My mom always knew things before me—she had the uncanny sixth sense to anticipate what was coming. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone she knew I was pregnant before I did.
Like most pregnancy revelations, I found out while I was sitting in the bathroom. I had been sick for the entire month of March and in agony to the point where I caved in and contacted my primary care doctor.
“I have been experiencing excruciating pelvic pain continually for about three weeks. There is lower back pain, accompanied by exhaustion and some nausea. Regular pain pills don’t alleviate the pain, and it wakes me up at night.”
My doctor paused a beat before writing out a referral card, “I’m going to have you go in for a vaginal ultrasound next week to confirm. It could be a cyst.”
I was still two days away from my ultrasound when it happened. Sitting under the fluorescent bulbs of our overhead bathroom light, I held the evidence of our baby. However, instead of a pregnancy test, I was looking at what appeared to be a small blood clot. Without knowing I was even pregnant, I had miscarried.
I turned over so many questions. What had I done wrong? Why hadn’t I taken another pregnancy test? Would knowing I was pregnant have changed anything? What would my baby have been like?
I couldn’t help but feel self-pity. This is just another entry under the “this isn’t supposed to happen” category of my life. You’re not supposed to miscarry at 23. You’re not supposed to have your mom die when you’re 18.
You’re supposed to have a lot of things. You’re supposed to share pregnancy stories and set up the nursery with your mom. She’s supposed to be there to hold you and tell you that everything is going to be okay. She’s supposed to be alive. My baby is supposed to be alive. But that isn’t how life works. We aren’t entitled to anything, including what we want the most.
My mom was strong-willed, stubborn, and had a temper like you wouldn’t believe, but it enabled her to raise my siblings and me confidently. When one of the vertebrae in her spine was crushed by bone cancer, she pushed herself to walk again. She homeschooled us from her hospital bed and was a homemaker from her walker. She must have been in constant pain, but she was constantly pushing herself for her family.
Even though I wasn’t an only child, I felt like my mother’s whole world. In those last days when she couldn’t walk, we would sit next to her and she would lay words of encouragement and wisdom on all of us. If she wasn’t in as much pain, she would hold us tightly in her arms and speak into our ears. Even though things were falling apart, in those few moments, it felt like it was going to be okay.
She was an incredible mother and would have made an incredible grandmother.
In the first few weeks after the miscarriage, life just kept going on. My husband was my rock, but it wasn’t enough. I wished that I could go crying to my mother for help and answers, but the weeks continued to fly by.
Only when doing research for another project did I see an article that caught my eye. The banner image was of Mary, Mother of Jesus, with a host of infants around her. I was intrigued and clicked the link.
The article talked about infant loss. It described how every miscarried child is safe in the arms of a heavenly mother who takes care of each infant until their own mothers can hold them again. They painted a picture of Heaven where each baby is safe, loved, and waiting for family to join them.
It brought tears to my eyes. While I am sure that every child is perfectly happy in Heaven, I know for a fact there is one woman in Heaven who would love my baby just as much as I do. A (grand)mother who would do anything for her family, who understands their loss, pain, and joy perfectly. A woman who wouldn’t blame me for my failures but would hold me tight and tell me that everything would be okay.
So no, my life is not how it is supposed to be. I would love to have my 2-year-old and mother with me now, but that isn’t how life works. You don’t get what you want, but I do feel more at peace.
I know that our baby is safe in Grandma’s arms. And knowing my mom, she’s probably holding our baby right now and telling them that everything is going to be okay.
by Lisa Leshaw 
by Liz Mannegren 
