"How are you doing?"

I have been asked repeatedly over and over these last few days and weeks, “So, how are you doing?”...
“Well, it depends”...is typically my answer.

Really....I may be ‘just fine’ ....in that moment.
But then, I get in my car, hear a song that digs into my heart, and lose it. Or I lay in bed at night and think about the now empty feeling I have inside me and cry myself to sleep quietly. But then I wake up to a new day, get myself dressed, and go on.

The hardest part of miscarriage? It isn’t something that heals itself overnight. I feel in a weird way however, that it is almost expected of me.
And rightfully so. I have to move on. I agree. Life still moves on. And I have to go with it.

But miscarriage is strange. It is one of those things that people don’t know what to say or how to help you deal with it. It isn’t really a physical-see type of loss. So therefore, while we move on, it moves on with us...but it gets shoved down....covered up...and hidden. And I will bargain to say that I don’t know that one ever truly ‘heals’ from it.
Let me explain.

I can remember when I was young, and I would repeatedly fall off my bike, skinning the same knee...over and over again. I still have a scar on my left knee to prove it.
In the first few moments of the fall, I would feel nothing. Call it shock...or adrenaline...whatever. But within minutes, as the blood would surface, the wound would begin to throb with a deep burning sensation and tears would immediately come. The pain would take my breath away.

I would hobble inside to my Mom to which she would get the Bactine and some band-aids to clean out the wound and cover it up so it would heal.
At first it was hard to walk.
The place that the wound was, made it hard to bend my knee properly without it hurting. So I would walk with a hobble.
But after a few days, a few more band-aides to cover up the broken skin, the wound would begin to scab up and heal and the sting would go away...and walking resumed as normal.
And given time, all that was left was a scar...and I would hop back on my bike...and be about my play.
But the scar remained. Even after 20 some odd years, the wound on my knee is still visible.

That is the only way that I can appropriately describe to you how miscarriage feels.
For those I have met that have experienced it themselves years ago, they still have scars. Very visible scars. I have had women come into my office, 40years my senior, with heartfelt tears of sorrow pouring down their face over a child they too lost when they were young. I have had countless friends secretly tell me their stories.

We know how to handle those things that are physically seen and tangible.
We know what to do.
We know how to handle the death of a person. You may be able to sit beside the person as you watch them take their last breath; you see the casket, the body..... Ect. To which you bring food and flowers, go to the funeral, and send cards.... We know how to handle a birth. You throw a baby shower, visit the hospital, send balloons, decorate mailboxes.

But miscarriage....it is strange monster. A silent grief. A private journey. One that has some really deep and dark places that no one will ever know. There isn’t a ‘tangible’ and ‘seen’ loss....other than the tears of the person experiencing it.
And unless you yourself have walked the lonely halls, it is hard to truly understand the emotional toll it takes on someone. And I am beginning to see that is carries with it a lifetime scar.

I know, it isn’t a happy subject so, no, people really don’t want to sit around listening to stories of grief and sorrow and losing babies.
I agree with that statement.
But even in my search to find literature, books on the topic, there are few and far in-between. And I have to wonder why it is so seemingly....hidden. A private journey if you must.

Does this wound still hurt? Yes. In a take-by-breath-away kind of pain. And I believe it will always hurt. I will always wonder what my babies would have looked like. I was convinced that this last one, was a boy. I just knew. You can ask my husband. I looked at only boy things. I thought of only boy names. And I know that HE is with Jesus now.
And I will always speak about my babies. They deserve recognition. For they impacted their mama more than they will ever know. I will always be honest about their short lived existence and impact they have had in my life.

So I guess the honest answer to the initial question I have been asked of, “how are you doing?”.... Well,to be honest, my knee is still raw and the wound still stings. But God has cleaned it out and bandaged it up...and I am still walking. With a hobble of course. But up and walking.