The Delicate Dance of Joy and Grief

I always like sharing the “Midnight Mom Devotional” posts on Facebook. They’re uplifting…encouraging…and a nod to mamas everywhere in every season.

Last night I shared a “Midnight Mom Devotional” post about miscarriage. The anniversary of my miscarriage-the whole reason I started this blog in the first place-was March 3^rd.

I’ve felt kind of “off” the last several weeks-more so than just twin-working-mama overload. Something deeper. That little status last night hit the nail on the head. I miss my baby.

Grief changes. Miscarriage grief following the birth of a rainbow baby (or two) is no different. I used to grieve what would never be. Now I grieve what I will never have. It sounds the same to some-but it’s different. I know now what it is like to hold a newborn baby-or two. I know the midnight feedings and the first smiles and the two front teeth and the rolling over. I know the pregnancy and showers and delivery excitement. I know the exhaustion and the tears and the weight of it all. And I know the great hope and love that fills every inch of my being when I look dead in the eye of those two boys.

I know now what I will never have with the baby I lost.

And it hurts in a way that it didn’t so much before.

I’ve struggled how to approach this subject since having my boys. To be honest, I have kind of felt guilty posting anything in relation to motherhood because I know many of you reading this haven’t held a rainbow. And some of you have recently come to terms with the fact that you may never get that chance.

I know the ache-even briefly in the grand scheme of things-of the possibility of never holding a child of your own and I never want to pour salt on that wound.

I don’t know why my story played out the way that it did, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t so very joyful and grateful of the outcome.

However, I want you to know something: Though I hold two rainbow babies every single day, I daily walk in a delicate dance of joy and grief.

There is no joy like the joy of motherhood. But friends, there is no grief like that a mother experiences when she loses a child-no matter how briefly that child lived on this earth.

The grieving process isn’t the same for all situations and I am not suggesting that. But a loss is a loss. And it hurts. And it is real. And it matters.

And though on this March 3^rd, I was busy caring for two healthy, lively baby boys, loving a husband, doing chores, and busily planning for the week ahead-I was also carrying a really heavy heart.

And I am still walking around with that heavy heart.

I am working, as normal. I am mothering, as normal. I am doing the laundry and cooking the dinner and buying the groceries as normal. But I have struggled each and every day.

I feel like it’s important for you to know that.

I am happy. My photos are happy because I am happy. I am overwhelmed and beyond exhausted, but I am happy. My blog will probably go in a little different direction in the future because I am not in the “broken season” that I was in when I began writing. And though at first I was worried that nobody wanted to read anything else but broken, I want you to know that “broken seasons” are long, hard seasons-but they do not last.

They do, however, leave scars. And for good reason. 

Yesterday, a dear sweet friend looked at me and said “Bethany, you have changed so much since we first met.” And I smiled. Because, honey I have. What was once an overly-emotional, deeply insecure grieving young woman is now a deeply tired, deeply joyful (still pretty emotional) chaotic young woman with a lot of scars for 25 years old. Some are soul scars. Some physical. But I am definitely a far cry from the tan, blonde wide-eyed bride in my wedding photos.

And though I would not have authored my story thus far in the same way it has played out, I am thankful for the scars that I’ve developed along the way. So even if your rainbow hasn’t come shining through-know that this season-wherever you are at on your journey, will change. And though it may not be playing out the way you planned that it would, God does have a purpose for allowing wounds that heal into scars.

 I have a soul scar from my miscarriage. I have a physical scar from the birth of my twins. Both painful, but both necessary for a body equipped to dance the delicate dance of joy and grief.