Sometimes life stinks…
posted March 16th, 2006 by Shannon
It’s been an intersting month. We’re very excited to add another cousin to the family and very excited for George’s brother and his wife. And Baby Katherine is definitely an adorable little girl. But the week she arrived was a tough week for me. I had received a call on Tuesday that my sister was in the hospital with a likely miscarriage. The pregnancy announcement letter she had mailed was still traveling through the postal system so I had no clue until then that she was even pregnant. The very next day was when we heard that Baby Katherine would be arriving later that day. I spent the rest of Wednesday waiting for the phone to ring, but not knowing if it would be my mother-in-law calling with the joyful news of a new baby’s arrival or my own mother calling with the dreaded news of a definite loss. Both calls eventually came, but I think I had a hard time processing them both at the same time.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to keep my mind off things and pass the time, I make the mistake of turning on the TV. It seemed that at every commercial break someone wanted to say “Coming up on the news tonight: It’s been 6 months since Hurricane Katrina and tonight we’re going to look at ……” Blah, blah, blah. Hurricane Katrina made landfall the morning of Monday, August 29. That was also the day we had our own miscarriage. So thank you, dear media, for reminding me of our 6 month miscarriage anniversary.
A pregnancy after a miscarriage is a whole different deal than a pregnancy without ever having a miscarriage. Someone described it this way:
Everyone “knows” that miscarriages happen and pregnancies fail, but until it has happened to you, you get to enjoy pregnancy in a whole different way. You assume that getting pregnant will mean you will have a baby in roughly 9 months. Once you experience miscarriage, this isn’t so. Getting pregnant no longer means having a baby. What it means is 9 nerve wracking, panic filled months of wondering if your baby has died yet.
And that’s exactly how I’ve felt since we found out we were expecting another baby. My brain is not working under the “we’re having a baby in August” mode. It’s more like “if everything goes well, we think we’ll be having a baby in August”. I will admit that it is slowly getting better as the weeks and months pass. And I am thankful that I had 2 “innocent” pregnancies before the miscarriage. But I’m quite frustrated that my sister didn’t get to experience that before her miscarriage – AND there’s nothing I can do about it. I can tell her that her next baby will most likely be fine. I can tell her these things just sometimes happen and we never know a reason why. I can tell her to lighten up and that there’s no use spending the whole 9 months being fearful. I can tell her things until I’m blue in the face, but what good is it going to do if I can’t even believe it myself?
And, you know, that’s all I really feel like talking about it right now. Plus, naptime is over so little ones will be up any minute. Hopefully future posts will be a little more light-hearted, but I couldn’t really go on with blogging until I got that out of the way. (And just for clarification, this is a different sister than the one that was married a few blog posts ago.)
Good morning sweetheart,
I love your blog even when it isn’t a fun post. You had already shared several of these thoughts with me but I had not even thought of that Wednesday being exactly six months since you had lost your baby at the same time Britney had her miscarriage nor had I remembered it was the same day Katrina hit shore. I can see how all of that made for a very low day for you. Thank you for your compassion and understanding of what Britney was going through.
I had never had someone close lose a child in miscarriage but would imagine the sadness when I heard of someone at church or work who had miscarried. I never realized the grief until I experienced miscarriages with a daughter. I feel I have two grandchildren in heaven being held by Jesus and adored by my mother.
Shannon, I had not been to your blog in a while, but was reminded of it last night. I love the way you share. I am sorry that I didn’t know of your loss. I experienced the same loss between Abi and Kate’s births. And you are so accurate in the way that you explained the way you view pregnancy after a miscarriage. We also experienced the joy of a baby before the 1 year anniversary of our loss. I think it happens that way for a lot of people. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Amy – and I’m glad you dropped by!