Loss

As expected, we lost the baby.  Well, honestly speaking, with a blighted ovum you wonder if there was ever really a baby to lose, but that's another question to be resolved in the eternities.

With a tendency to look through eyes of faith, I don't generally ask, "Why me," but rather, "What am I supposed to learn from this?"  However, this miscarriage is such shocking blow for me.  I'm not sure how to handle it, actually.  Which is not usual for me.  Many others out there probably think, "Come on, it's just a miscarriage."  I know, 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage.  But it's still a loss.  And I'm feeling it.

And yet, when you believe all things are in the hands of God and that He is truly involved in the details of your life, every experience becomes a spiritual experience, a time to ask, "What does God want me to do with this?"

What I learned these last ten days was that you have to allow yourself to feel the pain.  Because I tend to look at the positive I was ready to embrace the week with a determination to look outward and to serve others.  I did not intend to wallow in self-pity and wait impatiently for Monday (yesterday) to come.  I failed.  Or rather, I learned what the Lord required of me.  Christ suffered that we need not suffer (D&C 19:16), but as we learned in conference this weekend (so awesome!), "opposition is not a flaw in the Plan of Salvation."  We must pass through sorrow to know good and evil.  These last ten days have been full of sorrow, mourning, pain, tears, depression, uncertainty, and confusion.  Again, I know ten days is nothing compared to the grief others must endure, but this life is not about comparing.  Each pathway is different in which we need to travel to become closer to and more like our Savior.  Plus, I still have what's ahead of me....an operation, healing, rebalancing of hormones, and that trial and error period of trying again (if that is the course we take).  That all sounds exhausting.

I also learned more.  The Lord knew what I needed to gain more empathy and understanding for others who experience such loss.  When I went to the temple last week I seriously wanted to just look into every face that was there and know their pain, their experiences, their joys.  I wanted to know them.  That was an amazing thing to feel.

As you can see, my thoughts are a jumbled mess of hope mixed with sadness.  Thank you to all who have kept us in your thoughts and prayers.  And to those who experience such pain, or even greater, we can take comfort in the most recent words of our beloved prophet, President Thomas S. Monson:

"We are to endure, yes, but we must also become spiritually refined.  Without challenges to solve, we would not grow."