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.