Normal... With a Side of Rant and a Few Apologies

I have decided that the details of our miscarriage are unimportant....

and I refuse to become 'that' girl. You know, the one who's blog(s) I spent over a week pouring over as I looked for my own diagnosis.... why was I bleeding? why did I have cramps? could this be a 'normal' part of pregnancy? maybe there's still hope? what if it's just twins? why do my boobs still hurt? why am I STILL bleeding? what's a D&E?

Is my baby really gone?

Hi. My name is Lindsay. I'm a Googler.

In this case, I'm thankful for every chat room and for every experience I read about as I tried desperately to make sense out of the things my body was doing that just didn't make sense.... those forums were how I 'knew'.

But I won't be one of them.

We have spent this past week and a half feeling completely immersed in love. Cards, flowers, Edible Arrangements, meals, emails, texts, phone calls, messages, comments.... we've been on the receiving end of an overwhelming outpouring of compassion. Every tiny piece of thoughtfulness has come at the most perfectly timed moment in my day. My 'moments' come and go... but when they come, they're so hard to move past. At those exact times when I feel myself drowning and find every breath harder to take, my phone beeps, the mail comes, or my inbox flashes that tiny red '1'.

I read through my texts and cards and messages and comments every single day.... and I remember each moment of sadness or fear or pain that I was in at the very moment that I first read each one.... and It's those moments when I know that His arms are around me... holding me together. Right now, I live for the memories of every time God has quietly whispered His presence in my pain.

I can't thank you enough. Every one of you.

I'm afraid for those to end. I haven't found my new 'normal' yet. Nothing is 'normal'. My day doesn't start or end like it should, my clothes don't fit like they should, food doesn't taste the same, I can't 'read' my body like I used to, my kids look different to me, my husband feels and sounds different....

and then I realize; it's because something is missing.

Someone is missing.

My #3.

Maybe our #3 was our 'normal' for only a short time.... but that 'normal' was overwhelming.... and real. And that 'short time' felt like eternity. I can't remember a single moment of my daily life before the day I learned about our #3... not a single second of what my  'normal' used to be.

Our #3 is gone.... and so is our 'normal'.

I haven't found my new one yet.

And 'normal' has become my least favorite word.

Almost 2 weeks ago was 'that' ultra-sound. I had had a pit in my stomach since the night before and moments before I layed down on the table, I knew. I know God had prepared my heart....

I knew that the precious heartbeat we had seen twice before would be gone.

I knew that the teenie-tiny body and sweet head we had seen twice before would be gone.

I loved our ultra-sound tech so much and she had been with us since our very first peek at our #3.... and I said it so our amazing tech didn't have to...

"There's no baby."

Joey and I were given a lot of time to grieve together before we met with my doctor and when he came in, as compassionate and as sensitive as he tried to be, I could tell it wasn't his first rodeo...

I remember feeling so bad for him. What a shitty job.

(Sorry.)

He started going through our 'options'...

I already knew them.

I can't go in to the 2 weeks preceding this appointment right now but 'limbo' wasn't somewhere I could live in anymore.

As he explained a D&E (sorry to use Wikipedia... best I could do), the word 'abortion' came up quite a few times...

"Much like an abortion....", "Just like with an abortion...", "Abortions happen every day..."

And every time he mentioned an abortion, he said that everything would soon be back to 'normal.'

Excuse me for a second...

Are you F***ING serious?!

(Sorry.)

Our baby just died. In my body. I didn't choose this. We didn't want this. This happened TO us.

And you're going to compare this to an abortion?!

In the middle of our shock and grief, we did our best to keep it together while we made plans for the next day... for my 'procedure'.

Outside of my grief, I would have punched him in the nuts.

(Sorry.)

"Procedure".

My second least favorite word.

THAT, a D&C... what I had... is surgery.

Everything after a D&C?

ANYTHING BUT 'NORMAL'.

The bleeding that follows a D&C.... a normal period? No. I'm bleeding because my baby was just scraped out of my body.

The cramps that follow a D&C.... normal? No. My cervix was opened with various size rods until it was big enough so that my precious baby could fit through it.

The positive pregnancy tests that follow a D&C... Normal? No. Our baby was removed from my body before it was supposed to be.... my body took a while to get the memo. Hence... still sore boobs, morning nausea, tiny baby belly, smells that make you puke. Now? No baby.

The dozens of 'Your Pregnancy Today' and "Your baby is as big as a (insert fruit.... that I never want to eat again in my life)" emails you STILL get even though you unsubscribed from every single one of them days ago.... normal? Probably. Heartbreaking? Completely.

I love my doctor. I hate that he compared my D&C to an abortion and I hate that 'normal' is how he described life after.

My body will never be 'normal' again... because of what it was supposed to do, and couldn't.

My periods will never be 'normal' again... because of that ONE that was SUPPOSED to be 'normal', and wasn't.

Our family will never be 'normal' again... because of the one of us that should be here, and isn't.


While we're on our way to finding our new 'normal', part of me is terrified of any kind of 'normal' that doesn't include our #3....

I don't want 'normal' without my #3.

I've been stuck here for a few days.... not wanting to move on for fear that the emails and mail and texts and comments and messages will stop.... because I'm afraid that our #3 will be forgotten.... because where do we go from here?!

When I think back on the past 7 years, as much 'unknown' as we have experienced in our journey to grow our family, we have never been in a place where, even amidst tragedy and heartbreak, we didn't still have a plan. We always had the next cycle or the next procedure.... or we had a valid home study and an active family profile with an agency....

until now.

For the first time in 7 years, we don't have a plan.

And this Type A girl?? Doesn't 'do' without a plan.

And that's where I find my new 'normal'.

Last night, on my way home from my post-op doctor's appointment (where I acquired a few antibiotics to treat the uterine infection that wasn't part of the 'normal' that my doctor said comes after a D&C), I was quietly asking God to help us figure out what's next...

And I felt God tell me that this... this lack of a plan... this lack of 'normal'... is His plan, exactly.

And then today... in the middle of my fear that #3 is already being forgotten, that life is assumedly back to 'normal'... I opened a card from one of my sweetest friends...

And God's quiet whisper reminded me that our #3 is very much a part of our 'normal'... and a daily part of His, too. If our #3 can't be here with us, and oh my gosh what I'd give for even another minute.... there's no place else I'd rather him/her be than in Jesus's 'normal'.


We love you, sweet baby... we ache for you every day. We're finding our rest with you in Jesus' arms until the day we can see you again!