Pregnancy Loss Resource: Grieving Together

Hello dear readers! It's been a while since I published a post and even longer since I posted regularly, but since this blog does get regular hits from women (and probably men) looking for miscarriage resources and support and companionship, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share - and giveaway! - an incredible new miscarriage resource. I received a free copy of the book to review, but my admiration is 100% authentic.

In the five years since my first miscarriage, I've often thought of the books I wish had been written about miscarriage. I've really yearned for miscarriage books specifically from the Catholic perspective and there aren't many out there. I've wished for books about pregnancy after loss, ones specifically about recurrent miscarriage, and books that connected the Saints and their wisdom to pregnancy loss. However, one of the books I never thought about that (I didn't realize) I needed was one written by a married couple: Grieving Together: A Couple's Journey through Miscarriage.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of this book is not that it discusses marriage (though that too is novel), but that it includes a male author, a father's voice. Men are usually completely left out of the topic of miscarriage all together, something I quickly realized after my first loss. Written by Laura Kelly Fanucci and Franco David Fanucci, a couple who experienced infertility, miscarriage, and infant death together, Grieving Together finally addresses this deficit (and so much more).

One of the things I appreciate most about this book is that, though less than 200 pages, it covers a wide range of aspects of miscarriage, including not only grieving as a couple, but also the answers to many of the practical and spiritual questions about loss, for example: What is physical recovery like? What can you do to support a friend who lost a baby? Are miscarried babies in heaven? And it also has an excellent section on pregnancy after loss, satisfying my desire for a book on that topic.

I can't recommend this book enough for any Catholic couple who has lost a baby to miscarriage (and much of the book is relevant to any Christian couple). I could go on and on about the merits of this book, but I'll just leave you with this final praise, the email message I sent to author Laura Fanucci while reading my copy: "Laura, thank you so much for this book. It’s been almost 4 years and two healthy pregnancies and babies since my last (my fourth) miscarriage but for some reason the past month has been really hard. This been has helped heal some of the hurt I didn’t realize was still there. On two occasions, I’ve also come to bed to see my husband had snagged my copy off my nightstand and was reading it."

Grieving Together was released earlier this month and is available from Our Sunday Visitor and Amazon. You can also read more from Laura Fanucci at her lovely blog, Mothering Spirit. Excerpts of the book have also been turned into a free e-book, "How To Support Parents Who Have Lost a Child", a wonderful resource in itself.

If you would like to win this book for yourself or to give to a friend who has experienced miscarriage, please comment below with why you would want to win this book/what you are most interested in reading about in it. Please make sure to include an email address so I can contact you if you win. A winner will be randomly chosen on Dec. 6 (the Feast of St. Nicholas) so I can ship it to you in time for Christmas, since the holidays can be a particularly difficult time after losing a baby (even years later, Christmas is difficult for me without all my children here). God bless you and good luck!

The Child Lives: Wisdom from Mother Angelica (and some beautiful free printables)

When searching the internet for Catholic prayers and advice following a miscarriage, it's no mistake that one of the first things most people come across is this beautiful piece:

My Lord, the baby is dead! 

Why, my Lord—dare I ask why? It will not hear the whisper of the wind or see the beauty of its parents’ face—it will not see the beauty of Your creation or the flame of a sunrise. Why, my Lord? 

“Why, My child—do you ask ‘why’? Well, I will tell you why. You see, the child lives. Instead of the wind he hears the sound of angels singing before My throne. Instead of the beauty that passes he sees everlasting Beauty—he sees My face. He was created and lived a short time so the image of his parents imprinted on his face may stand before Me as their personal intercessor. He knows secrets of heaven unknown to men on earth. He laughs with a special joy that only the innocent possess. My ways are not the ways of man. I create for My Kingdom and each creature fills a place in that Kingdom that could not be filled by another. He was created for My joy and his parents’ merits. He has never seen pain or sin. He has never felt hunger or pain. I breathed a soul into a seed, made it grow and called it forth.” 

I am humbled before you, my Lord, for questioning Your wisdom, goodness, and love. I speak as a fool—forgive me. I acknowledge Your sovereign rights over life and death. I thank You for the life that began for so short a time to enjoy so long an Eternity. 

-- Mother M. Angelica

What beauty and truth that short piece contains! What consolation! What wisdom!

My generous and talented friend, Kendra Tierney (blogger at Catholic All Year) made a few printables from this lovely prayer and offered them to me to share with my readers. They would make a lovely image of remembrance in your home or a gift for a friend after a loss. I received a beautiful framed print of Jeremiah 1:5 ("Before I formed you in the womb...) from a friend following my second loss and it is a very cherished piece to me.

These printables are free for you to save and print. To download the high resolution image to your computer, click on it to bring it up in a new window, then right click on it to save it to your computer. You can then print them yourself or upload them to a print shop or website to have them printed in more professional quality. As with all the beautiful printables that Kendra offers, they are only for personal use or to give as gifts. If you use them on your own blog, please link back to this blog post or Kendra's blog, Catholic All Year. Kendra also offers customized printables of the prayer, quote, poem, etc. of your choice for only $10 so if you have another prayer, quote (or perhaps maybe the names of the child(ren) you lost) you'd like to hang in remembrance of your child, she's your gal. Click here to purchase your own commissioned printable.

Thank you so much, Kendra, for your generosity in sharing these beautiful images.

Small Catholic Family

The other day while searching "small Catholic family" in hopes of finding some encouragement or advice about raising a small Catholic family, I came across The Catholic Family Handbook, written by Rev. George A. Kelly in 1959. The entire text is available online for free here. (I haven't read it in its entirety so I can't vouch for its content.)

Here were a few snippets from the book that brought me some comfort so I thought I'd share in case they brought comfort to others too:

"Although the first purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, Catholic couples will not necessarily have offspring. There may be many reasons why they cannot have babies or why they are limited to one or two. Some wives have difficulty in carrying a fetus to full term and have many miscarriages. Sometimes the husband or wife may be sterile-- unable to do his or her part in conceiving a new life. There may be mental, eugenical, economic or social reasons which make it justifiable to practice the rhythm method. The fact that a Catholic couple has no children, therefore, is no reason for concluding that they are guilty of any moral lapse."

__________

"Considerations for parents of small families. If you have but one or two children, you should try to create for them opportunities such as exist in larger families to develop their characters. In particular, you should discourage selfish tendencies--a natural hazard in the small family. Since you can concentrate all your attention upon your child, you may tend to worry about him to a greater extent and to bow to his whims more often than do parents of a large family. There is a natural danger, therefore, that he will become accustomed to having his own way and will not recognize that others have desires which should be accommodated too. 

In training an only child, it may help you to remember that self-denial is the virtue from which other virtues spring. You should therefore strongly resist the tendency to do everything for him and not permit him to want for anything. So that he may learn to get along with others, encourage him to cultivate friends. Invite them to your home where he will be the host and thus must exert himself to please them. 

Finally, give him the freedom to develop in his own way. You must control the impulse to worry unduly about every ailment, to stand guard over him at play, to check up constantly on his teachers to make sure that they are doing their job right. Such actions would betray a tendency to interfere abnormally in your child's affairs. Unless you avoid them you may find yourself ultimately trying to dictate where he should work and whom he should marry, and you will make it difficult for him ever to make decisions for himself."

It was incredibly affirming to me to see these included in a Catholic book for families...from 1959! I would love to see more resources for Catholic parents of small families - both in terms of spiritual encouragement and practical advice. Maybe there are resources like that out there already and I just don't know about them yet? 

a small faithful family indeed

NFP Has No Place in Paradise

It's Natural Family Planning Awareness Week and I didn't really think I'd have much to add to the conversation. The Catholic blogging world is already saturated with posts about NFP this week and I've read many, many wonderful posts on every angle of the topic in the past. My experiences are unique (aren't ours all?) but not necessarily anything completely new or different. But to do my part, I wrote this post on Facebook yesterday to share my perspective and as I was writing it, for the first in my life it occurred to me exactly why NFP is so difficult - because it was never part of God's original plan.

You see, in the perfect world God intended - the world without sin or suffering - NFP doesn't have a place. The situations that make postponing a pregnancy necessary - physical and mental health issues, financial concerns, marital problems, lack of support system, etc. - they wouldn't exist. And fertility problems that require couples use NFP to become pregnant, they wouldn't exist either. There simply would be no need for Natural Family Planning. It's not the default for human beings as God designed us. But it's there because we live in a flawed world; not the natural order of things but a gift given to us by God to help us cope with our imperfect situations in an imperfect existence.

Many people need NFP for one reason or another, and I am incredibly grateful that it exists for those situations. For most of our marriage, we've used NFP. When we got pregnant with Lucia in 2011, my husband and I had hoped we'd never use NFP again. We looked forward to the idea of our family planned completely on God's timing, of never looking at a chart again, of being genuinely surprised (but not too surprised) by a new pregnancy. But then we went through a period of unemployment. Followed by miscarriage after miscarriage. And then my current bout of prenatal depression and anxiety (yes, it's back). And it seems that for the rest of our childbearing years we'll always have one reason or another to use NFP to either avoid pregnancy or help us decrease chances of future miscarriage. That's a tough pill to swallow.

Yes, the day to day practice of NFP can be difficult. But the emotional strain is even harder because it reminds us of the brokenness of our world (and my body). My chart is a symbol of how far we are from Eden. For all that people talk about how wonderful NFP is for marriage and communication and knowing your body and (fill in the blank), the truth is that if all were as it should be, we simply wouldn't need it.

NFP strikes me as similar to a cancer treatment, let's say chemotherapy. Of course, it's not poisonous or painful like chemotherapy (NFP is green! And completely natural! No physical side effects!), but bear with me. The only reason chemotherapy exists is to combat cancer. Those who have cancer (and their loved ones) are grateful it gives them the opportunity to fight the cancer, but they'd rather they didn't need it in the first place. My family has had several extra years (and hopefully many more) with my 84 year old grandfather because of two rounds of chemotherapy. But the chemo itself took its toll on him and is a reminder of the brokenness of his body, the unnaturalness of the cancer that necessitated it in the first place. I wish there was no chemo because I wish there was no cancer. Actually, I suppose that's how we feel about most medication. I'm grateful to God for well-trained doctors and medical researchers who allow us to combat the illnesses of the mind and body, but I'm still sad and bitter that we even have illnesses we have to treat.

So too with NFP. It's not a good in and of itself, but the best response we have to the evil in our world. I wish we didn't need it. I wish we lived in a perfect world where the circumstances were always perfect for more children to be welcomed and everyone had normal, healthy, functioning fertility. Since there is a need for NFP, I'm grateful it's there. But even if I appreciate it, I don't have to like it. It’s ok if it doesn’t feel natural and beautiful and effortless, because it’s simply not how it was meant to be. 

Fool me once...

We all know how the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I feel like there is a similar unspoken saying for miscarriage: "Miscarry once, what a shame! Miscarry twice, what bad luck! Miscarry three or more times, it's all your fault!"

In my own experience and from what I've heard from other women, it seems that at some magic number, others stop caring about your losses. The sympathy ends and is instead replaced by blame.

Well, you've miscarried X times before, you knew this might happen again.

Don't expect sympathy from me. If you didn't want to go through a miscarriage again, you shouldn't have gotten pregnant.

Maybe God's trying to tell you something. 

I think, in part, some of this is due to misconceptions about miscarriage. A recent study found that a large majority of Americans believe myths about miscarriage, myths that often put the blame on the women who go through this instead of understanding the medical truths behind loss. Though there weren't any questions asked about this, I suspect that most Americans would also overestimate the risks of  miscarriage in subsequent pregnancies. The truth is that even for women who have had four or more consecutive miscarriages, they have a 50-70% chance (depending on the study) of carrying the next pregnancy to term without medical intervention. For someone who has had medical treatment, the chances of having the next pregnancy result in a healthy, full term pregnancy is even higher. Unless you know you have one of a few specific conditions, doctors would advise you to keep trying.

But even if you know you have a high chance of miscarrying again and purposely conceive, a miscarriage is still not your fault. It's still the loss of a child and a tragedy. And a woman deserves just as much support and compassion at losing her fourth or her ninth or her fifteenth child as she does for her first. The value of human life does not decrease as the likelihood for loss increases.

Each of my six children is a unique human being. Unique genes, unique soul. Each one has his or her own preferences, personality, and appearance. I mourn the four we lost not as lost potentials, but as unique individuals. Though I bonded most with our second baby, the first child we lost, each child leaves her own hole in my heart that cannot be filled by anyone else. This baby we are currently expecting is a wonderful blessing but not a replacement for the children we've lost.

We're coming up on two due dates - one next week and one next month - and even being pregnant with another child, I still keenly feel the loss of those two babies that would have been born around this time. It still hurts to look down at my stomach and see a small 20 week bump instead of a 39 week monstrosity or a still-very-large-and-daunting 35 week one. I still cry often because I miss those little ones. The world didn't grieve them with me. In fact, many people think it would have been better off if they had never even been conceived. What did their short lives do but break my heart? And yet, I'm so grateful that my husband and I had the courage to conceive them. I am so glad that they exist. With each one of my six children, I cooperated with God in His plan of creation and I have to believe that all of their souls, not just those of my living children, are needed, necessary.

To Bury the Dead

A couple weeks ago was the year anniversary of our baby Francis Michael's due date. I mentioned that our tradition for his due date and loss date is to go to the cemetery to visit his grave and then to the beach, and I shared a few pictures from the due date last year. We weren't able to do it that weekend due to poor weather, but last Saturday, we made the trip. 

Visiting the cemetery was really hard. I, very unexpectedly, burst into tears the moment David turned our car into the cemetery. Lucia had to go to the bathroom almost immediately and there are no facilities on the grounds open on the weekends, so we had to leave pretty quickly to find a gas station.  And then, of course, was the fact that this wasn't just a regular trip but also a goodbye. We move away next week and have no idea when or if we'll ever be able to visit our baby's grave again.

An afternoon at the beach provides a beautiful counterbalance to our morning at the cemetery. It's easy to get caught up in the sorrow of our lost babies at times like that, so doing something as our earthly family of three is a perfect reminder that while we'll always feel the absence of those four little souls, the life we've been given is pretty great too. We have so much to be thankful for and there is so much joy in our family just the way it is, it's hard to miss those truths during a sun-filled day at the beach.
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After our day, I was reflecting a bit on how much we're going to miss this little tradition and how blessed we've felt to have been able to bury our baby. Francis is our only child with a grave because he was the only one for whom we had an actual body; two of our others showed only empty sacs on their ultrasounds, meaning they never developed a body or their bodies were reabsorbed into the gestational sac very early; the other was a very early loss and I never noticed the baby passing. Some couples do bury whatever tissue and remains they have, even if it were just and empty sac, but after the stress we underwent trying to arrange a final resting place for Francis, we were at peace not burying those little ones.

Many Catholic diocese have programs in place that bury miscarried children for free. Usually, it's a large grave for all miscarried babies with some kind of statue or memorial, and there are group services several times a year. I've also heard of cemeteries that provide plots for free and funeral homes that will perform their services for free. There are no such programs or places in our area. After our first miscarriage, we had the remains of our baby in a little plastic container in our refrigerator for days as we tried to figure out how to bury him with dignity.

I contacted our diocese, pro-life organizations, and every possible group I thought could help and received the same response over and over again, "Sorry for your loss, but we can't help you." There was no one who could offer me any advice. I called every funeral home and cemetery in our area, but none could offer me even a tiny discount. We were told we had to pay full price for a child plot and full price for an infant casket, which would have been around $1,000 total. It was money we didn't have at the time, especially since we were facing medical bills for the miscarriage related costs. It was a stressful time for us. The only things we could do to care for our baby were name him and bury him and the longer our baby sat unburied, the heavier it weighted on our hearts.

Thankfully, we were able to get a hold of our wonderful pastor who took care of everything for us. He already had plans to take another father to the closest Catholic cemetery (about an hour away) to bury his miscarried child and invited David along with him. He was friends with the pastor of the cemetery parish and was able to arrange for our child to be buried for free. We only had to pay $50 for the grave marker. He drove David and the other father to the cemetery and had a little service while they buried the babies.

We were lucky. Our pastor does not have the ability to make arrangements like this for every family. Had he not been friends with that parish's pastor or had he not already had the outing arranged with another family, we would have most likely have ended up needing to just purchase a plot and coffin. (I had previously called that same cemetery and they said they would charge us full price - $450 - for a child plot and we had to have a several hundred dollar full-sized infant coffin.) Unfortunately, most families in our area have no resources to help them bury their babies. There are some organizations I'm aware of that help bury stillborn babies (lost after 20 weeks gestation) but none that I'm aware of that help miscarried babies. If you know of any, please let me know.

In all the articles and blog posts that I've read about how to help a couple after a miscarriage, I don't think I've ever seen the suggestion to help the couple bury their child but in some situations, this is a real need. Not every family is able to bury their miscarried babies for various reasons. Often, there are no remains or they are not given access to the remains after a D&C, etc. But some parents do have the remains and want to bury their babies but are unable to because they lack the funds or need help arranging it. It can be an extremely difficult time emotionally after a miscarriage which would only add to the stress and confusion of planning a burial.

As Christians, we are urged to "bury the dead" as one of the corporal work of mercy. If you know someone who has lost a baby and has the child's remains, you can offer to:

• Help them to arrange a burial (and service or funeral if wanted). Make phone calls. Sit with them as they make decisions.
• Give financial support if you can. Sometimes even if the family can pay for a plot or receives one for free, they may not be able to afford a grave marker, so the grave sits unmarked for years.
• Share any knowledge you have of the process. Even if you've never lost a baby, if you've lost another family member and had to arrange burial, your experiences could be very helpful.  
• Share contact information to local organizations that can help. If you are so called, perhaps you could start some kind of organization within your community or church that helps families with the arrangements.

If you've buried am unborn child, what were your experiences? Do you know if there are local organizations or resources in your area? Or any national ones? How did others help you with the process or how do you wish they would have helped?

(Un)deserving

Things have been going well for us recently. I'm 15 weeks pregnant and all seems healthy and normal. We're moving back near family. David was offered a job that is perfect for his background and future career development AND will give the the ability to stay at home with my children. I feel greatly blessed and, honestly, completely unworthy.

We've been married almost five years and much of our marriage has been spent struggling with one thing or another - several out-of-state moves, unemployment and financial worries, multiple miscarriages, etc. But I've never felt that we deserved for things to be better. Life is hard. There are no guarantees. And things always could have been worse. I had a wonderful husband and beautiful daughter and even when times were hard and we needed help, we always had a place to live and food to eat. Now that things are looking up, I feel very undeserving. Why should we be given so many blessings when there are so many others still waiting for a baby or a job or a spouse? Even though we've gone through medical treatments to fix my health issues so we could have a viable pregnancy and David has worked hard (and spent many years in school) so that he could get a good job, these things still feel like such unmerited blessings.

I recently read a post on "being the fertile friend". I definitely wouldn't consider myself the "fertile friend", but I'm not infertile either. And the pit in the stomach feeling when I think of all my friends that have been waiting for babies longer than me - I can totally relate to that. Even though I've had my share of fertility struggles, there is always someone who is suffering more, who has had more miscarriages, who has no children. I never think, "I deserve this baby after what I've gone through." I always think, "There are other women so much more deserving." Because there are.

Many pregnancy after loss websites and resources list pregnancy affirmations to help women cope with anxiety during a pregnancy after loss. I've found a few affirmations that have been very helpful to me (this is my favorite) but there are several I've come across that leave a bad taste in my mouth. They are along the lines of "I deserve a healthy baby and pregnancy," or "I deserve the best life has to offer".

In our society, we often invest heavily in the ideas of "fairness" or "entitlement" or "output matching input"  but it's obvious that nothing in this world follows those ideals. A college graduate may deserve a good career, but there are many who struggle at dead-end jobs below a living wage. Someone who has always made healthful life choices may deserve good health, but we all know a person like that struggling with cancer or another debilitating illness. Stable, loving couples struggle with infertility while abusive parents have more children they don't want and won't care for.

As a Christian, I don't believe that anything is owed to me, especially not a child. A baby is always a gift, a completely undeserved gift. And Christianity is not based on rewards for good behavior or results equal to effort. Thank goodness for that because nothing I do could ever be worthy of Christ's sacrifice for my sins. Christianity is not a promise of comfort or ease. It's not safe or easy. It's full of crosses and suffering, disappointments and pain. But also total undeserved grace, blessings, and gifts.

I can't explain why right now my family is being showered in blessings when others are crushed under the weight of ever-increasing suffering, other than to say that we live in a world in which sin twists God's original design and nothing makes sense because nothing is as it should be. I'm mindful even in the midst of the goodness that currently surrounds us that all in this world is temporary, blessings just as much as sufferings. And I pray often for those who are waiting for their blessings because I know that it was the prayers of others that carried us through our toughest times.

At the heart of all of the blessings and sufferings of this world, there is a light, a hope of the world to come. All else changes, all else is fleeting, but the light is constant. In good times, it's sometimes harder to keep my eyes on that light. The worldly goodness around us makes the light of Christ less noticeable, like the beam of a flashlight at midday. In the darkness of suffering and pain, that light stands in stark contrast - a beacon in the starless night. And so, there is a piece of me that is scared. Scared that the goodness of this world will detract me from my desire for God. Scared that I'll take these blessings for granted. Scared that I'll be lulled into complacency. Scared that someday I'll look at my life and feel deserving of the goodness in it, entitled to more. Oh, that is a scary thing indeed.

The Other Side of Life

This beautiful guest post by my friend Molly was originally posted on my old blog in December 2013. A perfect fit for the focus of this new blog, I thought it was time to give it another look.

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This year has been rough.  Since April of 2013 I have been pregnant twice.  I have gone through almost two complete first trimesters even though neither of my children ever developed far enough to have a body.  I have gone through a prolonged miscarriage that ended in an urgent D&E that shook me to the core and a natural miscarriage that is my new rock to stand on.

I’m not writing today to tell you about those experiences, the events or emotions that have led me through this year.  Right now, as I impatiently wait for my HcG to finally disappear from my natural MC only a few weeks ago, I want to tell you about the flip-side.

I’m a Catholic convert, and yes part of that process has been developing and making peace with what is often called married couples “openness to life”.  I’ve learned charting and more about my bodies signs, symptoms and patterns than I ever knew existed.  My husband and I try our best to approach our family life in a way that makes sense in combination with our religious teachings.

When you talk about a Catholic being “open to life” the first image folks normally see is a large family; a never-ending stream of close in age children.  When people first start approaching Catholic teaching on the subject of their fertility and family planning that is all we see.  We come to grips, or not, with the idea that being “open to life” means that we’re going to be the clown car family of constant pregnancy and birth.  After all, all good Catholic families are large. 

Right?

In many cases, yes; I definitely have my share of friends with five or more children and in some cases the oldest isn’t even ready for first grade.  But, there’s a side that’s not as well considered in the “open to life” discussion.  We work hard to teach our new couples to budget, work hard, and live thrifty lives to support those broods that might be just around the corner and all the time we forget that for every light there is a dark.

The birth of my son almost three years ago opened my eyes to what it means to be open to life.  It radically changed my outlook on how I considered my children and the things that might get in their way of a normal life and development.  It wasn’t long after he was born that I told my husband point blank that every child I conceive will be given the best chance we can make at being held and told “I love you”, no matter how long that time lasts.  I felt like I understood what it meant to be “Open to Life”.

The deaths of my two children this year showed me otherwise.  As I sat in my bedroom recovering from my natural loss a few weeks ago I realized this.  Being “Open to Life” isn’t just about learning to chart, discerning good times and learning to anticipate and sacrifice for a baby boom. 

It’s a willingness to be disappointed.

It’s a willingness to wait to get excited.

It’s a willingness to say goodbye.

It’s a willingness to be scared and frustrated and mad and every emotion other than joy and happiness.

It’s a willingness to accept what you’ve been given even if it’s not what you want.

I do not know what the future holds for my family.  There’s a chance that three is our perfect number, and there’s a chance that the third time will be a charm.  I’m nervous and I’m uncertain, but I know so much more of this call to Life.  Because it is not just a call to Life; it is a call to Life, Loss and everything in between. 

The past year was the “Year of Faith” in our church and I’ve reflected, often bitterly, about the irony of it being a “Year of Faith” during the year that has really tested mine.  But, I’ve learned and I’ve grown.  My faith has been tested and my faith is stronger.  Being open to life encompasses it all – life, love, loss, joy and tears – but the other side of Life is not death. 

In the words of St. Teresa of Avila –

“To have courage for whatever comes in life – everything lies in that.”

The other side of Life is Faith, and everything lies in that.

Molly W is a Catholic wife and {working} mother to one amazing preschooler and three souls in heaven.  She loves book-lists, backyards, and the BBC, but not necessarily in that order  She writes at Molly Makes Do about bringing a love of Learning, a love of Life, and a love of Faith into her home.

Being a "Mother Lite"; or Proving Yourself as a Mother of One

As this pregnancy continues on and the likelihood that I'll be able to hold a living child in my arms later this year increases, I've noticed an odd sense of relief. Not that my child might live - no, that relief is not odd at all - but relief that I might finally be considered a "real mother".

That's a strange phrase, I know. By "real mother" I don't mean biological mother. (I think adoptive mothers are just as "real" as biological mothers.) And you're really either a mother or you're not, right? I have a daughter, so I am certainly a mother. But that's not how other people always see me. As the mother of one, I'm often regarded by other mothers as more of a fluke than a "real mother", somehow a little less than or maybe a "mother lite". It's as if the real test of motherhood is the ability to juggle the responsibilities of multiple children and not in fact the ability to mother the child(ren) you do have.

No one looks to a mother of one as a parenting expert. No one asks a mother of one for advice. No matter how well a child turns out, it can always just be attributed to "luck", the child's particular temperament and personality, or even to the environment in which the child was born, but certainly not that child's mother. There is always this elephant in the room: "But what if she had to deal with a truly difficult child?" or "I'm sure Junior would have turned out well no matter what she did."

Of course, nature plays a role in how children develop. We all know that person who excelled despite a terrible home environment or child who turned to a life of crime despite wonderful parents. But nurture surely has a say too. Unless you're the mother of an only child. In that case, your nurturing played no role. No matter how much time you spend agonizing over parenting decisions and loving and caring for your child, you really just don't have that much effect. Because you're the mother of one and you are and always will be inexperienced, bumbling through motherhood without the opportunity to practice your mothering skills on more little souls.

I'm exaggerating a bit, obviously. Certainly not everyone treats me this way, but I regularly receive comments that allude to this sort of thinking and on several occasions have been told point blank that my experience or input doesn't matter because I'm only the mom of one. I don't want to be seen as a parenting expert or be sought out for advice, but I want to be taken seriously in conversations about parenting and children (and let's face it, pretty much every get together with other moms is dominated by these conversations). I don't want to have to fight to be acknowledged as a "real mother" and I want the real, hard efforts I make as a mom to be recognized. I'm tired of having to always justify something that I have no control over. I didn't ask to be the mother of only one.

Yes, in many ways being a mom of one is easier than being a mom of many (or even just two). But thank goodness for that because it's nice to have a little bit of consolation while I'm dealing with the difficulties of recurrent loss and secondary infertility. I'll be the first to admit that there are benefits to an only child, yet I shouldn't be made to feel guilty that I enjoy those benefits. There are also some ways in which having an only child is harder, and I'm tired of having to pretend those don't exist or else be told that they don't.

So here I am, most likely about to end my time as a mother of "only one". I will no longer have to deal with this. But so many others will. And I wish there were an answer, a way of making all mothers feel like valuable, capable, "real" mothers. I don't know what that answer is, but I want every mother of one to know that you are a mother in every sense of the word. Having another child would change many things about the way you parent, but it would not make you any more a mother. The love you have for a child and the sacrifices you make matter just as much as the love and sacrifices of a mother of many. Your life is different, but it is not less valuable. Your motherhood is whole, even if your hands are not full.

After all, the mother of our Savior was the mother of "only" One, yet her Son thought her mothering spirit and experience was sufficient to give her as a mother to us all.

Siblings & St. Therese

Last week, I shared a quote from St. Therese's mother, Bl. Zelie Martin, about baby loss, but she's not the only member of the Martin family that has wisdom to share with a mother whose lost a child.  Last year, while reading the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, I came across a particular passage that really touched me as a mother of a living child and several children lost in the womb.  She wrote:

After Marie entered the Carmel, and I no longer had her to listen to my scruples, I turned towards Heaven and confided them to the four little angels who had already gone before me, for I thought that these innocent souls, who had never known sorrow or fear, ought to have pity on their poor little suffering sister. I talked to them with childish simplicity, telling them that, as I was the youngest of the family, I had always been the most petted and loved by my parents and sisters; that if they had remained on earth they would no doubt have given me the same proofs of their affection.  The fact that they had gone to Heaven seemed no reason why they should forget me--on the contrary, as they were able to draw from the treasury of Heaven, they ought to obtain for me the grace of peace, and prove that they still knew how to love me. 

The answer was not long in coming; soon my soul was flooded with the sweetest peace. I knew that I was loved, not only on earth but also in Heaven.  From that time my devotion for these little brothers and sisters increased; I loved to talk to them and tell them of all the sorrows of this exile, and of my wish to join them soon in our Eternal Home.

St. Therese's siblings did not die during pregnancy, but they did die in infancy/early childhood.  Therese, being the youngest of the family, never knew these older siblings and yet she knew of them and was able to form a relationship with them.  From a young age, she loved them.  She felt their love for her.  They continued to be a part of her life. 

I struggled quite a bit with how to talk about our babies with Lucia after our first two losses.  We told her that I was pregnant as soon as I found out and we told her afterward that the babies had gone to heaven, but she was still so young at the time that she soon forgot about them.  She had no understanding of death or heaven or even of siblings.  It wasn't until after our last loss that we started to talk about our babies with her in a more regular way.  I try to always pray a litany of Saints at the end of our evening prayers and include the patron Saints of all our family members, including those babies we lost. When she gets upset because she doesn't have siblings, I remind her that she is a big sister to four babies in heaven.

Lucia talks about her siblings often, saying things like, "I'm a big sister. I have four babies in heaven. They are going to be so excited to hug their big sister when I get to heaven." It's endearing and I think so spiritually healthy for her to look forward to heaven with her siblings.  Now that I'm expecting again, she tells everyone, "My mommy has a baby in her tummy!" That's often closely followed by, "And we have four babies in heaven." This sometimes is the cause of a little discomfort to strangers or acquaintances that aren't familiar with our losses, but I don't ever want to discourage her from talking about her siblings. Sometimes there is a sad element that comes with the knowledge of her siblings. She often says that she wants the baby to stay in my tummy and not go to heaven like the other babies. So together, we pray for this baby.

I want Lucia to have a relationship with her siblings like St. Therese had with hers, based on love and faith, and though I don't always know the right words to guide that relationship, I trust the Holy Spirit to make up for my failings. And I think we're headed in the right direction.

You can download a free copy of The Story of a Soul for Kindle here.  (You do not need a Kindle to do so, you can download the free Kindle Reading App to your computer, phone, or tablet.)

Comfort for the Grieving Mother from Another Place and Time

I am deeply saddened by the sorrow which has just come to you; it is indeed a real trial for you...May Our Lord grant you resignation to His holy Will!  Your dear little child is with God; he is looking down on you and loving you; and one day, you will possess him again.  This is a great consolation that I have experienced myself, and which I still feel. 

When I had to close the eyes of my dear children and bury them, I felt deep sorrow, but I was always resigned to it.  I did not regret the pains and the sorrows which I had endured for them.  Many persons said to me: "It would have been better for you if you had never had them."  I could not bear that kind of talk.  I do not think that the sorrows and the troubles endured could possibly be compared with the eternal happiness of my children with God.  Besides, they are not lost to me forever; life is short and filled with crosses, and we shall find them again in Heaven.

France, 1870.  From a letter written by Bl. Zelie Martin, mother of St. Therese of Lisieux, to comfort her sister-in-law after she experienced the loss of a child at birth.  Bl. Zelie Martin, and her husband Bl. Louis Martin, lost three children in the first year of life and another at age five.   

I've been working on slowly moving some of my miscarriage posts from my old blog, Messy Wife, Blessed Wife, and this is one of my favorites. This quote was found in (affiliate link) The Mother of the Little Flower: Zelie Martin (1831-1877), a book I can't recommend enough for any mother. With the upcoming canonization of Bl. Zelie Martin, I'm hoping that more resources about the life of this amazing mother will become available. As well as being a natural advocate for mothers who have lost children, she ran her own business, was unable to breastfeed her babies, and had a few very difficult children (St. Therese among them) so she seems like the perfect patron for working mothers, breastfeeding issues, and parents of strong-willed children. Bl. Zelie Martin, pray for us!

Naming a Miscarried Baby

It's a fairly common practice for parents to name the children they've lost to miscarriage. It's certainly a matter of personal preference (please do not feel that you aren't properly honoring your child or grieving appropriately if you decide not to name your child) but for many parents, it helps them connect with and find closure after the loss of their child. In many families, especially the Catholic families I'm familiar with, miscarried children are talked about often, prayed for (and to, since we have reason to believe that they are in heaven and therefore can watch out and pray for us), and it's easier to do these things if the children have names. I previously wrote about how we chose a name for our daughter and for the first two children we lost and I've decided to share an update of that post with the names of the last two children I miscarried.

I've always been a bit of a name junky (I'm currently addicted to the Catholic naming blog Sancta Nomina) so the process of choosing our children's names is one that is done with a lot of thought, prayer, and love. It meant so much to me that even though we lost four of our children so very young and will never get to experience the typical parenting moments with them as we will with our living child, I was still able to give them their names. It is one of the only ways that I've been able to truly mother those babies.

Lucia Rose, born December 2011

Since we didn't find out whether Lucia was a boy or girl, we had to have two names at the ready.  The boy's name was picked out before we were even pregnant (and in some ways before I even met my husband).  The girl's name was much harder to nail down since it seemed David and I had opposite taste in names.  (We have since resolved our differences and have 3-4 girls names already picked out, in order, for future daughters.) My main choice for name inspiration was a book of women Saints that I owned.  I would thumb through the pages looking for names that I liked and only read the corresponding story if I felt the name was "in the running".  There were several names that were clearly not going to happen, like Hedwig and Hildegarde, but anything I half liked I ran by David and 99% he turned down on the spot.  Very early on, two front runners emerged: Alena and Lucia.  Alena was actually the favorite for quite some time and I can't remember why we decided on Lucia instead, but we did so somewhere between 20 and 30 weeks.  Lucia's name is equally in honor of St. Lucy and Sr. Lucia of Fatima as my husband has a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima.  Her middle name, Rose, was decided from the very beginning.  It is my middle name and a dear aunt's middle name in honor of my great grandmother, Rosa. 

Francis Michael, miscarried October 2013

After my miscarriage in October 2013, several people urged us to name the baby.  It took a week or so before we felt comfortable with doing so.  Naming a miscarried child seemed so different than naming a living one.  We had names picked out for our next child before this one was even conceived, but it didn't feel right to use either one of them.  I know many parents feel comfortable giving the child a gender specific name based on their gut instincts, but I didn't have any feelings about the baby's gender and was wrong with my gut instinct that Lucia was a boy, so we decided to choose a gender neutral name.  Searching "gender neutral Saint names" doesn't come up with many results, but I immediately found one that I loved: Francis.  Although more commonly associated with boys, Frances is a common enough girl's name and St. Frances Cabrini is one of my favorite Saints.  The biggest decision we had to make was which spelling to use.  While researching the name, I found a source that said that until the last few centuries, both spellings were used interchangeably for boys and girls, so we simply went with the one that was most aesthetically appealing to me.  We chose the middle name Michael after the Archangel.  When I think of this baby, I think of the baby being either "my Frank or Frannie" and joyfully look forward to the day when I find out which nickname fits.

Julian Gabriel, miscarried February 2014

This may sound a bit strange, but I already chosen a name for our second miscarried child before I was even pregnant with him/her.  It was a gender neutral name that would only be used for another lost baby.  Not that I necessarily expected to miscarry again (and I truly did not think I would miscarry twice in a row) but it was a name that I came across when I was looking for a name for Francis and tucked away as another favorite.  It feels a bit odd to give a child a specific name because he/she passed before birth while we would have given that same child a different name had he/she been born.  But at the same time, we feel blessed to be able to do the only thing we can do to parent this child other than conception: name him/her.  We chose the name Julian Gabriel.  Julian, while usually considered masculine, is the name of many Catholic Saints, and the female Julian of Norwich (who though not canonized is often revered as a Saint).  Gabriel, like the middle name we chose for Francis, is in honor of the Archangel.

Adrienne Rafael, miscarried October 2014
Like with Julian, I also had some ideas in mind of names to use if I miscarried again before I even knew this little one existed. I suppose after two miscarriages and one live birth, it starts to feel like a loss is more likely (statistically, it's not). Our third miscarriage was a very early "chemical pregnancy" so we weren't sure I was even pregnant until I no longer was. We debated a little bit about whether we would name the baby or whether we would even count it as a pregnancy/loss but ultimately decided that our belief that life starts at conception meant we wouldn't treat this child any different than we did the babies we lost later on. I started to feel like we were running out of blatantly Catholic, gender neutral names, but I had a short list left and Adrian was on it. Since Francis and Julian are more masculine in appearance, we decided on the feminine spelling Adrienne. Again, Rafael is for the Archangel and we chose that spelling because I love the Spanish language and prefer the pronunciation (rah-fiy-EHL) that is similar to the Spanish.

Christian Michael, miscarried December 2014
After we lost our last baby, I had a hard time coming up with any name ideas. There are some more available that fit the Saint/biblical and gender neutral categories (see below) but I couldn't seem to find one that fit for our baby. I don't know why I initially thought of Christian, but once I did, it just seemed right. Although usually a boy's name, I worked with a girl named Christian in college so it has a very gender neutral feel to me. We were short-sighted (or maybe it was just wishful thinking) when we decided to use the names of the Archangels as middle names for our miscarried babies since there are only three named Archangels. It didn't feel right to break with the tradition, so we decided to cycle back through and used Michael again.




A few of the ideas that we didn't use (yet) but might be helpful for couples searching for gender neutral Catholic names: 

Jean - in English, it's a girl's name; in French, it's the male name John
Jordan - for the Jordan River
Valentine
Alex - for Alexander or Alexandra, or you could maybe even the full name Alexis - I'm familiar with it as a girl's name, but apparently it's a boy's name too
Hilary - for the male St. Hilary, though it's more often a female name now
Karol/Carol - for St. John Paul II whose name was Karol Wojtyla
Aaron/Erin/Aeron
Andy - for Andrew or Andrea - or even the full Andrea since it is a boy's name in other cultures, like singer Andrea Bocelli
Remy
Quinn - for Ven. Edel Quinn
Noel - means "Christmas" in French
Jude
Ariel - one of names for Jerusalem, probably most well known as The Little Mermaid, it can also be a boy's name like Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon

For more ideas, see Kate's post at Sancta Nomina. If none of these names work for you, (affiliate link) The Catholic Baby Name Book may be another helpful resource. If you have any other ideas, please leave them in the comments and I'd be happy to add them to the list!

What is Good, What is Difficult

Hallie Lord wrote this piece a few days ago saying it's ok to when you have mixed feelings about pregnancy. What bravery it can take to admit within Catholic, pro-life circles that each new baby is not immediately met with joy and nothing but joy. This adds another valuable piece to the discussion on pregnancy started recently by this article discussing the importance of acknowledging the struggles of pregnancy.

Perhaps the question that most deeply reaches the root of these issues is Why are we afraid to admit that things that are the most good are often also the most difficult? It seems almost obvious that anything truly good would require sacrifice; Satan certainly does not want us to do what is good and therefore will confound our efforts in every way. Things that are bad, well, those seems to be so easy. For a reason. Don't underestimate the enemy. He is cunning. This world has been corrupted so that sin easily flourishes and those who do the will of God have an uphill battle.

I worry that some Christians hope to share the faith by portraying it as a pathway to obtaining your hearts' desires. If only you follow, Christ, they say, you will be happy! All the time! Life will be easy. Prayer and true faith will wipe away all your burdens. We have to be careful to acknowledge that while Christ is the source of joy, we are not promised earthly happiness or a lack of suffering. We have only to look at the lives of the Saints for confirmation of this. There are Saints who suffered painful diseases, the murder of spouses, the death of young children, rape, abusive marriages, and torturous deaths. If those men, women, and children, the exalted examples of faithfulness, experienced such suffering then surely Christian faith is not some magic charm that repels all bad that might befall us. I cannot imagine the Saints in their midst of their suffering would be described as "happy" in the earthly sense, but joy - oh they exuded the joy of Christ even then!

Many people ask what we need to do to attract young people to the faith. The answer is not to make faith fit effortlessly into their lives by making it easy. I drive by a church with a sign that proudly proclaims, "Like to sleep in on the weekends? We make church convenient for you!" People aren't looking for a faith that is convenient so they can go on living their lives exactly the same. They are looking for a faith that radically changes their lives and challenges them. Young people are searching for something and an easy religion that asks nothing of them doesn't fulfill that longing. They are not looking for a "safe faith". Christ said, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." A tall order, but how can we do great things of great things are not asked of us?

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe 

It is not love to only share part of the Gospel, the sanitized, safe little story of a God who loves us and wants us to be happy. We must authentically share the faith and in order to do so, we much acknowledge that with the joy of Christ also comes our individual crosses, some of them quite heavy. How much more powerful is it to share the stories of Christians who have suffered greatly, even died for their faith, but loved God so much through it all, than a story of a perfect little life in which Christianity was easy. I'm apt to believe that the early Christians flocked to the faith because they saw how powerful it was - people were ripped to shreds by lions in the arena for their Christian faith, and with a smile on their faces and songs on their lips! If they were looking for something safe and easy, Christianity would have been the last thing they would have chosen. They weren't looking for easy, but for Truth! How ineffective in comparison is a faith practiced by those who are blessed all their lives. That god seems nothing more than a genie, a wish-granter. How easy it must be to love a sweet, kind god who makes your life perfect! There's an appeal there, of course, but since all of us will experiencing some suffering in our lives, it's easy to lose a faith based on a god who grants earthly happiness to his faithful. That is a faith built on straw, with no basis in the scriptures. Instead, we must teach a faith built on rock.

In our faith, the faith built on Peter, Christ's rock, human life is greatly valued. A new pregnancy and a new child are always good. But not always easy. There is no reason for guilt in acknowledging that. In fact, by doing so, we are elevating human life even more - how valuable is a new life that we are willing to endure great hardship to bear it! Therein lies a truth that our Catholic ancestors knew quite well and embraced much better than we do today, that Christian life is demanding and that those very demands are what set us apart and demonstrate to those around us the greatness of our God.

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It's ok to enjoy the benefits of small families.

I've noticed in Catholic circles that no one ever wants to acknowledge that there are advantages to small families (or disadvantages to large ones). I can't tell you how many Catholic articles or blog posts I've read that have talked about the advantages of big families or siblings. I think these are beautiful, important, and very needed. But, on the other hand, there is not a single one I've come across written from a Catholic perspective that talks about the advantages of small families or only children (or families that consist of husband and wife).

Perhaps this is because it's assumed that our culture lauds small families and only children (or no children) so there doesn't have to be a Catholic voice for this. But from my experience, the secular articles and posts on the benefits of small families are anything but comforting to a Catholic mother. Inherent in those articles is the understanding that small families are superior, responsible, environmentally-friendly, etc. The overall tone seems to be anti-life and selfish; children are depicted  as commodities to be obtained and enjoyed - thus, having one or two makes them easier to fit into a life full of other, equally important pursuits (career, travel, intellectual advancement, physical perfection, hobbies, etc.) To be lauded for something that is anathema to my beliefs is like a knife to the heart. I'm not "choosing" a small family in order to be a good citizen in the culture of death and self-absorption.

I think there is this fear that if we talk about the positives of small families (or the negatives of big ones) that we'll be promoting this mentality that elevates the small family for selfish reasons, and therefore will be steering Catholics away from being open to life or God's plan for our families. Instead, it alienates Catholic parents with small families and puts pressure on large families to always seem perfect. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to both small and large families (and medium size, too) and denying that fact makes Catholics seem out of touch with reality.

Recently I've noticed that at church or other Catholic events, it's extremely rare for us to be told we have a "beautiful family". Extremely rare. And yet the large families all around us hear it several times each Sunday. I'm not sure exactly why that is. I have a handsome husband and adorable daughter and more than that, I think we radiate the joyfulness of Christ and family life. But we're a small family. We don't fit into the Catholic ideal.

I yearn for a large family. Not because it's perfect or I idealize it, but because I love children and love being a mother and because I believe that the joy additional children bring to a family is always worth the added difficulties. In addition to joy, it seems that there are also some very practical benefits to having more children. But since I have a small family (and perhaps always will) I want to stop being afraid to talk openly about (or feel guilty about having) the practical benefits of a small family.

So I'll say it: Having one living child makes many things easier. I have more time to rest, more time with my husband, more time for hobbies, more one-on-one time with my daughter. We have more money and less material needs. We can get by with a smaller apartment, a smaller kitchen table, and smaller car. We can get out of the door faster and travel easier. And it's ok if I enjoy these advantages.

Because I'm sure that while they are struggling with all the difficulties of having a large family, the moms of many are enjoying the blessings of their extra children. There is no need for me to be a martyr by suffering the pain of secondary infertility/recurrent pregnancy loss AND feeling guilty/unable to enjoy the advantages that come with my small family.

My family is small but beautiful. We may not have many children but we have more time and resources to spend on the one beautiful blessing we do have. I'm not ashamed of our small family and I'm not guilty that I have many things "easier" than moms of many. They have the blessings of their many children and I have other blessings that, while I don't think are equal in value because what can even approach the value of a human life???, I can certainly appreciate and enjoy.

Other, even better blog posts on this topic:

The Only Guilt (Annery at Home)
The Double Edged Knife: Guilt and the Small Family (Molly Makes Do)
Benefits of Larger Child Spacing (One Catholic Mama)

And while you're at it, read the beautiful post Molly just wrote On Miscarriage and Mordor (you don't have to be a Tolkien fan to appreciate it, but it certainly helps).

Trying Again.

Yesterday (Christmas) was one of the hardest days of my life. Everywhere I looked amongst the family celebrations, I saw the ghosts of our missing children. When the cousins played together, there was one missing. When we took family photos, they felt so incomplete. My stomach felt so small and flat and empty. I mostly thought of the first child we lost, Francis, the one who would be seven months now. I wonder if next Christmas will be just as hard. Which child will I think about then? Francis or Julian, who would be celebrating their second Christmas then? Or the little ones who would be born in the next year, Adrienne or Christian, who would be celebrating their first Christmas? Knowing that it's not even possible for me to hold a baby in my arms next Christmas made the day even more bleak. I felt robbed of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future.

Maybe this year is just so hard because I miscarried less than a week before Christmas? Although maybe I'll miscarry a week before next Christmas too. Or maybe I'll be pregnant then, far enough along that I'll be feeling confident, and not  the deep despair and fear that early pregnancy holds for me now. I can only pray that is the case, I can't even hope for it anymore.

What this last, fourth miscarriage has finally done that the first three were unable to accomplish was strip me of all hope. One, two, even three miscarriages in a row can be explained by chance, bad luck, even three different random, unrelated occurrences. Four is...heavy. There is the weight of an underlying cause there. So far, my doctor hasn't been able to find it. I'll have surgery next month to check on a few more things, all which are fairly unlikely anyway, but if my doctor doesn't find anything then that's it. There will be no more treatable causes, everything else would just be an answer with no solution. And I don't feel the desire to know just to know; if there is nothing I can do about it, the knowledge has no meaning to me.

I'm still young (though repeat pregnancy loss has aged me in ways I can't really explain; I feel so old inside) and potentially have many more years of fertility before me. We'll keep trying, over and over again, knowing that there is some possibility, no matter how small, that I will be able to give birth to a living child. Lucia is proof of that. How we got lucky with a healthy first pregnancy, I'll never know but I'm so grateful for that. We'll try again as soon as I'm physically well enough, emotionally healed enough, and get the go ahead from my doctor.

While I have some friends who struggle with hyper fertility who look at their future years of potential fertility and count how many children that could possibly mean, I think in terms of how many miscarriages those years can bring. Unless I'm coming straight off a miscarriage (which is apparently a very fertile time according to studies I've read and my personal experience), it takes me longer than the average woman to get pregnant, but not by much. I can get pregnant. Four pregnancies in less than a year and a half prove that. Four miscarriages in 14 months. Even if my fertile years end early and fertility decreases over time, I could still have 20+ miscarriages. The odds for that are small, of course. In 20 pregnancies, I'd most likely bring at least a few babies to birth. But, when I see my future, 20 miscarriages is one of the possibilities I can visualize. I can no longer visualize an outcome where there is a baby in my arms. My mind just can't conceptualize that anymore.

As Catholics, we believe that pregnancy should only be postponed (using Natural Family Planning) for serious reasons. Those reasons vary by couple of course and the Church does not have a list of reasons. Personally, David and I can't justify postponing pregnancy based on miscarriage risk alone. As long as I am (physically and emotionally) healthy enough to get pregnant again, we won't prevent it beyond the few months my doctor asks us to wait after a loss. (Whether to wait to not, and how long, after a miscarriage is controversial as there are studies that show getting pregnant again right away has better outcomes and other studies show the opposite. We've decided to give my doctor the benefit of the doubt and follow all my doctor's instructions for the time being. I've gotten pregnant right away and I've waited and both had the same outcome anyway.)

The idea of not charting and not specifically trying to get pregnant but just letting it happen when it happens is very appealing to me, because the trying is very stressful in itself. But as long as my doctor still has hope that we can find a treatable cause and that catching a pregnancy early will give the baby a better chance of survival, I'll suffer through it. Charting seems to force us to specifically try to get pregnant each month because we know exactly when our fertile days are and we have to decide whether we will have sex then. Since we want a baby, we feel like we can't not use those days. If we didn't chart and didn't know which exact days were most fertile, I don't think I'd end up a puddle of tears every time my period came because I wouldn't know if we actually tried to get pregnant. It wouldn't be a disappointment, another proof that my body doesn't work quite right. There wouldn't be that expectation that we did everything right, we'll get pregnant this month, oh please, oh please, oh please.

Coming to terms with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) and what that means for the long term for our family means coming up with a new perspective on life, a new way of living. Even if we having another living child, even if it's our very next pregnancy only a year and some months away, that probably won't end my RPL. I'll probably have more miscarriages after that. Of course, I don't know the future, but most likely whatever is causing this isn't going to disappear or ever be completely "fixed". And so that means that we will for the next 10-15 years have cycles of trying to conceive, pregnancy, miscarriage, recovery, trying to conceive, miscarriage, recovery...

And I can't go through those the way I have done in the past. The past year and a half hasn't been living, it's been surviving. I've just tried to get from one stage to another, thinking at some point things will change and we'll regain our lives. It's been living with the pain of trying to conceive thinking, It will all be better once I get those two pink lines. And then living with the stress and fear and utter despair of pregnancy thinking, It will all be better once I see that heartbeat. And then the heartbeat isn't there or I start bleeding and I think, If I can only make it past this miscarriage. And then the bleeding stops and I start thinking, If only I can make it through the next few months of testing and waiting, then we can try again. And it starts all over. And in the meantime, my life is on hold. There is no joy, there is no moving forward. Everything waits. Everything is at a standstill waiting for the baby, the one we want so badly, the one that will restore a little bit of joy into our family.

I need to find a way to restore that joy without that child, for who knows if that baby will ever come. I need to find a way to truly live in the meantime. And so I've been working on humility, on saying, It's not about me. Nothing is about me. It's never been about me. I am only here to do God's will. No matter what I want or I don't want or how much pain I suffer , I can always serve God every situation. It is not about me. It is not about me. It's only about Him. I am only about Him. It is not about my babies that will never be born. It is about The Baby who was born so long ago. It is not about me. And it's helping. Most days, this is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Most days, it allows me to focus on the big picture, what really matters. Because it's when I focus on the details of my small insignificant life that the pain becomes crushing and I become frozen in the pain and anger and fear.

Pregnancy Loss Resources: After Miscarriage, the quintessential resource for Catholic miscarriage support

This book review is an updated version of a post that originally appeared on my old blog, Messy Wife, Blessed Life, on December 12, 2013. This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.

After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman's Companion to Healing & Hope by Karen Edmisten

The most helpful book I've read since my miscarriage, Karen Edmisten's After Miscarriage is a hodge-podge of poems, quotes, bible passages, short contributions from various people who have lost a child,  and pieces from the author's journal.  Many of the poems, quotes, and scripture passages did not deal directly with miscarriage or even death (though some certainly did), which helped me understand the universality of the emotions I felt.  I also appreciated the shortness of it all - no single piece within the book is more than a few pages long, so I could pick it up, read a short passage or a single quote and put it back down if it were too much all at once.  That said, I read it all in just a few days, though I feel like I will continue to refer back to it often during the difficult times in the coming months and years.  

After having five miscarriages, Edmisten has experienced a range of emotions and put these into a short but thorough resource for Catholic women after pregnancy loss.  It is a blessing to read others' experiences and realize that the strange new emotions I was feeling are actually "normal" for the context.  Reading through the various pieces by women (and one man) who have "been there" made me feel much less alone, especially since I have very few people in my daily life who have had a miscarriage. I found myself relating to most of the passages, and even those I did not personally find connection with helped me understand how others' grieving processes may differ from my own.  I found the book to be very nurturing and uplifting, free of platitudes and generalizations. 

My only critique of this book is of a poem it contains that referred to a baby having a "pair of wings".  Many of the resources I've encounter talk about "angel babies", a concept that is not consistent with my Catholic faith (angels and humans are separate beings, one cannot become the other), and I was very much looking forward to reading a specifically Catholic resource that would not include that reference.  Obviously, that one poem can be easily overlooked.

Though written specifically for Catholics, most of the books should be helpful to Christians of all denominations and I would recommend it as a gift to give a friend who has recently experienced a loss.  I have, in fact, have sent it to three women in the past two months since reading it myself and thought about starting a ministry to send it to women for free.  It turns out there already is one: A Magnolia Sweet Healing.  Click over to see how you can get a copy for free or how you can donate to help women receive copies of this book.