"Nevermind"

“How’d you do in the storm?” someone asked me. I know the answer she was looking for was whether or not our home flooded, and did I have some harrowing tale of rooftop rescues or just the hum-drum boredom from being stuck in the house with the kids while we waited for the water to recede? So I dutifully replied that thankfully we were fine. No damage to our home, a few interesting tidbits of our experience, end of conversation. 

Simple enough, right? Except that I struggle sometimes to get through those niceties because my storm experience was a little different, and it’s not completely over yet.

We lived through the floods, losing sleep while listening to the rain pounding on our house, watching water rise down the road, planning out what we would do if water came inside, checking on friends and family members, and praying for God's mercy and protection, for peace, begging for the rain to just. please. STOP. The fear, the anxiety, the helplessness. And we were lucky. A piece of our fence fell down. That's it. One block away, houses were flooded. One mile away, Paul went to rescue our friends from their home with a jetski. My sister-in-law's carpet was ruined from water seeping in through the weep-holes. Our church took on 3 feet of water. And those are just the effects of the storm closest to me. Everyone has seen the photos and read the news. I don't need to rehash the headlines. 

But that's not my story. On top of that chaos, while the rain relentlessly fell on us, as people waded to safety through rising waters, I waded through another tragedy on a more personal level. Two weeks before Harvey, my kids started school (All 3, same school! Win!), and on that first day of school, I took a home pregnancy test to confirm something I was already pretty sure about: We were having a baby. I didn't want to be pregnant at first. I had plans that would have to change with a new baby. I was upset. But God was gracious and helped me find peace rather quickly as I prepared myself for a new plan. I decided to live it up; I was having another baby! I downloaded that app that compared his size to different fruits, wrote a list of possible names, started researching minivans and car seats, signed up for every pregnant mommy freebie I could find, and felt genuinely excited at the thought of squishy tiny baby toes. Sure, the memory of diaper changes and late night feedings wasn't thrilling, but the giant side helping of guilt that I felt when I found out I was pregnant with Anthony (and Katie was only 10 months old) was blessedly absent, so it was easier to get excited about the fun parts of having another kid. 

Then God said "nevermind."

The day before Harvey stumbled in, I started to miscarry my 4th child. It feels weird to write that. My 4th child. Whom I will never know. The agony of waiting for the storm to pass was compounded by the sorrow of my baby's passing. It's a strange sorrow. And I don't know what to do with it.

I'm heartbroken and lost. I feel so sad, but I also feel like I don't deserve to be sad. I hadn't wanted another baby, so why am I mourning? I can go back to my original plan of training for that half marathon, growing my cake business, going on errands alone because my kids are all in school... yet all those things feel so hollow now. I don't want to do any of it. The loss of a person who never even had a chance to live diminishes the importance of anything else I ever wanted to do with my life. 

How can losing something so small be so devastating? I imagine it would be easier if I believed my baby was nothing more than a clump of cells; in fact, he probably really was physically just that... but he was also a tiny little person, created by God, knit in my womb (I've always loved that imagery from Psalm 139 and felt a deeper connection to God because we both knit)... he was my tiny person, and I will never look into his eyes or hold him or feed him or play with him or watch him grow because he died before he even had eyes or a mouth or hands. He probably never even formed properly. I don't know. I never saw him. While I begged God to stop the rain, I also asked Him for the small gift of letting me see my baby, but I never saw anything, not even on the ultrasounds. I will have to wait for Heaven to finally look at him, hold his face in my hands and cover it with kisses, and find out if he has a special right ear like his sisters or wonky toes like his brother. 

I know it might seem strange to share something so personal. Nobody talks about miscarriage. Even I vacillate between the desires to hold it all in or tell the whole world. There are few books to read about it, and none of them seem adequate. Few people really know the right things to say either; it’s such an awkward conversation to have, and miscarrying during a natural disaster seems even more rare and difficult to process. I stumble through the “were you ok during the storm?” questions that everyone so innocuously asks. I was ok. But not really though.

The rain eventually stopped, and the sun has been shining every day since, but I still feel a cloud above my head, a heaviness in my chest. My home and loved ones are safe. We walked away from the storm intact, only sleepless nights of anxiety behind us. Just a little rebuilding to do. I should be overjoyed. But I'm not. Everything is tinged with a sorrow that I don't think I have a right to feel but I can't shake. And I won’t be able to move on until this is finally over. Three weeks and many blood draws later, my body still thinks I’m pregnant (just barely), and I have to have a D&C tomorrow to try to hit the reset button. I hope it works. Please say a prayer for me, for a safe and successful surgery and for peace, healing, and closure.