In Loving Memory of Christian Ryan
By Kelly Breaux
No I’m not pregnant…in fact yesterday March 6 made 8 years since my miscarriage and DNC.
Christian Ryan would have turned 8 this year. All the what if’s. The missed birthdays. The shame and the guilt that came with my body failing me. Miscarriage is hard, and emotional, and unfair.
It comes along with being open to life. The reality that being open to life is also being open to death.
I remember sitting in Dr. Kennedy’s office with tears in my eyes, feeling so numb. I even said “I was waiting for this to happen.” She was so heartbroken for us, and offered us love and compassion. I just wanted to cry in a pillow and stay in bed all day.
I didn’t name our baby we lost in miscarriage until this January, after being told that it would be a good idea when being prayed over at The Blessed Selos Shrine. My prayer warrior said that the hole in my heart, the tiny hole, needed mending.
Why didn’t I know this?
Why didn’t anyone tell me before to do this.?
I didn’t know what to think of this at the time it happened, but I heard God’s voice through this stranger.
…
This past week something happened to me in prayer. The same theme kept coming up. It came up 3 times. A reflection for Mother’s of Loss and Mother’s suffering from infertility. God was sharing with me the words
Tell them that I love them. Tell them even though they are suffering, tell them that I love them.
It kept coming to me. I couldn’t turn off God’s ASK.
…
This morning I was reading a blog about Trust after Loss by Melanie on www.thelifeididntchoose.com I was sitting in my bathtub with a quizzical look as I read TRUTH.
Holy Smokes this woman is spot on.
As she writes “the first step toward trusting again is to ADMIT THE PAIN”
I sat with my mouth open, it felt like I wrote this article, which I clearly did not, but here was this mom of loss speaking TRUTH to me.
She writes “Death is awful! We dare not make it small! It was the penalty for sin and the price of salvation. To deny the presence of pain is to diminish the power of the cross.”
WHAT? Oh my goodness. Do you hear what this woman is saying. To deny our pain is to deny the cross
Own it
Feel it
Name it
Speak it
This blog ya’ll is TRUTH. You can read more if you click on the link above.
…
What does it mean to me?
When I had my miscarriage, because of my other two live birth losses, I made my miscarriage small. I stuffed down my pain, and I pretended it didn’t rage a storm in my heart.
I was lying to myself.
My miscarriage and the lack of grieving it cost me a lot. It kept me from healing by minimizing it, and all the words of miscarriage that hurts MOTHERS.
“It was early.”
“There may have been something wrong with the baby.”
“It was my fault, I did xyz.”
“Don’t cry, you’ll be okay.”
“You can try again.”
“Count your blessings.”
“It wasn’t a real baby.”
“At least you weren’t further along.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Well at least you can get pregnant.”
“This happens to everyone, it’s not a big deal.”
“You’ll be fine in a few days.”
Then you wake up with this pain in your heart 8 years later and NO you are definitely not okay.
The trauma has left you feeling so alone, and so isolated. And for so many of us women, we haven’t told anyone out of fear that this would happen. Because the truth is that we are scared to be vulnerable and show our wounds to the world out of fear of being judged.
We are wounded by our wounds, and we continue to allow ourselves to reject the cross. The cross is where the healing comes from, and if we minimize our pain and suffering, we deny Christ.
Tell them that I love them.
He loves you.
He desires to come eyelash to eyelash with you. To reconcile His heart with yours.
I know I’m not always dainty about my grief, and sometimes I can appear to be a mess, but the reality of my heart is that I’m really not afraid to share my insecurities with others. It comes with the territory of knowing who my audience is and embracing the gift that God has given to me and has asked of me.
Tell them that I love them.
It’s not cute, and it may be romantic, but Christ’s love is INTIMATE. His love is pure, and free of judgement. He is and will always be the one who invites me to mercy and love with no agenda.
