From two miscarriages and one birth in two years, what I've lost is faith in my body to do what it was literally built to do. I've lost excitement over the prospect of pregnancy, and the innocent giddiness with which my friends plan nurseries and showers. That part is gone. Even with Asher, when my pregnancy was completely medically uneventful, I did not get excited until the twenty week ultrasound, when I saw his spine and the chambers of his heart. Only then could I honestly believe we were going to have a baby.
But I've gained so much. I appreciate my life and my baby boy so much more than I would have, if I'd not lost the others. I love raising him, love the dailyness of it, the washing hands and folding clothes and teasing yogurt out of his hair. I loved last night at 2 am, when he woke up in toothy pain and would only let his mom hold him. I love my life, unremarkable as it is to the outside world. I don't think I would have had the capacity to love it as much had I not been emptied by loss.
And I've gained compassion for other people. I know what it means to be devestated. As a result, I am not intimidated when others are hurt; instead, I feel compelled to help in whatever way I can. Pain is part of the human experience that binds us to one another; though our experiences may be different, if you haven't felt the way I did yet, some day you will. So I can love and serve others better because I know where I've been.
There is no metaphorical scale in the sky, measuring gain and loss and determining if one was worth the other. I do not believe God causes pain, but I do believe He blesses it. Healing and growth are always a spiritual work; our natural tendency, from birth, is to move toward decay. Finding perspective and even value in the loss of children is nothing less than the hand of God in my life. And love and compassion birthed from pain is nothing short of supernatural.
5 comments:
And yet, for all you've lost, you have so much left to give others.
here from Julie to say many parts of me do not regret the loss of that particular type of innocence, either. I have certainly learned to appreciate the blessings more than I would have otherwise.
I'm very glad for your New Testament answer to prayer. he's quite charming.
This is a fantastic post. Yes, I lost all of that, too, and gained all of that, as well. But it isn't always an even balance.
When I got pregnant with Patience, and they told me I was miscarrying it felt like my insides turned into glaciers. When she hung in there, and I did too. I told myself, "I'll relax and believe in this pregnancy when we get through the second trimester..." That became, "After I give birth to a live healthy baby..." That became, "When we pass this newborn stage and she doesn't look so fragile..."
I eventually came to understand that I had suffered so much loss and disappointment that I was living for the loss, living in anticipation of the other shoe dropping.
I sat in a circle of women yesterday and we talked about loss. It wasn't planned, at all.
But the interesting thing is---no matter how different we were form one another, and in some cases, it is a vast difference---we all felt the same about loss and what it did to us.
You summed up one part of it really well here:
"And I've gained compassion for other people. I know what it means to be devestated. As a result, I am not intimidated when others are hurt; instead, I feel compelled to help in whatever way I can."
Great post, great contribution. Thanks!
Julie
Using My Words
There is no metaphorical scale in the sky, measuring gain and loss and determining if one was worth the other
Very true. We can not measure loss or compare mine to yours or yours to mine. What devastates one person might not even hit the radar screen of another person.
At the same time, the feeling is the same. That's how we can develope empathy.
Recognizing, of course, that there's always the choice to become bitter instead.
It always increases my faith in humankind when we don't choose the second.
I had one very early miscarriage - so early that it probably happened the same day I got the positive result on the home pregnancy test. If it weren't for modern technology, I wouldn't have ever known that pregnancy existed. But still - it took away my ability to be really joyful about pregnancy. I had five days of pure, confident happiness - and since then I've had two beautiful children, but my main response to pregnancy is fear.
I do not believe God causes pain, but I do believe He blesses it.
Me too.
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