I haven’t told many people, and I didn’t want to for a while. It was a secret I wanted to hold close. And people don’t talk much about these things anyway.
I had a miscarriage. Nick was home on leave for three weeks. For the second time in our marriage that I know of, I was pregnant, and we lost a baby.
I thought: No. No more loss.
It’s so different this time. I feel like I actually know what is going on, that I’m psychically aware. But at the same time, I am more confused. And what I’m thinking about the most is how small and mysterious our baby was. So so so small. When I was younger and miscarried, I felt impelled to name the child. Mary John. And this baby? I just don’t want to.
I am always saying people grieve in different ways, but in the past I had assumed that it would be almost universally good for someone to name a lost baby. And it does good for people. It counteracts a collective silence about miscarriage. It helps us name not only our children, but our grief.
But right now, at least for the time being, I have a confusing relationship with this child we have lost. I feel like she’s so mysterious that I can’t claim her with a name. I can’t claim her actuality or potentiality or pretend like she is really mine. This is what I’m feeling. I don’t like it. I want to feel sure about her, to embrace her and call her mine.
That’s what hurts. She’s not mine. Children never are, whether they are born alive or die early like uncut gems buried in the earth. Whether they are biological or adopted, whether they are close to you or independent.
Our joy, our great sacrifice, what we cannot help but do, is to love them anyhow.
