Heartache

Jared expressed to me again tonight the sadness he is feeling about the lost baby. My heart aches for him, and I realize we really didn't encourage him to grieve. We cried together the day we found out that the baby had died, and I let him know it was ok to cry, but once he finished crying he spent the rest of the week in a Wii trance. The funny thing is that I think he's remembered the baby more since it's death than when I was actually pregnant. While pregnant, he called the baby Peaches. Perhaps naming it gave him more of a connection. I think the emptiness of the house is making the memory and loss more acute for him. I am grateful for the music I can make to work through my feelings. I don't know what to do for him other than to hold him and be close.

As good a spot as any...

I'm having thoughts that I want out there, but not necessarily in a way that is quite so obvious. I figure putting it here with Aaron's birth story is appropriate because it is a birth story in its own right. I will probably come back and actually make a 'birth story' at some point:

For anyone reading who may not know, I got pregnant in November of 2009 with a July 18, 2010 due date; but miscarried at 10 weeks - Christmas Eve. I saved all the tissue that passed, but they couldn't find any fetal tissue to test. When I went for my 9 week appt, they didn't listen for the heartbeat, which I found odd. But, I am grateful too because of the way things played out. I started bleeding the following week, Monday night. Tuesday morning I went in for an u/s and discovered a life-less 6 week old fetus. It was very sad for all of us. But, if it had to happen, the Lord did it in the best way possible. I have been able to recognize the blessings in the experience. And as I was miscarrying, I felt the Lord tell me that this was not meant to be a July baby but a spring baby. I'm thinking she'll return to us in April (which would mean we get pg in July). We'll see though.

I was really mad that there was no fetal tissue for the lab to test. All the effort that I went through to sort through the blood and save the tissues seemed like such a wasted effort. I know what I saw too! As the anger coursed through me though, at the same time I felt the Lord tell me to calm down because it just wasn't meant to be.

In seeking solace through the message boards, I read someone's comment that they don't think of the fetus as a baby at conception but as a cell attached to her uterus. It's easier to be ok with the process of a 'bad match' when a miscarriage happens. I've thought about her comment coupled with a lesson that was given to the Primary kids in sharing time about our bodies and the spirit that inhabits them. Sis. A did the hand in a glove object lesson and said that if there is no spirit our bodies aren't alive. After her lesson, I wondered When does life really begin? Is it when the heart starts to beat? The heart starts to beat around 6 weeks post conception and the embryo turns into a fetus as the major brain/body development begins. If my baby stopped growing at six weeks, there's a chance the heart never beat, the body was never really viable or inhabitable for a spirit. As I reconciled these thoughts, I became ok with the miscarriage. There was a healing that came that took the pain away and the emotion behind it.

At this point, it is hard to believe that I was ever pregnant. My womb has not ached for a missing child. On the rare times I have felt a flicker of feeling about the miscarriage, it is never about the baby. It's about missing out on sharing the experience with friends. There are at least 8 people that I know of who are all due this summer (all with girls too). When I realized how many people were pregnant with similar due dates, I thought: due to the overwhelming demand, my baby has been put on backorder. So many of the ones who are having babies are ones who've waited a long time for this blessing and I am absolutely thrilled for them!! If I had to choose between me getting a baby and them, I'd give my baby up again in a heartbeat.

Today one of those people was wearing a maternity shirt that just accentuated her condition, and for the first time I felt an inkling of 'jealousy' - though it isn't really. My emotions are on the surface today because Jared brought it up last night. He was feeling sad about the lost baby and Aaron going away on a trip with Matthew. I often wonder how long Jared will be effected by this loss. Will he always remember this baby that wasn't? or will time heal his wound too? As he was feeling sad, I told him that some times sad things happen. But, Heavenly Father always makes it right/ok in the end. I hope he is able to experience the truth in that.