Overcoming a Miscarriage- a personal journey shared

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Earlier this year, my hubby and I decided it was time to try for a new addition to our family. I stopped taking The Pill and I conceived very soon after. It was unexpected. The month I stopped taking, I found I was with child. It was such wonderful news and all of us were filled with joy and expectancy. We went for our first gynae appointment shortly after and we saw the egg sac and a small fluttering that was the child.

Sadly, during our second appointment, with our excited firstborn in tow, the gynae could not find the fetus. There was no heartbeat, just an empty womb.

Besides having to explain to my 7 year old what happened, I had to cope with my grief as well. I felt so terrible and hollow inside. My husband felt really sad as well, but a part of me felt like he would not understand the depth of my grief as the baby was growing inside me.

Questions filled my mind- Was it something I did? Was it something I ate?

I bravely tried to shelve all these depressing thoughts away and to put of a courageous front before our family and loved ones as we broke the news. We were young, we could try again… All their comforting words were meant to cushion the fall, but a part of me plunged into a deep darkness still.

I would cry for hours when I remembered the baby and felt my loss. I had never felt such depression in years. I sobbed into my pillow, I cried in the shower, I wailed when I was alone.

The D&C where the womb was cleaned felt like a final goodbye in a way. My hubby waited at the food court for me as I went for the procedure. My gynae was an excellent gynae, and my friend who is a Pharmacist told me he would help clean me well to prevent infection in the womb, and that I would conceive again soon. She too had had a miscarriage and after her D&C, she conceived and has had 2 kids after that. I went in hopeful and with a silent goodbye in my heart for my angel baby.

GRIEVING PROCESS

There is nothing wrong with grieving. It is a normal process and I think crying and talking about the loss helped me get over it.

I had been blogging about my pregnancy journey for our angel baby, and when we found out our loss, I turned it into a remembrance blog. I poured out my thoughts, my personal encouragements, my faith-related thoughts on to the blog ( You can read my entries at http://inmemoryofweebabe.blogspot.com/).

In a way, the blog was like a little graveyard. It was a place for me to remember, to reflect… To find a way to see the silver lining despite the storm clouds surrounding me. A

I realised instead of immersing myself in my grief, I had to snap out of the vicious cycle. Grieving was normal but letting myself get lost in it was not.

To get myself out of that grief, I had to acknowledge a few things-

IT IS NOT MY FAULT

I realised it was not my fault that the baby did not make it. Perhaps the hormones from consuming pills had made that pregnancy unsuccessful. Perhaps baby was not developing normally for no fault of mine and this was a blessing.

BABY IS NOT SUFFERING

I knew that no matter what, it was not the end- I felt the baby was in Heaven with God. Perhaps you have faith, perhaps you may not have faith… Just know that the innocent child is in a better place. He or she is not suffering.

LIFE GOES ON

When I started letting go, I started moving on. I still had to be there for my firstborn, to be there for my husband. I realised that my grief was keeping me isolated from them as I had cocooned myself in tears & they felt like they were walking on eggshells around me. I found that life was still waiting to be lived, new moments of blessings and joy were still waiting to be experienced.

YOU WILL HAVE MORE BLESSINGS IN TIME TO COME

I acknowledged that we would be able to try for another child soon after I healed from my D&C. Some people recommended waiting 4-6 months, my gynae recommended trying 2 months later. I went for my D&C in early April and in mid May, I discovered I was pregnant again.

Initially, I was very much nervous about this child. I was very cautious and rested a lot more. I am now in my third trimester and the baby is healthy, blessed and growing well. We will welcome a brand new life into our family in February 2011.

Conclusion-

I will never forget our angel baby, but I am glad that I snapped out of my depression so that I could embrace a new blessing in our little boy that is on his way. I think had I remained depressed, I might have been turned off physically from intimacy with my husband, perhaps distanced myself from my first born, and we would not be able to experience this new blessing in our lives.

There is nothing wrong in ceasing to grieve. It doesn’t mean you have forgotten your angel baby. It means you acknowledge that you love the child, and know that he or she is in a better place. The new baby that comes after the loss of one does not erase the memory of a child that has gone ahead of us to a better place, but heralds a new hope- that no matter how life tosses lemons at you, there is still lemonade to be had. When we open our hands to let go, that is when we can open your hands to receive new blessings. As a mother, our hearts are big enough to always hold dear and to love abundantly the children we have with us or will have with us in time to come, and the child we have had to say goodbye to earlier than we expected. The miscarriage is not the be all and end all, it is the start of a new chapter of blessings to come.

Geraldine Wee