the follow-up

First off, thank you everyone for such kind words! I'm always overwhelmed by the people I don't expect who are so generous and supportive with all those lovely words. So thank you. It warms my wee heart.

Secondly, the outpouring of condolences and flooding of my facebook message box, while very much appreciated, made me realize I definitely didn't make one thing clear, and I'd like to remedy that. It's not all that shocking, seeing as I never let my posts sit more than 2 minutes after writing stream-of-conscious style before "publishing," and I hear proofreading and rewriting really help one make a point, but it sounds overrated...

So what I wanted to clarify is that I felt a lot of pain during my miscarriage, and I went through normal grief processes (I had a major panic attack that night about Jethro sleeping in the other room and kept wanting Nick to check on him every 3 minutes or so), but that stage was incredibly brief. And now when I think or talk about the whole experience, there is absolutely zero sting and zero bitterness and zero hurt. That's not because I'm some sort of superwoman, but it's because all of that was taken away as a result of giving everything up to God. I'd experienced that amazing healing power in little bits and pieces my whole life, but this was the first time I did it all the way beforehand and never looked back, and the fruits have been incredible.

That's why I wanted to write that post. I wanted to say these things:

     1) The Atonement can cover anything we are willing to apply it to. Promise.

     2) Even though we all know that most women have at least one miscarriage at some point, all I could hear in my mind the night of was the doctor's voice repeating over and over that it was my fault because I was breastfeeding, and even though I knew that was false and I knew I was not alone (more like I had joined a club), I felt alone in that experience. I don't like that pregnancy loss is a taboo subject, so I wanted to write about mine as an encouragement to all my friends that I know have gone through this or will so they can have Real Life examples of proof that they're not alone.

     3) Life is a struggle, and the more we learn to handle painful things, I'm pretty sure we're lining up for more painful things. As we increase in our capacity to go through the dark parts of life, we also increase our capacity to see more of the light. A miscarriage is not the end of the world (a couple years ago, it probably would have been for me), but it is real, and it is pain. I hope I won't have any more, but it's not unlikely that I will--but now I know that I will be okay regardless. And I can extend that to anything else, because God's promises are not limited to what we consider fixable in our tiny brains, and I'm 100% positive that harder things are ahead. I know I'm still in the kiddie pool. I'm only 25 and most likely have a whole lotta time to refine my appreciation for the difficulties life has to offer. BUT...

     4) IT'S STILL SO EXCITING!! ; )

So hopefully I said it right that time. You're all awesome.

This one doesn't count as short and silly, obviously. It's my obligatory hemming and hawing post soul-bearing. So neener neener.

Loves!