On Losing Baby Rose but Gaining Perspective

Our baby should have been born this month.*

That was not God’s will, however, and on January 4th we lost her. It was my one and only miscarriage and my heart goes out to all the families that have gone through this more than once.

My doctor sent me in to have an ultrasound done that day. About 20 minutes into the procedure, it was pretty easy to figure out we’d lost the baby. The technician said nothing. No cheerful exclamations, certainly. No heartbeat or flailing of limbs to show me. Nothing.

Which was expected. I went in with the sad realization that we had probably lost this one. There had been considerable spotting that afternoon.

But what I didn’t expect were the thoughts that begin popping into my head. What exactly was the technician seeing? Why was this taking so long? Was there an indistinguishable growth? Worse, was there an unmistakable tumor? I began imagining my children’s faces one by one–their little smiles, their shining eyes. I wondered, what will it be like for them without me?

Pretty morbid thinking, I realize, but keep in mind that I was laying there a long time.

Finally she finished up. “Your doctor will be calling you in a minute,” she said, and placed a box of tissues on the counter. That was the worst part of the whole experience.

It was almost a relief, then, to hear the doctor’s diagnosis: yes, you’ve lost the baby. What? No, there is no cancer.

So that was that and over the next few weeks the healing process began. My body, my emotions…slowly things moved back towards normal.

Until the unexpected phone call came. My friend Tina, having gone in for a colonoscopy, was told she had cancer of the colon. She had the growth removed, will have an ileostomy until December, and is halfway through her chemo (the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes). Like myself, Tina has five children.

Within a week of Tina’s news I received an email: my cousin Suzette had breast cancer. She had a masectomy, was told the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes and is going through some aggressive chemotherapy. Suzette has five children, also.

Tina’s doing really well so far, thanks be to God. She goes to daily Mass, is on the board of our homeschooling co-op and has her friends’ children over for the evening, for heaven’s sake. She is just a beacon to those who know her.

Suzette’s treatments have been harder; her chemo (a different drug combination than Tina’s) is blasting everything in its wake. She has lost her hair and is beautiful in her baseball caps & bandanas, but she is very, very tired. When I was over there last week I cut up an overripe pineapple for her. “You know,” she said, “That would have taken me half an hour.”

To say that our crosses are individually hewn is such an understatement.

For me my suffering is in my seeing that the defrosted meat has bled all over the refrigerator or trying to patiently meet my toddler’s constant need to “See! See!” everything I’m doing. I don’t understand why I have not been called to face the same level of suffering that my friend and my cousin are, but I am trying to understand because that may well be God’s Will for me tomorrow.

Saints Peregrine and Rose of Lima, pray for us. Baby Rose & little Joshua Michael, intercede for us.

*We never learned the baby’s gender, but the kids prayed a novena to St. Therese and she sent us a pink rose. Thus, Baby Rose.