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Guest
My husband and I have been praying to get pregnant for a while. Last year during advent, I went to the cathedral in San Francisco and got a St. Gerard prayer card. I prayed the novena for motherhood and on the feast of Mary, Mother of God, I found out that I was pregnant! My husband and I were through the moon, and we immediately ran to church to give thanks. While there, I dedicated the child to him.
We couldn’t keep the wonderful news to ourselves because this would have been our family’s first grandchild so we told our close family, who then told their close friends…soon everyone we knew was excited about the news. Then on Ash Wednesday, just a few days shy of my second trimester, the end of the “danger zone” for miscarriage, I miscarried. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement. The miscarriage was extremely long, and painful. I also ran into some complications while it was progressing so I had to have surgery.
We had a service and burial for our child at a Catholic cemetery. After the service, my parents - who had flown in to California from Chicago to be by my side during the painful miscarriage and subsequent surgery - pulled me aside and told me that my uncle’s house had burned down that night. We’re a very close family, and my uncle’s wife is at a severe stage of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.
About two months later I got pregnant again, but that pregnancy also ended in an early miscarriage. At first I was too broken to feel any anger, but then the questions came. As the weeks past and Mother’s day came and went, and everybody started to wonder why I just couldn’t realize that “those babies just weren’t meant to be” or “I’d get pregnant again,” I started to get angry.
I have always been devoted to God for as long as I can remember. I was raised a staunch Baptist, was involved in campus ministry during college and into my twenties. In 2007, on the first day of advent, my husband and I converted to Roman Catholicism. I’ve had other tragedies but I always took comfort in God. But this hit me harder than any other loss i’d sustained and, I have to admit that I completely lost my faith. I can’t p(name removed by moderator)oint the specific day that it happened but I do know that sometime in May 2012, I stopped going to mass, stopped praying…I stopped believing in God.
This coming week is the day that would have been my due date. Even though I’m sad I can feel that my heart has been softening towards God again. Yet, i’ve been away so long, I feel embarrassed to go back and confess. I’m afraid the priest will judge me, or tell me that my pain was “no big deal” that it “happens to a lot of women.” I also still feel very angry.
Any constructive advice (not judgmental advice, e.g. “other people have it tougher,” or “just get over it” would be appreciated. Also, I’ve read the book of Job many times.) on how to come back to God after something like this would be greatly appreciated.
We couldn’t keep the wonderful news to ourselves because this would have been our family’s first grandchild so we told our close family, who then told their close friends…soon everyone we knew was excited about the news. Then on Ash Wednesday, just a few days shy of my second trimester, the end of the “danger zone” for miscarriage, I miscarried. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement. The miscarriage was extremely long, and painful. I also ran into some complications while it was progressing so I had to have surgery.
We had a service and burial for our child at a Catholic cemetery. After the service, my parents - who had flown in to California from Chicago to be by my side during the painful miscarriage and subsequent surgery - pulled me aside and told me that my uncle’s house had burned down that night. We’re a very close family, and my uncle’s wife is at a severe stage of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.
About two months later I got pregnant again, but that pregnancy also ended in an early miscarriage. At first I was too broken to feel any anger, but then the questions came. As the weeks past and Mother’s day came and went, and everybody started to wonder why I just couldn’t realize that “those babies just weren’t meant to be” or “I’d get pregnant again,” I started to get angry.
I have always been devoted to God for as long as I can remember. I was raised a staunch Baptist, was involved in campus ministry during college and into my twenties. In 2007, on the first day of advent, my husband and I converted to Roman Catholicism. I’ve had other tragedies but I always took comfort in God. But this hit me harder than any other loss i’d sustained and, I have to admit that I completely lost my faith. I can’t p(name removed by moderator)oint the specific day that it happened but I do know that sometime in May 2012, I stopped going to mass, stopped praying…I stopped believing in God.
This coming week is the day that would have been my due date. Even though I’m sad I can feel that my heart has been softening towards God again. Yet, i’ve been away so long, I feel embarrassed to go back and confess. I’m afraid the priest will judge me, or tell me that my pain was “no big deal” that it “happens to a lot of women.” I also still feel very angry.
Any constructive advice (not judgmental advice, e.g. “other people have it tougher,” or “just get over it” would be appreciated. Also, I’ve read the book of Job many times.) on how to come back to God after something like this would be greatly appreciated.