I should be full term this week..

This week is heavy for me, heavier than I thought it would be. I should be 36 weeks with our sweet Cecilia Marie, but instead, we lost her on January 19th, the due date of our first miscarried baby, Emilia Grace. She was just shy of 10-weeks.

Just days before, we saw her little hands and legs move on her ultrasound and heard the strong heartbeat. We made it further than we did with Emilia by nearly two weeks; it felt safer. I felt good, sick and tired, but good. Her due date aligned with the birthdays of my mom and youngest nephew. After nearly four years of infertility, it felt like this huge victory. Everything felt like a sign that this pregnancy was meant to see this side of Heaven…

Then came the Doppler... Gosh, I hate the Doppler. I’ve seen this movie twice, and I’d give it 0% on Rotten Tomatoes: The silence of the Doppler in the exam room, the conflicting expressions on the doctor’s face followed by a reassuring smile that baby could just be hiding, being quickly ushered toward the dark ultrasound room, the feeling of cold jelly, more silence..

You don’t even realize you’ve been holding your breath until then the words that rip every piece of hope from your soul are followed by muffled sobs escaping your own throat. Your eyes shift from the floor, to the doctor, to your husband’s hand on your own while you try to process words through numbness, disbelief, and tears.

Over the next weeks, you process physically, but the recovery mentally, emotionally, and spiritually is especially excruciating and comes in lifelong waves.

You track subconsciously where you should be in your pregnancy or how old your baby would be. When you see another pregnant woman, you calculate where you should be compared to her. When you see a three year old with her mom in the grocery store begging for a box of frozen waffles, you wonder if you’d be having the same fight if things were right.

You may even catch yourself with your hand on your belly, taking in the emptiness and ache that you feel in those moments - wondering if your womb will ever not feel like a tomb.

I’ve heard people say that I’ve handled my losses with such grace and resilience, but I don’t feel that way this week. For the second time, I should be on baby-watch, putting the finishing touches on a nursery, and packing a hospital bag. Instead I’m in another bloodwork lab trying to make sense of some hormonal disregulation after our miscarriage, which feels especially like a sick joke.

Most weeks, I can find the good in our pain and our loss and feel the love poured out. Right now, though, sitting in the should-bes of this week, my heart mostly just hurts.

So I will go to adoration and bring it to Jesus - all of my anger, my grief, my hurt, my fear that I’ll never be “mom” to anyone in this world. Because He can handle it. He wants us to bring Him all of our messiness, our pain, our hurt, our darkest and most broken pieces. He wants us when the only prayer we have is showing up, with no words, only tears.

If you can relate to my hurt today, I’m sorry. You aren’t alone - It’s a truly awful club, but it’s filled with some incredible people. In our hurt, we have met so many wonderful humans and benefited from so many resources we didn’t know about. It was actually all of this that prompted me to start Fontem + Fiat.

If you or someone you love are a part of our terrible club, I’d love to help you connect with some helpful and free resources specific to the situation - please reach out to marissa@fontemfiat.com 🤍

St Gianna, pray for us.