Suffering in Silence

Crying endures for the night but JOY comes in the morning.  Psalm 30:5

I know some of the people that read this post will not relate to it, but I am going to talk about it anyway. It is a topic that is often taboo and only talked about amongst groups of close friends or family.  I’m talking about miscarriage.  Miscarriage is death.  Death of an unborn baby.  And I know some people don’t understand that and they think that unborn babies are just a cluster of developing cells.  They call it a fetus.(I hate that word). It was never a life to begin with so there is no real loss.   But to me it is a baby, a child, a LIFE.  It’s a little person with fingers and toes and eyes, ears and a mouth.  But the thing about miscarriages is that even though it is a death there is no funeral, and no memorials.  Most women suffer the loss in silence telling no one but family and close friends. No one talks about it and it becomes a super private thing, a pain you have to go through alone. I was shocked when I heard that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in a miscarriage.  25% of pregnancies.  That is a lot and no one is talking about it. But we should be.  We should be sharing each other’s sorrow. We should be grieving the loss. It shouldn’t be a taboo topic.

This summer, July 27, 2013 I was 10 weeks pregnant.   My family and I were very excited about a new baby. The kids were arguing over whether it would be a girl or boy.  We were busy planning and preparing.  I won’t go into all the details, but a day before my miscarriage on Friday I was at the doctor and we were a little concerned about some spotting that I was experiencing. The doctor assured me that it was normal early on but she would schedule a viability ultrasound in 5 days just to make sure, but more so just to ease my mind because had felt like for a week or so that something was kind of not right.  I went home with instructions to take it easy and put my feet up until next Wednesday. I left thinking I was fine, the baby was fine. everything was fine.  On Saturday Barak had to go to work for a while and I stayed home with the kids taking it easy and chilling on the couch reading books to the kids.  All of  a sudden I heard and felt something pop inside.  I rushed to the bathroom and realized what was happening. I will spare you the details but what came next no one can ever be prepared for.  I felt the baby slide out of me and into the toilet. Now anyone who has experienced miscarriages knows there is lots of blood and clots, and because of that I could not see the baby.  Sometimes I think that was probably for the best.  At 10 weeks a baby is about an inch and half long. At 10 weeks a baby has fully formed fingers, toes, liver, kidneys, intestines, brain and lungs.  The baby has fingernails, and bones are starting to form.  It is amazing how formed a baby is at 10 weeks.

9-to-10-weeks1

I called Barak right away and he came home and we went right to the hospital.  The ER doctor did a ultrasound and he said he couldn’t find anything in the uterus. No baby, no sac, nothing.  He said that I had a complete miscarriage at home and there was nothing that could be done. He said he was sorry for my loss and then that was it.  He left.  And suddenly I  felt what every woman who struggles with miscarriages and infertility feels..empty, hopeless, and a deep sense of loss. And the part that hurt the most was the fact that I flushed my baby down the toilet. I can’t even think about it without crying. There is no funeral, no memorial, it just ends and life is supposed to go on like normal.

There was no one to tell because no one even knew I was pregnant except for family and a few friends. So I couldn’t talk about it because most of my friends didn’t even know I was pregnant. It was very hard for me at first. Seeing babies and having friends give birth to their live babies was a bit sad for me. I am so happy for my friends and excited to see their little ones, but the only thing worse than losing something that meant everything to me is having to pretend that I had lost nothing and that I was OK.

It has been over a month now since the miscarriage and it has gotten easier to deal with it. I’m still very sad about it and I constantly wonder if it was a boy or a girl.  But I think by experiencing this deep pain it also let me experience Joy.  It allowed me to feel the reality of God in this dark moment of life.  I am not alone, God loves me and he wants GOOD for me.   I can choose to be bitter or I can choose Joy.  As I was talking to a friend of mine I was telling her that it is hard not to question God and ask Him why he allowed this to happen.  And my friend(who has experienced a pain even greater than mine) said, “Janell you can’t keep asking why. Sometimes in life we never know the Why’s because if we did we wouldn’t need to trust God”.  She was so right.   As Christians we are not promised a life without pain and suffering. We will suffer pain in this life, but in those moments we are not alone.  We are supported by the ones who have experienced what we have and we are loved and held tight by the ONE who knows all our pain and sorrows.   The bible says that God sends sunshine and rain on the just and the unjust.  Good things will happen to bad people, and bad things will happen to good people.  The tendency is for people to blame God and say He should have intervened and not have allowed them to suffer loss.  They think God abandoned them, but God sees his children suffering and he sees our heartache, but he has promised to be our comforter and our refuge.  He wants us to come to Him and lean on him and cry out to him.  And one day when we leave this sinful world, he will wipe away every tear from our eyes and there will be no more death and we will see the ones we have lost.

I am grateful that the baby I lost was always loved, always wanted,  never in pain, and will never suffer in this world. And even though the baby lived a short life, I know he/she woke up in the arms of Jesus and His face was the first face he/she saw.  And one day I will get to see my baby in Heaven.

Shortly after my miscarriage I came across this song. It has meant a lot to me and helped me get through.

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