The Other Side

Quickly, a note on my last post - when I thank God for all that I've lost I am being thankful for those little lives even though they never had a chance to live outside of me.  I have always been thankful for Micah especially, but I feel the same about the other four - I don't wish away their existence because they died.  I only wish they had been allowed to stick around longer.


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I want to talk a bit about the other side of repeated loss.  I understand not everybody makes it to this side, so it does seem a bit strange to call it 'the other side' as that sort of implies that everybody will one day end up over here.  But I'm not sure what else to call it, so I'm going to stick with 'the other side' even though I have some reservations about it.

So, the other side of repeated loss.  It's a wonderful and yet, still sad and strange, place to be.  I have survivor's guilt, if you will, knowing that so many others are still stuck over the bridge in the land of repeated dead babies and that is a really crappy place to be stuck.

We go out places and I wonder who on aisle 7 is aching for what I have?  Who is hurting just by seeing our little family?  I know we look happy and nobody would know just by glancing at us all that we've gone through to get to two living kids.  The battles we've fought and lost, over and over again, on the road to the other side.  Sometimes I want to explain to everybody we pass - "this isn't the whole story!  I've been that hurting person before and still am in many ways!  I'm so sorry if this happy family scene is hurting you!  I understand!"

A few weeks ago we were contacted by a guy from church who was preparing to give a sermon on the different seasons of life and how we need God in each and every one of them - happy or sad.  He wanted to include us in a video montage of folks from church each speaking to the season of life they were in at the time.  People spoke about all kinds of things, being unemployed, recently losing their husband, just getting married, having a great year in business, etc.  So on a Wednesday afternoon we drove to church, sat in two chairs, L on hubby's lap and Bee on mine, and spoke into the camera about how we had lost a son and been blessed with another daughter.

That Sunday was my first time being back in church since Bee was born.  And although I am a rather shy person and hate to have attention drawn to me (oh goodness do I blush so deeply) it felt SO SO SO good to "come clean" to everybody in the congregation that morning.  We attend a large church and so of course we don't know the majority of the people there (and truth be told haven't tried to get to know many people, either.  We joined shortly after getting pregnant with Micah and once he died, well, small talk and all the rest went right out the window.  Also, who wants to chat up the crazy lady that cries through every.single.service?) and knowing that everybody now knows our story, everybody now knows some of what we've been through (I had a very big urge to run to the stage, grab the mike and crazily tell everybody "we've had four miscarriages, too!") and everybody knows that it's not all happiness like it may seem to be, feels rather freeing.  Knowing others going through similar challenges had heard part of our story was very comforting.  I have hopes that it wouldn't sting so bad for them to see us in the halls.

What a weird headspace to be in - thrilled over the healthy delivery of my second daugther and yet still so focused on the trials we went through along the way.  Desperately I want to live in the here and now but it is almost impossible.  Making it to the other side doesn't mean you get to leave all that baggage at the foot of the bridge, cross over and then never look back.  Unfortunately you've got to carry that baggage right on over the bridge with you.  It might be a bit lighter, yes, but you've got to continue to carry it nonetheless.

This whole post feels like a jumbled mess, like a bunch of ramblings, and maybe it is.  I am rather sleep deprived and rushing to write this while I have a few short minutes to myself and so maybe it doesn't make any sense or doesn't come across even remotely like I intend it to, but it feels good to talk about and I hope somebody else out there can relate.   

Aaaaaand my few short minutes are over.