So....Josh and I went in to our doctor last Friday. We were so excited to see that there were two little guys growing in utero. But the nurse was quiet, and when we looked a little harder, be both knew immediately. There were no heartbeats. BAM! Our hearts were broken. Our hope was dashed. We squeezed each others hands and just looked at each other silently with tears in our eyes. Not a total surprise, but still a bit of a shock. On Wednesday I had to go in for a D&C, which is not a pleasant experience.
I HATE sharing my feelings on this blog. I am so very private. My feelings are personal and real and sacred to me. But I have to tell people that I am no longer pregnant. "Luckily" I have had many years of experience of being in awkward conversations, and it has once again come in handy when just in the last week I have had to explain that I am no longer pregnant when people come up and say, "Congratulations! I heard! You must be so excited!"
The part that I hate is when people respond. "I'm so sorry." "Well, you're still young." "You are such a strong woman." These are kind and sincere and hopeful comments, but I just never want to hear these said to me again. 9 years of working so hard to have children and two incredibly sad losses and rough pregnancies and miserable in vitro tries and multiple miscarriages have left me exhausted. I just want to sit in my house and eat string cheese and watch The West Wing on DVD and catch up on TiVoed Oprah episodes. I don't want to explain it to anyone or have to smooth it over when they don't know what to say. Therefore I disabled the "Comments" on this blog post to spare my friends the question of what or if you leave a comment now that I am bashing your good intentions! :o)
Speaking of watching Oprah episodes, I was watching Friday's show that had a mother who lost four children to a disease very similar to my boys'. She summed up very much what I have come to feel, after many years of understanding:
"There are times that I feel the weight of an empty lap and empty arms from burying children, but I don't get stuck in that. I'm not a woman to be pitied. I thank God every morning when I wake up that I have another day. And I know there will be burdens balanced in with the blessings throughout the day, but that's okay. I'll balance them." - Jeni Stepanek
And I also keep this quote on my computer, from Elizabeth Lesser's book "Broken Open." I like it:
"The only thing we can really ask for when we pray is the ability to trust in the greater purpose. We pray to have our hearts opened and our purpose revealed. We pray for gratitude when our life is good and for faith when it is not so good." I have come to understand that I can feel gratitude for the good parts AND faith for the hard parts at the same time. And I feel lucky to be at that point in my life.