Have you ever had a dream die?
I have had quite a few. I have had goals that I didn’t reach. I have pursued dreams that along the way lost their importance during that period of my life for one reason or another, like pursuing my master’s degree. I have had businesses that failed to be economically viable even after tremendous efforts on my part. Though many dreams did turn out wonderful, I have had other dreams, wants, and desires that have changed over the years and did not come to pass.
But one dream that has ended in death in my life hurts the most. It is the dream of holding a child in my arms, and hopes and plans are made, and then suddenly that dream turns to a nightmare when that child has died and I will never hold it.
I recently had a miscarriage. Today it feels like a dream…a hope that has died…
It is my second miscarriage of a confirmed pregnancy. I was about 10 weeks along this time when the bleeding began. I went through 10 days of bleeding and 24 hours of labor and heavy bleeding. I delivered the baby and placenta at noon on Saturday March 22, 2014 when I was about 11 1/2 weeks along. A dream of a beautiful child had died. I was grateful for the chance to hold the small baby and say goodbye. I didn’t have that closure last time and it was much harder to get through the experience.
On October 19th, 2010 I was 13 to 14 weeks along when I miscarried. I already had a natural ob doctor, a midwife, and had plans for a doula too. I had a normal sonogram and blood work, and had already made plans for the new baby. But when I lost the baby, I was in such shock from extreme blood loss, I did not get to hold it and say goodbye. That was much more devastating to journey through. I grieved deeply, and it helped me to reach out through writing down my feelings, and sharing with other women who know what it is like, but it took many months to get through the grief. I definitely believe I needed the opportunity to hold my child and say goodbye for a healthy healing from the situation.
During this miscarriage and for the week following, I bled heavily. Then slowly the bleeding decreased until it stopped almost three weeks after the miscarriage. I took some vitamin K to try to get the bleeding to slow down. For the first 5 days I struggled to regulate my blood pressure. The upper number swung from 105 to 165 about every 15 to 30 minutes. The bottom number swung from 65 to 95 about every 3 hours. And my pulse ranged from 100 to 115 while at rest. I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. I also suffered from an extreme migraine headache and nausea. Everytime the blood pressure was in the process of climbing the headache would get intense, and every time it would fall I had a nauseated sick feeling that I was about to throw up. This lasted for several days. During this time I also took chlorophyll capsules, EmergenC powdered vitamin blend mixed into water, Concentrace minerals, and spoonfuls of blackstrap molasses to build back up my iron after the blood loss and re-establish my hydration and electrolyte balance. I had bleeding and severe anemia for 12 weeks last time I miscarried, and I did not want a repeat of that situation. Finally around day six, things started returning to normal for me and the blood pressure stabilized and my resting pulse decreased to a normal rate and I slowly felt my energy coming back. About a week later I felt I was on the mend and my stamina started increasing. I was so thankful it went better this time than last time.
I have read statistics that 1 in 4 to approximately 1 in 5 pregnancies naturally end in miscarriage. It is devastating to know these numbers are so high and they have been a reality in my own life and for so many other families. I was comforted to know a few other women through an online forum of Christian woman, who were miscarrying at the same time I was and we could all pray for each other. The forum is a healthy eating group forum I am on,but folks sometimes share about other things happening in their life, and though it was heartbreaking, hundreds of other women began praying for us when we let them know what was happening, and many openly spoke about miscarriages they had been through too. It was bitter sweet and I am grateful to all of those who prayed for me.
We are a large family and don’t believe in controlling fertility. We have had folks in our life, both family and friends, who had said things like, “be happy with no children”, “don’t have more than two children”, “children are too expensive” and so on. We have recently even had a family member say sternly when we needed help due to a job loss “don’t have more children”. However, we don’t agree with our American culture to kill pregnancies with birth control chemicals, or to surgically clip or tie shut the tubes that God created allow sperm or eggs to travel to meet and fertilize. We believe to do such things is to become a god if we were to take away or prevent life. The bible says we are created in the image of God. It also says that children are a blessing. We believe the bible, and we believe God is in control of life. We believe we are not to take away life,and that HE is creator, the great I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, our provider, and the GOD OF FERTILITY. This was a process and decision we came to after several years of marriage and we still believe this to be true, even in the face of miscarriage and not understanding why it has happened this way.
We decided after being married for about 5 years, and through a lot of prayer and our church praying for us to have children, that we wanted to serve as foster parents. We went through extensive training to become therapeutic foster parents. After we had been married seven or eight years and was unable to have our own children naturally, the doctor labeled us infertile and wanted to do exploratory surgery and put us on fertility medications to try to improve our chances of getting pregnant. We prayed about it, our church prayed with us to, and eventually we came to the decision that “no, we would not do any of those things, but would trust God in his infallible and infinite wisdom”. If he chose for us to remain childless and instead do foster care and adoption then that was the route we would follow. If he decided to allow us to get pregnant naturally then that is the route we would follow. We continued being therapeutic foster parents, and then went through a homestudy and certification for adoption.
Our church continued to pray with us that we would have natural children of our own too. About the time we were approved for adoption, a mom of one of the youth in our youth group came up to us and said she had been praying for us and that God told her within two
years we would hold a son in our arms. We accepted what God told her right then. Our whole church gave God praise for this word from the Lord. There is power in faith.
years we would hold a son in our arms. We accepted what God told her right then. Our whole church gave God praise for this word from the Lord. There is power in faith.
Sure enough, within two years to the day she spoke to us, we had given birth to a son. That was 13 1/2 years ago and I was already 30 years old. Since that time, God has continued to bless our home with children born from our womb. We have a 13 year old son, an 11 year old son, a 9 year old son, a 6 year old daughter, a 5 year old son, and a 2 year old son, and two babies in heaven. God is the God of fertility and he will remain so in our life.
We just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this past week. Though it has been a difficult journey, and it has been a long time to see the dream of a family we have today manifest in our life, and some dreams have lived and manifested in wonderful ways, and other dreams have died along the journey, we are greatly blessed to be parents to them all and to have traveled this journey together.
