As you have probably read by now, my first miscarriage (first pregnancy) was considered a missed miscarriage, and I made the choice to have a D&C. I detailed all of my emotions related to that in my last post, so I won’t go over all the details again, but suffice it to say that I really struggled over the fact that I was having a procedure done that I had always associated with abortion. I honestly didn’t know they did them for anything else! But I opted to go forward with the D&C when they told me that our baby had stopped growing two weeks prior. Without any physical signs of a miscarriage happening, it seemed like it would be the best thing to do. (And because of the complications we found out about after they got the pathology results, it was a good thing I went that route!) But remember how I said that I seriously about had a breakdown on the table, as they were trying to knock me out? When it came time to have baby number four, (who is four months old this week, by the way!), I had to get a c-section because he was breech, then of course, before they cut, he turned sideways… so my scar is seriously huge. But that’s not what this is about. =-) They took me back to the room, and made my hubby wait to come back. As I’m walking back to the room, I couldn’t help but notice – they took me to the exact same room. The hospital only has two rooms they use for these procedures, one to the left and one to the right. As they made me go into the room on the right, I tried VERY hard not to think about the first time I was in that room… but I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t excited about the c-section (I mean, who ever is??), but I just couldn’t get the reason why I was there the first time out of my mind. I really tried, but I honestly felt like I was going to have a complete panic attack. Eventually, after trying twice to do the epidural and deciding to do a spinal instead, they let me lay down, and my hubby got to come in, and then the fun started. =-) By the time I was taken out of that room, I had a perfect baby – one who was alive, that I got to see, and who was okay! But I’ve come to see that God had a plan in that, in allowing me to deliver a baby in the same room where I had lost one. It took a truly horrendous experience from my past, and turned it into a memory that’s now a good one (well, as much a c-section can be “good” – ha ha!). Does that make any sense? Maybe I’m not explaining it very well, but I really did appreciate how God allowed me to go right back to where I was “before” and take that memory, which was honestly one of the worst possible days of my life, and make me see that without having gone through that experience, I couldn’t have appreciated what being back in that same room would mean for me. I was a little bit more freaked out at first, because that room wasn’t one with pleasant memories, and while I was seriously tempted to beg them to let me have the baby in the room on the left, I also felt like there was a reason for my having to be back in there. And while I don’t want to be back in that room for any reason anytime soon, I don’t feel scared of that room anymore. It doesn’t hold the same negative feelings in my mind, because now it’s a room that isn’t just a place of loss… it’s a place of joy too. =-)
It will never cease to amaze me how often God takes our “negative” experiences and does some kind of redemptive work on them… so that they turn from being negative into positive. If that doesn’t show His love for us, I really don’t know what does. I am humbled, and in awe, I really am. He doesn’t have to do any of this, but I am so very grateful that He does. What a way to redeem my D&C and the memories of that room on a truly awful day, and turn them into memories of something really great instead!
Do any of you have things like this, where something bad/negative from your loss, was turned around and you’re now able to look at it through a different lens? I’d really love to read about it if you have!
Miscarriages Matter 