Another Loss

We lost another baby yesterday. We found out we were pregnant just a few days earlier. I had been having symptoms and was curious. Now I wish we'd never done the test. Maybe we wouldn't have figured it out, and it wouldn't be so hard. After we lost the baby in July, I could at least think maybe it was a fluke. Now I realize that it is probably the lupus anticoagulant in my body, which increases my risk for miscarriage. I had a major meltdown last night. It's one thing to believe that the baby had something wrong and something else entirely to believe that the baby was fine, but my body wouldn't allow it to live inside me. Although Karl clearly disagrees, I feel like my body is letting him down.

On the plus side, I suppose, is the knowledge that we certainly aren't having a problem getting pregnant, just staying pregnant.

I am seeing the rheumatologist on Friday. I have been having a 'flare' for weeks now and am hurting more, like I did back in 2004. Hopefully, he can help me come up with some sort of plan for a healthy pregnancy. I think maybe I need to get Garin weaned and get back on the daily aspirin regimen. It certainly worked for him!

I never used to understand why people who'd had miscarriages kept later pregnancies a secret until the fourth month. I thought surely it would be better to have the prayers and well wishes of friends and family and that if anything went wrong, a person would need the support of others to get through. After the last baby, I began to understand. It's not a desire to suffer alone or quietly. People who hear the news of your pregnancy don't always get news of your loss. When you run into them, sometimes weeks or months after the miscarriage, they congratulate you and want to share your joy. It blindsides you, as you are reminded once again and are unprepared for the conversation in which you must tell them the bad news. Then they feel terrible and awkward, too. That's the hard part. Or in their desire to help or to make sense of it all, they begin to share their theories as to why it happened, often unintentionally placing blame on you, not realizing that you have already been through every possible scenario in your mind and wondering what you should have done differently.

I am not one to question God. I have never doubted that He knows better than I do. I am certain of His plan for my life, and I am certain that He loves me and wants what's best for me. I do, however, wonder where this is all leading, what I am supposed to learn from it, how such heartache is supposed to benefit us. Regardless of faith, there is still that part of me that wonders at times like these why the pains of this life aren't divided equally among people, so everyone gets a fair share. Then it dawns on me that I don't want my fair share. Compared to most of the people in the world, I don't know what it is to suffer. Thank God for His grace and mercy, even in the hard times!

We are doing okay, but please keep us in your prayers this week as we wade through this and try to move on.