One in Four

My wife suffered a miscarriage last fall. Last week - the first full week of June, 2016 - is when our baby would've been born. It's been an emotionally tough time lately.

We only had our baby for a week; we found out she was pregnant and she lost the baby just over a week later. It may not seem like much to some and it certainly wasn't a long time. But something we created, a human life, existed on this planet. Some people around us may have forgotten, and others may not want to bring it up because it's a sad and uncomfortable subject.

I firmly believe life begins at the moment of conception. This has nothing to do with the Catholic Church telling me so, but it is one of the many reasons I belong to the Church. It has to do with morals, a conscious belief that just because something hasn't taken its first independent breath doesn't mean a life doesn't exist. It absolutely does.

The pregnancy was a surprise, unplanned but not unwelcome... after the initial shock wore off. At first I was terrified and she was quite nervous, too. Our family & friends were supportive and the kids looked forward to it. We assured them that the love we had for them would not be affected by a new baby. We even posted a picture with our shoes and birth dates along with a pair of little tiny shoes drawn in chalk with the expected arrival date.

She knew something was wrong the next week and we spent a lot of time in the hospital. On the Friday when it was confirmed, when she called me at work to tell me the miscarriage had really happened, I rushed home from work and we spent a tear-filled afternoon holding each other, not saying much but comforting one another. It was one of the saddest, emotionally painful days of my life. My wife - a woman who knew from an early age she was meant to have kids and is the best Mom in the world to the ones we have - was robbed of another chance.

In the aftermath, the weeks immediately following, we were both on edge and communication between us was almost nil. Finally we confessed that we both held ourselves to blame, that there must've been something wrong with ourselves and our DNA, but that wasn't really the case. A miscarriage is nature's way of saying something was wrong and the baby wasn't meant to be and we know that. We also know that a soul, despite being unborn, is in Heaven and we both hope to meet her one day (yes, we both felt it would've been a little girl).

For a few weeks afterward I said hello to her out there in the sky as I was driving to work. I occasionally still do when I'm driving, or sitting out on the deck, or the thought of last Fall comes to mind... it's tough. But I wouldn't want to forget it, either.

So why am I writing about this subject? Because I need to, for me. Because we found out that one in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage. Some women may not even realize they've had one, and some have many and suffer over and over the same emotional heartbreak my wife did. I can't fathom the hurt they must feel and my heart & prayers go out to them all. We found out some women in our lives had them and never shared their story with us until we, too, had gone through it.

You may also be wondering why I'm using the term "we" here. I didn't suffer the physical loss, or the hormonal shifts afterward, or the postpartum depression. But as a man who fathered a child I'll never get to meet, it still cut me deeply, both in losing the child and seeing my wife - my soulmate - hurt like she did. I love her and when she's hurting, I'm hurting.

I'll end by saying this to those who've suffered this: you're not alone. It hurts like hell and things may never be quite the same, but you will be okay. I promise.