The Sherpa

It was a Sunday when I lost the baby. Baby Franklin. Sunday, December 29, 2013. We had playfully named it baby ‘Franklin’ because ultrasound pictures of our gestation reminded us of the cute little cartoon turtle, Franklin, with its rounded body and small head.

I remember it was a Sunday because once we were fairly certain I was having a miscarriage, our church plans that morning suddenly seemed unimportant. My family from Georgia was visiting our Colorado home for the Christmas holidays and on Christmas morning I planned to announce our pregnancy. It was going to be the first baby in our large family; the first grandchild for my parents.

I was surprised at how easily and quickly I’d become pregnant the month after coming off of birth control when it seemed like so many of my dear friends were struggling with infertility. Especially since we had waited several years before “trying.”

You see, growing up–I had a plan. I was going to get married at age 22, wait 5 years before having children so that my husband and I could travel and live independently of too many responsibilities, become a mom at age 27 and have all of my children by age 30–because 30 was when you officially became “old.” (Insert 30-year-old eye rolling here).

And up until that moment, my life was going perfectly according to my plan.

I carefully chose three balloons that said “Baby” in yellow, pink, and blue. I picked two different books up from our Christian bookstore for new grandparents-to-be. I wrapped the balloons and books in a giant cardboard box and placed them beside our Christmas tree to be opened by my parents in front of everyone on Christmas morning.

Chris and I had been married for just over four years, which meant baby would come in year five, aligning perfectly with my plan. I could hardly contain my excitement, especially since the baby was due on my mother’s birthday. Both of my parents, my two brothers, my sister, and my sister-in-law had flown in to spend Christmas with us. (And truly, what feels more like Christmas than snow falling in the Rockies?) I had kept our little secret for weeks and anxiously watched as each present was unwrapped, awaiting our big moment, saving the best for last. When it finally was our turn, all the cameras turned to my parents’ faces. When the first balloon emerged from the box and the realization set in, my small living room erupted into a chorus of congratulatory squeals and a sea of hugs.

That’s the last positive memory I have of our first child.

Because four days later, it was over.

The bleeding started two days after Christmas. At first, just a spot. Just a tiny one, barely even noticeable. I called the OBGYN on call who assured me it was probably nothing. Bleeding is normal in many pregnancies, he said. Then more spotting on the second day. My heart began to fill with worry but being a first time mom and eternal optimist I refused to believe the worst. I didn’t have any cramping and my mother had never had a miscarriage so it wasn’t even within the realm of possibilities in my mind. And “Dr. Google” reassured me that the bleeding would be heavy and painful if it were a miscarriage so I would know if it was that.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I knew my tiny baby’s life was over. The doctor on the phone agreed that I was likely having a miscarriage, but offered to call in a prescription pain medication that would “make it easier.” But nothing could prepare me for this. The excruciating physical pain of laboring on the toilet and losing everything that was left of my precious baby could only be eclipsed by the nearly audible emotional pain of my heart shattering into a million pieces. I have never felt such a blow. The hurt and the hopelessness were like a heavy weight on my soul. No one knew what to say. I was surrounded by people, but I felt so alone. We were able to save some of the tissue to take in for testing, but the results came back “inconclusive.” No one knew why my baby didn’t continue to grow. It all seemed so pointless to me.

Why?! Why did this happen to me?

“This happens to many women,” someone said. Yes…but it happened to me.

Once the bleeding lightened up and my brief labor ended, I crawled into bed and cried until everything beyond that memory now fades into darkness and the curtain falls on the darkest day of my life.

————————————————————————————————————————————-

Chris and I are suckers for a good documentary. We love watching documentaries on geography, history, animals, the military…pretty much anything we can sit on the couch, watch, and learn something new together. Romantic, I know.

Just the other day we were watching a documentary about Mt. Everest and the interesting group of people who inhabit several high valleys of northeastern Nepal. The Sherpa.

Living along the base of Mount Everest, these local guides are needed for taking foreign explorers to the summit of the tallest mountain in the world. Reaching an altitude of over 29,000 feet takes an estimated two months and Sherpas are essential in preparing the route for other climbers and providing the necessary gear to reach the top. Their bodies are already acclimated to the high altitude, making them perfect for this risky job. Only an estimated 4,000 people in the world have ever reached the summit of Mt. Everest and over 200 climbers have died on the mountain.

I started thinking about what it must be like for these people. How the first time they climbed the mountain themselves it must have been difficult, yet gets easier with each climb. And then I imagined how difficult it would be to climb Everest without them. These climbers, foreigners in an unfamiliar land…

While grief is an unwelcome guest in anyone’s life, it occurred to me that those of us who have already been up that steep climb now are like “Sherpas” to the foreigners that follow behind us in the land of tragedy. We’ve been there. We know the way. We are equipped to help carry their heavy load and walk alongside them. Our bodies, acclimated in our own grief, have built up a type of understanding that few others outside of our circumstances can relate to. Few have seen the top of that lonely mountain. But we have.

2  Corinthians 1:3-5 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 

Once you’ve lost a baby, you know that the grief doesn’t end that day. The first year after is the hardest. The due date will be agony. And from time to time, often at first, then not as often as time passes…you will think about your baby, wondering who he or she would’ve been…what they would have looked like…what you would be doing and how your life would be different if they were here…

Though the scars on my heart of losing our first baby still carry with them a deep ache, I am thankful at how the Lord has used that time in my life to walk alongside others in their time of grief. The steps along the path of miscarriage are familiar to me. This is a grief I know. I am well-acclimated to this altitude, my body effortlessly breathing in the thin air that others’ lungs struggle to inhale. God comforted me in my sorrow so that now I might comfort others.

Not long after losing our first baby, my sister-in-law suffered the loss of her first child. And just a few months later I heard from another close friend who had recently lost her first baby. And then suddenly it was like everyone I knew seemed to be going through the same thing I had just been through. I was able to walk with them up the mountain…praying, crying, grieving.

It’s almost like when you buy a new car. Suddenly you see that same car on every street corner, highway, and parking lot. I never realized how many people had suffered a miscarriage until I had one myself. An estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies will end this way. It’s the club that no one wants to join; the story that no one asked to be written on the pages of their life. The part of the plan that you never planned.

So many hard things in life are like that, though, aren’t they? No one asks for bad things to happen, but once they do, you’re suddenly more aware of those suffering in the same way. I’ve watched friends….young friends…bury their spouses, children, parents…and then watched as the hand of God placed others in their path who were facing a similar tragedy…others they were then able to help comfort. The Sherpas in my life were two of my aunts. Both have sadly lost more than one baby but I will never forget the comfort their calls and cards meant to me during that time. “I’m sorry for the loss of your baby,” they said. It seemed like the first time someone finally acknowledged that this was a baby. My baby.

And it occurred to me, the one tiny bright spot in our suffering is this: Just as the Sherpa makes the treacherous climb alongside his fellow climber, and just as our Heavenly Father has been with us through our despair, we are now equipped in helping guide others through their own grief.  At least in this small way we are all making the uphill climb together.

And that alone should bring comfort to us all–because we are not alone.