On Pregnancy after Miscarriage

I remember the day that I found out that I was pregnant with Lily. I was furious.  It was the end of October, a couple days before Halloween.  Previously, I had not known just how fragile these little lives could be.  The discovery of this new life was shadowed by the loss of the previous child. My “baby blue,” as I called it, named after the clear ocean off of the Cayman Islands. It seems so calloused to call my first child an “it”, but I never knew.  I never found out if it was a boy or a girl.  It slipped into the ocean, unknown, unnamed.  But not unloved.

I was not ready to have another baby growing inside of me again.  I could not lose again.  Not another life, not so soon.  I would have been 18 weeks along, past the terrifying first trimester.  But now, I was 7 weeks along.  That tenuous time, where she hung delicately, so precariously.  I couldn’t take it.  It felt like God was teasing me. 

A time of hope and excitement was shrouded by the lingering crippling grief from the loss of my first child.  The child with no name, the child lost somewhere in the Cayman Islands, confirmed by a doctor on the trip that was supposed to be a honeymoon.  The happy vacationers in the cabin next door on that Carnival cruise laughed at the wails of a mother who had just lost her baby.  If they had known the origin of the cries, I am sure that they would have swallowed their mockery. I'm sure that they weren't malevolent. Probably just drunk.   The agony of grief was out of place on a ship called “Freedom.” 

They said that it wasn’t because we went on a cruise.  It would have happened anyway.  They said that it wasn’t because of anything that I did or didn’t do.  They said that it wasn’t my fault.  I didn’t kill my baby.  It could have been anything.  In the Grand Cayman, seeing the empty ultrasound, holding the hand of my grieving husband, knowing that we were supposed to be enjoying a tropical beach excursion, I sucked it up.  Sitting on the little boat, looking into the clear blue water, I felt numb, in shock. 

The claustrophobia of the tiny cruise ship cabin was too much to handle.  The laughter and the celebrations of the other passengers on “Carnival Freedom” juxtaposed the deepest grief that I had ever experienced. 

In the hot months of the summer, I had celebrated that first positive pregnancy test.  The world had opened up for me with that double line.  A surge of excitement and expectancy struck me like a lightning bolt.   The second set of double lines two months and a thousand tears later sent a different surge.  Terror, anger, and grief echoed through my broken and raw heart.  No one had warned me about pregnancy after miscarriage.  I shut down.  I tried not to care. I couldn’t tease myself with excitement.  I couldn’t handle a second broken heart.  If it wasn’t my fault that I lost the first one, I couldn’t do anything to prevent it from happening again.  I was helpless.  I could only wait and hope that my body would not fail this second life.  I held my breath and couldn’t dare to step into celebration or expectation.  

But at Christmas, we made it through the first trimester.  Then the second.  And then she came, perfect.  This child, this little girl, was given a name.  Lily Grace. I love her with every fiber of my being.

It is strange to think that if Baby Blue had not left us on that cruise ship, Lily would not be here.  I love her with all of my heart.  I also love my other child.  Grieving a miscarriage is difficult.  Figuring out pregnancy after miscarriage is also agonizing.  

I remember coming home from the cruise and seeing the September sunflowers lining the Kansas roads.  Kansas is beautiful in the fall.  In my pain, the sunflowers whispered messages of strange joy.  I simultaneously hated and loved the Kansas sunflowers. This fall, Lily was three months old when the sunflowers bloomed again.  Once again, they spoke, reminding me of my Baby Blue and celebrating my sweet Lily Grace.