We could have been celebrating the birthday of a 13 year old this month, (and a 12 year old) but it wasn't to be. Life kicks out some stinkers at times! Being a farm girl though, and seeing the lambing season come and go each year, does make a difference to how you view miscarriages. Keep calm and Carry on! It's just part of life.
Well, that's what I told myself twice, but by the third miscarriage, that was wearing a bit thin!
The problem is that although I can explain to my intellect how "It wasn't my fault. It's for the best, there was obviously something medically wrong. It's all part of nature" my spirit isn't so easily convinced. "Why? What did I do wrong? Could I have looked after myself better? Is it karma for pulling the wing off a butterfly?" (I haven't done that but you get the picture!) The guilt is there, niggling away, and things like ...."I'm sorry to hear you've lost your baby" really don't help. What sort of negligent parent "Loses" their baby? And three times...? Really! Or "spontaneous abortion". It sounds like something your doing for a dare or something! I have some wonderful, wonderful friends who have made the very difficult and heartbreaking choice to have abortions. Not because they don't want to look after them or think their own lives are more valuable, but because they have done what they believe to be best for the baby, DESPITE their own feelings, and who knows what decisions we would have made facing the same circumstances. The guilt is no fun!
Apart from the guilt, there is also the grief. The grief of what could have been....if only...! I found that this unexpected feeling came over time. As due dates come and go, Christmas, seeing children of the same age playing, etc. It can be tough. I'm not particularly sentimental. I have a job to remember when peoples birthdays are and no idea when my grandparents died, or other close family members. I don't tend to dwell on the past.....but that's the point. The grief is for what wasn't, what never came to be. Hope of new life. I know we have wonderful scientific names that satisfy our knowledge and reasoning, "My embryo ceased, fetus expired", but these words do nothing to ease the pain and turmoil of the deep part of me that loves and dreams and hopes.
Telling me that God needed another little angel reeeaaallly makes me mad! God is more than capable of making more if He wanted more! And He isn't impatient - when you live in eternity, waiting 80 years is no longer than a blink of an eye! I don't believe God desires our unborn babies so much that He takes them, but I do believe that when it happens, for whatever reason, medical, accidental, choice or Sods Law, He loves them and takes care of them.
But now, for me, the guilt and grief have gone. I didn't really understand the depth of these feelings until they weren't there. They were so woven into every part of my everyday life, (how I interacted with the girls - fear of cot death etc, how I viewed myself) it was an amazing release to be untangled and free.
Jesus took it from me. I don't know how or even when really. I was enjoying getting to know Him and spending time in His company, then I realized it had gone. I never asked Him to, because I didn't know He would, or could, but He did it anyway. I don't have an explanation of what happened, I just know that I'm loved, we are all loved. And this love is so deep and wide and high, there is nothing that can't be healed by it. And this is why I believe in Jesus, why I belong to Him, why no "logical" explanations by very clever people can change my mind. I experienced something beyond understanding, and that has changed me forever.
Well, that's what I told myself twice, but by the third miscarriage, that was wearing a bit thin!
The problem is that although I can explain to my intellect how "It wasn't my fault. It's for the best, there was obviously something medically wrong. It's all part of nature" my spirit isn't so easily convinced. "Why? What did I do wrong? Could I have looked after myself better? Is it karma for pulling the wing off a butterfly?" (I haven't done that but you get the picture!) The guilt is there, niggling away, and things like ...."I'm sorry to hear you've lost your baby" really don't help. What sort of negligent parent "Loses" their baby? And three times...? Really! Or "spontaneous abortion". It sounds like something your doing for a dare or something! I have some wonderful, wonderful friends who have made the very difficult and heartbreaking choice to have abortions. Not because they don't want to look after them or think their own lives are more valuable, but because they have done what they believe to be best for the baby, DESPITE their own feelings, and who knows what decisions we would have made facing the same circumstances. The guilt is no fun!
Apart from the guilt, there is also the grief. The grief of what could have been....if only...! I found that this unexpected feeling came over time. As due dates come and go, Christmas, seeing children of the same age playing, etc. It can be tough. I'm not particularly sentimental. I have a job to remember when peoples birthdays are and no idea when my grandparents died, or other close family members. I don't tend to dwell on the past.....but that's the point. The grief is for what wasn't, what never came to be. Hope of new life. I know we have wonderful scientific names that satisfy our knowledge and reasoning, "My embryo ceased, fetus expired", but these words do nothing to ease the pain and turmoil of the deep part of me that loves and dreams and hopes.
Telling me that God needed another little angel reeeaaallly makes me mad! God is more than capable of making more if He wanted more! And He isn't impatient - when you live in eternity, waiting 80 years is no longer than a blink of an eye! I don't believe God desires our unborn babies so much that He takes them, but I do believe that when it happens, for whatever reason, medical, accidental, choice or Sods Law, He loves them and takes care of them.
But now, for me, the guilt and grief have gone. I didn't really understand the depth of these feelings until they weren't there. They were so woven into every part of my everyday life, (how I interacted with the girls - fear of cot death etc, how I viewed myself) it was an amazing release to be untangled and free.
Jesus took it from me. I don't know how or even when really. I was enjoying getting to know Him and spending time in His company, then I realized it had gone. I never asked Him to, because I didn't know He would, or could, but He did it anyway. I don't have an explanation of what happened, I just know that I'm loved, we are all loved. And this love is so deep and wide and high, there is nothing that can't be healed by it. And this is why I believe in Jesus, why I belong to Him, why no "logical" explanations by very clever people can change my mind. I experienced something beyond understanding, and that has changed me forever.
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