Wasted Time?
“You need to go to the emergency room now,” my doctor said to me over the phone. I had started spotting early in my third pregnancy and was hoping it was normal. I quickly gathered a few things and headed off to spend the day in the emergency room. It was a long day and in the end I got no answers. It felt like a waste. The following day I spent driving all over the city, with 4-year-old and 2-year-old in tow, getting blood tests and seeing my doctor. Still, nothing was confirmed, and I felt so annoyed by all the seemingly unnecessary inconvenience I was being put through. “It’ll be worth it if it helps save my baby’s life,” I thought. I felt like God wouldn’t make me go through all of this just to lose this baby. What a waste of time that would be, right?
Fast forward four years, I began the familiar and dreaded bleeding that I knew was likely my third miscarriage. I knew the drill by now so I didn’t even bother waiting for my doctor to call me back before I packed up my bag with books, snacks and my phone charger to spend my day in the emergency room. I was sad and the emergency room was the last place I wanted to be. I didn’t want to face the reality in front of me. I either wanted to crawl back into bed and distract myself with anything lighthearted and silly I could find on my phone, or I wanted to live in complete denial, pretend this wasn’t happening and carry on with my previously scheduled plans for the day. But I knew I had to make the responsible choice, so I begrudgingly headed off to the ER.
As I sat by the window in the fairly quiet emergency room waiting room, the sun pouring in on me, I asked God, “What was the point? Why did you let me get pregnant if I was just going to have another miscarriage?” I was quickly reminded of all the Lord had spoken to me after previous miscarriages about the value and eternal worth of my little saints. Suddenly my perspective shifted. I knew my baby wasn’t lost, even if I would never hold him or her. My child was created and loved by God and has a purpose and mission, even if it wasn’t on earth. These few hours in the emergency room were potentially my only time to be with my baby and love my child with the sacrificial love of a mother.
I had three children at home and I knew well the sacrifices involved in motherhood. I’d spent nights sleeping on their floor, ready to catch the vomit when they had a stomach bug, and suffered through the sleepless nights and breastfeeding struggles of early newborn days. I sat beside each of them as they slowly sounded out each word while learning to read and I listened to detailed descriptions of the newest Super Mario game they were playing. All of these things were sacrifices that felt well worth it. They were tangible ways I was loving my children, even when it wasn’t exactly fun.
How was this newest baby any different? I likely wouldn’t get to rock this baby late into the night, or patiently help them read the word “said” for the fifth time in three minutes. This time in the hospital waiting room was the only time I had with this little one. This was my only opportunity to sacrifice for my baby while he or she was still here on earth. The tone of my emergency room visit changed. I was no longer in a rush to get home. This time felt sacred.
A few months later, I was reading a book of letters written by St. Zelie and Louis Martin called A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (1864-1885). St. Zelie lost four of her young children in infancy or childhood. Reading her story and imagining everything she went through with each loss was heart-wrenching. She shared:
“I didn’t regret the sorrows and problems that I had endured for them. Several people said to me, ‘It would be much better never to have had them.’ I can’t bear that kind of talk. I don’t think the sorrows and problems could be weighed against the eternal happiness of my children. So they weren’t lost forever. Life is short and full of misery. We’ll see them again in Heaven.”
St. Zelie understood the value of her children, no matter if they were the top of their class at school or if they died only weeks after birth. Her greatest prayer for each of her children was that they would become saints. While each child brought Zelie so much joy and hope, they also each brought many struggles. Zelie struggled to breastfeed her children, which at that time meant hiring a wet nurse to take the infant away until they could be weaned. Imagine the pain Zelie felt having to hand over her tiny baby to a stranger, hoping her child would get the care they needed (which wasn’t always a guarantee). But all the pain and sacrifice Zelie endured paled in comparison to the value of each human life. Her children, even though their lives were so short, received eternal life with Jesus and that was worth every moment of pain and sacrifice.
My third miscarriage was a hard one to grieve; I spent many weeks ignoring the grief and then many months working through it. As I look back, I’m forever grateful for that day in the emergency room, my time to love my baby as only a mother can. I’ll never again think of it as wasted time just because my baby didn’t live longer here on earth. My baby is known and loved by God, spending eternity with Him. What a privilege to get to hold that little soul in my body briefly and in my heart forever.
