Anniversaries

We tend to think of anniversaries as good things. They usually are. But sometimes, they mark sad or hurtful events and try as we might, we remember them - especially that first year. 2018 was a very hard year in many ways. It was also one of the most momentous and grace-filled years. There was much pain and much beauty...but not always at the same time. 

Tomorrow, August 27, marks one of the saddest anniversaries I've experienced thus far in my life. It marks the day we found out we'd lost our fourth child in 2018. We went in for the first sonogram, eager to be able to share the news publicly, only to find out that there was no heartbeat. Our baby had died recently, most likely in the few days preceding the sonogram. I was crushed. 

It's a long story with even more traumatic details that I do not wish to share here, but I ultimately had to have a D&C on September 7. Yes, it was that long in between finding out, confirming the baby's passing, and scheduling the procedure. I never miscarried on my own (which seems about right because I never really was able to go into and maintain a labor on my own without medical help). Frankly, I didn't want to. Just as I am uncomfortable with the idea of a home birth, I did not want to endure a home miscarriage. 

I have a great doctor who was very compassionate. That said, the hospital with which he has privileges is not so compassionate. The room where I was to prepare and recover from the surgery was filled with blue and pink feet and all the reminders of the baby I'd not be leaving there with. But that was hardly to be the worst of it.

Today, on the eve of the anniversary of learning of the death of our baby, that very same hospital actually billed me - as in, sent me a brand new bill - for more aspects of that procedure when all had been paid in the past. It turns out they repeatedly coded it improperly and only fixed their ineptitude recently so as to get paid by the insurance company. That means they could now bill me for the difference. The timing left me speechless and in tears. I am certain there is some spiritual lesson in this, but I am not seeing it at this moment. 

I've been blessed with very nice, caring people in our new Russian Orthodox parish. There is a depth of genuine concern for each other that I have never experienced in any other church community I've ever been in (and I've been both Protestant and Catholic and in a number of churches in both denominations). I shared this anniversary date with only a few. One dear friend sent me a very lovely email this morning with this icon about which she wrote:

May our loving Mother give you comfort today -- she knows your sorrow and has felt it. This is the Weeping Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign of Novgorod. Our Lord, God, and Savior Whom she lost and is now united with forever is in her womb. You are in my prayers.

I was so grateful to receive this email message this morning. It meant a great deal to me. 

We named our little one Baby Sierra because we spent much of my pregnancy in the mountains and that is where we told the children and a few family members. We do not have scientific confirmation of her gender. We ordered testing, but she had been gone too long for it to yield any results. But mothers know. I knew I was pregnant before the test came back as I did with each other pregnancy. I knew the gender of each baby before it was confirmed. And we know we were having another baby girl who was due April 5, 2019. My pregnancy was identical to Lucy's. My pregnancies with both boys was very similar as well and very different from the girls'. 

It was on this same date in 2018 that we told the children that the sibling they'd long wanted (especially Anthony and Lucy) had preceded us in attaining Heaven. They were crushed as well. But children rebound quickly. I did not. I have grieved more intensely than I could have imagined. I've been in the pro-life movement for over 20 years and still I have been surprised at how much I have grieved. 

I learned not to share this with just anyone. You do not know what response you will get that might set you back. Some of the most unhelpful were along these lines: "Well, you have three already...." as in, enough already. As if a new life can be interchanged with others. And, "Well, if the baby was to be deformed, better this way...." We didn't feel that way. 

As the sonogram proceeded, we knew something was not right. This was not our first rodeo. We were prepared for a defect of sorts. I am older and have some health concerns. But I was not prepared for death. I knew my miscarriage risk was higher than normal even for my age because of some of my health problems, but as we reached the second month and were passing into the third, I began to think all was going to be fine. It was naïveté, or, I prefer to think, just faithful and optimistic. 

God had another plan for us. Why it was this I do not know. It is not for me to question. Toby has been a rock, as he has always been. He rushed home to me this evening and held me as I talked through it. He knew tomorrow was going to be hard for me. He was enraged that it was made harder by a cold, inept bureaucracy. 

Tomorrow we will be at the Vigil for the Dormition which is Wednesday. No one better understands the death of a child than Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos. I am grateful I will be in church praying. I cannot attend Divine Liturgy for the feast itself, but I can attend Vigil and there is intense prayer there.

Last year, August 27 was a Monday. By that Thursday, we had a meeting with the priest who would  become our Priest and Confessor, Catechize us, Baptize us, and receive us into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. We attended our first Vigil that Saturday, September 1; our first Divine Liturgy on Sunday, September 2, after which we signed up our children for Sunday School. As you know, Toby, Anthony, and I were received into full Communion with the Orthodox Church this past Pascha, April 23, 2019. 

It was during this first Vigil - in the midst of the most intense grief and pain - that I found myself praying genuinely and effortlessly for the first time in maybe five years. I have continued to be able to pray better (still not as I should be able to; I am very much a work in progress with much progress left to be made). It's not magic and I still struggle at times, but something definitive changed then and I knew I was where I needed to be, where I was supposed to be. I continue to learn and have so much growth to continue. That said, it helps at times like this and during the good times as well. I will be praying in a special way at the Vigil tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading! 

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