Loss

Over the last several weeks I have carried this precious piece of news: God had created a new life within me.  I carried this little one with gladness and such a sense of wonder for what God was doing: forming a new little person for our family.  Mark and I, we told the kids at the beginning of December and they were overjoyed.  Ella has long prayed for this, daily asking God to put a baby in mommy's tummy.  And so we have celebrated this tiny miracle, dreaming of who this one will be, of how our lives will be different with a baby in July.

Mark and I went together for my 11-week midwife appointment.   First, elation as we viewed our baby through the ultrasound: There!  Our sweet baby.  Tiny and perfectly formed.  Then, pause: But the baby seems so still. Is it just because the technician keeps freezing the screen and taking measurements, or...?  Then, a sudden, rushing knowledge: The baby IS too still.  There's no movement.  And there is no heartbeat.  At some point the previous week the baby had stopped growing.

We were stunned.  There were tears on Mark's face.  I felt a numbness that was only broken by the thought that we had to go now and tell the kids; these dear children who have longed for and prayed for and talked about little else but the joy of a new sibling.

There were conversations to have, a paper to sign, and a short walk out of the office and back to our van.  There, finally alone with Mark, I wept.  We sat together there for a few moments.  Mark reached for my hand and he prayed.  And then we headed for home.

We gathered the kids:  Mark sat on the couch with Ella on one side of him and the boys on the other side.  Audra faced me with her arms wrapped around my neck and her legs around my waist.  Adelia sat beside me.  I told them about the ultrasound, and that the baby had died inside mommy's tummy.

What I will remember about that moment is the sound of Audra's grief: she wept with great, heaving, noisy sobs- sounds I've never heard her make.  I remember wishing Ella was next to me, instead of across the way on the other couch.  I wanted to hold her and comfort her in her sorrow.   She cried silently next to Mark, who held her and cried, too.  The boys were silent and troubled.  I kept searching their faces for a sign of their emotion.  I knew they were sad, but they were so quiet.  Adelia peppered us with questions.  Audra's sobs finally quieted and she fell asleep in my arms.  We sat there for awhile, crying and talking through their questions, and then we prayed together. 

I think back to a journal entry I made weeks ago, as I battled my fears:

I trust You, Lord.  I know You are good and Your ways are good.  Even if this pregnancy were to end in miscarriage.  I love You.  I trust You.  You will sustain us. 

He is sustaining us.