Josephine

It has been a year since I had surgery to remove my Fallopian tube along with what was an ectopic pregnancy. It was a decision I made after chemotherapy injections proved adverse and ineffective in removing my pain. Willingly giving up a piece of your reproductive anatomy when you have spent years testing and trying to make it all work is no small decision. I would have done anything for relief, I would have done anything to put this experience behind me. I woke up from surgery and my road to physical recovery was well underway.

Emotional recovery is trickier than physical recovery. I have been deep in grief this year, a grief that is unlike any of the others I have experienced. I am grieving for something so complex it is hard to name. It is a grief that is not welcomed into conversations, no one calls to see how you are doing, people get uncomfortable when you bring it up. I have often felt left alone to deal with the complexities of it all. The first part is trying to figure out what exactly I lost. When I talk about this, I say I lost a pregnancy, not a baby. I say this because there was never a heartbeat, never an embryo, just hormones, placenta, and blood clots. (I saw the images from my surgery.) There is also a strong sense of defeat when after 8 years you finally see that second line appear only to have your heart broken. The last two years of that 8 involved many tests and interventions. Getting to that little second line took hours of testing, hours of the least sexy sex you could ever imagine, and money so much money.

For much of this year I knew I was sad and angry, this grief often feels like it has broken me. I could not put my finger on it and mostly I went it alone (this is not advisable). A few weeks ago I found myself on a retreat, life slowed down enough in those sacred days that I was able to let myself really feel the grief. As the week came to a close, I found myself in a worship service for healing. I sat and asked leaders for prayer for all the brokenness, those were the only words I could muster. My hands held, my head anointed with oil, tears longing to spring forth, I accepted the prayers offered for me. I returned to my seat in the worship circle. I closed my eyes and even though I don't believe in God being geographically "up", I tilted my head back as if looking at the sky.

I let the slow silent tears stream down my face. I remembered early on in the pregnancy when we fluctuated between viable and not viable. As a means of coping we named this situation growing inside me embryo Jo because it could be Joseph or Josephine. In that moment, I let myself see her, she was Josephine. I saw a girl, with my nose and dark hair. I saw Paul's hazel eyes and lighter skin. I watched her grow up, a free spirit but quiet. She loved people and colored pencils. I watched her loved by her sister, running through the same field in Vermont. I saw her and I loved her.

Then I imagined her with my sister in law, Donna, in "heaven". I saw D hold an infant Jo, I know she would love her. Then I saw the rest of my departed family gather. My dad came first, my Grammy, Tim, my Pop-pop, even my dead dogs showed up. I took Jo and I put her in a baptism gown. I blessed her and I handed her to my dad. I saw my dad holding my baby. I saw him as her grandpa. He smiled and it was as if I could feel in the very fiber of my being, his heart leaping with joy. In that moment I don't know who I longed to hold more, in that tender space I allowed myself to remember how very much I miss him. Perhaps this is a survival skill, the pain could easily consume me, swallow me whole, burn me up, it is not meager. Then walking up behind him I saw his best friend, my Uncle Doc, who died recently. He said. "Isn't it great?"

In that moment all the grief that breaks me was present together and there was in that togetherness a sacred joy and the peace which surpasses understanding. I knew that if anyone could take care of my could-have-been-baby, it was these people who loved me far to briefly on this side of life. I can trust them until I can be there, wrapped in the arms of my dad and Jo can finally feel mine. Eventually, I saw Jesus there too. The peace that was there renewed my belief that one day I will know peace again too. Not everyday will feel so heavy as it does now. I wish I could have photographed this transcendent moment with more than my words.

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The next day, I wrote about all this in my journal, and for the first time I ugly cried because I knew what I lost. I lost a potential baby, something the science of a placenta will never quell in my heart. I have felt much lighter since this experience, I have in some ways found a new peace.

I have debated for nearly 6 weeks if I would share this story with anyone aside from those closest to me. It is so unlike anything else I have ever experienced. I wrestled for awhile with what to call this: a dream, a visualization, a vision. I have let go of calling it anything other than a gift.

People ask me what I think heaven is like all the time, it comes with the job. I don't know what heaven will be like. I do not know if indeed I will get to see these beautiful souls again. Sometimes I imagine heaven to be entirely different. When I reflect on these tender sacred moments, I wouldn't mind if heaven included this community and togetherness.

Today I am grateful for the space in worship to focus on my own healing. I am grateful for all the love I have known and will know in this life. I am grateful for this gift that has made grief more bearable. I am grateful for all the women who find themselves being brave in the face of infertility and unimaginable loss, especially the ones who have walked with me and whom I get to walk with. When I started this blog, it was to remind myself that though parenting was hard, I wanted to remain grateful for my LG everyday and I am profoundly grateful for her. Even in this moment as she yells from her room about how silly it is to have to put her laundry away. Especially at 3am when she crawls into my bed and I feel her breath on my face, its never promise, but always a gift.