Miscarriage – Shannon’s Story
After a long time of trying to get pregnant without success, I went through a few years of infertility treatments. The rollercoaster of being hopeful and then being disappointed month after month was exhausting! It seemed as though the dream of becoming pregnant was truly going to be just that…a dream.
Eventually, my dream did come true–I was finally pregnant! I had a wonderful pregnancy, with very few complications, and gave birth to a full-term healthy baby boy!
When our son was just over a year old, we started infertility treatments again, hoping for another healthy baby. We continued with the treatment on and off for about three years. This time our outcome was not as we had hoped, so we made the tough decision to stop the treatments and begin pursuing adoption.
We decided to adopt internationally and went through the long paper trail. Then, at a routine doctor’s appointment, I found out that I was pregnant. How could this be? Why now? This can’t be happening, we are adopting a baby! Why wasn’t I thrilled with this news? After all the years of infertility treatments, I should be over-the-moon excited, but I was not. What about the baby we are adopting? How is all this going to work? If the timing is what we think it will be, this baby will be due right around the time we should be traveling.
My thoughts were spinning in many different directions. It took a few days to work through the shock, but happiness and excitement overcame my fears. We didn’t know how it was all going to work out, but we knew it would.
At the time I found out I was pregnant, a medicine I was taking had been determined unsafe for use during pregnancy, so I had to stop taking it. Due to my history with infertility, the doctor had me in for regular blood work to assure this was a viable pregnancy. Needless to say, after numerous blood tests, ultrasounds, etc., it was determined that the pregnancy was not viable and the baby was no longer alive.
Another emotional rollercoaster yet again! Now guilt began setting in. Was my lack of excitement the cause of this? Did the medication I took cause the miscarriage? Confusion… remorse…I felt terrible! Was this all my fault?
During the days and weeks that followed the miscarriage, God brought a foundational peace. Yes, I still had to move through the emotional ups and downs, but there was a peace within that could only come from God. As I opened up and shared with a few others what I was going through, God brought across my path women who had walked through a miscarriage or several miscarriages. Each woman’s story had different elements. However, there was a common understanding. God, through this situation, was working in me a greater awareness of His control in my life. I’m certainly still a work in progress! Having gone through this, I’m thankful for a God who loves me so personally and meets me just where I am.
Story submitted by Shannon, from Michigan.
