Written by: Codi B.
Miscarriage and loss. Two topics no one ever wants to experience, or write about, but here we are writing our stories and reading hundreds, no, thousands of other women’s stories about the same painful experience we have gone through as well. Miscarriage is hard. It’s hard on you emotionally, physically, and mentally. Miscarriage tests your faith. It changes who are you while also changing how you view pregnancy as well.
For me, I wasn’t prepared to have a miscarriage almost four and a half years ago. I honestly didn’t even understand how it was happening to me, to us, and I didn’t realize being my naive self that even the first time you got pregnant, you could lose your long-awaited baby you prayed so hard for and wanted so bad. Thankfully that storm passed pretty quick, and we were given our oldest daughter, our first miracle, our rainbow baby.
The third time I got pregnant, I held onto our little pot of gold. She was a fighter through and through, although that pregnancy had twists and turns, ups and downs, and stomach dropping moments-we made it through. Postpartum days were gut-wrenching and something I would never want to go back and experience again, but we made it to her second birthday and the love I have for that spunky pot of gold is something beyond belief.
Now comes the hard part. The part I’ve talked about but haven’t talked about a ton because it still rocks me to my core that this happened a second time to us. The fourth time I got pregnant I had a miscarriage. One miscarriage, ok, I get it I guess, but two? How did this happen? Was there something wrong with me? Were we not meant to have another baby? Why did two babies at totally different moments, in different states, in different houses, different everything, get taken from us so quickly? Why couldn’t I understand any of this? And why did this second miscarriage cause the amount of emotional upheaval that it did this second time around? Why was this miscarriage harder on my body than the first time around?
All the questions I asked and none were ever answered. I was left feeling weak and empty for awhile, but those thoughts also get pushed back to the back burner when you have two young children to care for. Someone is always yelling mommy or mama, needing you even if you’re going through a terrible moment of your life. Those little girls of mine helped me to navigate a second miscarriage I wasn’t prepared for or even thought would happen again. I’m not sure why I didn’t think it was possible to have another miscarriage, but I just thought it wouldn’t happen to me, to my husband and I, to us, again.
Miscarriage hurts everything in you and around you. It changes your perspective on life. The grief is all consuming at moments and the pain of losing one child or two, or more in other women’s cases, leaves you emotionless and raw at the thought of trying to even get pregnant again. Miscarriage changes you inside and out.
My husband and I talked about another baby after my second miscarriage, but as life would have it, the timing wouldn’t have been good and we didn’t know for certain if I would ever be able to carry another baby. We put it on the back burner for the time being and we left it in God’s hands-which is what I’ve learned you do when something weighs so heavy on you and you don’t have a solution for it, you just have to give it to God and try your best to move away from it for a short while. It doesn’t mean you give up; it just means it’s too heavy to carry with you for the time being.
As luck would have it, or maybe fate, or even dare I say, God’s timing, I found out in mid-August I was pregnant again. We didn’t try the slightest. Trust me when I say there’s many factors working against us, and the fact that I got pregnant again was pretty much a total God thing. It was a part of the plan and a part of the process, and the road we had to walk to get where we are at now. I’m happy to say to the world now that we have two beautiful, healthy, little girls and that we are expecting the final member of our family, a baby boy, in April of next year. We feel so blessed that we are going to have a second rainbow, our little rainbow boy.
I’m not sure why the road to parenthood and having a family has been so heartbreaking and devastating for us at times. I’m not sure why we had to have two losses. I have a long list, maybe even a short story book worth of questions that will never get answered by anyone here on this Earth. I do know though, that beyond comprehension, beyond all the questions, beyond the heartbreak and the grief, beyond the happy tears and the moments filled with laughter and joy, is me. A mom to an angel, a rainbow girl, a pot of gold girl, an angel, and a rainbow baby boy. A mom that has wanted to give up hope and throw the towel in so many times but for some reason a force greater than myself has kept me afloat in times of trouble and in times of good.
I’m reminded every day that although we go through the storms of life, and life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies and beautiful sunsets, life is a beautiful ride. The children I have here on this Earth will never take the place of the two children I lost before them. In a way I would like to think that maybe my two rainbows are actually the children we lost that came back to us. Maybe they weren’t ready for whatever reason the first time and the second time they were. It’s kind of a crazy concept to think about, but the only thing that truly will keep you going sometimes.
To anyone suffering today with miscarriage I just want you to know that you are known and you are not alone. It’s an incredibly lonely process going through a miscarriage no matter the number of times you have gone through it. There are so many people who have walked in your shoes in similar situations. You are never alone. Reach out, talk about it, and cry about it. I want you to know that you will be ok though and this storm will hopefully not last forever.
Rainbows, I’ve learned, appear at the times you’re not expecting them, but the impact they leave on your life will change you and how you view them forever. Rainbows change you as a mother, and forever will I be grateful for my rainbows, and my pot of gold.
