Well Put

Recently I read several recommendations for the book "Coming to Term" by Jon Cohen. I was able to get it through interlibrary loan and have now ordered it on paperback swap. I'm only 25 pages in but so far it's been fabulous. There's one part in particular that I have read, and reread and made Kiley read because it explains so well how I feel (it's on page 9).

As a background, Jon's wife suffered 4 miscarriages after they had their first daughter. This is a memory/ thoughts from after their second miscarriage.

"Several months passed, and fertility and miscarriage faded into the background- at least I thought it had. One evening, Shannon asked me, her eyes wet, mascara streaking down her cheek, whether I knew what day it was. Had I missed our anniversary? 'Our baby would have been due today.' she said, referring to the first miscarriage. I held her as she cried and then wailed, with the particular grief that accompanies the death of someone you love.

I suffered no lasting depression about that miscarriage. In my Cro-Magnon way, I puzzled that she grieved so over a pregnancy that had lasted a few weeks. Men and women do--must--have different reactions to miscarriage, which adds yet another twist to an emotional rope that already has many knots in it. I know more intimately than anyone else what miscarriage meant to Shannon. But from another vantage, any woman who has miscarried has a more precise understanding of Shannon's sense of loss. A woman lives through a miscarriage. A man, no matter how devoted, only observes it. So Shannon's reaction to an unborn baby's birthday, a symbol that had little meaning to me at first, taught me something about what miscarriage means to a woman.

Miscarriage for Shannon did not approach the most feared tragedy that any parent can imagine: the loss of a child who actually breathes air, snuggles into your neck, and looks into your eyes. But for me, the miscarried embryo was an embryo. For Shannon, it was a son or a daughter, who, had fate been more kind, would at that moment have fed from her breast for the first time. It was that mercilessly real, and, though the pain eventually did recede, I am certain that for her it will never entirely disappear."

And so as I approach the third such "birthday" I am grateful for the women Heavenly Father has put in my life who have experienced this kind of repeated loss. And I thank Him for a wonderful husband who continually supports me despite wondering why it's so hard on me. And for my 2 beautiful children who came so easily and have each other to hug and hold and play with and fight with no matter what.