On Hope, Loss, and Faith

First, I want to thank those who took time to give us a verbal hug. I really appreciate it! It means a lot to me.

For those of you who have had a hard time getting pregnant, have gotten pregnant and then loss, you might get this- It still leaves me in awe that I was ever pregnant! There was actually a living being in my womb, if only for a bit. To me that is amazing!

I imagine the day that I will be pregnant again, to actually feel life inside of me, the fears and excitement that it will bring, and the day I will actually give birth to a live child! That is my dream.

I never understood this kind of loss until I went through it and it is still somewhat surreal. I have been through a couple of miscarriages with my mom growing up. First one, I was in First grade. Her last one was when I was a teenager. I thought I had caused it because of the stress I might have caused her through some of my rebillious actions. There could have been a couple of reasons why it happened but I was not one of them.

A dear friend of mine also experienced this sort of pain of her own. In one of my conversations with her when she told me what had happened, my first reaction was disappointment, then anger, and then awe on how she kept trusting God. "Why does she have to go through this? It's not fair!" And I remember thinking something along the lines that I hope that I didn't have to go through something like that. I didn't know what to say except to empathize with her. I really hope I didn't say anything dumb. I probably did at one point and for that I'm sorry.

Speaking of which, as I have gone through this experience, the people that helped me out the most did one of the following things:

1) Cried with me,
2) Listened, that's all,
3) Had no words but sympathized with me,
4) Gave me a hug or a reassuring touch letting me know that they cared,
5) Sent a card with no words except "Here's a Hug, we love you guys",
6) Gave me space in a non-awkward way,
7) Sent me e-mail's letting me know that they were praying,
8) A phone call just to check up on me,
9) Validated that what I was feeling was normal and okay,
10) My boss even brought me a boquet of lavender roses (color meaning Grace)

Those are some of the gifts of love that I received.

I found myself at times trying to downplay what just happened. In one particular time, someone at church asked me what was wrong. I told that we were pregnant but lost the pregnancy. She went on to say she didn't know what I was going through because she had never experienced that but just this week so and so's wife died, so and so carried her baby to term and it was stillborn...so much death! And then I said something stupid like, "yeah my loss was early, it could have been worse in the light of all these others' turmoil", like diarrhea coming from my mouth. Then later I was like, "What just happened?!" I was mad, I felt discounted, like as if what just happened wasn't a big deal! I know that there are people dying, that other people are in pain, and that there are others experiencing loss but at that moment all I needed was a hug or "I'm sorry, " not "well you think you have problems sistah, listen to what's going on in so and so's life!" I think she tried to pad it with an "I'm sorry" but after all was said and done, you couldn't put the stuffing back in the turkey (no disrespect intended).
As I look back, I see that it is God who gives us faith and keeps us believing as we go through our trials even though we have questions.

He gave my Mother faith to try for another child. She had me. And eighteen months later she had my twin sisters.

He gave my friend faith to dig deep, talk to her doctors, pray, take the medication she was prescribed and go through the procedure(s) she needed to. She went on to have two more beautiful children.

He's given me just the right husband I need, the friends I need, the family I need, and the faith I need through it all  (the misunderstandings, the tears, the fears, the joys and everything good).

Love,

Mrs. M