This is the next post in a two-week series which chronicles my journey through a miscarriage that occurred in the fall of 2011. Although it is a story of heartbreak, it is also one filled with God’s tender mercy. Made only more beautiful knowing we will welcome our newest baby in September of 2014, the very month our last little one went Home.
Some things in life are truly profound.
Like just how quickly you integrate a new life, even weeks old, into the life you have. All of a sudden plans are made. And dreams begin along with an ever flowing stream of baby consciousness...
“Will it be a boy? Or a girl? And what to do about names?”
“Got to think of names. We’ve used all the ones we like. Should add checking on Baby Center of my list of things to do today.”
The stream is seemingly effortless. And even a bit ridiculous. This little person just becomes a part of your world...
Just. Like. That.
And just like that, this same little person can make your world stand still.
With one uneasy feeling. Followed by pain. Followed by the color red.
Just two weeks after discovering my pregnancy, I found myself in the Emergency Room, certain my baby was gone.
I remember just how cold the exam room felt. No matter the warmth of the person who entered. All I could see was the cold steel against the room’s stark emptiness.
My sweet love kept trying to distract me. Even braved a blessed episode of “Sister Wives.” Just because he thought it would keep me occupied.
But there was only one screen I wanted to see. The one that would show a baby. Or lack thereof, whatever the case may be.
The pain was in the waiting. In the the wondering. In the not knowing.
I remember secretly thinking to myself, “If I just prop my feet up just so. Or lay here perfectly still. Maybe, just maybe, I can save my sweet babe.”
You see, the agony of miscarriage is you want to desperately do something. Somehow protect your child. But you are completely and utterly ineffective.
So you tell yourself you can keep your feet propped up just long enough. Lay at just the right angle for just the right amount of time. Just so you don’t go stark raving mad.
It is a battle for control. Over the life inside of you. Over what everyone else seems to think is inevitable.
The doctors. The nurses. The techs.
Or perhaps, you may even believe, God.
I remember bargaining with Him, pleading with Him, screaming at Him in privacy of my own mind,
“God, you said you had this! Remember that conversation? Remember?!?!?!?”
But before I could go any further, transport was there. And we were on our way to radiology. On our way to the answers we sought.
I have never choked back so many tears or doubts as I did in those ten minutes of travel. With only the bumps in the floor reminding to breathe. And only the squeeze of my husband’s hand keeping me from forcing him to wheel me back in the opposite direction.
But without warning, we were there. In a dark room that seemed tomb-like. So quiet, it was almost reverent.
Amid the darkness, as the ultrasound began, we saw a tiny light. Flickering. Almost like a firefly.
The tech looked up and said, “Do you see that? Right there? That’s the heartbeat.”
Deep breaths. Tears of relief. And then smiles, for the first time since morning.
I was six weeks and zero days. And there was a heartbeat. A beautiful, flickering heartbeat.
A little light amid a dark day.