Thirteen years ago I got pregnant. Jake was 5, Marni was 3. The timing should have been perfect.
Mike and I were not trying to have another child. In fact, we had just made it over a bumpy road in our marriage...and I was doing daycare. Five days a week, with 4 other children in my care from sun up to sun down, I was sucked dry, and not a little resentful sometimes.
I was happy and excited after the initial shock wore off. I started making plans, went to Dr. appointments, told everyone the news. Mike was more shocked than I was but we knew having a baby is never a bad thing. "We'll never regret having another baby, he said, but we may regret not having one."
But still, it was an adjustment. We were very active, young parents. And it had gotten a lot easier to drag Jake and Marni around with us. Every weekend we went to the lake, or on some other outing. And as Mike will attest, I'm not a good pregnant person. So it was with some anxiety that we looked forward to the next several months.
Our lifestyle had officially been cramped.
In the weeks before I found out I was pregnant, I was working out twice a day and was dieting hardcore. I was never careful about my heart rate, and was taking a popular herbal supplement at the time...Ephedra. It has since been taken off the market.
You can guess where I'm going with this.
I was 16 weeks pregnant. I was at church, it was the first Sunday I had to wear a maternity-ish dress. I was happy to put that dress on...proud to be a young, pregnant woman. During the second hour I had a little cramp and some blood.
I knew immediately it was over.
I knew it was my fault.
I grabbed my kids out of their classes and went home. A few hours later Mike took me to the ER and the doc confirmed with an ultrasound that the pregnancy had "unfortunately terminated".
On the operating room table, where the D&C was to be done, I was shivering. Tears streamed down both sides of my face and into my ears. The anesthesiologist was standing behind me at the head of the table, looking down at me upside-down. He was tall and slender with white sideburns poking out of his blue scrub cap. His grey eyes were kind and soft. He took off his mask and spoke sweetly to me, using comforting phrases like, "sometimes the fetus just isn't right, it's natures way" and "I know you don't see it right now, but you'll feel better soon". He patted my head like I was his own daughter and I did feel a little better.
On the drive home from the hospital, Mike took me out to lunch at Black Angus. I ate steak and french fries and cried and he didn't understand. He didn't want to discuss getting pregnant again. That's what I felt I had to do, get pregnant. That would fix it, I thought. I didn't know having a miscarriage would be so hard. I had seen friends, sisters, even my mother-in-law struggle through it. For some reason I didn't think I would react the same way. At the back of my mind, a thought had taken up residence. It was gnawing, quiet and dark. And it was waiting to be recognized as a full-fledged feeling.
It was my fault.
Litlle did I know, because I didn't find out until years later, Mike had the same thought. It has stuck with him all this time. He said he felt like his struggle to accept, and be excited about the impending addition to the family was a sort of "punishment" or bad karma. That was silly, because it was so obvious that the fault had been mine. In my never-ending, ever-growing need (desire) to be attractive, I had abused not only my body, but had caused my womb to neglect my growing fetus.
I named that baby, read all the grief counseling pamphlets and brochures, and put the bad feelings in a box with the little cream-colored certificate I filled out in rememberance of her. Julie-anna. The date. That I was sorry, and that I loved her. I was sad, but I knew if she really was to be mine, someday I would get another chance.
Mike and I didn't "try" to get pregnant again. But we never used birth control after that either. I thought for sure I would have another child...eventually. I tell myself we just never got around to it, that we just kept putting it off for later. Besides, we had plenty of time for more kids, later. Now I'm pushin' 40. You sure can't fence time.
Today I was doing homework and thought of her, as I do now and then. I cried for a few minutes, and then got back to work.
Later, as I was driving home from picking up Marni from school, I had a thought that tried to hit me like a ton of bricks. But I wouldn't let it. It started at church on Sunday and I ended it on the drive home.
A man gave a talk on Sunday. I wasn't really listening all that intently. I was thinking about how I didn't look as cute this Easter Sunday as I did last Easter Sunday, school, money (how was I going to break it to Mike that I had spent a lot of money I shouldn't have), dinner, how many calories I could eat tonight, etc. (Just for the record...I always listen to, and enjoy the talks in Sacrament meeting, this was a rare thing that I was letting my mind wander).
The gentleman at the pulpit, who was much older and wiser than me, said something that caught my attention. I can't remember what it was, but I instantly focused. And then he said "I would encourage us all to take our favorite sin, and lay it at His feet".
My favorite sin...
I knew instantly what my favorite sin was. I can't imagine my life without it. And yet I know I have neglected things in my life because of it.
Vanity.
That baby comes to mind first.
And then I cringe to think of all the other things I've messed up because of that sin that I don't even see or know about yet.
I try to pinpoint the exact motive that begs me to hang on to it. Vanity.
distraction
mediocrity
selfishness
insecurity
security
pride
fear.
I think of all the times I have said to myself..."this is it, it's over, I'm letting it go".
But then I don't. I lose my nerve. The years pass. I get more set in my ways.
Not to get all Saturday's Warrior on you, but...what am I missing? What if someone is missing me?
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