When you have your first miscarriage, you’re reassured that it happens. You’re told there’s nothing wrong with your body, that it was merely an unhealthy pregnancy.
When you have your second, you’re told you simply have bad luck. If you’re fortunate enough to have children before or between losses, you’re reassured even more that it’s nothing beyond that bad luck.
When you have your third, some questions are raised, but still little worry as they know you can carry to term if you’ve had previous healthy pregnancies.
When your fourth miscarriage happens, some tests are done. Everything looks great. You simply truly just have bad luck, or so you’re told.
Common Reactions to Uncommon Multiple Miscarriage
In exhaustion, you might try other options. The looking into adoption, foster care, reproductive technology brings some hope.
Then those lead to more loss, and you wonder about that luck.
How Can One Person Be So Fortunate and While Simultaneously Being So Unlucky?
As someone who has living children, the fortune of that will never be lost on me, someone who knows the true risk of trying to have a child.
I know that I live in a different space than someone with primary infertility and recurrent loss. My heart is heavy for those who are left wondering if they can ever have a biological child or if they can even become a parent by any means.
I also know that the fortune of that doesn’t replace the pain of loss. It doesn’t make you feel any less unlucky.
It makes you wonder how someone can have a large family and know nothing of loss.
It makes you wonder if it’s worth trying for a happy ending.
It makes you realize that no matter what happens, at some point, you must find peace because that fortune means you still need to show up to life regardless of how you feel.
Luck Doesn’t Exist, and Life Isn’t Fair
While I feel lucky and unlucky in so many ways, I also don’t feel luck exists. I don’t believe things happen for no rhyme or reason.
I believe that there is nothing fair and little makes sense in the ways of reproduction. I do not believe anyone deserves or is undeserving in reproduction. All I know is that the human body sometimes fails us.
Why You Didn’t Fail As A Mother
I know that the human body isn’t perfect.
I know that most of us will never have answers earthside for why we experience more loss than others.
At some point, we have to realize that just like other areas of life can be wholly unfair, reproductions rests there too.
No answers.
No fairness.
And while that can be horribly frustrating, in that realization, there is peace. It is simply that human bodies fail us.
It isn’t that we aren’t deserving of another child nor that we are deserving of loss.
The peace is that – there isn’t something we did to deserve this. And as hard as it is to accept that there’s nothing we can do to earn another child, there is a relief of pressure, responsibility, and guilt.
Finding Peace When There’s No Answer
My initial peace had always been found in knowing I could try again. I had peace in knowing I was always open to fostering temporarily or even pursuing adoption. I had peace that I had years to keep trying all our different options.
Over time, after different losses, doors began to close. With that, peace in a happy ending began to fade.
I had to come to a point where I had to map out a future where the happy ending may not look like I hoped. There’s a small chance we might eventually have the future we hoped for, but I’ve learned I can’t put my peace in that.
My peace is found in knowing that I am not in control of the outcomes.
I am not in control of what happens if we try again.
I am not in control of why we had five miscarriages and lost a baby we loved as our own.
Grieving the child that never died: The grief of a failed adoption.
Our final miscarriage, we pursued a donor embryo. We thought our egg or sperm quality was the reason for our losses. We thought a donor embryo would solve the risks. We knew there were no guarantees, but it brought significant hope.
In the end, it was not our answer, at least not at present.
No answers. How do you find peace when there’s no answer?
No answer as to why.
No answer as to what our future may bring.
My peace is found in the hope that while our losses aren’t earthside, they’re at perfect peace in heaven.
My peace is found that while some bitterness and envy has made its way into my heart, I have also grown empathy I never knew I could have.
My peace is found in realizing there’s a whole terrible club of families that know loss. And while no one wants to join this club, once you join you aren’t alone.
My peace is found in knowing I didn’t cause nor deserve these losses.
My peace is found in knowing that while I don’t have answers, He does. God has a plan, whether I enjoy it, whether I understand it, whether I agree with it, it exists. One day these losses might make sense.
Until then, I simply have peace in knowing this isn’t my control.
My peace is in knowing that God, life, luck isn’t out to get me. I know that there may be answers. But I also know that the answer might simply be that human bodies fail and sometimes that failure means death and loss.
My peace comes in knowing that even if every door seems closed, maybe one will open.
And if it doesn’t, if loss is our end, my peace is in knowing that I will be okay.
Loss changes. Loss breaks. But loss doesn’t keep you down forever.
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Whitney says
Thank you so much for your thoughts here. They echo my own experiences; I have 3 living children and have experienced 4 losses, 3 of which were second trimester losses. My doctors have ran SO many tests and having everything come back “normal” and “healthy” is beyond frustrating. I always wanted a big family and thought we’d have 5 or 6 kids, but I’m working on finding peace in my earthly family not looking the way I thought it would.