you should write that down...

i have heard my mother say this to me a thousand times. something memorable will happen or one of my kids will say something funny, i share the story and this statement always follows: "you should write that down so you don't forget". i almost never take this advice, and i know that is a mistake.

the other day i got an email from a friend of mine asking me a question about my experience with the miscarriage i had just over three years ago. the email read as follows:

Okay personal question :0)

So one of my darling friends out here just miscarried twins at 3 months … and has to go in and have the procedure - - and so I wanted to get some advice from you as to what the best thing for me to do for her is. She doesn’t have any family around here and as much as she keeps saying “im fine” I know she isn’t but I want to be sensitive to how hard it is for her but not say the same things im sure everyone is saying … so any advice?

Thanks chica - -

i sat and thought about how to answer this question for about and hour. i wasted all of my alone time (which is limited these days) thinking about how to respond: what would be the best thing to tell her friend, how to help her understand what her friend was feeling, etc.

i finally just decided to sit down and pour a few of my own thoughts into an email and let her take from the information what she needed and judge for herself what would be best for her friend.

i am sharing this response for no other reason than because i have never written it down. i know that i will never forget about having that miscarriage and i will never forget how i felt about it, but if it's all the same to you, i want to have it just in case.

here is what i wrote back to her...i do realize this email response is a mess of a lot of thoughts, but here it is:

funny you should ask this...i have been thinking about my miscarriage a lot lately. but oh sakes...that really sucks for your friend.

here is how i felt when i miscarried at 13 weeks...maybe she feels different but who knows.

it sucks to miscarry at 3 months because at this point you have told everyone you are preggo and you basically have to un-tell them ALL! i got so sick of people saying, "oh i am so sorry". i always thought to myself, what are they sorry for, they didn't do anything (i even said that to some people!). i hated all the pity i was getting. and i was angry about the WAY my miscarriage happened...so i was mad at my doctor, i was mad at everyone trying to comfort me (cuz i felt like it was a total pity party). i was just mad. and then i got mad at myself...what if i hadn't complained about being pregnant so soon...what if i hadn't missed those 2 weeks of prenatal vitamins...what if i had gone to the doctor when i passed out that day instead of writing it off as nothing...what if i had taken it easier and not played so hard with kaleb...what if this and what if that. i played the blame game for a good week and a half and then i basically just wondered why miscarriage has to happen...cuz it sucks! seriously, my experience was horrifying! i finally stopped dwelling on it - - this too shall pass - - life goes on - -whatever.

ever since grant was born i have been overwhelmed by my litter of small kids. i don't know if your friend is LDS but the more i think about that miscarriage the more i believe that i was meant to have 3 kids at this point in my life...2 of them planned and 1 by accident :0). we planned kaleb...got preggo by accident when he was 11 months old...miscarried. planned lyla, got preggo when she was 7 months old by accident. what i am saying is that if hadn't miscarried that one we would have had those 2 really close and then we'd have planned the third and he'd be here anyway. i had that miscarriage and then life had to catch up.

i do realize that this isn't making any sense. sorry.

what i believe about miscarriage is that you get pregnant. there is a perfect spirit waiting for a perfect body. MY body is imperfect and made a tiny mistake on that fetus somehow...but god wants a perfect body for this perfect spirit (maybe because that imperfect body isn't meant to be that child's earthly trial). so you miscarry the imperfect body so that you can try again. whether that miscarriage was my lyla or my grant, i really believe that the fetus i was growing just wasn't good enough/healthy enough for them, so i got another chance to bake a better one!

like i said maybe your friend feels different that i did, but here's the basic gist of what you might want to say to her, whether in person or in a little card:

dear friend, i can't even imagine how bad this experience sucks for you right now. but just know that i am thinking about you and every day i hope it gets a little better/easier for you and yours. hopefully someday it will make sense why this had to happen, but until then if you ever need a shoulder to cry on...or someone to listen to you vent...or a giant tub of ice cream, just know i am here for you.

i'm not sure any of this helps you out! good luck with your friend.

erin