Hope

It's been a long time since I wrote here. For a long time, I have felt too sad to write anything. This blog is called "Sweet & Sauer," so it seems strange to write about grief here. While I want my blog to be a record of the sweet moments in my family's life, I want to acknowledge the sad moments as well. They are also a part of my family's history, and so they are a part of me. Before I can write about anything else, I need to acknowledge another loss in our family.

When I last wrote here, I wrote about my pregnancy and miscarriage of Emmanuel. The weeks that followed were very difficult emotionally. My doctor advised us to wait 3 months before trying to conceive again, but just a month after my miscarriage, I became pregnant again. I was carefully charting my waking temperatures and suspected pregnancy when me period did not arrive after 14 days of elevated temperatures. I took a home pregnancy test, which was positive, but the information that came with the test said that if you have had a miscarriage in the past 8 weeks, the test may be falsely positive. I waited another week to see if my temperatures remained high. They did, and now I had 21 days of elevated temperatures, a positive sign of pregnancy according to the NFP course taught by the Couple to Couple League. I called my doctor, who had me come in for a series of blood tests. After almost of week of anxious waiting, the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant. He told me to come back the next week for another blood test, and then he would do a sonogram to check on the baby. Matt and I were happy and scared at the same time. We both dearly wanted another baby, but we knew it was awfully soon after my D & C and that my body might not be healed enough yet to support another pregnancy. We told our children and close friends and family members and asked them to pray for us and the new life growing inside me. We dared to hope that we would get to meet this new baby face to face in late November. Days later, I started spotting. The bleeding was light, and I hoped that it did not mean I was miscarrying. I prayed, telling God that I knew He could heal me and save this little baby. I firmly believed that He could, if it was His will.

"Hope is the virtue by which we firmly trust that God, who is all-powerful and faithful to His promises, will in His mercy give us eternal happiness and the means to obtain it." ~~from the Baltimore Catechism No. 1

I went back to the doctor for more blood tests. The first blood test was inconclusive; my hormone levels had gone up, but not as much as the doctor would expect them to in a healthy pregnancy. He had me come in again the following day for an exam. He did a sonogram, but told me before he started that he did not expect to be able to see a baby yet, because my hormone levels were so low. He wanted to see if the gestational sac was in my uterus or in one of my fallopian tubes. He did not find a baby, but did find what looked like a small gestational sac in my uterus. He said he thought I would probably lose this baby, too. Still, I placed my trust in God. I don't think I have ever in my life asked for anything with as much confidence as I had when I asked God to save my baby. I knew without a doubt that He could do it.

The next day, the bleeding increased, accompanied by cramping. At that point, I knew that God had answered my prayer with "No." Instead of saving my baby for an earthly life with me, He saved her for eternal happiness with Him. Although I was very sad to lose another baby, especially so soon after my last miscarriage, I felt that God had answered my prayer in a more perfect way than I had originally asked Him to. At this point, Psalm 23:4 became very real to me:

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

I felt like a child. I was scared and sad, but I was also holding onto Someone I trusted. I believed that even in this dark and scary place, He was still with me and that He loved me. I don't think that trusting God means that we won't experience intense negative emotions, like sadness, fear, or anger. I experienced all those emotions and still do, but I also believe and trust in God. There are paths in this life I don't want to go down...miscarriage, infertility, sickness, death, sorrow...but I know that when I go through those valleys, He is there with me and He will still be there when I get to the other side of the valley.

We named our baby Hope. Because we firmly trust that God is faithful to His promises. Because we trust God to be with us through the valleys. Because we trust that God can bring something good out of those valleys. Because even when we do not understand His will, we believe He is a loving Father who would not allow us to be hurt unless He could bring good out of it.