Resurfacing

Hi friends. I'm sorry about my absence and my cryptic announcement that I would be gone for a while. Our computer generation has gifted us with the unique situation of having online friends... I may have never met most of you (and probably, sadly, never will), and yet I consider you friends and I appreciate the interaction we have in emails, comments, and sharing each other's lives through our blogs. All that said, thank you for your prayers and understanding. Thanks for waiting around while I pulled myself together.

I've never had to deal with such a tough situation while being involved in an online community, and so I'm not exactly sure how to handle this. Disclose everything? Nothing? What's too personal? And what's edifying for people who may find themselves or someone they love in a similar situation? I guess I've always been rather open, and I don't mind sharing what the last two weeks have held for me and my family.

Two weeks ago today I lost our fourth baby to a miscarriage. Ironically, I was one day shy of the all-important twelve week mark and was very excited to announce online that I was pregnant. Instead, I had a D&C. You'd think that since this is the fourth baby I've lost, I'd be used to it by now. Unfortunately that is the farthest thing from the truth. I have struggled more with this loss than any of the others and I'm not sure why... Maybe it's because I was closely monitored and saw the sweet babe via ultrasound three times (healthy and growing with a strong and steady heartbeat) before she died. Maybe it's because I believed that I had learned the lesson God intended for me through the loss of the first three. Or maybe I just let myself hope too hard that everything would be fine this time around. At any rate, I'm still healing.

It's a strange mix of emotions that this sort of loss leaves with you. I'm heartbroken (I was sure that this was my little girl), filled with remorse (did I do something to cause her to die?), ashamed (I'm broken, my body doesn't work the way it's supposed to), numb (is it really over?), jealous (of all my friends who are currently pregnant or who just had beautiful, healthy babies), and the list goes on and on. It's exhausting. But in the midst of it all, I can see light at the end. I know that Kahlil Gibran is right when he says: "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." Grief is exactly that: a deepening. I don't always like the process, but there is something rich and beautiful about living a life that is filled with all manner of things. My soul longs for the day when "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of all things shall be well."

In the meantime, life goes on. I have two handsome sons to fill my days, and, oh yeah, I write books, don't I? It's time to resurface. There's laundry to be folded, supper to be planned, and I'm halfway through a major chapter. I think I'll be gracious to the inhabitants of my fictitious Bridgewater this week...