10 days later

It's been ten days since the miscarriage.  The good news is, I'm healing.  I think this blog has helped me a lot, and I think I am bouncing back faster than I did with the two before this one.  As the healing progresses I continue to have more thoughts to share.

Spirituality-
Sometimes I don't really feel like praying during these days that can feel so hard.  It's not really because I'm angry, it's just that I don't want to face anything or think deep or put effort into anything.  But the other day I had a thought as I was pondering on how thankful I was to have so many people praying for us.  I thought "Everyone is praying for us...I probably should too."  I remembered that when we go through our most painful trials, it is not an excuse for us to take a "break" from our spirituality.  We don't just get to "take some time" to heal.  It's these times in our lives when we need to work the hardest to stay as close to God as we can.  Even if we have to bite on our pride a little to get on our knees.

Putting It On the Shelf-
I've discovered I'm not a very patient person.  Losing babies is so hard- I usually find my hope in trying to tell myself "next time it will work, the next pregnancy will be different."  So telling myself that I need to put the idea of having another baby on the shelf for a while is difficult- because that is where my happy was.  I mean honestly 6-12 months is not very long at all.  But it can feel like a long time when your heart hurts.  I keep waiting for a healthy baby to come and fill in that hole that the other three have left in my heart.  I'm not even sure if it will work like that.  But I do feel very strongly that since all the drugs and different ideas that specialists have had didn't work, that the best chance I have is to give my body a good recovery period before even thinking about trying again.  Once I accepted this though, I've found it's a little easier to feel happy.  I'm trying to just do what I'm doing now with a smile, and enjoy the moments.  I'm trying to keep myself busy and it's nice not to have to stress about it now.  I can just say, "that's down the road, let's just get feeling better for now."  Now that I know another pregnancy is pretty much out of the question for the rest of the year, I actually do feel a bit of a burden lifted.  I am sad about it, but I feel like that is the right choice for now and I just have to tell myself that if that is God's timing, that it is going to be fine.

Banishing the Guilt-
We all know we aren't "supposed to" feel guilty about a miscarriage, or even several in a row.  I know in my mind it wasn't my fault.  I literally was doing everything in my power, even the subcutaneous shots which I hated- they really loomed over my day as I was doing them.  Despite our brains knowing those facts, we do feel guilty.  It's personal.  It happened inside of my body.  Sometimes I feel like I've failed my children. Sometimes I am repulsed by my own body- I feel like screaming at it.  Well that makes it hard not to hate yourself a little.  The soul and the body are very connected after all.
Excuse the musical reference...I did music in college and am a dork- but this just reminds me so much of singing versus playing an instrument.  Ever wonder why singers take everything so personal?  It's their voice, it's their body.  When they miss a note, it's THEM messing up.  Instrumentalists can blame fingerings or a glitch with the instrument.  Even if they don't blame anything, it's still them playing through the instrument, not really their own body.  Having done both vocal and percussion I'm allowed to make this analogy.  I just feel like a vocalist in this situation- how am I NOT supposed to take this personally?  The doctors can tell me whatever they want, but I still feel like I have failed in some way.

I'm learning to banish the guilt.  I know it doesn't do anything but hurt. I start to wonder if I'm irresponsible to even consider creating life if I don't have the ability to sustain it.  That hurts.

Listen to Your Gut...
...and the Spirit.  Most of the time I think intuition works together with the Spirit if you're living your life the right way.  So here's the story.  When we were about to get married, having kids was a year or two down the road in my mind.  As soon as we got married it was like an instant switch and constantly on my mind.  I kept telling myself I was only baby hungry because I was a newly wed and anxious to day dream and "play house."  Kevin and I discussed it often and he felt the same way.  I was sure that we were going to have problems getting pregnant.  I felt like it was going to take us a really long time to have kids, and that is why I felt like we should start trying so soon, because it was going to take like 2 years or something and if we waited it would take even longer.  I was pretty sure of it.  Imagine my shock getting a positive pregnancy test about two and a half months after our wedding day.  I decided that I had made the whole thing up in my head worrying that we would have infertility issues.  Clearly, we would never have any problems.  Or so I thought.  Jack was born 6 weeks before our first anniversary and we are still so in love with him.

I wasn't wrong.

I am so glad I listened to my gut. Our issues aren't exactly called "infertility" but nonetheless, we are now living that life that I feared back then.  It may take us a long time to have another successful pregnancy.  And for whatever reasons it worked the first time, I am so glad that I listened to my gut saying that I might have problems in this area.  If I hadn't listened who knows if we would have Jack, and who knows how much time we would have lost figuring all of this out.

<3