To The Baby I Would Have Met This Month

Dear Baby,

I wanted you since the time that Charlie was 10 months old. But I waited until I thought it was the right time. Spring/Summer 2013 came around and Daddy and I both felt like Heavenly Father was giving us his approval to add you to our family. Charlie came a little earlier than we had planned, so we thought we'd get to meet you soon, too.

In the meantime, people had already started asking me when I was going to get pregnant again or if I was already pregnant. I always tried to be polite and say things like, "We'll have another baby when God decides to give us one", and I comforted myself by thinking that at least it wouldn't be long until I actually was pregnant and looked pregnant again.

But months went by, and more months went by, and I still wasn't pregnant. The lack of you in my uterus felt larger and more painful with each passing month and I doubted so many things. I desperately prayed for guidance, and received genuine answers to my prayers that stilled my doubting heart. A few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant and my heart soared with a joy that I had never before experienced. All of my waiting and wishing and praying was over, and I was so much closer to holding you in my arms and welcoming you into our family.

Then one morning in late October I woke up to bleeding and knew that something was very wrong. A couple of phone calls and blood draws were made, and I waited through the most uncertain weekend of my life. This was uncharted territory for me and our family, and no one really knew how to react. So they left me alone to handle the most difficult single experience of my life all by myself. On Monday the midwife called and told me that my worst fears were realized; I'd had a complete miscarriage. I took the day off from school and told my friend that I couldn't watch her daughter that day. I kept my mother updated, as I had promised, and she sent me only this as a reply in a text message: "   :(   "

I felt so abandoned by everyone. By my husband, by my mother, by God. My precious baby that I had dreamed about, yearned for, talked to, prayed for, bargained for, had died inside of me. And there were no loving arms around me. No sincere offers of help or sympathy. Everyone else acted like everything was the same, but for me it could never be the same again. The loss of you ripped open a cavernous hole in my heart so vast that felt like it could never ever close. A black hole, pulling in and devouring every happy feeling in its vicinity.

But people just don't understand that. When a woman loses a pregnancy that early, there aren't really remains to put in a grave--no physical part of that baby is tied to this earth anymore. There is no memorial service to comfort a bereaved mother's spirit and gather a community of loved ones. Instead, I was encouraged to walk to school the day after receiving the worst news of my life.

So I held in my grief and went about my life as best I could. My life became a strange duality of detaching myself from all emotion half of the time and the other half of the time, I was so overwhelmed by my grief that I prayed for access to heavy sedatives. I was so terrified by the depth and intensity of my sadness and anger that I wished for my organs to spontaneously rupture or that I would get in a car accident by myself so that I would have to be put under general anesthesia and not feel anything.

After a few months, the hemorrhaging in my heart slowed to a small leak, and I stopped wanting to be sedated so frequently. I had gotten up the courage to reach out and tell other women about my loss, but most of them (with a few notable exceptions) didn't understand. They said the same kinds of things that I'd been hearing all along:
"This is a blessing."
"You have so much on your plate already. God just didn't want to burden you more right now."
"You know, women are always really fertile in the months after a miscarriage."
But each time I heard a sentiment like that, I wanted to be sedated again.

In the months that have followed your loss, all of the relationships in my life have changed. Out of self-preservation, I had to stop spending time with almost every pregnant friend I had, or friends with small babies. I learned which people I can rely on to take care of me when I need it most, and which people will always need me to take care of them. I got better at asking for what I need from my loved ones instead of assuming that they know.

Most importantly, I had to rebuild my relationship with Jesus Christ. In those months of waiting to be pregnant, I put my trust in Him; when I lost the pregnancy I felt betrayed my Him. It took months for me to realize that He had never lied--I had just misinterpreted His message for me. I had to be able to trust Him again because He is the only one that understands what I've been through, so He's the only person that can comfort me in exactly the way that I need to be comforted. And He helped me on the path to forgive the hurt that I felt from other people.

At this point, a whole pregnancy later, the hole in my heart isn't a hole anymore. The blood all stays in my heart where it's supposed to be. But there's a huge, ugly, bumpy scar in its place. The muscles have rearranged themselves around the old wound and my heart has had to learn how to beat differently to accommodate it. I think that the scar will always be there to remind me because every day I think about how different my life would be if you were still here. Every day I miss you. And I'm sure I always will.

When these waves of sadness wash over me, I try to let myself experience them fully. I just can't go back to that duality of emotions. I went too long without feeling real happiness. I've learned that in order to be able to feel happy, I need to allow myself to be sad sometimes. To isolate myself a little. To cry a lot and even occasionally consider things that maybe aren't very good for me. Baby, please forgive me for all these missteps these past few months. I've really been trying my best. After all, there is no road map for "How To Grieve Properly". (Frankly, I wish there were.)

If I had carried you to term, I would have met you this month. I would get to hold you in my arms and welcome you into our family and smell your sweet baby head and dress you in the clothes I picked out just for you. I would get to teach Charlie how to take care of a baby. I would get to see your daddy lovingly cradle our newborn baby in his arms again.

Instead I have to continue to field the increasingly frequent questions about my fertility from every curious person on this green earth. And worst of all, I'm still no closer to having you.

I'm trying to make my peace with Heavenly Father's timing for my life. I've come to the realization that I may not have another baby for a very long time--Heavenly Father wants me to focus on other things right now. And most days I am ok with that. But even after months of study and prayer, I have so many other questions that are still unanswered. Was that short pregnancy a body for you that just wasn't right, and I'll get to meet you later in this earth life? Do I have to wait to meet you in heaven?

But one of my questions has finally been answered. When I whispered, "I miss you, Baby. Do you miss me?" I heard your soft reply in my mind and heart, "I miss you too, Mommy."

Thank you, Baby. I love you forever.

See you someday.