The amazingly strange thing that has occurred to me lately is that: I could have had an 8-year-old child now. I’m not even sure why I’ve been thinking about it lately, except that my child’s birthday would’ve just passed.
Almost 9 years ago, I had a miscarriage. I had just turned 20. Most of my friends hadn’t even been pregnant, let alone lost a pregnancy. Certainly, none of my friends were married yet, I don’t think. I’d only been married 4 months myself.
It was a very dark time in my life. And people had many ‘helpful’ things to say…
“It’s probably better this way.”
My unspoken response, ‘Really? I’m dying inside.’
“Maybe God knew you weren’t ready.”
My unspoken response, ‘Really? God gives babies to drug dealers, addicts, and prostitutes, but I wasn’t ready, huh?’
“You shouldn’t be upset anymore.”
My unspoken response, “Well, I am. I’m heart broken. I lost my baby three weeks ago. Maybe there is something wrong with me. No. Maybe there’s something wrong with people.”
The thing is, people are sometimes well-meaning, but just stick their feet in their mouth. Other times, people put their expectations on you, trying to guilt you into behaving the way they want you to behave. The thing is though, if you’ve had a miscarriage or lost a baby, nobody gets to put a time limit on you or tell you how you should be doing…remember, words like should, need to, have to, and must are not your friends.
I still remember my first Mother’s Day…my baby would’ve only been a couple weeks old. I was so heart broken that day and I had no one to share that heart break with. That being said…here’s my second suggestion to anyone struggling with child loss: Share your heart break. Maybe not with everyone, because…let’s face it, not everyone is equipped or loving enough to handle it and be honored with your trust. They just aren’t. But there are some people, sometimes people who pop out of nowhere, almost as though to just be there for you in your struggle, who will support you. Because as hard as it feels to believe this, there are still people out there who are decent, loving people.
So, don’t isolate. Not like I did. I isolated. I got angry. I felt guilty. I was so mad at God, like, how could you, man? (especially since other people tried to bring Him in as the orchestrator of my loss. Almost like, ‘Kellie was a bad girl and this is her punishment.’ Um, what? Look above, again, please.) It was a huge blow to me and my relationships with people. And I became an island.
Islands don’t usually work out so hot.
One thing I will say, however, is that my loss and how deeply I grieved, has proven helpful in that I can relate to other women going through the same loss. I understand how difficult it can be to be around someone who is pregnant, right after you lost a baby. I understand how painful Mother’s Day can be. I know that you don’t just ‘get better’. I know that society will try to make you behave like nothing has happened. Society will want you to be back at work within the week, and you cannot/should not display your grief.
And…none of that is okay. It is not okay that mothers who miscarry don’t have a real opportunity to grieve. It is not okay that they are rushed to ‘get over it’.
But maybe that’s why I’m writing about it right now. Because we need to perpetuate change by starting it ourselves or by joining the movement.
That being said, I will be open about my experience and about my loss. I wish that someone had reached out to me so much sooner (because eventually someone did) and come alongside me. I knew there were people who had experienced miscarriage (no one my age that I knew of, but still).
This is hard. And it’s a somewhat taboo topic still, which I don’t understand considering all the other things that are now acceptable topics. But grief is hard and makes us feel vulnerable, so maybe that is part of it too. Maybe people are trying to be kind by not bringing it up, and maybe we are avoiding by never talking about it. Who knows all the facets that make this topic such a quiet one?
At any rate, if you’re going through it…don’t be an island. Nobody is that strong, and reaching out is not weakness. Admitting that you’re broken is not weakness, and don’t take on the burden of “I should be okay by now. The rest of the world is moving as though nothing even happened.” And don’t turn away from God, like I did. I didn’t mean to, but I felt so betrayed. God and I are good again. A lot went into that, and I am so sad about the time I spent away from Him (that’s another story, for another day). But God is faithful. And He gets it, even if He missed me.
I remember keeping a baby journal for my first one. After the miscarriage, I told my husband to take it away. I couldn’t bear the sight of it. So he did. He hid it up on a shelf somewhere where I couldn’t see it (I’m pretty short). But then, I found it again a few years later. I decided to make it the pic for this post. It only has about five pages filled out. And unfortunately, it has no pictures. I never had the opportunity to add any. I wish I could find one of the ultrasound pictures that I had…the last one we had was the day we found out we had miscarried. The baby was so still in my womb…
I still can’t think about it without getting choked up. Even looking at the memory book, is emotionally difficult.
If you’re going through this, I hope you feel less alone now. Because you aren’t. I won’t tell you that things will get better, even though they will, because I know you don’t really want to hear that. I didn’t.
But you aren’t alone. You aren’t.
The Counseling Student 