These past couple of years have been more difficult than most. I lost three family members...two uncles (one who was my favorite) and my beloved grandmother, my in-laws have been facing worsening health issues, my husband discovered he would likely be embroiled in a legal battle, and after months of infertility treatments, I experienced my first miscarriage...of twins.
It's been a very emotionally tumultuous period. But every year I choose a vision or a “focus word” to help guide me through that year, and the word I had chosen for 2018 was “hope," for I was determined that hope would prevail.
For 2019, my word is "peace," because coming on the heels of last year, the word has new meaning for me. Scripture says that God gives us His peace...it's already here, already ours. I have been living most of my life searching for it, praying for it, clamoring for it...and it was here all along. I just never leaned into it (opting to lean into other things instead). But today I know I can choose that peace over whatever internal chaos is triggered.
In sharing my thoughts of peace with a friend, I confessed that I have a secret blog, and she asked me what inspired me to start blogging "so late in the game." I replied I wasn't doing it to be part of the game, but that it was therapeutic for me, and that I love to write. But her question took me back to that day in 2018 when I reached into my gut and produced my very first post...with snot tickling my upper lip and the keyboard wet with my tears.
And here it is...the whole reason I started to blog again (under a different site). While the content is extremely personal, I now have peace with the circumstances described therein, and I pray if you are on a similar journey, that your own peace will embrace you with waves of comfort as it did for me.
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WAITING TO MISCARRY
I just found out that at 7 weeks, I'm not actually pregnant. There are two underdeveloped sacs and my body will eventually dispel them. If I don't want to wait, I can induce a miscarriage by taking a pill or going in for a DNC. I think I'll wait. Wait to allow myself to grieve. Wait to allow myself to ponder what could have been. Wait to allow myself to experience it in all of nature's intensity. I want to let it come.
'Tis a strange thing...waiting to miscarry.
I feel the infrequent sharp stabbing pain down below signaling that something is amiss. Only a few hours ago I thought it was a sign that my uterus was stretching...something akin to the round ligament pain that accompanies many pregnancies. But no. My inner fears spoke true this time. This time, it's not meant to be. This time.
I want to let it come and then get up and try again. Yes, I know this is nature's selection process. I know God is still up in heaven and still good. I know this doesn't mean anything definitive. I know this happens to many. I also know that as a woman of "advanced maternal age" (or AMA as I am tagged in medical records) the odds of having healthy viable eggs are slim. So the fact that I not only have a 3 year old (conceived and birthed in my early forties) and was able to get pregnant again, is a sign of hope.
Let me rephrase... I will take it as a sign of hope. I will get up and try again. And if a second child never comes...if it is just the three of us forever in our little nuclear family...well...then I already have a piece of heaven, don't I?