It’s the end of a busy day of patient care, when I stroll into the ultrasound room and see a couple and their eight-year-old daughter, eagerly anticipating the first look at their baby. The excitement of their happy banter about the gender of the baby is infectious.
The lights go down, the probe does its work, and the lightheartedness I just experienced is suddenly stolen. It is clear almost at once that the baby is no longer living. Stalling…struggling for a way to break this dreadful news, I call for the nurse to take their daughter to the lounge for a cookie. Then I turn to deliver the news that will crush the hearts of these fine people. Sometimes I hate this job!
We often speak of miscarriage as a pregnancy “failure.” Our very language, both in and out of the medical profession, displays this mindset. But this view is a distortion of the true nature of pregnancy and of pregnancy loss.
Consider that every conception is a new act of creation by God Himself. There are not millions of disembodied souls floating around somewhere waiting for the moment of conception to be injected into their bodies. No, God creates each child — body and soul and spirit — at conception. Our part in this holy endeavor of making new children for God’s family is called “procreation.” Could there be any more honorable work than this co-creating with God?
When a miscarriage occurs, we grieve for ourselves and for the loss of our relationship with our little one here on earth. But God brings these precious souls directly to Himself and they live with Him for all eternity. They are spared the struggles of this life and their joy is already complete. Although we who love them mourn the natural life we would have shared with them, our loss is temporary for, by God’s grace, we can be re-united with them eventually.
As the father of 5 children, I have great hopes for each of my kids: that they will be successful in their careers, marriages, and as parents themselves. My ultimate goal however is for each of them to reach heaven and for our family to spend eternity with God. This is the end for which all of us were made.
Since I consider successful parenting to mean getting my children to their eternal home in heaven with Christ, I cannot see those who have experienced miscarriage as having failed. They have already been successful at getting least one home to the Lord.
So when you mourn, do not mourn without hope as the pagans do. And though you suffer now, consider the joy your reunion will bring. You have treasure in Heaven — and where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
And when you consider how you could ever bear to suffer through this process again with a future pregnancy, remember God loves our children even more than we do and He delights in each of us as a father does. As He gives us opportunities to participate in His fruitful work, we should not shrink back from the pain that loving makes possible. The real suffering will be the loss of children God had planned for us, but that we refused to bear.
Tomorrow I have to induce labor for this grieving couple and hand them their baby so they can say goodbye to her — thankfully we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. I expect we will need Him.
© Copyright 2003 Catholic Exchange
Philip D.Caron is a practicing ob/gyn with Oconee Ob/Gyn Associates in Seneca, SC. He is a member of the American Association of Prolife Ob/Gyns and was a convert to the Catholic faith in 2000.
