Thoughts on Loving Our Recently Miscarried Baby

Forgive me if my thoughts are muddled... they seemed clear enough in my heart and  head when I started writing... but what I end up writing doesn't always reflect my clarity of thought or conviction of heart...

I recently miscarried a child.  It was only seven days after I took a pregnancy test.  I had spent a few days in shock and a few days allowing my excitement to grow, and then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.  

How does one process that?  What should I feel?

I struggled for a brief time, wondering what is the appropriate amount of sorrow to feel or exhibit over the loss of a pregnancy that was so short and that hardly anyone knew about. 

And I started to wonder what other people would think.  And soon, their imaginary thoughts became my own... 

You were hardly pregnant for a month, so it's not that traumatic, not like a loss at 12, or 14, or 20 weeks...

This is your second miscarriage so it shouldn't come as a surprise and it's nothing new and you know how to handle it.  You'll move on.

Well, what's one miscarriage when you have five other living children?  

Don't spend too much time grieving, or you'll look like you don't appreciate the blessing of the family that you already have.  

I was truly having a hard time knowing how to grieve for this baby whose existence I barely had time to wrap my head around.  And is it self-indulgent to mourn the loss of a child when I have so many others?  
  
One of many.  And only a brief physical reality.  Never known, cuddled, or caressed.   Do I harden my heart, repress my grief, and move on?

I thought about putting on my c'est la vie face and "moving on."  

But Love intervened, and He spoke to me through friends -- a friend who encouraged me to mourn instead of ignore, a friend who reminded me of my comforting thoughts to her after her own miscarriage, a friend who shared the prayer which made me appreciate our little one's place in our family, and a friend who wrote about her own experience with suffering and loss...

In a recent blog post, In Defense of Suffering, Annery wrote about baring her vulnerable heart for the sake of a child who deserved unreserved love.  

When we started down the road of fostering, we heard a lot of voices expressing concern for how we would guard our hearts against the possibility of loss...  [Yet] God gives us no promises on any of our children.  I'm not guarding my heart, she deserves it....  I poured love into her with reckless abandon.  I was her mother.  What were the options?  She deserved nothing less than all of me.  This precious child entrusted to our care.   

Love is risky.  Isn't it?  When we choose to bare our hearts and love without holding back, there are no guarantees we will not be hurt.

And yet, isn't that how parents love their children?  Recklessly, without calculation or caution, often at the risk of personal loss or suffering?  Love and sacrifice are intertwined and inseparable when it comes to parenting.  To be given a child and asked to be his or her guardian on the "fast track" to Heaven is not how we typically envision "parenthood" but it's no less significant.  It's parental sacrifice of a different kind.  The sacrifice isn't the daily grind of diapers and dinners, and discipline that we're used to, it's not knowing your child, never holding your child, never celebrating her birthdays with her, not tucking her in and kissing her goodnight, not peeking in on her after she's fallen asleep.  

There is sacrifice in every form of motherhood.  
  
The children that we conceived and have lost truly were precious ones entrusted to our care.  I am honored and humbled that they have only known two homes - my womb and the Heavenly Kingdom.  That's no small wonder!   It's a distinction that I hope every mother who has lost a baby embraces!  

I believe I learned a new love lesson with this miscarriage -- A guarded heart in the face a miscarriage is a selfish attempt to protect myself from the pain and sorrow of the loss.  A guarded heart is about me and ignores the child, the significance of the life within, the life that was, the unique personhood of a baby... my baby.  I know that our babies are now living out my deepest longing for all my family - a sainted life in the presence of  God the all-loving Father, Christ the King, Mary our tender mother, the ever-praising choirs of angels, and the saints of the Church Triumphant.  When I finally join them and run to my children in Heaven and hold them, I want to greet them knowing that I loved them unreservedly.  I do not want to know the regret of withholding love from them simply because they had never physically been born to me.   

Guarding our hearts against the loss of a miscarriage deprives our babies of dignity and love.  We should allow ourselves to love our miscarried babies recklessly and mourn their loss deeply because they deserve nothing less than the unguarded love we bestow on all our children.  I carried two babies only for a short time, and they were ours.  No less real, no less a Blackstone, no less loved.