There has only been one day in my life that I have felt complete darkness.
A total lack of hope and peace. A lack of understanding that left me scared and
angry and broken like I have never been before.
This day was Wednesday, September 21st. The day I found out I was
losing my baby.
But to fully tell this story, we have to start on September 3rd,
one of the happiest days of my life. The day that I, as countless women before
me have, peed on a stick, waited impatiently for little pink lines, felt my
heart flutter in ways it never has before, and ran into the living room to tell
my husband he was finally a daddy. We laughed, I cried. We spent the day
talking about our dreams for our kid, our goals in parenting, the logical stuff
and the not so logical stuff. I immediately started a Pinterest board to plan
out the nursery, and started day dreaming about anything and everything
concerning being a mom. Before we went to bed I got out an old empty journal
and wrote my sweet baby a letter, as did Lewis.
"Dearest Baby Hudson,
Today, little one, I found out you existed. You have filled
your daddy’s heart and mine in crazy new ways. In joyful ways. All day waves of
terror crashed over me. And I kept thinking to myself “I am a momma.” Someone
(you) will have expectations of me now. You will look at me like I look at my
own sweet momma. That, my love, is an incredible gift. And I am terrified and
joyful. I have wonderful dreams for what you will become. Who you will become.
But I want to teach you to love Christ most of all. And find & know
yourself completely in Him. I still struggle to do that, so I don’t know how
I’m going to teach you to. There is a lot I’m still learning about myself. But
one thing I am sure of every second since I found out, is how much I want you.
How much I adore you & cherish you and love you. How excited I am to hold
you for 9 months & learn all about you. I love you so, sweet baby of mine.
I have prayed for you, and thank God for you. Every moment.
Goodnight my love,
-Momma"
"Welcome to Earth, kiddo!
Seriously I am stoked. Found out this morning you’re
en-route. Number one thing that I hope I can help you see is that God is the
most important One in your life. He made you, He planned out your conception,
knit you together in your mother’s womb, etc. You are His child. I cant wait to
teach you all the things! We are going to have so much fun. I love you.
Love,
Dad"
As you can imagine the days after this were all filled with
planning and excitement. We were bursting at the seams to tell people. It was
too early to publicly announce anything, but we almost immediately told our
parents. Lewis' mom told me she had a dream three weeks prior predicting this
baby, and that she thought it was going to be a girl. We bought baby shoes, and
the cutest little NASA shirt you've ever seen. We nicknamed baby Bean, and
celebrated our new secret life every day. On September 8th I wrote Bean a
second letter.
"Baby Bean,
Apparently you are the size of a sweet pea! Your furry big brother Jesse
had been extra cuddly. I wonder if he knows about you. Your daddy loves you so
much. He keeps putting avocados on all my food (they help grow your
brain). J
Your
grandma and paw-paw Evett are so excited! So is your uncle Garrett, who is the
raddest person ever by the way. You’re going to love him. Apparently your
grandma Hudson had a dream that I was pregnant with you three weeks ago. And
she told me you were a girl. I guess we’ll see! J
I
am tired all the time. Ha, growing you takes a lot of energy. I found this
yesterday and cried:
“I am not alone. Running errands and talking on the phone, I am
pleasantly reminded I am not alone. Little tiny hands, a precious rounded knee,
pushing and twisting that no one can see. Oh sweet child kicking up your heels,
it is our little secret that only I can feel. I look forward to your birth,
when I can kiss your skin, but for now I will just smile as I feel you play
within.”
I love you.
-Momma"
We told a few more close friends, and made plans to tell others
for Christmas or upcoming birthdays. I had completely dropped caffeinated
coffee, and you guys know how much I depend on coffee. But it was surprisingly
easy. It was a sacrifice for my kid - I didn't hesitate.
Lewis and I went to Kansas over the weekend of Sep. 16th, to visit
some of our friends. We excitedly shared our news, which was met with huge hugs
and laughs and smiles all around. But Sunday morning I woke up feeling
very odd. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t think there was any reason to
worry Lewis. It was just a weird feeling, nothing to be concerned about. But it
bugged me. Before Sunday morning, I could feel life. I felt like there was this
part of myself that I couldn’t really feel. A part of my body that wasn’t mine,
a space inside me where my own nerve endings didn’t quite reach. I felt like I
had a separate life inside me. And when I woke up Sunday, I didn’t feel that
anymore. I felt empty. And it worried me.
Lewis was scheduled to head into the field for a week starting
that Tuesday. He went in Tuesday morning and I wasn’t supposed to see him again
until Saturday. Wednesday morning I woke up, went to the bathroom, and to my
complete horror – found blood. Not a lot, and I had read enough pregnancy blogs
and apps to know that it could be totally fine. Not to worry. But I couldn’t
get how I felt Sunday morning out of my head - and now this. So I cried, and
read more blogs, and tried to calm myself down, and frantically went to the
bathroom every ten minutes. A few hours later it hadn’t stopped, so I called
the triage nurse. She told me exactly what the articles online had, to calm
down and wait and if it got worse to go to the ER. She could hear the very
obvious worry in my voice that I was trying to mask, and made me an OB
appointment for the following afternoon, hoping to put my nerves at ease.
By the afternoon the blood was much, much, worse. I will remember
this afternoon vividly for the rest of my life, I have no doubt. I spent most
of it either sitting on my bathroom floor sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe,
or laying in bed sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’m sure my neighbors were
worried, my pups definitely were. I cant remember a time in my life that I have
cried that much, that hard, and that loud. And I am a crier, I cry all the
time. Sometimes for no reason. But this left my throat hoarse and my eyes
swollen and my neck and shirt wet.
I remember other parts of the day just as vividly. Deciding around
5 to call my mom. The sound of her voice when she tried to calm me down. Livia
showing up around 5:45 to sit with me. I remember everything she was wearing
because I was trying to distract myself anyway that I could. I remember making
the decision to call Lewis shortly after, and hearing the panic in his voice
that he was trying to hide. He told me later that he was literally spinning up
in a helicopter when we spoke on the phone and his friend half seriously offered
to just helicopter him to the hospital. I remember Livia laughing when I asked
if she wanted to drive to the ER separately, and realizing that I probably
shouldn’t be driving. I remember the drive, and how hard it was to have normal
conversation. How my mind was racing, and how hard it was to breathe normally.
I kept playing conversations over and over in my head. The moment I told Lewis
I was pregnant. When I told one of my closest friends and she was so excited,
because she knew this was my dream. I felt like I was just sitting and staring
at my response to her. “Totally my dream. I cant even express. This child means
so much to me.” Constantly seeing that conversation. “This child means so much
to me.”
Lewis got to the hospital shortly after we did. I remember how
badly my head was throbbing from all the crying I had been doing. I remember
the look of worry in his eyes when he saw me and saw how distraught I was. I
remember laying in a hospital gown, staring at the ceiling, trying not to cry
as I listened to complete silence while the nurse searched and searched for a
heartbeat. I remember how red the container of pee I gave her was, and Lewis’
eyes widening when he saw it.
Eventually we went home, after hours of laying in a cold hospital
bed waiting for answers. We were told that Bean was very far down for a normal
pregnancy, they couldn’t find a heartbeat, and my pregnancy hormone levels were
lower than expected. And that it appeared that I was in the early stages of
having a miscarriage. If I continued to bleed and cramp, that would be our
confirmation. All we could do was go home and wait.
Lewis has this incredibly kind commander who told him to stay with
me that night, and every night after, instead of going back to the field and
leaving me alone.
I slept a lot that night, and in the morning I woke up in tears.
I’ve never woken up and immediately starting crying before. But that’s what
happened. Lewis took me to get food and coffee, and in the car ride the song
“Thy Will Be Done” came on. I began to sob, and Lewis quickly turned it off. I
wasn’t ready to tell God that if this was His will it was ok. I wasn’t ready to
trust Him. We sat at a park near us and I remember watching these 4 old men
play tennis, thinking how stupid I felt. Sitting there eating soup, watching
tennis, like my baby wasn’t currently dying and falling out of me in pieces. It
was then that I realized I was angry. I know God. I follow Him. I know the
Bible, I know that trials bring character, and He uses them to bring us closer to
Himself. But I was so mad that He would use the death of my child to somehow
grow me. How dare He allow this. Take me instead. Not this innocent baby. I
felt that I had done something wrong to deserve this, that I somehow deserved
to be taught a lesson. But that He was taking it out on my kid, rather than me.
I was so mad.
I cried off and on all day. I tried distracting myself with TV
shows when Lewis left for work, but I mostly slept and cried. I wrote a third
letter to Bean in the midst of this pain.
“Dearest baby,
I
found out yesterday that I was losing you. I have cried more in the past 24
hours than I have ever cried before in my life. I wish that I could somehow
comfort you, or hold you, or say good-bye. Your daddy is taking incredible care
of me, and your aunts and uncles and grandparents are all surrounding us
completely and helping us heal.
I feel helpless, broken, defeated, mad,
confused, pain, and no peace.
I can feel you disintegrating inside of me.
I was sitting at Thomas Park with your daddy trying to find some peace
and eat some lunch, and I felt so incredibly stupid.
Sitting there, eating, while you, my child, were dying.
You’re falling apart, and I can do nothing.
Yesterday was the darkest day of my life.
I know that I will heal. I know that I will
never stop loving and missing you, but the pain will not always be so
irrepressibly present. I know that this will all somehow make your daddy and I
stronger. But right now, none of that helps or feels like reality.
I am sitting here, trying to distract myself
with ice cream and Gilmore Girls, while I bleed. While your presence slowly
leaves my body. Every cramp brings tears to my eyes.
Yesterday, after realizing how bad I was
bleeding, sitting alone on the bathroom floor, I grabbed my stomach and told
you I loved you. Because I don’t know what else to do.
There are reminders of you all over our
house, and our lives. Tiny shoes, books I bought for you, clothes I bought for
myself in preparation for you to grow. A note in the shower that I wrote your
daddy after we found out about you. Its been hanging there for a couple of
weeks. I don’t know what to do with these things. These reminders. I want to
hold on to them, to hold on to you.
I am mad that God would allow this. I know
that that is absolutely not how I should be responding, but that is absolutely
how I feel. I wish he had taken me instead. I don’t understand, and I’m
confused. I want Him to tell me why. But He doesn’t have to. You were His
before you were mine. You were His before creation. He loves you more than I
could possibly imagine loving you. But still, I am mad.
I don’t know if this will be the last letter
I write to you or not. Please know that I love you immensely, as does your
daddy, and I miss you so much I cant breathe.
-Momma”
Thursday night, around 8pm, something happened in my heart and I
was finally ready to hear God’s answers. To let Him talk to me. I wasn’t angry
anymore, or at least I didn’t want to be. I wanted to understand.
I knew that statistically having a miscarriage was much more
common than women talk about. So I went looking for answers. Why would He allow
this? And I needed more answers than the generic ones that I already knew. I
literally just Googled - ‘Sermons on miscarriage’. And God was faithful. He saw
His very broken daughter reaching out for answers and grace, and He supplied
abundantly. I found this:
I filled 8 pages, front and back, with notes and quotes. It took
me an hour and half to listen to all of it (a 45 minute long talk) because I
kept pausing it to write down what she had said. I found so much healing in
those two hours. Healing that I was very skeptical I would ever find.
She reminded me that God was sovereign, wise, and loving.
God is sovereign, “Whatever our calamity we may be sure our father
has a loving purpose for it.”
God is wise, “The good that God works for our life is conformity
to the likeness of His Son. It is not necessarily for comfort, or for
happiness, but conformity in Christ in ever increasing measure in this life,
and in its fullness in eternity. God in His wisdom knows exactly what adversity
we need to grow into the likeness of His Son. Not only what – but when and
how.”
God is loving, “The psalmist says – I have hidden your word in my
heart that I might not sin against you.’ To murmur against God and question His
goodness is indeed sin. We should work as diligently in trusting God’s love as
we do in obeying His commands. God’s love is an objective truth that cannot be
contradicted but it is a truth that we must store away in our minds and hearts.
Then we must use it, in the midst of adversity, to deal with our doubts, to
combat the accusations of Satan, and to glorify God by trusting Him.”
She combatted the lie that somehow this is punishment for me with
Romans 8:1, and the fact that Jesus has already fully paid for our sin and
taken on our full punishment. She posed the question, “Are you willing to
accept whatever the Lord has for you, even if it seems like the worst case
scenario?” And she challenged how I was to respond to trials with a quote from
the book “Grace Grows Best in Winter.”
“It must be recognized that acceptance is not submission with its
overtones of submerged rebellion. It is not resignation with its dangers of
ensuing self-pity and the development of a martyr complex. It is acceptance in
the fullest sense of the word. Acceptance is taking from God’s hand absolutely
anything He chooses to give us, looking up into His face in love and trust,
even in thanksgiving. Acceptance is knowing that the confines of the hedge of
our particular struggle are good. Even perfect. However painful they may be, simply
because He Himself has given them. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door
to contentment. Contentment is not the end of your desires, but it is the place
where you may deal with your desires in a way that pleases God.”
She also gave a list of reasons. And even if they might not feel
like enough to justify this pain, they are reasons that give me hope.
- To test the strength of our faith
- To remind us not to let our trust in the Lord turn into
presumption or spiritual self satisfaction
- To wean us from our dependence on worldly things
- To call us to heavenly hope
- To reveal what we really love
- To teach us the value of God’s blessings
- To enable us to endure future trials and difficulties
- To help us develop enduring strength so that we might be of greater
use in God’s kingdom
- To promote the glory of God
- To exhibit the power of the faithfulness of God
- To lead us to seek God in prayer
- To convince us of sin and lead us to confession
- To exhibit that we indeed have saving faith
- To humble us
- To spread the gospel
I will probably never fully understand why, but it is not mine to
understand. It is mine to trust. Fully, completely, without hesitation. And
these reasons are why I’m writing this. Because for this experience and trial
that He has given me to be useful for others – I have to talk about it. I have
to talk about what I learned and where I failed and what I felt and what I
know.
At the end of this sweet ladies talk she tells us about how her
best friend died around the time she had a miscarriage. And she was sad that
her children would never meet this woman, but then she realized that the babies
she has miscarried are in heaven, worshiping alongside her friend every day.
And when I heard that I began to cry (again). As most of you know, my great
grandmother died this April, right after Lewis and I got married. And after
hearing her say that, I had this beautiful, clear, mental image of my sweet Granny
holding my baby. Several women in my family have miscarried, and I can imagine
Granny finally getting to meet all the grand and great-grand and
great-great-grand kids she never got to meet before.
What better hands to hold and comfort my sweet Bean than those of
my Savior and those of the sweetest, most gentle woman I ever knew? And that
thought has given me the most peace so far. I’m actually really jealous when I
think about it. My baby got the good end of the deal on this one.
Praying is still hard most days, finding the words. Being around
people, acting normal. Listening to music, sermons. There are reminders of Bean’s
little life everywhere. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I serve a good, good, good God. Who loves me in ways I will never
understand, and holds me even when I’m angry and broken and yelling. Who gives
me countless blessings, even in the absolute worst days of my life. And He gave
me the most incredible husband who makes me laugh when it’s the last thing I
feel like doing. I have no idea how he does it. He is so strong and peaceful,
and helps me through every sad moment I experience. I am at a loss for words
when I think about how much I am loved and taken care of.
“No discipline [literally – ‘soul cultivation’] seems enjoyable at the
time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the fruit of peace and
righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” -
Hebrews 12:11
