Never Enough

Three things are never satisfied;

Four never say, "Enough."

The grave, the barren womb,

the land never satisfied with water,

and the fire that never says, "Enough."

When I have thought of the word "barren" I have thought of a childless woman.  Some translations of this certain passage, however, use the word "empty" instead of barren and I wondered what that was all about.  I looked in one of Whitley's concordances, and apparently the word there actually means "oppressed."  An "oppressed" womb never says, "Enough."  All of a sudden I feel that the words of Agur in Proverbs 30:15-17 even include ME.... a mother of six.  I am a very blessed mother of six, and so sometimes it is very hard for me to feel like I have any right to sniffle about miscarriage, no matter how hard the thought of having had a D&C might be for me.  I should just suck it up and grin and be happy with what I've got, right?  Some of you are nodding.  Which means I'm not making my point! ;-)  Could it be that God created in my very nature an intense desire to "fill" a sacred place and feel the return of a blessing where there was once "oppression?"  I think so.

This blogpost is already really hard now because this picture is hard.  I literally have needed to "deal" with it though...  It's no wonder healthy, early ultrasounds are still painful for me to see.  The first time my doctor did an ultrasound for that pregnancy, I was 8 weeks and the above picture is all we saw.  We couldn't ever find baby Pearl, in the most obvious place to look.  My womb looked very empty.  The ultrasound was super stressful, but in a very deep, contemplative way.  I wasn't stressed on the outside, and I didn't cry, even though this kind of picture has been my worst early-ultrasound fear for years!  Despite seeing... nothing... except an empty uterine cavity, I continued to be my optimistic self.  My doctor had said that the best thing to do would be to have an actual sonographer take a look.  I awaited the date for the sonographer's appointment with apprehension at times, but mostly felt resolved that everything was going to be fine.  I read some stories about women with retroverted uteruses not seeing their babies on ultrasound screens for a while.  I just continued to pray in faith.  We didn't make it to the sonographer's appointment, and this post tells more about the ending of my pregnancy.  

When I look back now, I can see that there was something wrong with my pregnancy from the very beginning.  I wrote some notes on my calendar before I even knew (for sure and confirmably) that I was pregnant.  I didn't jot the notes down because I was worried, I jotted them down because I was just taking specific notes of some pregnancy symptoms I had.  Early pregnancy is pretty crampy feeling...  but these were really, really intense cramps.  In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't call my doctor about them.  But...  I'm not a pessimist.  I just didn't think about a possible problem and only wrote the symptoms down for reference.  Little did I know, that I would be very glad some day that I took note of them and that I remember some details very clearly.  On cycle night 24, the cramps woke me up from my sleep.  Normal for early labor, right?  NOT normal for early pregnancy.  At least, not for MY early pregnancies.  The next morning I took a pregnancy test even though it was pretty early to do so.  Negative.  I remember thinking that the stupid test just hadn't caught up yet with what I was feeling!  Cycle night 25 I was awakened by severe cramping again.  I sat up on the edge of my bed.  I took a deep breath.  Then I got up and walked to the bathroom thinking, "Please let there be Tylenol in here, because I shouldn't take the other stuff."  Normally when I am pregnant I have to have a headache for longer than a day for me to take ONE Tylenol.  So to say I was begging for there to be Tylenol in my cabinet even though I thought I was pregnant is very unlike me.  It took me a minute, but I found some Tylenol.  I took two and I looked down at my belly.  I literally said under my breath, "Baby, I'm so sorry, but that really hurts."  I got a faint positive pregnancy test the next morning and then about four days later I got a strong positive.  I don't specifically remember the cramping waking me at night anymore, but I do remember strong cramps during the day.  

I'm not positive, of course, that I had an ectopic pregnancy.  My doctor certainly mentioned the possibility, but even when he mentioned it the day we found out I was miscarrying, I didn't think, "Yes.  Yes, this must be it!"  When I look back now though, I realize how uncharacteristic the cramps were for early pregnancy.  They didn't last forever, thankfully, or maybe I would have mentioned them.  IF, in fact, implantation occurred somewhere it wasn't supposed to, I am incredibly grateful for how it all ended.  It could have been much, much worse!  This is all strange comfort, perhaps, but all of these thoughts have given me some closure.

The hardest part for me right now isn't the loss, actually.  Well, I guess that sometimes that is hard.  I wonder, for instance, if seeing a baby that is the age that mine should be will ever quit feeling painful.  But mostly, the pain of loosing the pregnancy itself isn't as fresh on my mind.  It's the difficulty conceiving again that has added "insult to injury."  It's that I have six kids, and yet "never enough" because of the trauma of the miscarriage is a feeling and thought that won't go away no matter how much I wish it would.  I have an appointment with a specialist coming up, but by the time I go there I will have miscarried a year ago.  I've had difficulties with everything returning to normal physically, so it's no wonder pregnancy hasn't occurred.  I'm also currently seeing an acupuncturist while I wait for the appointment with the specialist.  Don't worry, I'm not putting my faith anywhere else but in God's ability to heal me...  I'm just completely willing to let others use their gifts to try to help me.  With the acupuncture, I'm sorta like, "Well, O.K. At least I'm trying something else?"  She HAS gotten rid of my cyclical headaches this month.  So that's good, right?  I'm sleeping better without drugs, so that's good right?  I'm not on an antidepressant anymore...  So, yeah... that's good!  

Even for someone who's pretty wide-open to chat about stuff on her public blog, this blog post is full of a lot of little things that are hard to talk about!!!  But, my real and raw season of posting is just going to have to include all of it, regardless of how uncomfortable I feel about my picture, my semi-self-"diagnosis" of what might have happened with my pregnancy, or the things I've actually tried/am actually trying in order to have some emotional and physical return of "normal."  

Thanks for being with me during this crazy, crazy time.  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it when anyone mentions they are reading this blog.  It makes it all feel less unbearably lonely.

I could encourage with many scriptures right now, but this is the one I'm going to end with for today.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.  

~II Corinthians 4:16

Savior, help me to keep my eyes on your goodness to me and on the unseen and eternal glory.  Send your sweet healing and peace.  I need you.  ~Amen

Coping & Healing After Miscarriage: Grasping the Intangible

I think that today I am writing on one of the most challenging aspects of miscarriage.  We want to see, to touch, to hold, to smell, to kiss.  Loosing a baby in the toilet allows for none of that, really.  Sorry for the blunt wording.  It is very, very hard to find closure of any kind.  There is very seldom a visual memory, and certainly not a tangible, touchable baby-memory, at least in early miscarriage.  And then, there is no funeral.  There is no gathering of friends.  There is no grave to visit.  All of these things I mentioned probably don't offer closure to the mothers of late miscarriage/ stillborn infants either, but some of us still wish we had them anyway.  Sometimes imagining an "angel baby" can bring comfort, but there are also times when this isn't comforting at all.

We want the tangible.  This word came to me one day when I was at my medical clinic.  I wasn't visiting Dr. Rakov, who cares for me during pregnancy, but was visiting my osteopathic physician.  However, before that doctor came in for the appointment, Dr. Rakov stepped into the exam room to visit with me just a bit and to give me my pathology report from my D&C.  Before he left I said, "Thank you for the paper.  Really, I love all things tangible."  It.  was.... paper.  That's it!  It said a few things that confirmed that I was pregnant and that we had no idea why this happened in a very basic, non-emotional format.  But to me, it didn't even really matter what it said.  It was a sheet of paper that had something to do with my pregnancy...  with my baby.  For some (most?), this sheet of paper might seem too harsh to bring any source of comfort at all.  But for me, it equaled something I could touch and it was placed in a memory box that I have for the baby.

With all of that said, I'm just going to list a few things that can help the intangible meet the tangible when you are going through the miscarriage faith-challenge.  Faith.  That thing that is the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Heb. 11:1)  Just thought I'd throw that parallel in here!

1)  Give the baby a name.  At the very end of this post is a link to an article that outlines the pros and cons of doing this, but yes, I did name two of mine.

2)  Add your angel-baby to "A Place for Our Angels"  http://pregnancyloss.info/angels/

3)  Make a memory box.  I'm not a very crafty person, but some of you could get really creative about this one!  Here are some things that I put inside of mine:
A sonogram picture; a few cards received; I printed some happy text message conversations about the baby; a positive pregnancy test; my pathology report; a photo of the bouquet that my husband gave me when I was recovering physically;  when I'm not wearing it, I keep some jewelry in there that my husband and a couple of precious friends gave me to help remember the baby.

4)  Jewelry.  Make or buy a little something with either the baby's due date birthstone, or something else you would like to wear as a memorial.  I have enjoyed wearing special jewelry on dates that are important to me.  No one else has to know what the jewelry represents unless I want them to and I have found it to be something that makes me feel connected to someone that I was never able to hold.  On days that I'm overwhelmed with memories of a pregnancy gone-to-soon, Mother's Day, due dates, or the day I miscarried are examples of dates that I wear the jewelry.

5)  Plant a tree or flowers in memory.

6)  Write a letter to your unborn or a letter to God about your angel baby.

7)  Keep a journal as you go through the process of grief and healing.

8)  Write blog-posts outlining every detail of how you feel and everything that everyone else who has miscarried might want to say but wouldn't dare!  (yes... I'm poking fun at myself)

There are no rules here.  If none of these thoughts interest you, it is ok.  -And certainly don't feel guilty if you did nothing like any of this to memorialize your baby.  This post is almost just an idea starter, really!  What are some ideas that you have for grasping the intangible?  As I mentioned, this is a challenging aspect of miscarriage.  And yet, this post feels very incomplete!  I welcome comments and suggestions that you may have.  Here is one great post about honoring your baby if you would like to read more on this topic.  http://www.pregnancyloss.info/honoring_your_baby.htm#memorial