The Grace to Grieve
BY: CHRISTINA RENFRO
I have this initials necklace for my kids that I wear every day. I haven’t taken it off in who knows how long. I catch myself playing with it and counting the circles. Three: one L for Lyle, one F for Forrest and a heart in the middle — the tiniest heart that means so much to me.
My period was one day late, and I knew exactly what that meant. I was never late. I went to the store immediately and bought a pack of pregnancy tests. I think I peed on every single stick in the box. I couldn’t believe we got pregnant the first month we started trying again. Two weeks later, we went to the initial doctor’s appointment and did all the blood work the day before my husband’s birthday. We were so excited for another child and scheduled the ultrasound for the following week. We started talking about what gender it might be. This pregnancy already felt a little different, so I suspected it was a girl. I always wanted a girl…a mini me, a best friend, someone to be the Rory to my Lorelei. I could already imagine a whole future for us together.
I felt odd going into the ultrasound room. I wasn’t nauseous yet which everyone else said was totally normal, but with Lyle I was nauseous from the moment I found out we were pregnant. Still I pushed that feeling aside, filling my head with hope for a sweet, healthy baby. I was so excited to get to see the little blip on the screen and hear the heartbeat. I laid down on the cold table and draped the thin paper over my body. Bryson and I held hands and looked at each other as the tech got everything set up. We waited and waited. The silence was all I needed to know that something wasn’t right. The tech said that she needed to go get the doctor and left without saying another word. I started crying immediately. The tech doesn’t leave the room unless something is wrong. I knew exactly what was going on and could feel the huge lump in my throat growing. I tried to swallow it down as we waited for someone to come talk to us. We had an appointment with my midwife, but to my surprise it was an OB that walked in instead. It was the same OB that had delivered Lyle a year and a half ago. I don’t remember much of what he said next, but the gist was that we had lost the baby, and I had to make the choice of taking medicine to complete the process or just let my body do it’s thing to release the baby. I was told it would take a while, and I could possibly have to come in again and take the medicine anyways. All I knew is that I didn’t want to be there anymore, so I said I wanted to let it happen naturally if I could.
The following weeks were rough. Not only did I have to deal with the excruciating pain of my body miscarrying, but I met with each friend that knew and told them that I had lost the baby. My emotions were all over the place. I didn’t know what to do or say. I didn’t want to see anyone. I felt like I was in this in between place — I had lost a baby and wanted to grieve, but I also felt like I didn’t deserve to grieve. It was so early. I was 7 1/2 weeks pregnant when the miscarriage was complete. That’s barely pregnant. Some people don’t even know they are pregnant at 7 1/2 weeks. Some people carry for months before losing the baby. My aunt carried her baby to term and then had to bury him. Some mom’s have to bury their children they have lived with and carried in their arms. Wasn’t it insensitive of me to grieve when my loss was much less in comparison to other moms?
That thought almost broke me. I am always my biggest critic. I give everyone else as much grace as they need but never give it to myself. I went to my counselor, and we talked through all my feelings and thoughts. She told me I should give myself the grace the grieve. She also suggested that if I named this little baby it would maybe help me to feel the permanence and allow me to grieve fully. I came home and told Bryson everything my counselor and I talked about. I already knew her name, but I felt like I needed his permission. I told him I needed this baby to have a name that carried weight and meaning. I needed to have an identity to grieve. So I asked if we could use our only girl name for this little one. It was the first name that we both agreed on when thinking of names for our pregnancy with Lyle and the only girl name we had ever chosen. So I journaled about our girl, Callie Brae. I really had never thought about the meaning until it was the name of our miscarried child. “Beautifully cry out”…what a perfect meaning for our little girl that we would never get to meet.
Life seemed to get back to normal pretty quickly. Since not many people knew, I didn’t have to worry about people randomly coming up to me and asking about my pregnancy. I thought about her every day, but it was almost like a dream. And then I got pregnant again 6 months later. I was afraid for the entire first trimester, and we didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to have the conversation again to say that we lost the baby. I didn’t want to feel the sadness in other people’s eyes reflecting my own sadness, magnifying it. I think I held my breath at every single appointment, just waiting for my hope to be crushed again. But that first trimester came and went, and we were able to feel excited again. And not too long from then we were holding our second healthy baby boy.
In between having my boys, I had a miscarriage. It wasn’t a dream, and it was worthy of the grace to grieve just as much as anyone else’s loss. I have my necklace as a daily reminder of all three of my babies. I am thankful for all my pregnancies, births, miscarriages, and babies here on earth and in heaven. They all play a part in my story. I’m thankful that some day I have the hope of Heaven where I will get to hear my little girl’s voice for the very first time.
