"Big Stuff", continued

At last!

Okay, so remember this post? Back when we first found out we were pregnant? Well, as some of you may have suspected (or already known), the “Big Stuff” I mentioned in my previous post has quite a bit to do with our “Big News”.

There’s not really any good way to say this, but we had a miscarriage. These past few months – ever since mid-August, when we found out that our baby wasn’t going to make it – were incredibly hard. Strangely, they were not as hard as I imagined, and the sadness was not all-consuming. There were good days and bad days, but the grace we experienced through our church and through various things that happened (which I have no doubt were orchestrated by God) made the pain so much more bearable. And through all that time life went on – there were times when I laughed with Brian, and times when we just sat together, just being.

On September 8, in my 22nd week of pregnancy, I went in for induction, and on September 9, at almost 2 a.m., I delivered our daughter, Sarah Grace Marie. She was stillborn. The hospital staff were incredible – they gave us a room in an especially quiet wing of the maternity ward so we could have plenty of privacy, and supported us in every way imaginable (and in many ways that I could not have imagined). They took pictures of our beautiful baby, made casts of her tiny hands and feet, dressed her in clothing sewed and donated by volunteers, and gave us all the time we needed to say our goodbyes before going home.

That was the hardest part. Before this, I had never really experienced the loss of a loved one. All of my family are still living – even my grandparents on both sides. And the loss of our child? That was so very incredibly hard. Saying goodbye to her tiny sweet-smelling body, with which we had spent so little time, was unbelievably hard. Words cannot describe how wrenching it was to say goodbye to her.

We did get to have a funeral for her. She was buried, along with another stillborn baby, on a hill which has a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountain foothills. We had a little service, with our priest, my Nouna (Godmother), and the Godmother we chose for Sarah Grace. On October 29th, we had a larger memorial service for her – a chance not only for us to remember her, but also for our families and friends to get a chance to grieve for her.

Although our daughter never breathed the air of this world, or reached out her fingers to touch another person, I know she has still deeply affected many lives. We are continuing with our lives.

There are still bad days, when someone says something thoughtless, but most days are good (or at least not bad). If I think deeply on certain aspects of our experience with her, I become sad, but mostly she is a sweet memory – like the inexplicably sweet fragrance that she carried on her body.