Raw

Sometimes, it just kind of hits me.
Unexpectedly.
And it's the shock of it that hurts the most.

I was digging through the closet in our guest room, searching for some of my old teacher supplies to use with sweet nanny child, and I found something I had almost completely forgotten.
This giant red and blue pirate octopus.  This adorable stuffed toy that had made me squeal when we spotted it at Target. We had just had our first ultrasound, and Chris was all beaming and proud and wanted a photo album.
Because we had our baby's first picture.
The only picture.
But we didn't know that yet.
Then we saw this octopus.

I was a little apprehensive about buying it because it might not have "matched" the nursery theme we were considering, but Chris said, "Screw it. The theme is stuff we like. Do you like the pirate octopus? Good. Then it matches.  We're buying it."
Baby's first stuffed animal.
I carried it through the store like a six-year-old. Giddy. Giggling. My baby didn't even have fingers, and it had a toy. A great, big, happy, eight-legged buccaneer cephalopod. 

That's the start of an epic childhood, right?

Now, it sits in its Target bag, stuffed on top of a box of Christmas decorations.  It still has the tags on it. I don't even really remember what it looks like besides the colors. I think it wears an eyepatch. I don't want to take it all the way out, really look at it. There's no point.
Not because I'm not healing, and not because I'm bitter. Because suddenly it hurts badly again, and I want to cry.
I hate crying.
It's messy and vulnerable and upsetting. It's necessary, I get that, and I know I can feel better afterwards, but not that night. Not right then.
Really, there are times when I just don't think I can cry about it any more. I cried so much in the beginning, those first few months. I think I've allotted my annual tear quota.

Then I opened the chest of drawers, looking for a pencil bag, and, right on top, were the baby clothes my in-laws bought us, one week after our ultrasound.  A little pair of baby Converse sneakers (to match the ones Chris and I wear--we always said our babies would wear Converse), a bright green Saint Patrick's Day onesie, and a little froggie beanie I had picked out when we went shopping together. 
Laying on top.
Still with their tags.
And it hurt again, a little worse this time.

I shoved the drawer closed and moved to another.
Quickly.
It burned. 

It had taken me by surprise, you see. When I know something's coming, something in me steels itself. I didn't even realized I do that--prepared myself, put on an extra bandaid or two. Here, I had no time. I didn't even remember where we had stashed them.
Because that's what we did, you know.  For weeks after the news, we left the baby stuff out, on display almost, because we didn't know what to do with it. This odd mixture of a happy memory and leaving it because we didn't want touch it.  Then we hid it, because the house needed cleaning and I couldn't take it the empty cheeriness any more. It was over. There was no point. 

It hurt.

It's been almost five months. I can talk about it, now, without tearing up.  I don't make it a secret, but I don't go shouting to everyone I meet at every chance I get. It's not some badge of honor or agony or anything.
It just is.
In explaining my upcoming (at some point) surgery, sometimes I have to explain that it's the result of a miscarriage.
It doesn't hurt to say that.

It's just a fact of life.

It happened.

Then I see those tiny little things, and it hurts to remember how excited we were.

Did I ever tell you that we even bought a crib set?
I'm not a fan of most crib sheet and bumper sets--they just end up feeling cheesy, but I found one online that made me all giggly and happy. I could see the whole nursery--for a boy or a girl--coming together.  It was on sale, so Chris told me to buy it.
I did, ordered it from my phone right there in my OBGYN's waiting room before we went back and saw the heartbeat that first time.
That only time.
The set came in the mail, and I immediately called my mom and sent her pictures because it was perfect.

The baby bedding sat in the guest room, exposed, for a long time after the silent ultrasound.  It was easy to shut the door and ignore it. Then I grew accustomed to it. It was just part of the scenery.
When my mom came to visit, I took it out and showed her. Because one day we do want to use it. Because it's still stinkin cute. 

And perfect.
It's on a top shelf in our closet, so high you can't see it unless you're looking for it.

I think things are a little more raw than usual because I saw a hematologist to clear up the surgery bloodwork. You know, just to get a thumbs up to get surgery.  There were more blood tests. Once again, chatting with the pleasant lab technician, hearing that I have "nice veins," and watching the needle go in and fill six vials with the deep red fluid that gives us all life. My arm always feels tingling and cold afterwards.  I wait a week and a half, return to the doctor, and he gives me my results.
My blood, apparently, is an over-zealous clotter.
It doesn't mean anything about my health, really--it's a condition that appears and disappears without explanation, one that may or may not carry with it any symptoms.
I'm one of those without symptoms.
Except one.
The condition causes miscarriages.

So now we have answers.
It was my fault.

He tells me that it doesn't necessarily have to be this way, forever. That, if I take a baby aspirin a day while pregnant, I might carry full term.
That everything could have a happy ending.
The hope makes it a little brighter.

That, really, had it not been for this growth--this freak-of-nature dermoid requiring surgery--we never would have known about my blood. That we could have miscarried again and again and again without answers. Maybe we will anyways, but now we know why. Now we have a plan, something to do.

You see, there's always a plan. Something to do. Even if that something is just waiting.
Because God is good. All the time. Even in the dark, messy, crappy stuff. 

Life hurts.

Sometimes, it downright SUCKS.

But the hope of a purpose? Of something beyond myself?

It keeps me from curling up in bed and never getting up. 

It gives me the hope and the courage to keep smiling.

To talk about it.

To hurt. 

And to heal. 

To be okay.

I don't know my future.

Someone else does.
And that's more than okay. 

Life is still good because He is good. 

We have hope because He gifts it. 

We hurt, we heal, we hope. 

And He always is. 

And He is always good.

Even when we feel utterly abandoned.

Lost.

Crushed.

Defeated.

There is always light.

Somewhere. 

In the end, the middle, above, below, glittering through the cracks, sometimes so small you barely see them.

But light is always there. 

Because He is always there. 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, 

the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,

 the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 

yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; 

he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.
--Habakkuk 3:17-19a