Baby Loss

I usually post something on the 18th of May, the day my Thomas Roy died. And I still might post something on Saturday, but today I have some thoughts.

All four of my children are represented on this wall in our playroom, each one of them fearfully and wonderfully made. Two of my children are waiting for me in heaven and I have the privilege of pointing the other two to Jesus so we can one day all be made new and our family be made complete for eternity.

I am pro-life AND I have had an abortion. I do not share this to make a big political or religious statement. I share this to ask that before you sit behind a screen and hit post or share to let everyone know how you feel, that you will remember there are real people on the other side of the issue, no matter where you stand. Real mamas and daddies and babies. Real grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Real people with real feelings and very real experiences.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:8-10

I don’t think any woman includes having an abortion in her life plans, hopes or dreams. It’s not something little girls dream of as they think about their future. I do believe as a Christian I have a unique opportunity to show the love of Jesus to those who have walked this path. It is not my right to judge them, shame them, call them names or make them feel less than. (Which, by the way, I have felt all of those things over the years while scrolling through social media.) It is my responsibility to love them as Jesus loves them. And if you call yourself a follower of Christ, it’s your responsibility as well.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

John 15:12

Let’s do better, church. Let’s love like Jesus. Because we are not going to win souls for him by making people feel like crap because of their choices. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job anyway.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

So, on the seventh anniversary of the worst weeks of my life, I’d like to share my experiences as I recorded them in 2013. The emotions are just as raw seven years later.

Here is the story of my sweet Thomas Roy, the one who made me a mother.

Two Lines

The Sweetest Sound

Just a Feeling

“It’s not good.”

When Black and White Turn to Gray

Sweet Turns Sour

The 18th

Questions, Answers and Peace

 

“Your heart will heal.” These were the words the nurse whispered in my ear as she wheeled me into the elevator. Hours earlier as I came out of anesthesia in the recovery room I asked her if it was over. After she confirmed the surgery to terminate the pregnancy of my very much loved baby was over, I tearfully muttered, “My heart hurts.” It hurt more than I can put into words.

It has been six years since that dreadful day and those words she spoke have stuck with me. Over the years I have waited for healing. I have waited for the gaping holes in my heart not to hurt so badly. I have waited for triggers not to be triggers anymore. I have waited, but my heart still hurts. There is still an emptiness. It is still broken.

Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” I have no doubt Jesus heals. But what is healing?

Over this past year, I have come to realize that healing as I imagined it (and healing by the world’s standards) is not going to come. For me, healing is not the absence of pain. It does not come tied up with a pretty red bow making everything better. Healing is messy. The holes left in my heart by the two babies I lost are always going to hurt…and at times just as badly as the initial pain of losing them. Triggers will always be present, although their intensity may fade. When I look at my family, two will always be missing.

I believe God leaves us a little broken so that we will always lean on His strength. If we were completely healed and whole, we would have no need for His presence in our lives. Jesus died on the cross so we can receive complete healing when we enter into eternity with Him.

My heart hasn’t healed and living with such a great loss is not any easier six years later. I made a choice to embrace a new normal. I let God bind up my wounds and hold them as I journey through my life here. I chose to let my loss make me a better person and give me a greater purpose.

None of this is easy. It is a fight to the end. I grow weary at times. Sometimes I want to give up. Yet I don’t give up. I put my hope in His unfailing love. I turn to God for strength and He gives me what I need to get through – every single time. And I wait expectantly for the day I enter heaven’s gates and receive complete healing.

My hurting heart has become one of my most treasured possessions. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the hurt. God used the death of my son to bring about a new life in me (Isaiah 43:19).

On this day six years ago my baby, Thomas Roy, died and his broken body was made whole. Today I am sad he is not here, but I am praising God for the redeeming work He has done in my life since his death.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Psalm 139:13‭-‬16

The air was crisp and the jacket I was wearing did not adequately shield the chill of the wind, but I was being pulled to take a walk. This wasn’t just an ordinary walk. It was a Sunday morning at church during Sunday School and I needed to walk. As I walked down the drive toward the highway, I was led to our church’s historic cemetery.

I have done this a few times over the past year – walked among the final resting place of the bodies of the dead. Usually I walk to the grave sites of my grandparents and aunts and uncles who have made their way to heaven without paying much attention to the others buried there. But this time was different.

Walking by the grave sites, my eye was drawn to the smaller tombs, to the heart-shaped ones, the ones with little concrete angels perched atop them, the ones with lambs etched in the stone. As I noticed the dates on the markers I realized these were all graves of infants or children. Some had the same birth and death dates. Some only had one date. Others had birth and death dates that were only months or a few years apart. So many infants and children gone in the first minutes, hours, days, weeks and months of their lives.

Each of them have a story that I do not know. Each of them left mothers behind. I do not know the circumstances surrounding their deaths. I can guarantee that those mothers did not plan to have to bury their babies. That is not something you plan for when you find out you are expecting a child.

One family was buried together. The baby died in 1947 and the mother died in 2015. That mother lived sixty-eight years without her child. I have lived five without my first child and four without my second. The idea of walking around with a piece of my heart missing for sixty-eight years feels like an impossible task. Sometimes walking around with a piece of my heart missing for five more minutes feels impossible.

As I stood there thinking about all the babies and children and all the mothers left behind, I was reminded that we are not alone. Those of us walking this Earth with pieces of our hearts missing are not alone. Some of us grieve aloud, while others grieve quietly, but we are not alone. We are all missing our babies. God drew me to the cemetery and drew my eye to notice these stones to remind me of this.

I don’t know what it will feel like to live without my children for ten, twenty or even sixty years. I only know what it feels like at five and four years. It still hurts. There is still pain. I still long to hold them, to know them. Sometimes memories come and grief hits as hard and raw as those first days of loss. Other times I am left with a deep appreciation for my first two children. Their lives and deaths opened up the doorway to changes in me that may not have happened otherwise. God used them to change me.

I am still figuring out how to live fully after loss. I imagine I always will be on some level. I am learning that living fully does not mean living void of pain. The pain will always be there. I am learning to be okay with that. I am learning to use that pain for a greater purpose. Learning is the key word here. I certainly do not have it all figured out.

Walking back toward the church, I was drawn to a word in all capital letters on one of the gravestones: HOPE. I think after ten, twenty or sixty years of missing my babies I will be able to say that hope is what got me through. This is not a frail or questionable or unstable hope. It is the hope described in Hebrews 6:19 – firm, secure, confident, unshakable hope.

I had to seek out this hope and grab hold of it. I prayed for it. I studied scripture to understand it. It did not come easily and now that I have it I am not letting go. It is a gift from God in the form of his son Jesus and without it I have nothing. Hope is how I get through the next minute, hour, day, week, month, year. Hope is how I live after loss.