Mourn with those who Mourn

As a young girl, I use to play house with my dolls.  During my childhood, I always imagined growing up, marrying someone and then having children.  About eight years ago, I found myself and many of my friends venturing into the world of becoming parents.  Those rosy-colored, picture perfect childhood dreams and thoughts of motherhood were becoming a reality.  It was a season of baby showers, excitement, and anticipation. 

During this season of becoming mothers for the first time, I also started to see and experience a kind of pain that I had never anticipated in my visions of motherhood.  The pain of infertility.  Some friends getting pregnant easily while others struggled for months and years.  The pain of an unexpected end to a pregnancy before the baby was ready to be born.  A baby being born still, the only cries in the room coming from the parents.  I had no framework for this pain.  No words to explain it or to provide comfort. 

I'd always known that childbirth would be painful, but the pain was worth it, you had a baby in your arms at the end.  What I was fully unprepared for was having to watch so many friends lose their baby before they even got to know if it was a son or a daughter.  I had heard the term "stillborn" but I had no idea how gut-wrenching it was to see a perfectly formed, full-term baby delivered into this world, but  never taking a breath here.

I knew life was miraculous and a gift from God, but I had no idea how deep the pain could be when you don't have that new life in your arms at the end of the pregnancy or when you cannot even become pregnant in the first place.  I didn't know just how many women experience this type of pain and I naively didn't realize that I would be added to that number.

At some point in my childhood, I did learn that my mom had miscarried her firstborn.  She talked to me about the physical and emotional pain of losing that baby, but I just didn't get it until I started to experience it first-hand in my own life and friendships.  It didn't really occur to me that I had a brother or a sister that I never got to know. 

Its hard to put all my thoughts about this into one blog post.  I do know that many people believe life starts at conception, yet they are unwilling or unable to talk about the loss of life during a pregnancy.  I don't understand that at all.  And to be honest, my feelings were deeply hurt by this when we lost our fourth baby a few years ago.

I know that each situation has different circumstances and that some may seem to be more difficult, but I don't understand comparing loss to try to make yourself or someone else feel better.  Statements like "its better to lose the baby now and not when you are further along" don't provide comfort.  A wise friend of mine, who has given birth to a baby who was still and later had a miscarriage, told me that she has made it a habit to never compare loss because each loss needs to be grieved.  Such true words.  Loss is loss.  All loss needs to be grieved.

Romans 12:15 says "Rejoice with those who rejoice; Mourn with those who mourn."  This is just one verse out of an entire chapter of love, but its an important one.  I feel like its easy to do the rejoicing part with our friends.  Its fun and it often involves parties, food, and laughter. 

The mourning part is a lot trickier.  It requires sitting alongside a friend in pain.  It involves long-distance phone calls.  It is awkward.  It involves apologies for misspoken words.  It involves being okay with silence.  It requires having the courage to ask questions.  And then being okay with it if the other person doesn't want to answer or if they talk for thirty minutes straight about how difficult it is to have lost.  Mourning involves having conversations where you are vulnerable yourself and are willing to just listen. 

In my experience, mourning has the capability to bring your friendship to a deeper level than rejoicing.  Its easy to be happy for someone else.  Its easy to run to Target and buy a present and put a sparkly bow on top.  Its much harder to sit in a quiet hospital room and fumble for words while your friend physically recovers from delivering her baby with empty arms.  There are no words to erase the pain for your friend who is standing next to a casket holding her baby boy.  Mourning is uncomfortable.  You might say something stupid.  You might make the other person cry.  You might cry yourself.

I have had the privilege of experiencing some friendships where the mourning was shared, both my own and theirs.  I'm sure there were awkward pauses of silence or fumbled words, but I don't remember those things with these friends.

What I do remember is the friend who welcomed me visiting her in the hospital the day after she delivered her baby boy into Jesus' arms.  I remember many words from the letter another friend wrote to her son and read to him at his funeral.  I remember the friend who was struggling with infertility showing up at my baby shower and celebrating with me that I was pregnant with twins while she was still not pregnant.  What I treasure is the friend who called me today, just hours after learning about her baby's heart no longer beating inside of her, to share her experience and to ask me about mine.  Those friends who had the courage to be vulnerable have taught me so much and blessed me more than they could know.  There is something scary about believing that God is good but admitting that you don't understand what he is doing or how painful life can be.  But there is also something beautiful and real about doing this, especially when you share it with others. 

I still don't understand why some people have to experience this type of pain.  I don't understand why we lost one of our children but were allowed to have the other four here with us (at least for now).  I don't know why babies like Matthew, Faith, Autumn and Desmond aren't here with us in this world and others are.  I don't know why a friend last week learned her baby had no amniotic fluid and wouldn't survive delivery.  And I don't know why another friend heard a strong heartbeat and saw the baby move last week, just to learn today that the heartbeat is gone. 

I've had this song on my mind a lot since they played it in church the other week and think its appropriate as an end to this post.