Yesterday I ran 5 miles. And I had a thought; this used to be easy. I used to breeze through this without a care in the world. I used to know that I could make it through 5 without pain or walking, heck, I used to run 13 miles regularly and have run 5 full marathons, without it being an ordeal. Slowly my fitness is working its way back up to where I want it to be, but this thought kept lingering.
We aren’t trying to conceive, but we aren’t doing anything to prevent it. A lot of the time I am mindful about when I’m ovulating and such, but I’m not crazily tracking anything. And then the thought comes again, THIS used to be easy. The thought of being pregnant while we were young newlyweds was an easy thought, one that we were excited about, and one that was naïve to loss. This was going to be easy. And our first pregnancy was, no complications, and it ended in the birth of our gorgeous boy. Then came the hard stuff, our second pregnancy, ending in a miscarriage at 12 weeks (baby had stopped growing around 8). Thoughts of “ok this is our one time” “it happens a lot”; we’ll do this again. So we do. In September of that year conceiving Malachi. Due to be born in June. As we made it past the 12 week mark, relief set in, all was good and all would be easy from here on out. Wrong, again, the hard stuff keeps coming, this time, the hardest of all. By far the worst pain we have been through when was, after a 4 month battle (RAGING WAR) for Malachi’s life, we left the hospital with empty arms and shattered hearts. Nothing about this would ever be easy again. We were inducted into the worst club that you would want to be a part of. The club that knows loss and that has no innocence when it comes to pregnancy and bringing home healthy babies, we know the dark halls you have walked. We now walk in those halls with you. Dark, DARK days. Then the light begins to come back. Healing feels like it’s taking place, and you get more ‘removed’ from the acuity of your grief. Though it always lingers. We had this moment last fall when we felt like yes, we were ready to expand our family again. This time with the deep knowledge that anything could go wrong, anything. But how could it be worse? We have made it through the absolute worse. So this is our time. Again we conceived…..and again we miscarried, again the hard continued. THIS was supposed to be easy. THIS was supposed to be the redemption pregnancy. THIS was supposed to be our rainbow baby.
Nothing about thinking about conceiving again has been easy. From ideal timing for our lives to all the what-ifs, nothing now is easy. I long for there to be a formula to get me back “in shape” so that I can breeze through this, but logically I know the only way is through it. Even if it’s the hardest race I have ever ran.
I used to think this was easy. Now I know that no matter what the loss, it can be the hardest journey a parent ever takes. I long for the days of easy. I wish it was easy again to think about getting pregnant and experience pregnancy without it being hard. But I am also learning strength from the hard and from the One who keeps me in perfect peace, even in the hard. Is. 26:3
Sadly I can relate to nearly every aspect of this post. I had an uneventful and “easy” first pregnancy. Followed by a miscarriage, followed by a pregnancy of our daughter who wasn’t developing properly and likely died of a genetic disorder at 34 weeks. I recently experienced a second miscarriage and have been left feeling very lost. We still want more living children, but I don’t know how much more loss I can take.