The Setback

36 weeks pregnant with Azariah, who is now a healthy 19 month old.

"Consider it a setback."  The doctor said it as though I had broken an arm, or was being diagnosed with an ear infection.

A setback.  Really?  This is what you call it when you lose a baby?  Casually he stated, "You're likely to have more miscarriages, but I see no reason you can't have another healthy baby some time in the future."

What?!  This was not my regular OB.  It didn't matter.  Once again, someone of the medical profession tried to explain away a miscarriage, as if it really shouldn't hurt.

Have you been there?  We have.  Twice this year.  It's a painful place to be, it's lonely, scary, and extremely sad.  I recognize that the OB, and the doctor at the ER (who saw me in November) see patients who are having miscarriages very regularly.  What I think they failed to recognize was this:  I am a mother who is losing a child.  This does not happen to me every day, or even once a week.  I'm not disappointed, I'm GRIEVING.  I have lost a baby - yes it IS a BABY.

Over the next few weeks, as I continue my own healing process, I will be sharing advice to medical professionals, words of love to mamas, and ways to support friends through miscarriage.

Please join me in my journey.  Learn what it means to lose a baby, and how to begin your own process of recovery.  Learn how to help a friend during a very dark and difficult time.  Hear some things NOT to say.

Understand, it is a healing process.  It takes time.  I'm not sure that I've fully emotionally healed from our loss in November, I know we haven't recovered from the one in April.

Have you experienced the loss of a baby?  What wisdom would you share with others about this very sensitive topic?