The Duggars

I learned today that the famous Duggars lost their baby. They, just like us, were going in for the gender US and discovered there was no heartbeat. Their baby had died at 16 weeks. She was due in April just like me and I know EXACTLY how she's feeling. I have so many emotions about this story. First I feel guilty for ever being annoyed/jealous and resentful of her and her pregnancy. She came out and announced they were expecting their 20th child in April one week after I had just lost Brynn.

When I first heard about this I cried and felt sad because I had felt so hateful about their pregnancy. I am sad for her because I know her pain and no one should ever have to feel this.

But then I felt a bit of comfort in the fact that I was not the only one this happened to. That somebody could understand and suddenly everyone on the radio was talking about what a tragedy it is and talking about how miscarriage is often an overlooked and minimized loss and talking about what people should and shouldn't say to someone who has just lost a baby and talking about good books to read on this topic and KLOVE posted a link to a resource for how to deal with miscarriage. Suddenly my sadness, was everyones sadness. Suddenly I wasn't alone and it seemed as though people recognized my grief because someone famous was suffering the EXACT same thing. Her story is amazingly similar to mine. Almost eerily similar.

I also started to worry because I had previously been feeling like maybe I had lost Brynn because my faith wasn't strong enough. I hadn't been turning to God enough or thanking him or trusting in him. I was hoping that if I had a stronger faith and just prayed and prayed, he would give me a baby again. After I had gotten angry about the Duggar pregnancy, I actually remember thinking that they must be so blessed because of their faith and that if I were just more like them, God wouldn't punish me like this. So now that I see that they are having to deal with the same pain as me, I worry that it doesn't matter how good I am or how much I pray, it doesn't necessarily mean God will give me another baby. They are near perfect and it happened to them.

Then again maybe it's just a message from God saying "bad things just happen. To everyone. Not just you." Which is satisfying in a way. Like, if this could happen to them, maybe it didn't happen to me as "punishment". Maybe I didn't do anything wrong to deserve it. It just did and can and does.