Moving from Hurt to Hope after a Miscarriage:  Part 3 

She is a girl. I had known she was a girl from almost the moment I found out I was pregnant.   As I prayed about this babe’s life, I felt like the Lord told me it was a she, and that she was a dancer and one who had the anointing to lead others into worship.  I felt Him say that she was witty and her jokes would make you laugh out loud.

The morning after the ER visit, I woke up feeling strange, because sadness enveloped me, strange because my husband had to go into work uncharacteristically early and he was no longer beside me. The steel fist of grief twisted my heart, my baby girl was gone… and she had died inside me.  I don’t know how to describe that feeling, but it is awful, real and powerful.  I hated knowing that death happened inside a place that was made to hold and cultivate life.   It had happened despite the progesterone supplements and the high HCG numbers.  It had happened in spite of deep love for our baby.

I rolled out of bed and felt angry…maybe more angry than I have ever felt in my life.  I don’t get angry a lot, I get sad, frustrated and impatient but true anger is not something I usually experience.  I don’t like the way it makes me feel or act, but there it was…raw anger.  I went to the kitchen and slammed cabinets and yelled at the cats for acting like, well ….cats, meowing,  pooping and being hungry…”how dare they!” I thought.

I walked around the grocery store glaring at stranger’s in the peanut butter aisle because they were holding a baby, and I wasn’t.  It seemed like there were mothers and baby girls down every aisle.  I felt like everyone in the world could snap their fingers and get a beautiful, healthy baby girl anytime they wanted.  I saw mothers yanking sticky fingers and yelling “shut up” at their little ones….its hard not to judge other parents especially when you want to be one.  Then there were the mothers with starry eyed adoration of their babies, who cooed about their undying love to their little ones.  They felt the same love I had for my baby, but they held theirs in their arms and mine was only a memory in my heart.

Four months later it is hard to remember what she felt like, as our souls collided.

Her life was like a firework exploding into the darkness, lighting the night with its brilliant color only to fade into an all consuming black sky mere moments later.  I remember her light, I remember her brilliance. But what shade of red was that firework and what tones of blue did she use to light the sky?  I remember her light, I remember her color, but her memory is like a picture you took on family vacation, before digital cameras.  Back in the days when you used real film and prints came back blurry, because the tourist taking the picture was jilted by a biker on the sidewalk.  Her life feels a little hazy, I know what was supposed to be there, but it was too quick for me to catch the true intricacy of her beauty.  And I HATE that!!!!!!!

That is the worst part.  Not remembering clearly what you want to so desperately remember.  What I  have of her is the memory of what it felt like when her life began to grow inside of mine.  I remember my heart welling up with such intense love that I would have risked all my dignity and sanity to save her life.  I would have done anything to give her a chance to giggle and dance…because I just knew she was a giggler and a dancer and I loved that about her.  I loved the essence of joy her life held, the way her essence fueled my heart to beat a little faster.

Before the dr. came in to tell us the results of the sonogram, I sat in the frigid room my hand held by my husband’s, providing warmth and stability on a surreal night.  I saw in my mind Jesus standing beside me.  I saw Him cradling my baby in my womb.  I glimpsed what advanced technology could not see yet, my little one surrounded by fluid in my womb.  Jesus held her, and I knew, I knew she was His, she was now with God.

I named her Liya (pronounced Lay –yah).  Liya means “I am the Lord’s”

After my first miscarriage my friend had given me a scripture as a promise, Isaiah 44:1-5.  In the passage it says that your offspring “shall spring up among the grass like willows by following streams.  This one will say ‘I am the Lord’s’.”     I looked up what name meant “I am the Lord’s”– it was Liya.  In Latin, Liya means “ bringer of the gospel.”  I thought that her physical feet would carry the gospel across the globe.  While her physical feet never walked this earth, I believe that part of the redemption of God is that whenever her story is told, salvation will come to the hearts of people.

Her life proclaims the story of Jesus, how He left heaven and became man while fully God, walked on this earth for 33 years, healing and loving people wherever He went.  He was perfect and died a horrific death on a cross.  He died for every sin that will ever be committed.   He died and paid the price for my sin and yours.   He died to bring victory over illness, and disease and death.  Three days later He rose again, bringing complete victory to the power of death.

When we acknowledge our utter need for a Savior, commit our life to Him and admit the right He has to rule and reign in on our life, we too experience victory over death and sickness.   We do not die when our bodies breathe their last breath, we will live and reign with Him forever in Heaven.

Liya’s life, while only with us on earth for 7 weeks, is a testament to the power of Jesus and His victory over death.  I knew the moment that I heard they could see nothing on the sonogram and my HCG had dropped, that she was alive.  Even when I realized I would never cradle her in my earthly arms, I knew she was in heaven with Jesus.  I would cradle her someday.  I knew that she would never know pain, she would never know the sting of death because she was in a place with a Savior who had conquered death, in heaven where there are no tears.   She would never know a day without the presence of Jesus.

I knew it was true:  that there was no one I wanted Liya to be with more than Jesus.  Yet, there was a place of indescribable pain in my heart that I had to deal with.  There was anger and I didn’t know how to move through.  With my first miscarriage it had been much easier to release Alexander to Jesus.    I thought what I had experienced was common for a lot of women who are pregnant for the first time and so it would never happen again.

After about 2 weeks of walking around in my tornado of bitterness, anger and comparison it struck me how much I did not want to be this person.  I didn’t want to be a woman who snapped and glared at every pregnant momma in sight.  I didn’t want to resent other women who had healthy children, and I didn’t want to be angry at God.  I didn’t want to spend the next twenty years of my life wandering around in self pity, I had to get out….but how???  I felt so trapped.

Next week, I will  be sharing the steps the Lord took me through that brought  freedom from bitterness, hopelessness and despair.  I hope you will join me!