Nothing Changed But Everything Did- A Miscarriage Story

I didn’t know it would be so hard to get the day out of my head. I can go back and watch my steps again in silent slow motion. I see me walking into the office, breathing slowly in the waiting room chair. I hear the brittle paper on the bed beneath me, the NeedtoBreathe song from the speaker, the static as the doppler searches for any hint of a throbbing little heart.

I see the walk to the ultrasound room, the forced smile I offered the tech, the ceiling tiles I counted while she quietly clicked the computer, never swiveling the screen to show me the outline of a mini baby. I watch myself walk out the doors carrying a “countdown to baby” calendar the nurse had handed me upon initial congratulations. I see the way I avoid eye contact with the pregnant mothers in the waiting room and make my way to the car. See how I look down at the images of women gazing at their babies and feel the first hint of cramps across my abdomen.                                                                                                                            

I hear the noises dim, everything becoming slow. Methodical. Stoic.

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Pregnancy hasn't taken up much space in my thoughts or dreams before this summer. Adoption was our first choice of family making. When we made the leap from 0 to 2 kids, it took us a while to find our footing again and when we did, we discovered our ideas about family size had changed. We weren't against growing, but quite content with just what we had.                                             

I like to think I am prepared. I scroll through all sorts of scenarios, attempting to wrangle the emotions of surprise pregnancy, infertility, disrupted adoption, special needs diagnoses, difficult birth, etc. so as not to be caught off guard by pain. Somehow miscarriage didn't make the list. I've never seen myself as one in the 1 in 4 statistics.

Awareness is good, I’m no advocate of naivety. But it turns out, the preparation I think I have against being blindsided by pain or fear is mostly a mirage. I couldn’t have premeditated the peculiarity of this miscarriage pain if I’d tried.                                                                                           

I ask for a clear-cut description: How long will it last? How bad will it hurt? How sad will I feel? No one can give it to me, the ones who try get it wrong.           

Walking out of the doctor’s office, l feel frozen in place while the rest of the world waltzes on around me. A week becomes endless when every moment, mind and body are in a state of confusion; becoming un-pregnant, un-imagining the future.   

I am afraid. Of my body not doing all it needs to do, of inducing pain, of more bad news and medical procedures, of risking ever having to experience this again.                                             

Two voices clamor within me; one cruel and bitter voice railing at my body for not keeping life alive, for not even being able to miscarry efficiently. (As if these intricate bodies follow text book time tables.) The other is fragile; wounded and undone at the harsh words self-inflicted, knowing my body is only doing the best it can.

I’m surrounded on every side by fervent love and support. Yet, lying on the bathroom floor searching for any position to gain relief, any place my mind can go to find comfort, I’m desperately lonely.

My own sorrow becomes a side note when I see my daughters’. I look into eyes who have known greatest loss and watch their faces fall with another blow and ache from head to toe for any way to spare them from more pain.  

I dread to see the doctor’s rooms again. The swishing of a rapid heartbeat reverberates from a room down the hall the day I return, a sound track to my cynical thoughts as I stare at ceiling tiles once more and wait for confirmation that my uterus is empty.

The relief that my body has finally completed its grim task is shadowed by the next reality: It is done. Now life goes back to normal. I no longer have obvious reason to ask for help, cry at random, skip social outings. My body can resume activities, but my mind is still in the thick of hormone commotion, disoriented thoughts, and often overtaken by sad reminders: the grief of my girls, the absence of Jazzy’s comfort, the haunt of the prenatal vitamins on the counter and a newborn onesie on the dresser. Sometimes sorrow rises like a storm surge. I feel it’s ache pressing my chest, and when it crashes, it knocks the breath out of me. Fatigue is a lead blanket around my shoulders.                                                                                                                                       

I’m disorientated about what I’m grieving. It feels fraudulent. Did I fake this whole thing? To reference a time “when I was pregnant” sounds like a child’s imaginary motherhood. Does it even count if the baby didn’t grow? 

 I didn’t have a connection to a life within me yet. I never saw movement on the black and white screen, never felt it flutter within, never even felt my body expanding with its weight.

I want a system restore back to spring. Why can’t I resume the contentment I had with my life just a few short months ago? I envisioned a future that now I have to un-think, and nothing changed but everything has.

It isn't a tragic loss, I'm keenly aware of so many suffering so much worse. Nevertheless, hope deferred makes the heart sick and sad. Sad for the disappointment, sad for the way death casts a shadow no matter when or how it comes. 

I read and re-read every note, message, and text, amazed at how few words it takes to be lifted by kindness. No need to attempt making sense or better of the situation, the simple acknowledgment of pain and reminders of love carry me many moments and days. I have never savored every check in, every mention of a prayer offered, every hug and handpicked flower and grocery bag delivered so deeply.   

Amidst hopes and fears and thoughts of a possible next time, I look at my daughters lying next to me in bed and tell them with voice choked but adamant, “Having a baby is absolutely not something upon which our happiness hangs. Our family can stand complete and completely delightful to us as it is.” We have been gifted wildly beyond our deserving with two precious loves. To share in the wonder of a new baby together would be a delight, but there is goodness in store for us no matter what shape or size our family takes. We are not waiting on a delivery of joy. We have it already.

Life is brighter now. I’m surprised how hope springs up again from broken ground. How one can start to dream of better days and better news. Hope is often hard won in my heart, but it's shown up persistently of late.

My thoughts are less often “Why?”, and more often, “Why not?”. If suffering is world-wide, this whole universe groaning to be delivered from injustice, disease, and death, why not me? If it’s 1 in 4 women, why not me? If my place somehow leaves less space for my sisters, my friends, my daughters, in the statistic, I’ll take it willingly.   

I don’t know how I’ll feel next week or next month, what disappointments or sorrows may roll over me again. But today, I don’t wish this experience away.

Every woman who called or sat down beside me and quietly spoke her story, or willingly answered my questions and revisited her heartache for my sake left a lasting impression on my heart. Friends who’ve spent hours listening and reliving their own dark days in order bring a glimmer of light to mine have given me a new understanding of whole-hearted friendship.

Sisterhood shines bright if you look around the corners of this isolating loss.                     

Brittany, Becky, Kayla, Sandy, Alice, Megan, Melanie, Janna, Abbey, Amanda, Angie, Tina, Hanna, Kate, Alaina, Cielo, Erika, Allison, Sara, Michelle and others who prayed, thank you for being a light to me. 

If sharing a story can give companionship to another woman wrestling through the confusion of her loss or give insight to the sisters, spouses and friends trying to understand the peculiar grief of their loved one, I offer mine with open hands, cupped ever so carefully around the fragile edges of this sensitive topic.

Grief has many varying degrees. My recovery from deep disappointment is so different from another's recovery from acute grief, and even within the same loss, the process doesn't look the same.  Comparison and expectations of healing upon ourselves or others are unfair. Each storm moves on its own path and time.

For you maybe miscarriage was a blip on the screen, possibly even a relief, and you move right on. Maybe it was an emergency room and surgery and trauma upon trauma. Maybe it was confusion. Maybe it was a prayer answered and then revoked, and sorrow stings bitterly for months and years. There’s an open page for every version here.

Compassionate storytelling brings healing to the listener and teller alike.                                     

If you are living out your own pregnancy loss or any grief story, I hope for you what I’ve hoped for me: that you realize how much God and your people are for you. I hope you make peace with your body and deal tenderly with yourself. Look, see how she’s doing the best she can? I hope you don’t allow shame to taunt the emotions you do or do not have. There is no formula, no feelings rule book. Sit with whatever emotion arises and be honest with yourself and your people. I hope that hope surprises you, rising from your ashes. I hope in time you find it is well with your soul. And when it is not well, I hope you see a Jesus who weeps with you. 

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I hope beauty shows up boldly in the Autumn of your life. And I hope Spring, when it returns (and it will), is glorious.

Love, C. 

I Didn't Expect It--Raw Feelings and Photos from Sierra Leone

I  didn't expect it.  

I didn’t expect the air to burn so hot when it rolled across my face as I stepped off the plane and onto the dark tarmac.

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I didn’t expect the dirt roads to be so red against the gigantic sky.

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I didn’t expect the palms to wave so exotic and the bananas to hang so lush on trees above a ground so littered and scarred.

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I didn’t expect the smell of sweat in every inhale to be a scent that filled my nose not with repulsion but rather with humanity.

I didn’t expect to find unity in hot skin against skin, sweaty palm against palm, for sticky arms hugging shoulders to be our common ground.

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I didn’t expect to ingest so much dust, to thirst so deeply, to be so filthy every night, and yet feel so alive.

I didn’t expect the disparity of hospitality. To be treated as royalty, served chilled sodas and heaping plates of steaming rice and chicken, all while a dozen sets of little eyes gathered on the outskirts to quietly watch every motion of spoon to mouth.

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I didn’t expect the extravagant generosity, gifts given with pure joy from hands who knew hunger to hands who knew no physical need.

I didn’t expect my heart to throb again. I thought I was prepared for the cracked lips, the skinny arms, the protruding bellies, the sheer desperation for a bite of sugar.

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I didn’t expect to feel the helpless ache of love. I thought the years had scarred over and even calloused the cuts Ethiopia left. I thought I could visit and learn and embrace and then come home without the hurt this time. But the callouses are rubbed off and I feel raw again.

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I did’t expect to sit by John and feel at home.

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I didn’t expect to carry the mother-weight of worry, fear over the future of a boy I’ve only seen a total of 3 times, back with me across ocean and continents.

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I didn’t expect the juxtaposition; Ebola signs and barren school rooms and wells that run dry and naked children and so many scars on so many arms and legs, set against the loud singing and clapping and dancing and smiles that fill entire faces and hugs and hard work and hopes for a better tomorrow.

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I didn’t expect to come home so conflicted. To laugh or to cry? To stay present and ache, or to move on and mute the pain? To promise to return and feel it all again next year, even if my only offering is a few days of companionship? Or to spend my money supporting from afar, less dollars on 20 hours of plane travel and more for a college fund and bags of rice?

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I didn’t expect to be writing this from the dark of my closet because I am too restless. Because my house feels too big again, like it did after my last trip to Ethiopia when I couldn’t stand the sight of the two empty chairs at our kitchen table for weeks after my return.

  I didn’t expect to encounter such a tenacity of human sprit in Sierra Leone, to see such persistent optimism from people who’ve known suffering at its worst. Such dedication to their education and studies from students who have so little. John showed me his meticulous biology notes and diagrams, how he’d named every part of a microscope, the steps to preparing wet and dry mount slides, and the details of how an amoeba eats. He’s never even seen an actual microscope, let alone looked through the eyepiece.

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I did’t expect to feel such an urgency that I have to do all I can to change the story for one. A familiar notion, but it hit me with new fervor. One high school degree, one college education, one good lawyer or health care worker or pastor… maybe it could be the difference for a family, a village, a generation?

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I didn’t expect the hope that would fill me when I witnessed this strength of character, how the sum of all my fears about the looming obstacles in his path are still less than the total hopes I have for John's bright future.

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Choose to change the story for one. The impact on a child's life, and yours, will go beyond what you could ever expect!

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Bombali Bana and Lessons from the Piñata

When we arrived in Bombali Bana, they circled up wooden chairs and benches under the shade. A few grinning boys carried out a table to place in the center of the chairs, and we sat with the school headmaster, many of the teachers, the community leader, the head of the School Management Committee (SMC is similar to our PTA), and Mariatu, the child sponsorship coordinator for World Hope here in Sierra Leone.  

Bombala Bana is the location of a pilot project for World Hope, their first school partnership. The vision is that the entire student body in the school will have a sponsor. The funds from the sponsorships will be used to first meet educational needs; school supplies such as books, backpacks, etc, training and a stipend for teachers, improved classrooms and such. It will also provide rice or basic food for families. The funding could then extend to meet broader needs as more sponsors join. Latrines, wells, and other community necessities can be aided by the collective funding.

 

In the partnership, the school must agree to give reports on the teachers’ training, provide an assessment of each child once a year detailing how they are doing in areas of academics, health, family, etc., and ensure that the children are photographed and write a letter to their sponsor twice a year. The vision for this is that there would be a more holistic approach to the needs of the students/school/community, but still provide the encouragement, support, and prayer a personal relationship between a child and his/her sponsor gives. World Hope only wishes to give the school a boost, and after a time the intent is that the school will be in an empowered facility, equipped to thrive independently.

  I realize I’m in the minority here, but I love meetings. Especially when they’re outside under an African sky, and pertaining to things I’m passionate about. It was wonderful to listen to them discuss the partnership, the mutual agreements, the specific roles, and questions about how the program is to run. Angie is such a gracious coordinator. I’ve loved observing how she listens, and then thoughtfully responds. She is here to learn as well as share, and her spirit of camaraderie, of coming along side rather than from a place of superiority, is inspiring. Her passion to equip and empower and maintain long term relationships, all the while giving preference to the leaders here, is something that I love about her, and a general posture of World Hope I am happy to see.

  When the meeting concluded, we told the staff we had some fun activities for the teachers. I suspect they may have qualms the next time Americans visit and want to have some “fun”, as what ensued was slightly less than ideal.

 

 

With the help of a few scrambling boys, we strung a piñata in a tree, borrowed a sash from one of the girls and a stick from the bushes, and taught the kids a silly North American game. It started off well. However, within a few minutes, I realized two problems. 1-our crowd had grown from beyond our attempted controlled size, to a number of roughly 100 sweaty bodies, who were all fully intent on being as close to the action as possible, leaving me in an increasingly shrinking diameter along with the piñata and the stick-wielding kid. 2-African kids can maneuver sticks with ferocity like I’ve never seen.

 

 

I would blindfold and dizzy a child up a bit, and then promptly take to cowering back against the crowd as the stick was whipped from side to side. The bodies behind me were unfazed by my physical contact and only pushed in harder. When the piñata was finally decapitated, there was no waiting for the candy to fall to the ground. In a flash, the colorful donkey was yanked from the tree and thrown beneath a writhing mob of candy-craving children.

 

 

It was not the last mob of the day. At one point Angie disappeared beneath a red dust cloud and a surge of bodies when they saw the silly string appear from her bag. I did my best to hold them at bay, standing in front of a long and deep line that by this time numbered in the hundreds with my hands up sternly and my best military/mom face on. But all at once they surged, and in what Angie describes as a scene from Braveheart, they thundered around and over me and onto her. The teachers stood on the sidelines shouting and waving their sticks, but the stampede had turned feral over hopes of more sugar from the ones who scored a piece, and anger from the ones who had missed out, and there was no authority strong enough to thwart their intentions. The day accumulated enough incidents to warrant a temporarily mission name change to #whibandaid, as the #whijoyspreader efforts took a sharp decline.

 

 

When we later recounted the experience from our different vantage points, and Wesley shared his perspective from behind the camera when the furry broke loose, we laughed until we cried. I washed more dirt off in the shower than I knew a body could hold, and fell asleep laughing. I hope the students felt our love and goodwill, and sensed our great hope for their education and future, even though our expressions were tinged with dysfunction.

 

 

I can’t wait to hear updates from Bombali Bana as the partnership takes root. I think there are great things in store for the school and the staff and students alike, and even the whole village. It was an honor to visit, to receive so many warm welcomes. I certainly learned some valuable lessons about crowd control and careful candy dispersion that will be applied at birthday parties in the future. But what I learned the most, what I am learning more fully every day here, is that though my mission on this trip has been to be a joy-spreader, to represent the love and care and relationship of sponsors to the children being sponsored, I have scattered a few joy seeds and already reaped a 500 percent return. We give these little bits of love and joy imperfectly here and there, and it’s given back to us in tremendous measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

  I will say it again and again, I know, but the need is so great, the results are so convincing, and the timing is so good to choose to be a sponsor. Whether for the first time, or to widen your circle and add in another child, I hope you’ll consider choosing one, choosing love for a little person half way around the world this moth of love. World Hope International is the place start.

 

 

If you have questions about our experiences, the school partnership, WHI’s methods/beliefs/priorities, or simply have something about our time in Sierra Leone you’d like to hear more of, would you let me know in the comments? I can’t answer most of them, but I can point you to people who can, and I’m happy to discuss anything that’s on your mind!

  Sending you love and plenty of sunshine and sweat (that I’m not a bit sad about),

 

~C