Today would have been my child’s tenth birthday.
I had a miscarriage ten years ago, in April 1999. I was 28 years old and had one son, 6 months old, when I found out I was expecting again. I was so excited, and announced to our families right away! Some thought it was too early to announce “in case something happens”, but I said it’s never too early – how can you pray for him or her unless you know?
Well, something did happen. I started bleeding when I was 6 weeks pregnant. I was scared to death. I called the doctor, who said it was a miscarriage. I forget what he said after that. The bleeding got heavier. I remember getting up in the night to go to the bathroom, and the bleeding was so heavy I was afraid to get up. I got a pillow for my head, and sat there all night, crying, alone (my husband couldn’t hear me since the bathroom was downstairs.) At one point I felt myself pass something; when I checked, there was a large jelly-like ball filled with fluid on the toilet paper. I was so stunned that I dropped it into the toilet, but I knew instantly that my baby was probably in there. I was so scared, and I didn’t know how to retrieve it…
See, no one told me what to expect. Even my mother, who had two miscarriages herself, didn’t prepare me for what I would go through. The doctor didn’t advise me what to do; later he did, and said if I could gather anything to bring it in to be analyzed, but he didn’t tell me what to look for or how to collect it.
For the most part, everyone was silent, as if it just wasn’t something you talk about. So we mostly suffered alone, my husband and me. Certainly no one I knew ever thought to have a funeral or memorial service for the baby. I wanted to name it, but was advised not to, in case I wanted to use that name for a future child (like it would be wasting a perfectly good name?) I was told by one nurse that it probably wasn’t really a baby after all, just a fluke; I was told by others to accept it as God’s will; I was told that it was a good sign, that I could get pregnant and would probably have more children. I wasn’t told I was allowed cry it all out, and grieve as much as I needed to. I wasn’t told it was ok to be upset with God and ask him why it happened (I later decided it was ok – that God gave us a whole range of emotions and could handle whatever we hit him with.)
About a year later in March 2000, we were house-hunting. I had just discovered I was pregnant again, and called my family that very day to ask for prayers again. I told our real estate agent we’d have to find a house for our growing family. Everything was great! Then four days later, I had been house-hunting with the agent and my father-in-law. We stopped for lunch; I went to the bathroom, and to my horror, I saw blood. I didn’t say anything to my father-in-law over lunch, since we were having such a nice time, but it was all I could do to get through.
That precious new life was only known to us for four days. It was probably only 2 weeks old when it died. Had I not taken a pregnancy test when I did, I might never have known I was pregnant. I started thinking of all the times in the past I might have been pregnant and not known I miscarried because it was so early.
But it was just as devastating. Again others warned me I shouldn’t have announced so early, because now I had to go back and tell everyone I lost the baby. Again another tried to say I probably wasn’t even pregnant – but my doctor said no, you can’t have a false positive; if the test said positive, you were pregnant. (He is very pro-life, so I know that by saying this he was encouraging me to acknowledge that yes, this was a baby.)
I didn’t have much time to grieve. We found our house, were busy with moving in, and the next month, May, found I was pregnant again. This pregnancy however lasted, and in January I brought home a beautiful baby girl. I was immediately pregnant again, and the next January brought home another beautiful baby girl.
From there life went into hyperdrive, and I was so busy, my hands full with four young children (in 2005 a worrisome pregnancy resulted in a beautiful baby boy), that I didn’t think too much about my miscarriages. Part of it also was that I didn’t let myself think about them – there was a void, a hole in my heart, that I didn’t know how to face because I didn’t know what it was.
I realize now that I have been living with guilt over how I lost the first baby in the toilet – what a horrible burial my child had, and I’ve always been upset with myself that I let it get away like I did. I want to say it’s not my fault, I didn’t know what to do at the time. But it’s hard to forgive myself for how it happened. And then I’ve had guilt over never naming the babies, like my heart had told me to do. But at the time I had only known two people who’d had miscarriages, and they didn’t name theirs, so I wondered if I was being over dramatic. But in my heart, it’s what I wanted to do. Eventually, I continued to avoid thinking about it because so much time had gone by, and I was ashamed to admit I still had this void. It just seemed to snowball with the passage of time.
A couple I know now have started a ministry to families who suffer miscarriages, providing burial caskets for miscarried babies, (Heaven's Gain). I’ve met more and more mothers who have suffered as I did, and I know now I am not alone. Learning how they mourned the loss and now celebrate the life of their children, has given me courage to finally face and fill the void. I realize now there’s nothing I can do about how I lost the first miscarriage, so I have to let go of that guilt. But what I can do is name these children, and acknowledge them as part of our family – as much a part as the four I have with me here on earth. Because our goal is to get our children to Heaven, as a friend reminded me, I can rejoice that two of them are already there.
So I prayed, and asked their forgiveness for all these years being unknown, and I asked the Father to help me name these children, so that, not knowing if they were boys or girls, I may call them what He calls them. I remembered that I had thought of the name Benjamin, but after the first miscarriage, had not considered that name again in other pregnancies. I took it that in my heart, I had already named him Benjamin. So he is now known to me as Benjamin Gerard, after my patron saint, St. Gerard Majella., and joins my other sons, Jacob Raymond and Samuel Thomas. The second baby was lost before I had gotten a chance to think of any names. So I decided to pick a girl’s name. I thought of my grandma who was known her whole life as Flora, but whose given name was actually Charlotte. So Charlotte Anna joins my other daughters, Emma Grace and Martha Jane. I found a beautiful image of Jesus holding a baby in his lap, so I am printing that with each child’s name and birth date onto 5x7 cards, which I will frame and hang on the wall with the others’ portraits.
After that I’m not sure what else to do. But from now on I will honor them every day. I am so thankful for the healing my friends’ ministry has brought to me – even though I do not need to order the caskets, the support and information that they have on their website has helped so much. I am also thankful for another good friend, who related to me the stories of her six miscarriages, and her kind words and support to me as I try to come to terms with my own ten years later.
