Christmas Mourning (12.25.16)

When I was a child I loved Christmas Eve. The anticipation of Santa visiting and presents was almost too much to handle. Tonight at church as we celebrated the birth of Jesus and people around me laughed and hugged and rejoiced, it was almost too much for my fragile heart. Tears streamed down my cheeks through the songs and scripture reading. My sweet 7 year old daughter held my hand and rubbed my arm. I told her she could stand and sing the songs with everyone else, but she told me, “No mom, I want to be with you.” I had debated all day about going, but I have been looking forward to Christmas Eve service for months and didn’t want to stay home. So instead I sat there and cried, controlled enough to not let it turn in to full on weeping and made it almost to the end. We left when everyone was going to come together and sing Joy to the World and light candles. This is usually my most favorite part. I truly believe that Christmas is a celebration of joy as the light of Christ has entered into our dark sinful world. The birth of Jesus is the greatest miracle, and Jesus is the answer to loneliness, despair, brokenness, sin, hatred, evil, and death…yes, even death.  

As it nears 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning I am sitting here on my couch in darkness. I was laying in bed watching the clock change from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning and I couldn’t stop tossing or turning. My heart hurts. I have been so joyfully anticipating this Christmas morning as I imagined giving my kids one gift that they would not be expecting. One month ago I bought an extra stocking for the new baby I was expecting this summer. I had planned on writing my 10 year old son and 7 year old daughter letters about how God has heard their prayers over the past 7 years and He has answered them. I was so excited to tell them that they would be such a great big brother and sister. I was going to video them seeing the extra stocking and reading their letters, and that was how I would tell our families the great news. I have imagined this scene over and over, but never how it will play out in a few hours. After 7 years of waiting and praying, infertility, a chemical pregnancy, health issues, and surrendering what my heart desired, it had happened and been such a wonderful surprise. It seemed so sweet of the Lord to orchestrate a miracle baby and little by little I have let my heart get excited for the reality that a life, a precious new life is really in me. That was until yesterday afternoon when the doctor confirmed I am having a miscarriage. 

Besides my broken heart, a day of weeping and anger and wrestling it out with the Lord in a very raw and uncensored way, it isn't just the emotional pain keeping me up. When the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat at my ultrasound on the Eve of Christmas Eve, and I started bleeding, my blood work confirmed that this baby will not end with a sweet child in my arms, but in a miscarriage. She gave me the option of having a D&C on Christmas Eve or letting the baby naturally miscarry at home. I chose at home because I could not bear to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital having this procedure done, and so my body aches and is cramping. I have tried to fall asleep, but I have waves of pain. She said this could go on for over a week.

I go on Facebook and there are so many happy announcements about babies on the way, pregnant bellies, happy smiling faces, and it hurts. I am so happy for those friends and I am so very blessed by the two sweet kids I have, and there is so much to be thankful for, and yet there is something extra lonely about grieving in the early Christmas morning while the world seems to be rejoicing. I vacillate between feeling hopeful and at peace, thankful that I got to love a little baby if only for a short while, expectant to meet this child in heaven, and then moments of weeping and despair, anger at the Lord for what feels like a cruel joke and cruel timing. 

I have spent years letting go of my desire for more kids, convincing myself that I am so blessed already and focusing on all the benefits of my two kids being close in age, past the diapers and napping and sleepless nights. I have made mental lists of all the pros of being done with trying for a baby. This is how I’ve moved on. However, this past month I had begun to dream again and could imagine holding not just a baby, but MY baby. We talked about how to turn our front room into a bedroom, and I began thinking about my growing belly, and got so excited thinking about another baby shower. I could actually visualize my son and daughter holding a new baby and the smiles on their faces. August 1st seemed so far away, and yet so close. 

The doctor spoke to me about all the hopeful things about this pregnancy. She was sensitive and sad with me, but said it is really good my body can get pregnant. For years it wasn’t happening, and so she sees this as a very good thing. I suppose in a different scenario I would find some hope in this reality as well, but right now it just feels so empty. For the past few years we had come to a place where it seemed we were supposed to move on and not try for more kids. So what does all this mean now? Is the timing right again since we got pregnant? Do we try again for another child, or was this just pain and heartache to remind me of a desire I must re-surrender all over again? Can I trust the Lord to try again, or will it just end like this has ended? Can I trust the Lord to re-surrender if we don’t move forward with trying to get pregnant? 

These are the thoughts that are running through my mind as I’m having labor-like pains in what feels like a very surreal and dramatic ending to this pregnancy. Dramatic because while I sit here grieving the reality of death and loneliness, I know all those years ago Mary must have had a million thoughts running through her head with her labor pains. I imagine there was fear and loneliness and wondering “why me,” but also a very real sense of the Lord’s presence. Her pain ended with baby Jesus in her arms, but her role as a mother wasn’t without it’s own heartache and pain. 

Right now I’m praying I can hold onto the truths that I know in my head, and that when my heart stops bleeding I will rest in the intimate knowledge I have that my God is good, His plans are good, and that though I do not understand His ways, He is trustworthy. I’m okay that for now I’m angry and telling my heavenly Father about it. I’m okay that I don’t feel the need to pull myself up by my bootstraps or tell myself a bunch of fluffy “Christian” sayings, and I’m okay grieving and not comparing my pain to what others are feeling either to minimize my pain or others. Being angry and sad doesn’t mean I’m not thankful for all the Lord has done, nor does it mean that I am not aware of people around the world suffering immeasurably more painful realities this Christmas Eve than my own. However, as I sit here with my body cramping, my heart broken, and my dreams crushed, I’m also aware that in a few hours my kids will wake up and be excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus and open presents… and I will be exhausted, but I will be present even in my Christmas mourning.