Entry 014

This morning, I was vacuuming the hallway between the two bedrooms on the main level of my house—the same hallway I’ve vacuumed a couple hundred times and have walked through at least 50 times that. But today was the very first time something caught my eye in that hallway.

Right on the edge of the beige runner covering the cold hardwood floor was a rainbow. One with colors so vibrant, it was like it was a painting. I stared at it for a number of seconds then put my toes where the rainbow was and watched as the color overcame them. I was mesmerized by this rainbow. Any logical person would say the colors came from the daylight refracting through the window in one of the bedrooms. But I choose to believe it was from my babies. 

That’s one thing about us loss mamas—we’re always looking for reminders of our babies or signs of them from Heaven. Before my miscarriages, I would’ve thought the rainbow in my hallway was neat and proceeded to vacuum. Now, I look for things in groups of the number of angel babies I have, search for what would’ve been their birth flowers everywhere, and notice those rainbows. I’ve changed in a lot of ways since losing my first child.

Miscarriage made me cold. I’ve built walls and barricaded my heart to protect it from breaking into any more pieces. But it also made me so, so much more empathetic. I feel things far more deeply than I did before. I’ve been the person with things going on invisible to the outside that people around me know nothing about, and that’s helped me to be more gentle in my interactions—because I know what it’s like to be on the other side.

I have a hard time listening to people complain about little things that really don’t matter when you consider how fragile life is. Everything seems so trivial after losing four babies—it did even after losing one.

I’m not afraid of dying anymore. I know when I get to Heaven, I’ll get to hold my babies for the first time and finally see how beautiful they are.

I am a planner. I do not do well when things don’t happen how I expect them to and I can get pretty crabby—just ask my husband. But there’s no way to plan for the outcome of all the doctors’ tests or how our next pregnancy will result or even if we’ll get a child of our own on Earth ever. That control is something I’ve been forced to work on letting go of.

Since all those tests have brought no explanations to light, I’ve put my focus on improving my health. Sure, I dieted and exercised before ever losing a baby, but there’s so much more to it than that. I switched to natural and non-toxic skin care, soaps and cleaning products to reduce the number of chemicals I put on and around my body, got on board the plant-lady bandwagon to clean the air I breathe, spend more time making sure I’m putting the right foods in my body, and have even taken measures to mediate EMF levels in my home. These seem to be just about the only things that could potentially impact my ability to stay pregnant that I have control of, so I did something about it.

Losing four babies has tested my faith. A lot. After my first loss and even my second, I held onto the belief that our babies went to Heaven for a reason. I didn’t understand the reason, but I trusted God had a plan I just couldn’t see. That thought began to fade after it happened again and even more so the fourth time. I prayed every morning and every night during those pregnancies and thanked God every time I didn’t see blood when I used the bathroom. And then I found out that for weeks, I continued those prayers and praises while unknowingly saying them for a baby that died inside me. I have a hard time piecing together why a God that loves us is putting my husband and me through so much emotional and physical torture. One day, I just hope it all makes sense.

I found a new sense of bravery. Not because of how “strong” I had to be to survive four miscarriages and all that accompanies them, but because it’s scary continuing trying to conceive time and time again when I know how it can end. Opening my heart to the vulnerability of being shattered again at any moment takes more courage than I had before. It’d be much easier to give up.

I am not as happy as I used to be. I’m not as ignorantly joyous as I was before experiencing pregnancy loss. Losing my children has opened my eyes to the hurt and darkness in this world.

I am so, so tired. It takes an unbelievable amount of energy to carry on with life as usual and seem fine when in a perpetual state of grief. To cope with the exhaustion, I stick to a rather consistent routine. The familiarity helps minimize the overthinking and anxiety, too.

I’m known as the girl who lost four babies. Or at least that’s how I assume people see me. But I’m okay with that. I mean, that is what made me who I am now.

I’ve watched the world continue moving while feeling like I was sitting on the outside watching it through a screen as I carried my dead baby. I’ve been a coffin for four children. That does a lot to your soul. I’m not the same person I was before I miscarried. And I probably never will be.

Emily Lindquist