Parting Thoughts on Miscarriage

A week and a half ago I discovered I would not be having a baby after all. I was heartbroken. The news knocked me out of commission for the rest of the day. I cried, I slept, I barely ate or talked. I blamed myself, mostly, though I now know that it's not me at all. It was a hard day. But when you have 3 kids already, you don't have a lot of time to wallow, so I started to move on.


I had a decision to make, though. Should I wait until I miscarried naturally, or have an operation called a D&C to get the baby out? There were lots of aspects to consider, and I had no information. Monday I talked to two of my friends who have had miscarriages. One had miscarried before she knew she was pregnant, and therefore didn't know she was miscarrying until she was in the middle of it. She told me her story, and my goodness, it sounded awful. I had thought I might want to wait, for closure purposes, but after hearing her account I wasn't so sure. The other friend has had several miscarriages in a row. She recommended getting the D&C, and the combined advice led me to decide on just that.


Tuesday, I went in to the doctor. They did an ultrasound to see how big the baby was. They wanted to make sure I wasn't too far along. Apparently their cutoff date for doing the procedure in the office is 12 weeks. I was really close, at 11.5, so they gave me the choice, saying there might be complications. As scary as that sounded, we really didn't have the funds to go to the hospital. I don't have insurance, and the price difference is surreal... $5-7K for the hospital, versus $500 for in-office. So we chose in-office and prayed for the best. It went just fine, no complications at all. I was very sleepy for the rest of the day, but other than that, it's been pretty good.


I mourned a lot that first day. I've mourned a little more every day since. Talking to my friends who had miscarriages, before my own, and after, were very different experiences. It's one thing to feel sad or sorry for someone who miscarries, and another to mourn together as people who have both experienced it. And the mourning process itself is different, I think, from any other. There's no baby. No one can tell you, "Oh, what a great person they were; they'll be missed." People don't know what to say. I wondered if I had done something wrong, or if I hadn't wanted the baby enough (I had problems accepting this pregnancy). I'm still a little scared that it will happen again. There isn't any real doctrine about miscarriages either. The closest thing I found was that if you miscarry (lose the baby before 20 weeks) you don't enter it on family group records for genealogy, but if you lose the baby after 20 weeks (techinically a stillbirth), you can. There are different theories too. I finally felt at peace with the idea that I will have another chance at having that baby. This baby wasn't planned, and I had thought that God wouldn't give us a baby at this time in our lives, knowing that we just can't handle it really. And maybe that was the case here. It just wasn't meant to be... yet.

I've spoken to many of you currently reading this, and I would like to thank each of you for your kind thoughts and good wishes, and prayers. I've really felt the support of all of you. Thank you, again and again.