Two Months Later

Okay, so in the midst of all of the holiday goodness and cheer, I have to be a downer for about five minutes. Then I will go back to "ho-ho-ho-ing".

It has been almost two months since my miscarriage. I think, honestly, that I am doing pretty well. I really don't even think about it very much. I had those first few weeks of a lot of thinking, crying, healing, but now I feel like I am ready to move forward.

A few years ago, I was reading the blog of a girl named Kelly who works for Campus Crusade. Her husband had died of a brain tumor. She was left, in her early 30s, to raise two very young boys as a widow. One of her blogs stood out to me for something she said, several months after her husband's death. She said that people ask her sometimes when she will feel ready to move on. And she says that she will never move on. Never. That there may be a day when she feels ready to move forward, but that is different than moving on. Moving on assumes that you put that part of your life behind you, like you tied it up with a neat little ribbon and put it on the shelf. Moving forward means more that you will not forget who you were then, what you experienced, what God taught you. You move forward in what you have learned and how you changed because of it.

Now, trust me, I am NOT comparing my miscarriage to this sweet lady's husband dying. I don't think it is nearly the same in any respect. But I do think that anyone who has lost something special to them, someone they loved, even if just for a short time, can understand moving forward as a changed person.

That being said, I do feel like I am doing my best to be happy for other pregnant people. Because I am happy for them and the life inside of them. I think I just feel little twinges of jealousy that I didn't get to have that. There is a girl I see on a weekly basis at a business meeting I go to. She and I were due one day apart. One day. When she announced to everyone at our meeting that she was six weeks pregnant, with such joy, I thought in my head, Man, I'm six weeks pregnant. I wish I could say it, too. But we were still holding out on telling people after having my previous miscarriage.

For four weeks, I saw her at our meeting, knowing that I had a baby that was growing right along side of hers, time-wise, and it was "our secret." Then, she was gone sick the week that we announced that I was pregnant. She missed our news. I don't know if she ever heard the news, because four days later I began to miscarry.

So now I see her every week. Every Monday, I see her show up in a cute new maternity top with a belly that is slightly bigger than it was the week before. Somehow I feel that someone must have told her I had been pregnant and then miscarried, because she is very "gentle" with talking about pregnancy around me. Maybe it is how I interpret it, but I think that she only talks about it with me if I bring it up...how she's feeling, her doctor appointments, etc. I always wonder if she knows, or if she finds it strange that I never have to ask her how many weeks she is. I know that this is week 19. I know that you usually get your ultrasound around 20 weeks to find out the sex of the baby. I would have been 20 weeks on my 30th birthday, and I had thought what a neat birthday gift it would have been to find out the sex of my baby for my birthday.

I don't have to ask her how far along she is, because the weeks are still marked in my calendar. I can look at any given Monday and know exactly where my friend is in her journey. I am excited for her and how happy she is. Really, I am. But there is a part of me that just holds back. I really do want to be able to gush over her cute new top or her belly popping out...I want to have that excitement for her. And there is nothing about that baby in her that I am jealous of or mad about. I just wish I had the same.

I was not planning at this point to still be in the "trying" mode. I was expecting to be half-way through. I can fully accept that this was the way it was supposed to happen, and I really do think that it is okay. My babies are with Jesus, and I can say that with a shrug of "I don't understand, but it's okay"...not with the tears I used to say it with. Paul and I are moving forward. I am ready to be pregnant whenever God allows it to happen. I don't feel any need to wait. And I surely don't mean to seem like big sour grapes toward anyone else experiencing the joy of pregnancy. I guess that is just where I am...most Monday nights as I see her walk in the room, most Tuesday mornings as I think "I wish I could just let it go."