My Good Friday was a Thursday

This year is the first time since my miscarriage that the calendar dates line up with the days of the week on which I had the various appointments relating to my miscarriage. For example, I had a follow-up ultrasound on Monday, March 2nd, during which we discovered that our baby’s heart was no longer beating. On Thursday, March 5th, I had a D&C. So today on this March 5th, our baby’s 6th birthday, I am remembering that season with more than my mind and my memories. I remember it on a deeply visceral level. I can still smell the rubbing alcohol and the clean, chemical-y smell of the hospital. I remember what it felt like to carry death in my body for 3 days, and the emptiness I felt after my D&C.

While I knew that I was pregnant for about 5 weeks, I often think of it in a more condensed timeline. In fact, I think of it similarly to how the Christian church remembers and observes Passion Week (also called Holy Week). Passion Week can give one a sense of whiplash, as many different emotions and experiences occur within a short period of time. It begins with the Triumphal Entry and hope - hope of a future, hope of a life better than this one. What greater hope is there than a new life being created within one’s very body? Throughout the week there is anger and conflict, a sense of something looming, a cascade of events that has already begun despite a lack of clear evidence. There is a last meal, there is a gathering among friends to pray. There is confusion and doubt; there is a betrayal. And finally, there is an agonizing walk along a path that leads to death.

Ironically, and perhaps even providentially, my husband and I were supposed to be on a study abroad trip to Israel the week of my miscarriage. The day before we were to leave for Israel, I had my first official appointment with the midwife. It was there that we learned our baby had not grown in a week, though he still had a heartbeat. We were unable to go on our trip due to unexplained syncope and what my midwife called a “threatened miscarriage.”  By some miracle, our professor was able to find one person to take our place within 24 hours, so we only lost half of the money we paid, rather than the full amount. Though devastating, the loss of the money and the trip was only a small part of our grief. We had planned to take our announcement photo on that trip. We would’ve surprised our families by having that photo mixed in with other photos from the trip. Instead, now there would likely not be any announcement.

The day we were supposed to leave for Israel, Wednesday, February 26, I gathered with some women from church to pray. I finally understood how Jesus could sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane. I prayed harder that day than I ever have before or since. I begged and pleaded for this cup to be taken from me - for my baby to grow and to continue living. For the next several days, we tried to distract ourselves. Our follow-up ultrasound was on Monday, March 2nd. It was there that we learned our baby’s heart had stopped beating. Somehow I knew before we even got to the hospital that he was gone, but the confirmation still hit me hard. 

I couldn’t make a decision in the moment about how to move forward. My capacity to cope was overwhelmed; I was traumatized. I remember feeling disconnected from myself, while simultaneously experiencing locked-in syndrome. It is as if I am playing all of the roles in my own Passion play. I am the disciples, confused and uncertain about what is happening, wondering if God truly keeps God’s promises. I am Mary, a mother, experiencing the death of her beloved child. I identify with a Suffering Savior, experiencing pain, grief, and profound loneliness in this season of darkness. I, too, feel God has forsaken me. I, too, lament. I felt the sting of Judas’ betrayal, though in the form of my own body betraying me. My womb served as a tomb, carrying my lifeless child for 3 days before I gave birth to my dead baby in a procedure room. My body broken, my blood poured out, as I birthed a baby I would never get to hold. 

My Good Friday was Thursday, March 5th, when I had to have a D&C. Instead of a dirt road, my Via Dolorosa was a sterile hallway. Instead of an angry mob focusing all of their attention on me and my cross, I felt unseen, like no one in the world knew what I was about to do. My feet felt like lead, yet they propelled me ever forward as I clung to my husband’s arm, he taking up my cross and walking with me like Simon on the way to Golgotha. Everything within me wanted to run back to the parking garage. In my mind, I was pulling away, resisting taking another step, my body’s fight-or-flight response kicking in. Still I kept moving forward, going against everything in me that wanted to protect myself and run.

I sat in the day surgery room, my skin pierced with an IV, my clothes exchanged for a gown that was not my own, being asked questions that seemed cruel. Do you want to keep any of the contents we remove? Do you need anything for pain? Would you like Versed to help you relax? I was sobbing when they rolled me away, the anxiolytic drugs beginning to take effect, leaving me barely conscious yet still crying. When I awoke from my drug-induced sleep, I remember screaming “I want my baby back!” My nurse, Lisa, stroked my hair and tried to comfort me. 

And then, resurrection. Just as Jesus said to the man on the cross beside Him, I believe my baby is with Jesus in paradise. But what does it mean to live with resurrection hope when I will never hold my baby in this life? I will likely live another 50+ years. How do I grieve with hope when those years will be spent without my child? I don’t have an answer, even six years later. I have wrestled with questions about the problem of evil and God’s goodness in the world. I still struggle with prayer, because I cannot wrap my head around why God might answer someone’s prayer for a good parking spot but not my prayer for my baby’s life to be spared. What I do know is this: grief can transform us if we let it.

Through therapy, allowing myself to feel the full weight of my grief, and wrestling with God and my faith, I have been transformed. I am not the same person I was before my miscarriage. Through my baby’s life and death, Heard + Held was born. For me, resurrection does not look like triumph or getting “over it.” It looks like stubbornly persisting. It looks like continuing to live, even after part of me has died. I am neither a shell of a person nor a whole, complete person. I am living in the in-between place, honoring my baby’s memory and continuing his legacy through Heard + Held. For me, holding space for lament is one of the most hopeful things I can do, and if that helps someone else experience resurrection, I will continue to do this in remembrance of him.