The China Coast

Lately I have been feeling sad about my Dominic again.

I have hesitated to blog about it because some of the women who stop by here are infertile.  Why am I still going on about a miscarriage when I was able to conceive another baby so easily?

But.

I don't believe that unborn babies are interchangeable any more than ex utero babies are.  And I think that telling a woman she should try try again right after a miscarriage is akin to telling a recently widowed woman that there are lots of fish in the sea.  And right at this moment I am just plain sad, thinking about a little body in the frosty ground and wondering what might have been.  Who he might have been.

Today I would have been 38 weeks pregnant, at the "any day now" point.

Today is also the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit who proclaimed the gospel in Japan and India.  He dreamed of going to China, too.  He sailed for China but became ill on the voyage.  The crew dropped him off on an island in sight of the coast.  He died there.  I wonder what it must have been like -- seeing the land where he had yearned to go, knowing he would never set foot there. 

I am trying to do what I think he did, to say, "Okay, Lord, if Japan and India are your will for me, then I will be content here on this island."  This is the baby I have been given -- this baby who has been especially active today, almost as if she is trying to draw my focus away from the hazy hypotheticals and back to reality. 

Oh, and now this sounds all muddled, as if welcoming this new baby is like dying.  You know that's not what I mean, don't you?  I only mean that I thought I knew what this December would look like, and it doesn't look that way now that I'm here.  I could see the place where I thought I was going, but I had a different destination after all. 

I am thinking about Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus.  I am thinking about the way he wept over his friend's death, knowing that he would call him forth from the dead in just a few minutes.  I am thinking that being confident in the happy ending doesn't mean we can't grieve the sad parts in the middle.

Today I found out that a friend of mine who had struggled to conceive for many months after a miscarriage is pregnant again -- only she's miscarrying again, too.  Please pray for her, for peace and patience and for the gentlest possible end to this pregnancy.

And please pray for me, too, for joy in the place where God has put me, and for willingness to accept what is given me with a glad heart.  Tonight as we finished our Advent prayer my oldest son -- the one I would never have known if I had not miscarried my first baby -- prayed, "Please, God, heal Mama's heart.  Help her understand even though I don't understand myself."

Amen, buddy.  Amen.