I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching in the past few years. It seems to be that we take a look at our lives when something major happens.
My husband and I recently, in June, went through a miscarriage. I was 11 weeks along and had no signs anything was wrong until it was. I’ve had one healthy pregnancy so with that came the regular ultrasounds. I knew what a good ultrasound was like and should look like. The second I saw the ultrasounds I knew things weren’t right. It also is not cool when the ultrasounds technician doesn’t say a word the entire time and you are sure you know the news is going to be the worst thing you can think of. Then you proceed to wait and wait and wait which feels like 10 hours until the doctor can come in and confirm your nightmare. They sent me home with words that my body will take care of everything. We went back to the lake house.
We were on vacation at “the lake” my happy place when all of this started happening. Day one of vacation I started having some bleeding and was sure something was wrong but convinced myself to take it easy and this can be normal. The next day, I couldn’t do anything but think about it and so we went to the hospital for that ultrasound.
Just to set the scene of where we are, The middle of nowhere! 7 hours from home, an hour from the nearest hospital (the size of a Target) and on your drive there is no cell reception at all.
That afternoon I started having a lot of pain.. I can’t believe nobody told me that this would happen. For hours I laid in horrific pain with no pain medicine, screaming for my husband to rub my back as my mom chased around our 18 month old. During those hours of pain I requested that my husband called to make an appointment to be seen by an obgyn.
So we made an appointment first available (tomorrow morning at noon). This appointment with this obgyn was 1.5 hours away in Duluth Minnesota. We left our son with my Mom and Tyler and I made the drive. We pulled up to the office and the pain started again. This time I was in public. I was trying so hard not to make any noise or scare the other women in the waiting room, but they quickly realized I needed to go into a room. The obgyn came in to see me and gave me an exam. She said we have to get you to the ER for a D&C surgery. So about twenty minutes later I am in a hospital bed praying for some pain medicine to make this stop. About an hour later I finally got some and was waiting for the surgery. The next few steps moved quickly and I was knocked out and in surgery.
Sometimes we get knocked off course. Our trajectory changes and life brings along a new path you hadn’t seen coming. We lost a baby that day and it was unbelievably hard. Waking up out of surgery and remembering that I wasn’t pregnant anymore was something that totally confused me. How? Why? Are you sure? Now what?
These questions we ask ourselves, we may never know. For me, I believe that God knows. He knows the how and why and that his timing is always better than mine and that calms me. It doesn’t make it easy, but it calms me.
So my husband and I returned after that surgery to my happy place. It looked different that day. It looked slightly familiar to a time when I walked in those doors once before after loosing my Dad. You see, the lake house was my Dad’s happy place and this house on the lake has continued to bring healing to me.
You know that phrase “ Heaven’s a little close by the lake” well than this is still my happy place.
It’s weird. I didn’t get any cards or flowers or cookies after my miscarriage for sympathy like when my Dad passed away. I think part of it is because a lot of people didn’t know or don’t know until they are reading this. But I think too, there is a weird shameful aspect that our society has put onto having a miscarriage. It isn’t my fault. I asked a million times if I did anything wrong, is my body wrong, what did I do to mess this up? The Answer, Nothing!
At first, days after it happened I was ashamed. I didn’t want people to know. Then the more I thought about it the more I knew that this is part of who I am today and if you want to know me or understand me and who I am you need to know my story. My story comes with some awesome times and it comes with some hard times. But it is my story and it has made me to be who I am today.
So I guess I sit here and tell this story for anyone who knows me, who wants to know me, who has been though a miscarriage, who may some day go through one and for anyone who wants to tell your true story. You can do this! It is what made you, you!
