Miscarriage has no closure

I know this may sound crazy but one of the things that I've struggled with the most is feeling a lack of closure about losing Samantha. I mean when someone dies, expected or unexpected, one can expect a funeral or memorial service, sharing of memories, phone calls and connections made with old friends and family, perhaps a Facebook group started to share stories, one last look at the body, pictures to be brought and tangible things that reflect the past. A newspaper obituary honors the one who has passed. A grave stone marks the resting place of the body of the deceased. It is a place where people can go and remember.

When a miscarriage occurs, you have none of that closure. There is no body to bury. There is not a funeral or a memorial service where friends and family surround you. There are few phone calls but not to people who have known this person over the years because for your baby there were no years and years for people to get to know them. And the hardest part is the lack of pictures, tangible things, and worst of all, memories. There are no memories. The closest thing you have to memories are a pregnancy test, a few infant items, some greeting cards, and if you are blessed like we were, an ultrasound picture that showed a fluttering tiny blur of baby but that reminds you (even when you start to think you are losing it!) that your baby did indeed exist, even if only for the blink of an eye in this world. There is no place to go after it's all over. Having a D&C made the whole process quick and then suddenly it was over. I still am struggling with envisioning my sweet baby and the remains of the pregnancy from my uterus being processed in specimen jars and tubes and being sent off to the lab at the hospital we were at.

The lack of memories is the hardest. How I ache for at least more of that pregnancy...to have felt her move inside of me. Or even one day, to baptize her, to share her with friends and family, to take pictures, to touch her and tell her we love her. To pray over her. Even again, I say, more of that pregnancy...so that I could have prayed more for her, loved her more, read to her once her hearing developed. But there is no more. There are no memories. There are only wish thats, should haves, wanted tos, and never cans.

I am not bitter. I don't mean to sound angry in case I come across that way. I am just heartbroken. We accept what God has done and we know that He knows best. However, we also know that it's okay to admit that we are hurting over it. So I am not bitter. But I am jaded. I know that an innocence and a joy that was surrounding this pregnancy and also my life have been forever taken (at least until eternity finally restores that to me) and that things will never be the same. I already find myself being a more contemplative, quieter person. I know that God will use that though, with me, to strengthen my relationship with Him, with Chris, and to bring glory to Jesus. So I am content. Heartbroken but content.

I wanted to write an obituary and also an epitaph. I think it would be healing for me to envision a place where I could have remembered Samantha Peep. Also, an obituary to commemorate that her life did indeed exist. For her death would not have happened had there not been life. There can be no death where there is not life. And yet despite that, we are so grateful for her short life and also for her eternal life. Death has no sting there and we yearn to join countless others someday.

~Shannon