This morning we lost our son-to-be in a miscarriage.
My wife awoke me at 5 am saying she was bleeding. I got up, looked around and began to race to get dressed. We called to find out if there was an ER in Redmond, the kids got up fairly quickly and Heaven blessed me to be able to put her in the van quite easily.
Before we left, I asked her if she wanted me to give her a blessing. She said yes. I gave her a blessing by the authority and power of the priesthood which I hold, and I could feel that this wasn't going to be though I didn't dare accept it and hoped against hope that what I saw and felt as I gave the blessing wouldn't come to pass and that there might remain some chance of things turning around, and yet I was promised something would come to pass in the future with another child.
It was comforting again when the military training comes out and I'm quite comfortable and trained to safely drive in an emergency - fortunately at 6am on a Sunday in a rural town, there isn't much traffic and the streets were empty. As we drove she informed me she was beginning to cramp.
We arrived at the ER in about 7 minutes or less, we were the only ones there...and Jen was quickly quickly taken in the back. The kids and I sat out in the waiting room as they weren't prepared to handle mom, dad and two kids with a bunch of work to do.
I asked if I could go see her after a while, they said "They are doing okay, you can go back in a while."
"They." In these times of crisis your mind hangs on every word, every nuance to see meaning and ascertain how things go. Friends texted me to tell me that from their experiences there was still a good chance - I hoped for the best.
When I was finally allowed back in, the nurse's attendant didn't say a word but walked back fairly lightly - more meaning inferred - wondering - wandering - waiting. When I got back to Jen and we finally had time to talk, Jen asked me what I saw by the priesthood.
The priesthood is an amazing gift that God has given to man again in these latter days - by it God can and often does show us the future, the past, things that are, things that could be and God again speaks to man by it through the Holy Ghost - just as it was in Times of Old.
I told her that I felt it wasn't going to be good.
To me it felt as if our child had chosen not to come here yet for various reasons and had decided to wait for another time though there might be a future time. Heaven and earth are indeed connected, but both of them have their own plans and designs, with Heaven often waiting on the desires of mankind and men's choices, and Earth waiting on the timing, plans, laws and designs of God. In it all it is up to us to do our best to try to understand and be receptive to what comes as we try to listen to what is being whispered to us through the Spirit.
She told me it was going to be a while and that I should take the kids to get breakfast. I grabbed McDonald's with the kids and headed back to the Emergency Room.
When I asked if I could see Jen,they took me back. I asked her what was going to happen. She told me that they had already taken it out of her and it was dead. We had lost our baby.
I lost it. I asked her if she had seen it....what happened?
Just the other week he was so strong, I watched him do a "trampoline like bounce" inside mom and had his hands near his face with its thumb in its mouth. The heartbeat was 160 or something like that. And now....when it came out, it wasn't even recognizable.
When we finally got cleaned up to go, I told the kids we had lost their baby brother. It wasn't until I mentioned that we didn't need the handcrafted bassinet I made that Matthew suddenly realized we weren't going to be having a baby. He began to cry. I handed him some tissues and he was sobbing about how we weren't going to have a baby - he wanted to be a big brother and was getting excited about the idea.
As we drove away, I felt so empty. Nothing. This was it? I didn't get a certificate, a name, a headstone, a funeral, a memorial, a program for a memorial service......nothing. We just drove away. I never got to see my son. I couldn't live like this. No. It couldn't end this way.
My mind began arguing that we were still having a baby on December 8th! I realized I had to go back to say goodbye to it.
Were I not a psychology major having been trained in loss and grief, I don't know that I could handle this. This wasn't something I wanted to do but I had to do. There had to be some note of closure. This was all too fast. I asked Jen if I could turn around and go back. We did.
I walked into the hospital and asked if I could see the nurse and told her I needed to see what was left of my son. I couldn't walk away with nothing and just have a trip to the ER and have it be over and not know...not see....not have anything. She took me into a room, and the nurse brought me a container and explained to me what it was and there really wasn't much there that was distinguishable.
I actually clutched the remains in the container to my chest sobbing "all I wanted to do was to hold you." I was able to make out what would have become soft, soft baby skin wanting lotion and needing patting. Just yesterday, I was at a beach with my children and asking the other children they played with what their names were as I got ideas for names. And now....on our anniversary vacation.....nothing.
I finally left, my children have never seen dad cry and I cried on the drive back to the resort. The sunrise on the mountains, on Sisters was beautiful, and I couldn't help but think just as we lost someone, someone else was being born today, to others this was an ordinary day....so many kinds of days and it was only 9am.
I got to the resort and informed them that I needed new linens for the bed. They offered to take them up. There was a lot of blood on the bedding and I didn't want some staff hauling away what little remained from the hopes of my infant son, I told them I would prefer to take it myself and I broke down and told them I had lost my son this morning.
When we got back, Jen asked me to go make the bed before she got in there, I did however ask the children to help me make the bed.
Death is a stranger in America. It is the only thing that awakens us from the American dream (My own quote from my studies in the psychology of loss and grief). We run from it, shield our children from it, and avoid it and spend less time mourning than about any industrialized nation. It wasn't always so, but the last 70 years in the US have seen our attitudes towards death change. As my daughter came in she asked me why there was blood in the bathroom, I told her that was from the baby, and then she saw Matthew and I changing the linens and it hit her as well.
She hasn't cried, and Matthew is doing well, though I am a wreck. Jen called her sister who's had more miscarriages. I have baby pictures from ultrasounds, a very lovingly handcrafted baby bassinet I made out of wood, and a little baby duck outfit for a newborn hanging on our bedroom door - all awaiting something to be done with them.
I'm grateful this happened at a resort rather than in my bedroom where I feel like it's a room of death. Though the room did feel like death when we returned to it.
I texted my supervisor to tell her I might be requesting extra days off because I was supposed to go back to work on Wednesday. I can't. I mean I could, but that day I have to sit through a meeting with a supervisor above her that I don't really have any respect for and who's really crossed some lines at work that I'm still trying to decide what to do with.
As far as blessings go? There's a tendency in America for Americans to be unempathetic towards those who've suffered loss. People rush to tell you how it's a good thing, to see the blessings in it - as if someone's loss is a threat to their emotional well being and people can't just let you be sad. We need to be sad. Even Christ said "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." This is true. Unless we mourn, we cannot be fully comforted. I believe there are 316 standard phrases used in the American lexicon that we say to those who are mourning, and only 44 of them are encouraging, uplifting or supportive. The remainder dismiss or disenfranchise the grieving.
For now I will just mourn and pass through this. My children are beautiful and I love them and just now as I am writing, my darling daughter came to show me her latest ponytail venture with one hanging off her forehead and another off her left hear with those beautiful blue eyes. My son, ever so stoic is just working on a popsicle.
At any rate, family was called and it was offered to have the kids gone so my wife and I could spend time together. Absolutely not. I just lost a child. I want my kids close even if we drive each other nuts.
I do feel angels around me. Something I can sense and sometimes see. The ones I see right now are "older" men, wise men, kindly gentlemen who are just here to be a comfort but who share my loss - quiet men who lend support.
How can Heaven mourn for us when Heaven sees the end from the beginning and live amidst such joy incomprehensible, and yet their hearts be here with us and cry when we cry, hurt when we hurt? Its something I don't understand other than to think that a loving Heavenly Father is truly mindful of us and truly does understand us.
To "Baby Millican" who wasn't born or even fully named, we loved you though we hadn't met you and we hope that we shall yet meet you and I shall do my best as a father if Heaven and Earth combine to bring you to us once again, and to Heaven.....thank you for the gift of being able to understand others who've walked where I am now walking.
The valley of sorrow is indeed deep and long and dark and even dangerous if we stay there too long, and the corner we have just turned is a previously unknown crevice in the valley we hadn't been to before.
But I thank Heaven for the perspective of the restored gospel and the knowledge of the purpose of this life to give us comfort in these times of sorrow that Christ himself said must needs come and for which this earth was designed.
For now, I shall close. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet and I have hopes for one more but for now, I'm going to close.
Thank you all and God bless.
Thank you again. And God Bless again and always.
