A Time To me and For Me.

The newest research advises that for women who have had a miscarriage and who hope to get pregnant again in the future, trying to conceive as early as possible (i.e. when your doctor clears you) is oftentimes most beneficial.  Obviously, one should never be counseled that she SHOULD try to get pregnant as soon as her body physically can. A woman may not feel emotionally ready, and she may feel her body needs or wants more time. But it is interesting to read these new findings and hear them from trusted medical professionals. 

In the past, it was believed that a woman should wait a few cycles before trying again to conceive. The new studies have found, however, that waiting is not necessarily beneficial to the woman's health in any significant way, and that contrary of what was assumed, a woman's body has an easier time conceiving the sooner a couple tries after experiencing the loss of a previous pregnancy and child. Furthermore, the conceived child is not put at any more risk.

Obviously, this is all delicate conversation that is based on various factors that can come into play. Each woman is different, has a different body, a different medical history, etc. and in this post, I am not seeking AT ALL to perpetuate any certain idea. I have been counseled by my doctor, however, that Jesse and I could begin trying to conceive whenever we like. My certain set of circumstances coupled with all the newest research tells us that we are in a prime time to seek to conceive a child if we would like to have another child.

But in the midst of this conversation and dialogue, I find myself experiencing some unexpected feelings and thoughts, and I share this to normalize these thoughts for other women who may be experiencing or may have experienced similar feelings after pregnancy loss or the loss of a child shortly after birth, whether stillborn, born premature, or born healthy and then suffering illness and passing away.

I personally cannot help but feel that my womb still belongs to the baby I have lost. I don't mean that I cannot "let go" (as one would counsel) of my baby that has passed and accept the loss that comes along with it. (Although I could write an entire other post on how accepting the loss of this baby doesn't mean letting it go OR not talking about it so much, but that's for another time). I just intend to express that the idea of inviting another child into my womb currently feels some compilation of sadness, discomfort, and sensitivity.  It feels like I am opening up my womb, the place that was supposed to be the nurturing and caring home and space for an almost 13 week old baby with fingers and toes and a nose and little eyelids, to a NEW child, a different child that I haven’t developed emotions and attachment to as of it. And that is bittersweet thing to do. I would welcome a new child and be beyond thrilled to seek to nurture a new life and plan for it, but I don't think in any form or fashion a new child's life will erase the pain and bitter shock at having lost my previous baby as well as the hopes and plans Jesse and I began to dream for her.  A new child would be a blessing. But a new child would not be a replacement or erase pain.

Jesse and I plan to name our lost child because we believe that her life will continue to have infinite purpose and meaning in this world, (if you wonder why I keep writing “her,” refer to this post). We believe that her passing has forever changed us, and that as we navigate our loss and share it, as we live our lives as the people we've become and are becoming because of her life and her death, we will interact with people, experience people, counsel people, love people, and minister to people differently. In this way, our child, though not physically present, leaves a legacy in each place we touch. And to the best of our ability, we hope to take knowledge of the touches and tangible fruit of her legacy as God allows us to see it. 

Still, even though my womb is currently in a prime state to nurture a new a child, and even though Jesse and I will probably try to conceive again soon, my womb will never be a womb that does not remember the child it housed but lost. My womb will never feel contended and complete by any living babies it produces. My womb will always ache with the life that ended so abruptly and quickly. That ache will not always be as sharp, but it will never fully diminish. And honestly, I believe that is right.

I don't think we are meant to erase our scars. I believe our scars are meant to be seen because they are a part of the testimony of our lives, and our lives are meant to be LIVING sacrifices for HIM...LIVING WALKING testaments to who God is, and how He has cared for us and carried us through various pains and adversities. And pains and adversities cause scars. I’m not ashamed of my scars. I’m not necessarily PROUD of them either. It’s not that I ENJOY them. I don’t sit around and think of myself as someone so special or unique BECAUSE of my scars or bask in the memory of how they formed. But I do realize that they are what make me up… they are what God has used to create me, His jar of clay, His daughter whom He cherishes and delights to enjoy and be with. My scars are meant to be there, to be seen, to speak.

Elisabeth Eliot is quoted often as she had a knack for stringing together brief sentences and phrases, simple yet wise words, that encompassed depths of truth. One thing I recall she always said and wrote was, “God never did anything to me that He didn’t do for me.” I can hear some people now, some people complaining! Indeed, this sentence can be used as a knife, a dagger, to stab at the soul of the aching person. It can be used as a phrase that glosses over the pain of someone suffering, and it should never, ever be used that way. I would never actually say this to someone who was suffering and had come to me for counseling or to grieve. I wouldn’t say, “God is doing this for you!” That is a dangerous statement that can be misconstrued and that Satan can use to make the person believe a great many misrepresentations of God. Such as that He punishes us for our sins, or grows us just by making us suffer without caring about our suffering. Ugh. I cringe at those lies. But I do believe this statement is one that a person who has suffered him or herself SHOULD use when he or she can state it truthfully and mean it whole-heartedly in the way I mean it and how Elisabeth herself meant it. And I do believe that it is a phrase that a sufferer can challenge him or herself with and then speak with wise counsel about as to make sure he or she is applying it rightly and not in a way that presents God as the heartless punisher or executioner toward us because our sin inability to learn lessons well.

So, with all that disclaimer, I boldly say this today. Today, I completely believe this. It hurts still. My womb misses the child that, if this world had never fallen, would be nearly 13 weeks old and thriving. But my sovereign God allowed the broken world to touch me this way; He allowed my child to die. I don’t like it. He doesn’t expect me to, not at all. He doesn’t expect me to say “thank you God that my child died.” That is perverse. But I do believe my God is sovereign, and so in one sense, everything that happens to me, God does ‘to’ me because He lets it happen to me. The reality is, that in this world we live in, God will not and cannot shield us from all the consequences of the world’s brokenness and how it functions because of brokenness. That is contrary to God’s character and to His plan of redemption. Every system and every fabric of this universe has been affected and sullied by the Fall. So awful and unfair things will happen to me while I am on earth even though God loves me endlessly. However, in these hard things, and in everything they bring and they mean, God is also working for me.

That doesn’t mean it is good that my baby died because God is teaching me a lesson that helps me. NO! This idea is finely and intricately nuanced, a truth that is ridiculously hard for our human minds to grasp, that IN ALL THINGS, God is working OUT good. In this world, this broken world, a great many tragedies will be. And IN all of them, God will work out good. BUT, God will also be with us to HATE all the tragedies and weep and moan over how painful they are, and who knows HOW MANY tragedies God actually DOES prevent and shield us from. Who knows WHAT conversations are had between God and Satan. We are only told a little… refer to Job.

God will NEVER ask us to enjoy these pains. He will never ask us to seek them out or crave them or be happy about them. He will, however, utilize them to shape and form us. He will take the awfulness of them and mercifully make something beautiful of them. He will shape us into His image and prepare us for the New Heaven and the New Earth and the New Life that awaits us. But He will never ask us to enjoy the fact that we had to suffer pain. God never asked Jesus to enjoy Gethsemane or the cross. Nor does Scripture tell us God was disappointed when Jesus bemoaned the cup set before Him or cried out “why have you forsaken me?” What the Scripture does say is that Jesus endured the cross for the joy SET BEFORE HIM. Not for the joy He felt ON the cross and WITH the cross. No. He obediently and with much passion and agonizing ardor endured because He looked at the JOY HE BELIEVED BY FAITH God would create as a result of the fact that a broken world was killing Him.

Today, I endure by looking at the JOY set BEFORE ME although I cannot see it all clearly. But I believe it to be there by faith, and I know God to be beside me now, comforting me now, by faith. I look to how God will use the death of my baby in this broken world to create abundant life in other forms. I look to see what the “smoke” of this experience will inspire. But I also ache that my womb is not my baby’s home right now and that another child may potentially be there at some point only because my second child died in my womb at only 7 weeks old. And it is okay that I ache for that. God understands it. He weeps with me. He hates sin with me. He hates pain with me. He hates Satan with me. He holds me tight. He strokes my hair. He wipes my tears. He reshapes me. He ministers to my soul and gets me through each day literally moment.by.moment. And He points my gaze toward a time where I will see all loss completely redeemed. THAT is how the Gospel responds to tragedy and loss… nothing less… no short phrases of ‘it was meant to be.’ Just complete and FULL truth of what it already means and already is… complete truth that He IS still for me and with me, and that today, I am allowed to think about my empty womb, and the fact that it will always remember a life that ended far too soon…