Before I go into any other thoughts I had today, I wanted to thank everyone who has sent love and support and prayers our way since I posted about our miscarriage. While it’s still not the path we wanted, we feel very fortunate to be surrounded by so many people both in “real life” and people we know through the Internet who have been so good to us. So thank you!
That said, we are now back in the waiting game, a place we grew to know all too well when I was just waiting, waiting, waiting for my autoimmune disease to go into remission so I could go off my medications (and thus get on with our original plan of trying to expand our family).
First there’s the wait of the actual miscarriage itself to fully complete, since we’ve opted for now to let it happen on its own.
Then there’s the time the doctor has told us to wait to let my body heal.
Then there’s the waiting to see if and when we’re able to get pregnant again.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how life is like a car that was built without a reverse option—it can only be put in drive. Sure, you can take detours, you can idle for awhile, you can even have some breakdowns along the way. But the car can only go forward, not backward, and so it is with life—
It’s a relentless march forward, whether we’re ready to or not.
So I’ve been coaxing myself to embrace the idea of moving forward, to do the dishes and fold the laundry and go outside to see the ducks rather than eating all the chocolate and taking all the naps and moping all the mopes.
Sure, some days I still feel like eating everything and nothing all at once, or I feel like staying in bed and just pulling the covers over my head and just calling in a sick day. (Except parents don’t really get a sick day, which is inconvenient, really, because I really DID get sick this week with the whole sore throat/body aches/congestion thing).
But we’re trying to move on, as much as we can, though we’re different from before.
I’m choosing to use this time to pay extra special attention to Raven, to enjoy this time together (as long as it lasts) of just the two of us at home together on most days.
I’m choosing to use this time to read (even) more than before because if/when I do get pregnant again, I know from experience that my reading habits tend to suffer greatly.
I’m choosing to use this time to both tackle my to-do list and take more intentional breaks, which is why you would have found me yesterday burning through a chick flick and a half while folding ALLLL the laundry in the house (while Raven, bless her, actually went down for a decent-length nap for once).
I’m choosing to use this time to connect even more with Matt, to do daily little check-ins to see how he’s faring, because I think sometimes people forget that he lost our baby, too (not to mention his grandmother the day before).
I’m choosing to use this time to let myself feel everything that comes, which is why you would find me sobbing my eyes out (yet again) at the end of Toy Story 3 this week (although, let’s admit it—hormonal or not, I’ve NEVER made it all the way through that movie without tearing up at least once).
All I know for sure is that we’re going to be okay. For awhile there, it felt like 2017 was doomed to just keep getting worse and worse and worse, with tragedy piling up on top of tragedy on top of tragedy.
But I’ve seen too many little miracles and silver linings and beautiful moments over the past 2+ months to buy into that pessimism. The fact is, even when at times it can be tempting to ask God why He is asking this of us, He has shown me sooooo many times over the past two months that we have never been forgotten or forsaken. He has shown it to us through the actions of earthly angels, He has shown it to us through the burning of faith in our chests as we study and pray and try to understand together, and He has shown us through many daily tender mercies that even in our hardest times, He has numbered the hairs on our head, He knows when the smallest sparrow has fallen to the ground, and I know that He knows the eternal destiny of us all, from our tiny lost baby to the grandmother who just passed.
I want it to be said of me that no matter what I was given to go through, that I did so with faith.
And so we’re moving forward, trusting that in the eternal plan, everything will work out.
It doesn’t mean that it’s easy to go through or that we’re not hurting or that we suddenly have come to this great understanding of why this had to happen to us, right now.
But we trust in the One who DOES know, and that’s enough for us.
