemption that has come out of those losses. I feel joy at the thought of seeing my kids again. I love those little souls. I miss them. I honor the big impact their tiny lives had on our family and how they changed us forever. They will never be forgotten. We will carry the light of their memory with us until the day we exchange the dream of who they might have been for the reality of who God made them to be.
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