Wednesday, September 05, 2007

A Difficult Loss


I felt an incredible sadness and sense of grief when I learned last night that our friends had just lost their first grandchildren – twin boys who decided to be born mid-term. It just didn’t seem fair after their daughter had spent years wanting children and was finally pregnant.

She had been one of our treasured babysitters, the one who was willing to drive our children to camp in the summer so they could go to swim practice with the rest of the neighborhood. She had designed the perfect nursery for her children before she ever finished college and thought of getting married. She was ideal for motherhood.

But nature was not terribly cooperative in her attempts to get pregnant. Finally they resorted to invitro fertilization and two of the three implanted embryos took. My friend affectionately referred to them as the “bros”, also saying she was sure they were both boys, which turned out to be the case.

Their daughter is a petite woman of under 100 pounds, so the initial worry was whether she could carry twins. But all the experts agreed that she should have no problem. She worked hard on eating for 3 and staying active. They (and we) all breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the first trimester, the time within which most miscarriages occur.

So when I called last night about today’s bike ride and learned that my friend was on a plane to be there for her daughter who was still in surgery, my heart just went out to these people.

This is one of those times when you ask how a loving God could take these babies who were so cherished, while abortions were being done all over the country to get rid of unwanted pregnancies. We had all seen the pictures of these little boys, who had kicked inside their mother’s womb and were most certainly alive.

I remember when I miscarried my first pregnancy. It is a feeling of incredible emptiness that almost consumes you as you pick up the pieces and prepare to start over again. Your grief cannot be assuaged by the fact that you were able to get pregnant once.

This family will be fine eventually. They have a strong faith and resiliency that will pull them through this crisis. I just hope and pray the next attempt is successful. There are children out there somewhere deserving to be born into this loving family.

7 Comments:

Blogger GEWELS said...

It isn't fair that there are so many loving couples aching for a child- with no success. And that there are others who are tossing their precious ones in the garbage.

God will look after them, and hopefully they can get through this sad time and be whole again.

1:17 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Gewels -- I totally agree.

4:36 PM  
Blogger Ruth L.~ said...

Such pain. I too had a miscarriage and mourned that baby as if I'd known him for more than 12 brief weeks.

6:48 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

RuthD -- I came to learn than miscarriage was far more common than I had ever thought. But not at 19 weeks. Medical technology has come so far in its ability to save mother and child when there are problems, but sometimes it's just not possible to do both.

9:36 PM  
Blogger Mother of Invention said...

That seems so unfair and I agree that it is hard to believe that was God's plan...if so, why? Did they need to learn tough lessons? Maybe life's events are all random.
My heart and prayers go out to these wondeful people. I can only imagine how upsetting this must be.

7:48 AM  
Blogger Reya Mellicker said...

So sorry to hear this sad news.

Seems unfair to us humans, but life and death, and when these things happen, are not up to us to try to understand. Better, as least in my opinion, to cultivate compassion for the people who have suffered the loss, rather than get angry because it's "unfair." A whole lot of things about life are unfair, often.

Hope the recovering mother gets lots of TLC from you and everyone who knows and cares about her.

8:36 AM  
Blogger Barbara said...

MOI -- A friend and I are trying to come up with ideas for how to be supportive of the grandparents who are our friends and who live in our neighborhood.

Reya -- I quite agree about the futility of asking why. There are simply no good answers to that question.

10:06 AM  

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