Looking Back

I’ve just enjoyed my first Mothering Sunday, spent in part having a Sunday roast in a lovely local pub with my husband, son and mother-in-law. We were chatting about my blog, and my mother-in-law prompted me to think about our miscarriage again, and whether it feels different now, over a year on and with my little boy in my arms. And so I have thought about that, and she’s right (as usual!), it really does feel different. But also, some things really haven’t changed. 

All traumas and struggles in our lives are hardest when we are in the middle of them, and the miscarriage was no exception. At the time, it felt like my world had ended. My grief was absolute. The road to hoping again was tough, and for a little while God was not my best friend. But as I wrote at the time (you can read about it in Thank you), hope and steps forward were made possible because of the love and support of so many friends and family. Now, nearly a year and a half later, those friends and family haven’t changed. Pregnancy, birth and early motherhood have come with their challenges, and these wonderful people have continued to be there for us in countless ways. I said thank you to you in my blog at the time – how many more thank yous do I owe you all now!!

The grief is also still there, although it isn’t so raw. It still takes my breath away sometimes, and I can’t sing those words from In Christ Alone – from life’s first cry to final breath- without shedding a tear for that little person who got to do neither. I talked before about how much I cried in those early days – those tears don’t come so often, but they do still come.

But, and this is so important, especially to anyone in the midst of a trauma like this one, there are some really big changes too. Firstly, the gift of my little boy has given me clear proof that it is right and safe to put our trust in God. My path to motherhood might have been via a pretty tough (albeit very common) route, but God walked the path with me and led me safely to the current destination. That is of course the beauty of hindsight – I know two things now: that God wasn’t intending to give me anything I couldn’t handle, and that I’m one of the lucky people who gets to experience motherhood, but at the time I had to trust in the former, and hope for the latter.

Secondly, while I know I’d have loved and adored that child that never was, I also know that without the miscarriage I wouldn’t have had this particular wonderful little boy. And now that I’ve met him and fallen so completely in love with him, I can’t imagine him not being my son. That awful miscarriage is part of my journey to him, and so I don’t actually fully wish it hadn’t happened, because I’d go through any pain, grief or trauma in the world for this little boy! I still cry about that miscarriage, but now the tears of grief are also tears of joy, because after the greatest devastation of my life, God brought me my greatest joy – my son.

To anyone who is still struggling through a journey like this one, it is terrifying to accept that we don’t know the destination, but one truth that I’ve taken from it all (and I do completely accept that this is so much easier to believe in the light of a happy ending) is that God has something for us, and even if it isn’t what we expect, imagine or, for some people, even want, He’s going to make it so worth it!