Dealing with Miscarriage: It’s a Journey

Editor's Note: This is the third of a three-part series. Here are links to the previous two posts: Part 1, Dealing with Miscarriage: The Physical Experience and Part 2, Dealing with Miscarriage: The Grief. -SR

When I started writing this series on miscarriage, I did not know where it would go. I just started typing. I let my heart do the talking and my fingers do the telling. A friend told me that writing it down may be a form of healing for me, and I think that she was right.

It has been a really stressful year for my family. We are at a point where we expect an emergency or tragedy every month. It has made it difficult for me to really grieve and heal from my most recent loss. Perhaps taking the time to share my experiences with others is helping.

I do not write as someone who has all of the answers. Like most people, I am struggling through the questions, the doubts, and the pain. I have moments of clarity followed by moments of despair. This life is a journey, grief is a journey. Being purified in the furnace of suffering is deeply difficult, even if it makes me or anyone else a much deeper person and unites us more fully to Christ.

I am learning that it is ok to say it hurts. I can cry, even in public. Sometimes wounds open and pour crimson all over the place. Pain is not neat and tidy. Grief does not call you up and say when it will hit.

Sometimes you find yourself sobbing uncontrollably in a public restroom, like I did last night. Something triggers the pain. The wounds that are still tender tear open and you bleed internally. It hurts and all you can do is wait for the bleeding to stop and it does.

If you are reading this and have been through a miscarriage or any other grief, I want you to know that it is ok to fall apart. You can’t be strong all of the time; I know I can’t. There will be times when the pain gets to be too much and all you can do is let water flow and glisten your cheeks until it is done.

Death is agonizing. It separates us from who we were meant to be. It took Our God coming down as man to sever the despair and finality of death. The distance between our dead loved ones and ourselves feels great, perhaps that is a side effect of sin. Believing that my babies are in Heaven gives me eventual peace, but it does not alleviate the aching in my heart or the longing in my arms.

I was at a crisis pregnancy center dinner in September when my heart broke again. I was sitting in a banquet room with 590 people. I was enjoying a nice dinner and talented musicians. I was with friends and we were talking and laughing. But, deep down, I knew the pain was lingering beneath the surface. You cannot write what I have written recently and not expect it to impact you.

They began showing a beautiful short film called Crescendo. It was heart-wrenching in its desperation, a desperation that so many women feel when they choose abortion over life. She ends up having her child and as she labored, I thought of my own daughter. Then the woman in the film held her new child and the pain boiled over within me, and tears poured down my face. I thought of a baby that I should be laboring and holding now. My Marie.

I walked out of the room. Many probably thought that I had had an abortion and could not handle it. The thought crossed my mind as I left the room. But the pain of losing a child no matter the circumstances is painful and in that room of people working to heal the broken, it would not matter either way. Pride.

I made it to the bathroom where I sobbed against a wall. Thankfully, my friend Christine had followed me and I cried on her shoulder. The weight was too great. I finally uttered the words that I struggled to admit.

I miss my babies. I miss my babies….I never get to hold them, or kiss them, or snuggle with them. I do not get to hear their first word, or watch them take their first steps. They feel light-years away and that distance cuts me to the core. I know that they are with Our Lord. I trust in that even if Revelation does not explicitly mention it. It just hurts. It confuses and confounds me. It leaves me vulnerable and shaken to my very being.

I guess I started sharing all of this because I don’t want other women and families to feel alone. I do not want you to feel like you can’t grieve or that your pain is not warranted. This is where I am on the journey to holiness.

I have plenty of moments of joy in my day. My daughter amazes me constantly. There is so much goodness in my life. I just am in a period of grief at the same time. Tears are healing. And that is a part of life. We go through years of grief in this life. It waxes and wanes.

I pray you have a very blessed week. Enjoy your family! Be extra thankful at Mass or Church on Sunday. Take a look at the beauty around you. Beauty heals. He heals. Be patient with yourself.