Picture from this website. Another sad story of loss.
Many, many years ago, I found myself wondering about miscarriages and what happens to those little babies. I have always believed that from the very creation of that tiny little embryo, there is a spirit attached to that microscopic little body.
When that little body dies before it can be born - especially in the early weeks of pregnancy, where does that spirit go?
I never dreamed back then that it would be such a personal subject for me one day.
When I lost my first little forget-me-not, I felt like my world had ended. After far too many years of infertility, I was finally pregnant with a child that was truly, completely and utterly mine! It was not my first baby, of course. My sweet Pirate Munchkin was the product of adoption - something very close to my heart. But an actual biological child that I would have the chance to grow and nurture with my own body and who would look like me? That was different! And to lose it at just 7 weeks was devastating!
I felt so very alone at first. I knew almost nothing about how many, many people around me had been through the very same thing.
As I poured out my heart to my mother (who had also had a miscarriage, but it was under difficult circumstances and she didn't feel the painful loss with hers that I was feeling), we talked about how I didn't know where my baby was.
That's when she told me about my grandmothers.
My maternal grandmother - her mother - had lost a baby. She felt afterwards that the spirit of that child was waiting in Heaven for her. It would not be coming to earth with a body. That confirmed what I had always figured.
However, my father's mother had a different experience. She lost a baby before my father was born. She felt that the spirit attached to that pregnancy was my father. She believed that he had been called back to the pre-earth world for reasons I won't get into here. When she got pregnant again, he was ready to be born.
I lost my first pregnancy in February of 2009. My third pregnancy was lost in January 2012, shortly after Pirate Baby's first birthday. These first two months of the year always make me edgy now. Both of my babies are represented by forget-me-not charms that I wear around my neck and almost never take off.
As the time has passed with each of my losses, I have had the opportunity to ponder what I feel whispering to me from the other side of the separation of earth and the spirit world.
My first loss still breaks my heart every time I think of it. There is a song that my sweet husband loves, and the rare times he plays it around me, I sob as if I'm right back there in the cold winter months of 2009. I cry ugly tears and feel like my heart is being ripped right out of my chest. I cling to that one little flowered pendant through the whole song. I clearly feel that little spirit at my sister's side in Heaven. She watches over it for me until I my time comes to join them. I think it's a boy.
The second one is different.
I didn't feel the same sense of loss with that one. At first, I believed it was because I had my precious little boy to hold and snuggle when I was upset. I had to take care of him, and his little smile helped me get through the tough days. So I wondered right from the start, was this one going to be like my paternal grandmother's experience? Like my father, was that little spirit called back for reasons I didn't know? Would I still see that child in this life?
My mother and I discussed the idea of getting another charm for that lost baby. We decided to do it. When it arrived, it felt like it belonged with the other one.
As time has gone by however, I don't know if it is necessary.
I have felt for quite some time that there is a little spirit who is very anxious to be born. I feel it sort of hovering around me, impatiently. What I DON'T feel is a second spirit by my sister's side. And I DON'T feel a sense of paralyzing grief when I think of that loss.
One day recently, I was talking with my mother (can you tell she's my best friend?) about being good people so we can be with our loved ones in Heaven.
It just slipped out of my mouth.
While I had felt it for some time, I hadn't really acknowledged it to anyone else.
I said, "I want to be with my sister and my baby."
Baby.
Singular.
Were there reasons here in this life why that might not have been the best time for me to be pregnant? Absolutely! 2012 was a time of EXTREME stress for our family. Financial issues that came to a rather dramatic end, combined with a very stressful and difficult move. It had occurred to me in the middle of moving that I was up to my due date. If that pregnancy had continued, I would have been right at the end of it as we were trying to move our entire household. Being the time of year it was (harvest season), I had to do almost the entire move by myself. If I had been pregnant at the time, that would have been impossible. If I had gone early with that one like I did with Pirate Baby, I would have had TWO babies to take with me as I went back and forth, back and forth with load after load of boxes and furniture.
Clearly, the Lord knew better than I did.
And maybe, like my grandmother felt about my father, that child needed to stay a little longer for reasons in the spirit world. I will probably never know until my turn comes to join my loved ones in Heaven.
So for now, I wait.
I wait for that little spirit who has been so insistent to join our family here on Earth.
I wait to see what will happen. Will I leave the 2nd charm on my necklace? Or when I hold my next child in my arms, will I feel the time has come to remove it?
0 comments:
Post a Comment