I’ve been avoiding doing this all week. It’s hard to write about tragedy. It’s even harder to write about loss. This part of my story is about one of the lowest times in my life. In a short time, I lost a baby, a family and my sense of belonging. It was like someone had suddenly pulled the rug out from underneath my feet and I was falling for what seemed like forever, the ground just an illusion. It seemed like the pain wouldn’t stop and the people inflicting the pain, with twisted faces, enjoyed my torment. Through it all, I was expected to keep a joyful smile on my face and pretend like nothing was wrong. So here it is, finally, my story of the beginning of the end.
July 2009 started out as an exciting month for me. I had just come home from a mission’s trip to Trinidad and Tobago a few weeks before and there was an expectation in the air at our house. Literally. My husband and I had been talking on and off for months about possibly trying to have another baby and we weren’t exactly being careful about preventing a pregnancy since we were discussing the possibility. My only fear about trying for a baby was the possibility of miscarriage. At this point, I’d already had four miscarriages.
It was during the Vacation Bible School that I began to suspect that I was pregnant. It was too early to test at this point but all the early signifying symptoms were beginning to show up. The weirdest symptom was my incredible sense of smell. I could literally smell every man in the room, distinctly. It was like I suddenly had the nose of a blood hound. Every man I came into contact with smelled musty and gross and even my husband’s smell turned my stomach. It didn’t matter if the man was wearing cologne, if he was male, he made my stomach turn sour and I had to control the urge to upchuck my lunch. As soon as this strange symptom presented itself, I started sleeping on the couch and avoiding all men like some kind of stinky plague. I’m sure at the time I offended more than a few men as I wrinkled my nose every time they came near. My husband was not the only offended one, I am sure.
Besides the weird blood hound sense of smell, I had the normal early warning signs of pregnancy and I was optimistically hopeful. Vacation Bible School came and went and I stumbled my way through it, bleary eyed from yet another pregnancy symptom, fatigue. As the end of the month drew closer and I was becoming more certain of my new expecting status, I dropped a slight hint to my Pastor and I was surprised by his reaction.
It was a typical Sunday morning and I had poked my head into my Pastor’s office to say my customary good morning greeting (he got upset with me once and talked to me about how his feeling got hurt when I didn’t say hi to him on Sunday mornings) when my Pastor asked me a strange question. He asked me if there was any news that I had to tell him. I remember trying to conceal my smile as I quickly walked to the door and announced, “Maybe in a week or two. I’m not sure yet”. As I passed through the doorway, I suddenly remembered a question that I needed to ask him so I quickly turned, pivoting on one foot, placed my hands on the door frame and poked my head inside the door. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words dried up instantly in my throat at what I saw.
There sat my Pastor with his head shaking as he placed his head in his hands, an obvious gesture of disappointment. The Associate Pastor sat down as I watched and stretched his hand across the pastor’s desk. My Pastor suddenly looked like he had aged ten years and was fatigued by my announcement that obviously confirmed his suspicions. Neither of them saw me as I slipped as quietly as I could back into my own office. Once there, I pressed my ear up to my wall to try and hear what was being discussed on the other side, but the two Pastors were being purposeful in their conversation so as to not be heard. They had closed the door and I could hear them whispering but could not make out the words of what was being spoken. I speculated that the topic of conversation was me.
I was perplexed and disappointed that my Pastor, the man I thought of as my second father, would be so disappointed that I might be pregnant. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend why. His own daughter-in-law, the children’s Pastor, had been trying to conceive for months. Why wouldn’t my Pastor be happy for me? If I was like a daughter to him, why would she and I be different from one another? Why would it be ok for her and not for me?
No comments:
Post a Comment