Past pain is for the future benefit of the broken-hearted

I personally don’t know of another couple who had bad news at the 19-week scan like we did, but I know that our experience is like a coiled spring; it’s ready for whoever and whenever someone needs it.  It’s why we published Nathanael’s story.

Until now I’ve only really commented on what happened after the scan on July 1, 2014.  We really had no idea beforehand, from April sometime, to the announcement that we were pregnant (on May 10), to the family celebration we had for what would have been my Grandmother’s 100th birthday on June 2 to that ill-fated Tuesday July 1 morning.

We had no idea what was about to hit us.  No warning, just like the parents who suddenly discover their baby has died.  The statistics are stark, that 1-in-4 pregnancies are lost, so the risks of miscarriage are higher than we’d anticipate and the risks of stillbirth like we had are always unacceptably high.

For someone who cannot remember the time nor memory of his brother, our son seems to have a sense for nurturing slightly younger children.  He so often has lamented that he doesn’t have a little brother, and we haven’t done anything to create this in him; I write about Nathanael, but we’re not continually talking about him.

In some ways I wish there was more memory of that time when we were blissfully unaware of the storm that loomed on the horizon.  But we also know that the period after the July 1 scan is the most relevant to our purpose now.  We hope that not one person or family goes through what we went through, but we’re there for those who do.

There are just so many people we know who have had wonderful 19-week baby photos to show off, like we did with our first son.  That scan checks on so many things that couples are probably completely unaware of amid the excitement of meeting baby all the more fully formed.

We are there for the person who suffers the devastating blow like we did.  It’s been six years, and we just know that at some point someone will reach out and say, “We’ve had this experience; we heard you did too.  What can we expect?  Can you help?”

Our experiences in life, especially the tough ones, have a special purpose.

We had some of these experiences with people who had been on a similar path, but much of our journey, beyond people’s prayers, we had to go it alone.

We do hope that our experience can be used to help others going through infant loss, just as we can say that our experience has already been helpful for some.