Because the Hard Stuff Should Be Talked About Too: Miscarriage and our Sweet Pea

A post that I hope becomes a series about the hard stuff because being brave and being vulnerable and being real is good and healing. And because writing helps me. 

I was always the girl who could make a joke at any time. I think because my dad passed away when I was in junior high I learned early on to ease the tension with a few (I think very well placed but I’m sure others might say different ;) ) overall observations or jokes. This was for me how I learned to cope with the sadness and grief. And then it just became second nature.

As I’ve taken counseling classes and been counseled myself, I’ve learned so many valuable things about myself and how I view the world and how that affects my feelings and thoughts and beliefs. One thing I’ve discovered is that while this “joke” mentality has been my default, it hasn’t always helped me process hard and difficult and sad things in my life. It’s a blocking mechanism, a way that I’ve now realized I used to kind of push others away, to send a message that says “I’m okay and I’m laughing, see? Don’t pity me. I’ve got this. I’m fine.” But often times I’m not fine. I’m sad and I’m grieving and I’m angry and yet I still feel this need to put on a face for the world that I’ve got it under control. 

What I’ve learned through counseling is that many of us develop these blocking mechanisms but they look lots of different ways. Maybe we over exercise to cover our sadness or over eat or drink to excess or choose to small talk with our friends instead of talk about the real stuff, the hard stuff. There are a lot of ways can choose to drown out, ignore, numb, force down, or cover what is really going on.

But in the end, these blocking mechanisms, they don’t work. The feelings are still there and in a healthy emotional world we need to find a way to process what’s really going on. 

One thing I’ve also learned in counseling is that one way we can figure out what’s really going on with ourselves or others is if there are things that aren’t matching in our words and actions or body language. For example, we might laugh while crying because we feel embarrassed. Or we might say "I don't know why I am crying, I never cry" or "I am not supposed to cry". We pretend to be strong. Or we might say “I forgive you” but our hands are clenched in a fist and the anger is still there festering. As a counselor, we look for these types of things that are incongruent and if it’s appropriate we might call them out to our client to help them uncover what’s really going on. Sometimes we can’t see these inconsistencies ourselves and we need help (I was obviously in this boat and needing help seeing my joke default). 

On a Thursday in late March, Tony and I found out we were pregnant. We were so excited because we have had the best year learning to parent Jemma and it has brought us so much joy. We were also trying to plan a pregnancy around Tony’s work and the possibility of him being gone for awhile and so the timing of the pregnancy was perfect. I had started tracking the size and saw that he or she was the size of a sweet pea. I was already starting to get excited thinking about Jemma being a big sister. I ordered those pregnancy reveal items to tell the grandparents and aunties and uncles. I was already pinteresting and etsying (do you like my verbs pinteresting and etsying?) nursery ideas and getting excited wondering if the little one was a boy or girl. I was planning a Texas trip and was excited to tell my sister and mom and friends from back home. Don’t we always have perfect plans in our mind? ;)

On the Monday following that Thursday, I was experiencing symptoms that were concerning and decided to go to doctor to get checked out. As the doctor did the sonogram, she gently told me there was no heartbeat. Man, two words that I wish no one had to hear. Little sweet pea was only with us for six short weeks. 

It was a shock and with tears and hurt I had to relay this message to Tony and our families. I had to reschedule my trip due to needing to recover. The doctors also asked me to go in for blood tests to track my hormone levels and see if any other procedures might be needed. 

It’s not easy to share. It’s hard to even say out loud. It felt wrong, like I was weak. Like my body failed. A little one had died in me. I started thinking about all the things I could have done to cause it and blaming myself. I started wondering who that little sweet pea was and what God’s purpose could possibly be in this. 

I wanted to say something to fix it. I wanted to be strong. I wanted it to not have happened. I tried to revert back to my joke default and my “fake joyful face” when I talked about it. Not gonna lie, I’ve gotten pretty good at this. My sister in law Holly called me out. She reminded me that it’s okay for it to just hurt and just not be okay. I didn’t have to wrap it up in this perfect bow of processing and present it to the world with the Christian answer. I’m a “counselor in training” and I knew all this and man I still needed that reminder. I didn’t have to say “It’s hard but _____.” It’s okay for it to just be hard. 

Sometimes I didn’t want to talk about it because it was just easier that way, to not say it out loud, to not have to then engage the topic and thus prick my wounds further. It felt like pushing people away was easier sometimes. Isolation is easier. Silence is easier (hmm another blocking mechanism possibly?). It hurt and it felt better to talk about anything then what was actually going on.

But then sometimes I felt like I all I wanted to do was talk about it. Remember it. Freeze the world so that this little life wouldn’t be forgotten. Make the world stop continuing on because this little life didn’t get to continue on and it’s not fair. Scream about it. Talk about this little life and who they were and what they would have been like and enjoyed. Were they a boy or girl? What would he or she have looked like? Sometimes I couldn’t bear the small talk, like the world was talking about all the wrong things.

With my dads death and with the loss of little sweet pea, I’m reminded about the grieving process and that it’s okay for it to be hard and for me to know that some days will be worse than others. I know with my dad I sometimes felt stupid for feeling sad many years after. The more I learn about counseling though I’ve learned that feeling sad at unexpected moments is normal and part of the process. I go in and out of sadness and that’s okay. Some days it lingers. Little reminders and memories and thoughts take hold and take over.

Things I struggle with:

Blaming (others and myself)

Wishing (that this wasn’t what God had for me)

Trusting (that God is still good in all of this).

I also started just thinking about the big questions of life and the theology behind life and the nerd in me wanted answers. I want to know what the future holds. I want to know what to do next.

I wish I could say I had all of the answers figured out. But the truth is I don’t and I don’t think I ever will. 

Back to those inconsistencies. Back to those blocking mechanisms. Well, I can know all the things I’ve learned in counseling and it’s still hard. My default is really really ingrained in there. I want to hide the hard, make it better somehow. I continue to want to put on a pretend face that everything is okay. I have to continue to ask Jesus to help me be real with myself and others. 

In all of this, though, here’s what I know about the hard moments: I can’t trust my feelings to tell me what’s true. I have to cling to Gods truth. And what I know is that God says even when it feels hopeless, we always have hope. When we feel defeated, God always has a plan for victory. And even in death there is life.

We should be the most hopeful people of all because we have Christ. It doesn’t have to be a fake hope. It can be a crying, screaming, questioning hope. It can be a hope that wonders and grieves loss and doesn’t know all the answers. To me, that’s the purest hope of all. Hope in the hard. 

One of the craziest, most beautiful things that happened after my dad passed away was that God turned death into life. He used the death of my dad to bring me to life in Christ and to a life more abundantly full and rich than I could ever have imagined. Through my dads death, He changed the course of my life and helped me to see how much I love helping and teaching and counseling others. I love middle schoolers because that’s when my dad passed and I knew my heart was to teach them about the Lord in whatever they might be going through. I could not ever have imagined how God would use death and turn it into life for me. I know and believe that the same will be true about this miscarriage. I don’t know what it will look like and I know I would not have chose it to be this way. But I believe with all that I am that the God I serve will show His faithfulness and His love for me in this as He has done again and again, over and over in my life in so many other ways.

I can already see God showing me in this how loss helps you see life as a gift. After my miscarriage, I held Jemma closer, I played longer, I was more patient and more gentle. I laughed a lot at her silliness and cried as I held her. I let her snuggle as long as she wanted. The reality that life truly is short and the seconds are precious really sunk in. 

I was so thankful for Tony and God grew us together in this. We cried together, we grieved our loss.

What I also KNOW to be true but does not necessarily FEEL true is that sharing helps ease the burden. Our tendency is to isolate and we think it helps but what truly helps is allowing others in. Letting them bring a meal, granting those who care the privilege of walking with you and alongside of you in your pain. Saying out loud what you truly feel. Letting others share the load.

To remember little sweet pea, I ordered a gold necklace with the name sweet pea and the date we found out about him or her on it. I don’t want to forget. Right now, it is a reminder of pain and the loss of what could have been. But my hope in time is that talking about the necklace will bring a story of God and how He used pain and turned it into a great story to display His goodness.  (For anyone who might want something similar, I ordered it from an Easy shop called Gigimey: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GIGIMEY?ref=shop_name_search_sugg)

A verse my husband reminded me of during this time was:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Mathew 10:29-31

I love this truth and I cling to it as I am reminded that God cares deeply for even the littlest life and loves the little life that we never got to know more than we ever could. I hope that one day I can meet our tiny sweet pea. But until then, I am going to trust little sweet pea, and all that’s in my life right now, the pain and the worry and the wondering and the scared and all of my future to the the creator of all life, a God who gives me hope in the hard.

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