My wife and I made two promises to each other when we decided to try having children:
- Ultimately it was the greatest leap of faith in our entire lives
- The process would change us, fundamentally, forever, but we did not know exactly how
We intentionally did not promise one another that we would be great parents or have perfect children. We knew that part was in God’s hands, not ours. Of course our dream was to have children that were healthy and vibrant. Like just about every parent we could not wait for the hopeful arrival of our children.
Both of these promises have been proven 100% true since we made them and in ways that were not predictable.
My wife had a miscarriage in between the birth of our son and our daughter. It was, and still is, the hardest thing that we have ever been through. She had actually completed the first trimester when it happened so the process was made more difficult, both physically and emotionally.
I mentioned in another chapter of this book that “Sonograms Never Get Old” and they do not. The joy that I feel each time I see my unborn child and hear a heartbeat is made greater by the fact that I experienced the other end of the spectrum. Equally vivid in my memory is the Emergency Room on the late Sunday night just before Christmas when my wife and I saw our baby for the first time, only there was no heartbeat. Rather than the pure joy of looking for the movement of arms and legs, we felt the deep sadness of knowing that our unborn child had already passed away. Deep down inside we both already knew what the sonogram was going to reveal, we just held each other and prayed for something different. We prayed that maybe we were wrong.
It is all still so vivid in my mind: the sheer panic in my wife’s voice before we left the house, the terrible feeling in the pits of our stomachs as we held hands and walked to the car. That same drive to the hospital that we had done before with our son’s birth, only it felt so different this time around. Calling our parents to give them the news. I can even see the face of the Tech that conducted the sonogram–he was younger than both of us.
Upon the completion of the sonogram we consulted with the physicians and they gave us three options for how to proceed. My wife and I later referred to these as the worst three choices of our lives. Talk about a no-win situation.
Option one, the natural course, which allows the pregnancy to continue and end naturally, with a stillbirth. But the timetable for exactly when this would occur is hard to predict precisely, meaning we would simply go home and wait.
Option two, which I called the “magic pill” option. The doctors give the woman a pill that essentially allows the natural process to occur, only makes it happen very quickly, with a drug, kind of like when they induce a woman into labor.
Option three, the surgical option. The woman is taken into surgery and the doctors remove everything.
We went with option one. We felt, as I stated earlier, that we started this journey in faith. We felt, therefore, that it was our faith that would get us through this part, too. I am not advocating this option for everyone. This is far too difficult and personal. Nor am I, in any way, trying to make some political or religious statement.
It is simply the choice that we made from a series of choices that we did not want to be making at all. It is a choice that no parent wants to make. For anyone reading this that experienced this and made a different choice: I totally respect your decision and I am really sorry that you had to make it. It sucks…
For a week afterwards we waited for the inevitable to occur and tried to prepare ourselves. Finally one night about a week later, my wife went into what we thought was labor at our house. I will spare all the details. It was terrible. It resulted in my wife having, and us both seeing, what looked like a very small version of our baby.
We went to the doctor the next day for a check up and to confirm that we had indeed lost our baby. We wanted them to confirm that everything was done-which they did.
Only, unbeknownst to us, we were not done.
Several days went by with us trying to cope with what we had been through. We talked about how we would try and bring some type of closure to the entire experience in a way that had meaning. We decided on a name for the baby, arranged to have the small remains cremated, and we would dedicate a mass at our church to our child. This felt like a way to honor the loss of life and make some sense of the matter.
Then, the unthinkable and totally unexpected occurred a few nights later: my wife went into labor again. Only this time, it was much more painful and longer than before. With contractions, breathing, and everything that accompanies the process. Thankfully, we had the previous experience with my son to use as a guide. I was definitely in shock and disbelief. So was she, initially. While I was coaching and supporting her through it, we were both also trying to make sense of what was happening. Was this actually labor happening again?
Again, I will spare the details and say only that it was even worse than before. It was far more devastating for her physically and for both of us emotionally. We were completely caught off guard and distraught. Again, we held in our hands our baby. Only this time, although small, we could see the tiny child in much more detail. This baby was bigger than the first one.
To this day we do not fully know what happened. We went back to our doctor’s office and provided the details. We even followed up in writing to ensure that something like this would not happen to other parents. That no one else should have to think that they went through the painful experience of a miscarriage only to have it happen again–or for the first time–a few days later.
Did we have twins and not know it? Could they have been delivered separately?
Was the first time just some pre-delivery labor process?
In short, we still do not know. The doctors think that the first time was just some pre-delivery before the actual miscarriage. But, they were not there when it actually happened so they cannot be certain.
We are not convinced by their diagnosis. Instead we choose to say that we had two babies. We answer with faith what we cannot with medical expertise. Besides, we would rather honor the passing of two children then take the chance that one of them will not receive a proper burial and acknowledgement. Again we named the second baby and had the remains cremated.
So why, on Earth, would I decide to write about this?
I stated in the introduction to this book that it is my take on the fundamental elements of my life. It is a guy’s take on important subjects that we as people, and especially guys, do not take enough time to speak about. To truly do this I must comment on all of it, not just the good or the funny. To isolate the positive and the joyful would be dishonest to the authenticity that I aspire to capture with my writing.
Additionally, I feel that the loss of a child, particularly through a miscarriage, is something that is not openly acknowledged. This happens, in part, because we all want to keep our pain private. However, I do think that miscarriages are a bit of a “silent death” when it comes to the loss of a child. If a young child is born and dies in their first few years of life, this is more tragic. As a result, there is also a full grieving process. It seems as though miscarriages are kept under the radar and seen as a mistake, or in some cases, an unfortunate but sometimes necessary step in the process when trying to bring children into this world.
My hope is that talking about it can shed some light on the topic. If you know someone that has experienced this, they may feel as though they have lost a child, so support them in that way. It should not be treated as small or insignificant. We felt, and still feel, a deep sense of loss.
I am also not minimizing the agony that parents feel when they lose a young child who is alive for a longer period of time. For what it’s worth my cousin died at a young age from Leukemia and my aunt has dedicated her life to the cause of helping children with life threatening diseases.
I am simply stating that acknowledgement should occur. I am not trying to compare tragedies or start an unnecessary debate about what is worse to experience as a parent. The loss of any child is tragic.
We were fundamentally changed by the birth of our beautiful son and we were fundamentally changed by the death of what would have been our second and third children.
Unknown to us at the time, but moving forward in faith, we would be changed again. Only this time it would happen almost exactly one year later with the birth of our beautiful daughter.
We do not get control.
We do not get to predict.
But we do get a choice.
We choose to commit to the leap of faith and commit that it will change us, forever, as people.
Nothing more, nothing less.