7/4/2011

I miscarried a baby last Wednesday. You may not want to hear the story, but I need to tell it.

I was 8 weeks along. I was a day away from the initial doctor's visit to confirm the pregnancy and give us the thumbs-up to share the exciting news with family and friends.

Turn back the clock to just a week ago: I was giddy with glee as I thought up how I would tell my mom, other friends, and especially our 7-year-old daughter. She has been wanting a little sister for a long time and fostering little children recently has made the desire even stronger. I kept this little secret from her but could hardly contain myself as I envisioned her squeals of delight when she heard.

After years of struggling with infertility, my husband and I were pleasantly surprised at the positive pregnancy test. Yeah, another baby! Break out the maternity clothes. Let's start talking about baby names. All those things that go along with pregnancy news were on our brains and part of our late-night conversations.

All was well. It was an emotional high, like the peak of a roller coaster.

And then the coaster came crashing to a new low.

Bleeding during pregnancy is never a good sign. What started out as minor and hardly worth noting on Monday turned heavier and much more concerning by Tuesday. That evening I just knew that something was terribly wrong. I told my husband "I think we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that our baby might be dead."

Wednesday it happened. Cramping. Bleeding. Birth, except not birth. I called my husband and asked him to come home from work. He took our kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the night. He and I grieved together, as we considered our dead child.

I had a sense that our baby was a boy, so we went with that. We gave him a name. And on Thursday morning we wrapped up our tiny baby's remains and buried him a place that is meaningful to us. It was just my husband and I having a memorial service for a child we would never hold in our arms but loved with all our hearts.

That day we also went to the doctor. The appointment that was to be my first prenatal visit to confirm the pregnancy now only confirmed that my womb was empty.

The next few days have been a blur. Instead of sharing exciting news of new life with family and friends, we fought through tears to share the sad message of death. Many tears. Many hugs. Many messages of comfort and sympathy. Many sleepless nights. Many questions of "why" and "should we have done something differently?"

The heartache remains and the grief over our loss is very fresh. And yet, we have great hope because of the Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered the grave.

I'll be sharing more this week of what we've gone through, what God is teaching us, and where we go from here.

As always, your prayers for us are greatly appreciated.