What it's like to be thrown for a loop

When a person has a baby, there's so much happiness, hoopla, congratulations, attention, meals and support to the new mom who needs to rest and heal and take care of her new little one. When someone has a miscarriage, the mother goes through the same physical ordeal of pregnancy, labor and delivery, but there's no greeting of new life at the end of it. There's no congratulations or excitement, and often times, there's no acknowledgment at all.

I had so many people who supported me through encouraging notes and letters, and my family was there. Really there. But overall, the time period after losing a baby is lonely. It's lonely because your baby isn't there. It's lonely because no one else feels the love that the mother-to-be has already developed for her unborn child. It's lonely because people don't like to talk about it. And because people who don't know what to say, sometimes don't say anything at all, maybe because they don't want to say something that makes it worse, or maybe because they truly can't grasp the pain and hope it all blows over...

Love. Even in minute amounts it's powerful. So powerful even, that God is called Love. I think if my baby were allowed to live and grow, my love for him would grow with each passing day. But love doesn't grow gradually from nothing. When it comes into being at the first thought of a child that's ours, it's not a small and paltry thing that eventually grows to something so strong that it hurts. When love is born, it contains all that it ever will be. And it already has the power to heal and to hurt. Even at 14 weeks, when my baby was supposed to already have fingers and toes, a face, organs, reflexes and even fingernails, my love for him was there; real, palpable, powerful and growing.

People handle their grief in different ways, and many times, the way others would handle their grief (or suppress it) gets translated to those who are grieving as the way it should be done. The idea bounces around that since it happened early, it should be easy to move on. Or because it happened, it means it should have happened that way, so get over it. And sometimes a person who is grieving can't help but think some of those thoughts themselves and then get angry because it should be easy but it's not.

Since I didn't know how to publicly handle my grief, and I needed to grieve my love lost, I took a hiatus from this blog. Since then I've wrestled with God and had Him engage me in the most loving ways. I've rested, re-focused, and bonded with my family. Oh, my gorgeous family. What blessings I have - even Enoch, who, I'm convinced will meet his family one day.

And so, I'm back. It's a new beginning.