Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…

This is a hard post for me. First of all, I want to thank all of the friends & family who commented, emailed, and called us with congratulations and well-wishes when we announced our new pregnancy! It meant so much to us to hear from you. I know that your support and love will continue – I know that I can count on your prayers and thoughts – when I tell you how my heart is now breaking.

On Saturday morning, at 10 weeks & 4 days, I started bleeding. We placed a call to my midwife, and she agreed that it was a wait-and-see situation. By Saturday night, my cramping was painful and I was having a lot more bleeding. Sunday morning, I lost the baby. I’m still bleeding, but an ultrasound this afternoon showed that my body has completely miscarried. I’ve had bloodwork, and I will have at least one follow-up visit (possibly more) with my midwife to make sure that my blood level of beta-HcG returns to <5. We will also be having some testing done to help us determine, hopefully, what may have gone wrong.

In a way, this miscarriage is easier for us. Having gone through it before, I knew what to expect physically and wasn’t as scared as I remember being last time. There is still an emotional roller coaster that we all face when we grieve a loss, and I know that it will be difficult for awhile. But I also know that I’ll come through it – I have before, and I will again. Then of course, last time we feared that we might never carry a baby to term – what a blessing Jonas is to me these last few days! Seeing his smile, hearing his laugh, feeling his hugs and kisses – it is all reassuring that we will be able to get pregnant again.

I expect another week or so of physical symptoms, and probably several weeks of ups-and-downs. Please keep me in your prayers – this time, I can’t just go to bed for the day and ignore the world, since a little boy needs me to be his normal, fun, playful mommy. Pray that I will feel God’s peace in the midst of the darkness. Please keep Chris in your prayers – he works so hard, and he does a wonderful job of balancing the pull of family with the needs of his job. I know he wants to do everything he can right now, so pray that he will feel balanced and stress-free so that he can concentrate on us when he’s home, and on work when he’s at the hospital. Jonas is luckily too young to understand what has happened, so just continue to pray that he would follow Christ’s example and grow “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and people.”