Again with the Unexpected

My baby is dead. It probably has been for 3 weeks. Yesterday morning I started to miscarry. Today a sonogram confirmed what we most feared, and suspected.

It makes sense of why I haven’t had nausea these past few weeks. Why I haven’t really felt pregnant at all.

I remember thinking when I wrote about this baby that I was being a bit presumptuous, assuming that a pregnancy meant a baby at the end of it. But I decided at the time, that even if something went wrong, it would be silly to pretend that there was no baby at all, just because it didn’t live full term.

Yesterday was a surreal sort of day that started with me calling my midwife crying, and looped through things I never expected, like praying with my MIL and my midwife in her office. Or having the nurse at the pregnancy care center pray for me before sending me away, with a referral to a lovely family practice that took me in in a second and handled everything today. (My midwife isn’t covered by insurance and miscarriages tend to be expensive. Thus the search for a doctor.)

Welcoming this baby, so unexpected, has been an exercise in trust, and saying good bye has been the same. I’m surprised that rather than asking “Why me?” my thought is more, “Why not me?” I’ve been very blessed thus far to have 3 completely healthy, complication free pregnancies. It’s really only a matter of time before I experience the opposite as well. To live is to suffer from time to time, to love, to be heartbroken. No where is the fragility and triumph of life more apparent in our culture today than in birth. Death and birth walk hand in hand, and often happen in the same womb. I’ve been thinking about how odd it is, our culture, that resists the experience of death so strongly. In many cases it’s led to good things, better medicine for example.

But I find this quiet acceptance I am experiencing, however foreign it seems to me at the moment, to be a more peaceful road than I ever imagined I would walk so close with death.

I am sad. I have wept. But I feel held. I feel unafraid. I don’t feel alone. And that really is a gift I never expected to receive in a moment like this.

I want to thank you all who have been praying for me since this whole journey started. It means so much. It has helped me so much. Bless you all.

all content © Carrien Blue

21 thoughts on “Again with the Unexpected

  1. Your thoughts and feelings no longer make me fear of that time to come in my life! Than you for sharing and you know Im praying for you and the family. Im here if you need me or just a phone call away!

  2. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. I pray that God sends comfort to you and your family.

  3. Dear Carrien, I am so sorry. I am donating to the Charis project today in remembrance of your precious little one.

    Wishing I could hug you in person. I think of you as a true friend and I am hurting with you today.

    Mary

  4. Hey Beautiful….praying for you and Aaron. Call if you need a shoulder

  5. So glad and blessed to know you are already knowing comfort! Just wanted to say again that I am praying for you. Know that I’ll continue to pray through the coming months as your body adjusts in many ways.

  6. Miscarriage is never easy, and I ache for your loss – I’ve lost 5. I’m now almost 20 weeks with my 4th baby. We’ve named our children after their grandparents, this one will be named after my mother. Sunday, my mom went to heaven, she was suppose to help the midwife deliver this baby. I’m so glad she knew it was healthy and on it’s way before she left us so unexpectedly. I’ll send you a cyber hug. They help get you through the days.

  7. I’m so sorry. Your philosophical acceptance – ‘Well, why not me?’ – is a line of thought I’ve often had, especially through this third pregnancy, and have had to confront more starkly with each baby; and I have to wrestle with not fearing that the inevitable will surely happen to me at some point. Why stop fearing death at birth? Our precious babies could die at any age. I can’t let fear hold me back from trusting God’s goodness. But I’m so very sorry that this happened to you.

  8. dear carrien. i am so sad for you all. i feel so ‘apart’ of your experience. my heart was full of joy to see you on sunday and now that your little one is with our lord, my heart is full of Joy and longing as well. we grieve with you and aaron. keep me posted. with love, esther

  9. I’m so so so sorry. I lost twins in Feb. 08 and a friend shared this quote with me. It was one of the few things that brought me peace.

    “Every soul that comes into this world comes here with a very specific mission. When that mission is completed, the soul can leave. The holiest of souls need so little time here in this world that some never even make it outside the womb, others only need their heart to beat once, others not even that.”

    ~ Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh ~

  10. Carrien, Have only just read this as been offline for a couple of days. I am so sorry for your loss. There are never the right words. Just so sorry. xo

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