Miscarriage Grief: Two Years Later

As I sit here crying, I can’t help but wonder – not for the first time – if I am being overly dramatic. It is a difficult and conflicting thing to grieve the loss of someone you never knew, yet loved with all your heart and carried within your very body. Sometimes I feel as though I am just dredging up old memories unnecessarily to make myself miserable.

After all, I have a child now whom I hold in my arms even as I type this post. It’s been over two years since that incredibly painful time in my life. So much has happened since then. I have changed. My life looks so different than it did at that time. I am extremely blessed and I feel that blessedness every day. Why do I keep remourning this vague sense of loss?

I had two times today in which I was potently reminded of our first child … and the fact that we will never know him in this life. Both moments of reminiscence were thanks to good old Facebook.

The first was earlier today when I scrolled across a picture of various people embracing each other with a caption that read “What the first moments in heaven will look like”. What stood out to me immediately was a mother enthusiastically embracing a child, appearing as though she had run to meet her.

I instantly teared up because the child looked to be about 6 and I wondered if that could have been a miscarried child. It hurts to think that we will never get to know our child as a baby. I don’t know the theological theories on how age works in heaven, but I know I have missed with our first child what I am currently experiencing in raising our one-year-old daughter.

The second reminder was a few minutes ago as I was scrolling backwards through my own timeline, looking back on photos I’ve posted of our daughter throughout her first year of life. Eventually, after all of her photos, I came to the post I wrote when I revealed our loss to the world. This is what I wrote:

I have so appreciated and been humbled by everyone who has honestly and vulnerably shared on Facebook about their grief, illnesses, and various other trials. I want to know how you’re doing, and we ought to be able to share these things with each other, because we’re all going through something and we all need support. Your openness and humility has encouraged me to share my struggle in hopes it will encourage someone else.
[We] lost our precious baby in December. At 10 weeks, I was told my baby no longer had a heartbeat. Every single life, no matter how old or young, is incredibly valuable and has a purpose. Although we never saw our baby’s face or held our baby in our arms, that sweet little life changed our lives forever.
So many people are struggling with things they feel like they can’t share, and especially miscarriages are often kept quiet. And while we all need our privacy at times, I hope we can all be more willing to share and more willing to listen without judgement (including myself) so that no one feels the need to struggle alone.

All I read was “we lost our precious baby” before the floodgates were opened. Because reading those words, even though they are my own, validates that we suffered a loss. We lost something precious that will never be replaced. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was or what has happened since then; someone, a special little life, has been forever lost in this world.

I have these moments of grief over our first baby more often than I anticipated when I miscarried. I knew I would never forget my baby; I knew I would never not care. But I didn’t realize how fresh that grief would feel at times even years later, even after having a healthy baby. I didn’t realize that the frustration of not understanding what I was grieving would come up over and over again.

The fact is, I lost someone very important to me whom I loved very much. But in light of the hidden nature of a baby in the womb (especially one so small that there is no outward sign of him or her yet), it is easy sometimes to believe that I am being overly emotional about something that wasn’t as big of a deal as I’m making it out to be.

But that is simply not true. A life was lost. That is always a big deal. And when you are emotionally and physically attached to that life, your heart is going to have a piece torn off and it will bleed, just as your body will tear and bleed, when that life dies. Your heart can never be the same when part of it is missing.

It’s okay to continue to grieve. I give myself permission to mourn my child without telling myself I am overreacting, no matter how long it’s been. Because a piece of my heart is forever in heaven … with my child.