Her.meneutics: Grieving a Lost Child

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« Getting to the Root of Female Masturbation | Main | When Higher Education Is Neither: Why Should I Earn a Degree? »

January 6, 2012

Grieving a Lost Child

In the aftermath of my miscarriage, I cling to the promise of new life.

Cameron Dezen Hammon, guest blogger

I inherited the herb garden when we bought our townhouse and quickly learned that it’s virtually impossible to kill rosemary. I’ll prune or trim once a year—maybe—but the truth is it grows on its own—except for one patch of earth between the jasmine and the indestructible citrus tree. The patch gets plenty of sun, and the same amount of attention (or lack thereof) as the rest of the garden, and yet it yields nothing.

Our wedding anniversary is November 2. I love cut flowers, and by mid-October I’m dropping hints. My husband almost always comes through, so each year after the store-bought flowers have wilted, I lay them in the garden over that barren patch of ground, and hope something will grow.

This November, the week before our ninth wedding anniversary, I had a miscarriage. For weeks my body held onto the life we had created, refusing to believe, as did my mind, that it wasn’t a life. So on the advice of my doctor I made an appointment for a “D&C,” as it appeared I wasn’t going to “pass” the baby on my own, or what a nurse casually referred to as the “evidence of conception.”

I was at a writer’s retreat in the Texas Hill Country in September when I realized I was late. For two years the months had come and gone and we wondered if we'd ever get pregnant again (our daughter was born in 2006). I didn’t believe it. I checked and rechecked the dates, then waited another week before casually adding a pregnancy test to my grocery list. When I finally took the test, three actually, each one revealed the same pink plus sign, shadowy like an impressionist watercolor.

I made an appointment for an ultrasound; it was early, 5 weeks 6 days. The bubbly ultrasound technician printed a little snapshot with the word "baby!" typed beside what looked like a white pea cozied up to the wall of my uterus. For a second I'd seen the flicker of a heartbeat, the technician had seen it too, but a moment later it was gone. “Nothing to worry about,” she assured me, “it’s so tiny! Come back in two weeks just to be sure.” “June 12,” my doctor announced later in her office, less enthusiastically, “—if everything goes well.” I left the office that day in tears of joy, clutching the little photo. Later, as I handed it to my husband he swelled with pride, gazing out the window at the garden he exclaimed, "We made a person!"

When you miscarry, people around you may gently insist that it wasn't a person at all. Maybe it’ll hurt less if we don't characterize this loss as a death. After all it was only just forming, just beginning. We have no memories together, no favorite restaurants or movies, no school art projects to weep over. Perhaps it's easier if we just shake it off and keep trying. "Don't worry," people say, "You'll get pregnant again. You'll see."

It’s like telling a widow she’ll re-marry; it may be true, we hope it’s true, but right now all she can think about is the love she lost. Right now, I'm thinking about my child. The one whose DNA, even at 6 weeks, already determined the color of her eyes or the way he would hold a baseball bat. It connected us a thousand years into our past and a thousand years into our future, like a blueprint for a person—one who will never be repeated, never recreated. I’m thinking about my son, or daughter, the precious one whose brief life was ordained before the earth’s framework was laid, who passed so quickly and quietly from hope to eternity, but never made the pit stop here, with us, in this rocky and dry world.

I had the D&C in the same hospital, across the hallway, from where I delivered my daughter. In the recovery room I told this to the nurse hovering over me. "Was it a boy?" she asked. Shocked by her question and still drugged, I failed to answer. "It was probably too early to tell," she mumbled while adjusting my pillow, as if comforting herself.

I told a friend about my miscarriage, and that night a bouquet of wildflowers arrived on my doorstep. I set them next to the roses my husband gave me for our anniversary. For days I watched them bloom and open together, the berries mingling with the daisies, wrapped around the red and pink roses. I watched them brown and wilt in equal measure, scattering petals and pollen on the glass table until it was time to lay the flowers in the garden.

As the first jasmine of the season stretches open, and the rosemary releases its antiseptic balm, I scatter my flowers and pray: I pray that these flowers, evidence of our joy and pain, will draw life out of this earth. I squeeze my eyes shut and picture the miracle; life wriggling, writhing, and bursting forth. I believe that out of this loss and grief, new life is being formed. Life that will one day rise again.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Cameron Dezen Hammon is a worship pastor and songwriter and lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, daughter and cat named Steve. She blogs at HipsterChristianHousewife.blogspot.com.

Comments

You have beautifully described exactly how I felt after losing my first baby at 12 weeks. The agony, love, and grief of the experience was something I will never forget. I have a healthy son, now 7 months old, but I can't help but feel that he is missing his sibling, that our family will always be incomplete.

Cameron, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing with us. Our first pregnancy (22 1/2 years ago) ended in miscarriage and, like you, I have often thought about the fact that this is a sibling our other two children might have had. Every June 6 we think again about the life that ended that day.

Tim

I too lost a child at 7 weeks. Our first. We now have a wonderful 4 year old boy, but I still have that only picture of Phillip in a frame and I remember him often. The best advise I got in grieving was to pick a gender (it was too early to tell for sure) and give him a name and truly grieve. I do believe that he is in heaven and I will get to see him one day, the other ladies are right, I think, in feeling they are missing a part of their family. We are.

I am so sorry for your loss.

I miscarried our second child in December 2006, at seven weeks. Just before Christmas this year, I blogged about the experience and how I sometimes I think about the child we lost. The grief isn't nearly as intense now. But this strange feeling comes over me, like there’s still a space in my heart that is grieving, knowing that another child is supposed to be here, too.

Oh my goodness, I am so grateful for these comments. It eases the pain, it's true, to know you're not alone. A friend called it a secret sisterhood- but I am equally thrilled that we have a gentleman who's posted here. As little as we talk about miscarriage as women- men do so even less and they're pain is just as real. I am blessed by you all. Thank you.

After speaking with my beloved friend about her miscarriage, I believe, now, that it is better to remember and to hold on gently and lovingly to that memory. Years ago, after miscarrying the second time, I chose to forget and move on from that terrible pain -- to pretend like it never happened. At the time this was the only way I knew to survive the loss -- to protect my heart. But then there would be moments while I was spring cleaning or grocery shopping or just waiting for a red light that I would be suddenly seized by a deep pain, a grief that would take my breath. There can be no forgetting. I know now the only way to "move on" is to keep a small, safe place in your heart to carry those lost darlings. Thank you, Cameron, for sharing your heart. xoxoxo

Been there, girl. Two in a row, one month apart. I was too shell-shocked after that to even consider "trying again" for many months. I was thankful for a friend who had taught me, through her own experiences with pregnancy loss and infertility, that it was OK to grieve the children I won't get to raise. That kind of support was invaluable. I think my loss changed how I enjoyed my subsequent pregnancies, taking joy in every moment and cherishing life as God gave it. Thank you for writing your story and validating the real pain of miscarriage.

Cameron, thank you for your honest and beautiful description of your miscarriage experience. We miscarried our first pregnancy after trying to conceive for 3 years back in July. When my closest girlfriends heard of my miscarriage, I too, came home to a beautiful vase of hydrangeas and peonies on my doorstep. I just have to hold onto the hope that God's timing is perfect and that He had a reason to take our first baby up to heaven to be with Him.

A couple at one church where I worship from time to time suffered a miscarriage, and they and their unborn child (named) were put on the church's prayer list. At another church of the same denomination pregnant women (and their husbands) and their unborn babies are prayed for regularly. I am sure that in many congregations miscarriages are unknown to anyone but the couple and their pastor(s), and even pregnancies are unknown until they can no longer be hidden.

May God put His ever loving arms around you and your husband and comfort both of you in your loss. Very touching article and I appreciated it very much. Just the kind of article we need in this column! God is real, He is in control of His creation and our lives, and will always be there to provide us comfort and gentle guidance on the trials and tribulations of this life. I do believe that one day when you are in the presence of our Savior you may ask and be granted the right to see your baby. It is not bibical specifically but we have but a fortaste on earth of the richness of His blessings with an eternity to enjoy them all the while praising God. The very difficult adversity you shared with us reminds me of Job where God allowed Satan to inflict unspeakable punishment on Job in some kind of cosmic bet where Satan told God that Job would curse God if all of his material blessings were removed. Satan had impoverished Job then covered Job with painful boils and Job was scraping them off with a postherd Job's wife in Job 2:9 says "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die! Jobs answer to his wife in Job 2:10 gives all of us precious wisdom and guidance when the unspeakable pains of life hit us in the gut. Job tells his wife: "But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women speaks, Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips." You both faced unspeakable adversity in the loss of your baby and did not curse God. I am fighting adversity myself but it will never shake my faith in my Savior or cause me to complain that I am being treated unfairly. God has richly blessed me but the trials of life do come. After two years of fighting bladder cancer and being healed by the mercy of God and some very good doctors at the UNM Cancer Center I just found out I have Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma. Really bad stuff! I thought I was over with fighting cancer and I was intent on getting on with my life. I had recovered from bladder cancer and now I am fighting a different type of cancer. Round Two! I was in shock at first but now am praying and fighting this cancer. Lots of Saints both in my church and elsewhere praying for my healing. I have had two chemotherapy sessions and the pain from the tumors is lessening but once cancer gets to Stage 4 you pretty well have it the rest of your life. In all this I just pray that God will be glorified and that I will be healed. The survival rate on Metastatic Melanoma, once it is inside your body is not very good. I do not know what the future holds but I know who holds the future and that is Jesus! May God be forever praised for His love, wisdom, patience with our faults, and for His abundant mercy toward us in the face of adversity. Anyway, it was a very uplifting article. May God richly bless you and your husband. God is good!

Thank you for sharing your story Cameron! Too many people are silent about loss because of miscarriage. Again, I'm so sorry for your loss. Having been through it 3 times myself, I wouldn't wish it for anyone. Praying for you and your family dear friend!

Oh Cameron, this is beautiful and could not have come more timely in my life. I had my first miscarriage on my own this past summer at 11 weeks. My second miscarriage resulted in a D&C surgery in December. I just couldn't believe it would actually happen twice in a row. I think I've been handling it pretty well, but I appreciate your words in that you remind me that it's ok to grieve, and it's ok to talk about it, and it's ok if the memory of the babies never leaves me, and most importantly, that God is good. I need to have faith in his timing and trust that what happened had a purpose in shaping me and my life. Thank you, Cameron. Simply beautiful. The more I get to know you, the more I adore you!

Since writing my earlier comment I have thought of something else: naming and publicly grieving a miscarried child not only helps the would-be parents but reinforces our oft-stated conviction that life begins at conception. If we as a community (not just the would-be parents) do not take seriously the death of an unborn child, why should the pro-abortion campaigners take our claims seriously?

Nathan, I am praying too.

Thanks, Cameron, for making the invisible visible. What a beautiful piece.

So beautifully, Cameron. Thank you for sharing. :)

Beautiful - I will share this. Thank-you Cameron.

Thank you also her.meneutics and CT for running this honest, encouraging, faith building piece even though it was not necessarily edgy, controversial or uber-intellectual.

It was a lovely, faith-affirming heart touching piece that turned my eyes toward Him. I would love more pieces like this in addition to the hot discussion topics.

I am reminded by these comments how important it is for EACH of us to tell our stories- stories of joy and pain. And I love that we are now praying for eachother through what we've learned here in the comments! Amazing. If you're in Houston, a new group is mtg on this topic, at our home church, Ecclesia. http://www.ecclesiahouston.org/blog/ecclesia-news/chara-finding-grace-filled-joy-in-the-midst-of-infertility-and-loss

I pray that the God of all comfort will continue to knit you and your husband's hearts closer together as you lean on Him at this difficult time. I lost my first baby just past 12 weeks when we were first married (honeymoon pregnancy)and only one person was able to say heart felt words... my non Christian grandmother who herself had lost a baby during delivery. Loss affects us all differently, yet there is One who gets where we are coming from because He was alongside us as we experienced our losses.
Thank you for the reminder that God is with us, in all the ebbs and flows, heart wrenching hurts and joy filled triumphs.

Beautiful.

Lovely! I have had 4 miscarriages myself and this piece captured those feelings. A couple of books that helped me were I'll hold you in heaven and grieving the child I never knew. I often think we really have 7 children, not three, we will just get to meet them in heaven.

Cameron, I am so sorry for the pain having a miscarriage could bring you. I too have lost a child in a car accident last year. Everyday I wake up thinking of the incident and can't help but think it was all my fault. I am struggling to overcome my loss and doing so by turning to family as well as websites like http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-dl to help me through this time of suffering. I suggest anyone sharing this same pain to take a look.

Such a warm piece of text !

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