Empty Little Shoes for Now

Well dear Family,

Now we know why people so often wait until 8 weeks... Since the due date calculator said that we were at 5 weeks, we hoped we were close enough to the safety range to share the news with everyone.

The baby miscarried Tuesday night. For almost three hours, I had heavy cramping, pain, contractions and bleeding. We cried. It is amazing how excited we were about this new little one, laughing over his development from the fetal development chart. "His or her heart is beating! The lungs and brain are forming, and this week—his nostrils and eye lenses are forming. Plus he has little arms and legs buds starting! The baby is as big as my pinky fingernail." The kids and I had exclaimed over each new feature. Mark had wrapped his arms around me protectively, and we had thought over names.

Later, during the miscarriage, Morgan was asleep, but John was upstairs when Brian called, and heard the symptoms. He confirmed what we were afraid of and hoping against: it most likely is a miscarriage. Very common at this stage. 1 in 5 pregnancies end this way. It's not for sure, but probably.

Yet it hurts. We miss this little one already, and are sad to not meet him or her soon. We had already dreamed about him, bought cute little shoes at a garage sale for him, made jokes about his or her personality, etc. laughing at the soon to form clubbed hands.

God is still good. Yet it is necessary to grieve, and to cry, and to reminisce.

Thank you for all of your wonderful excited emails! We were so thrilled to have you share our excitement. Each email was fun for us to read and to smile with. Please don't feel odd talking about this miscarriage with us. You are welcome to talk to us.

We are going to try again for another baby. And, yes, we would love to borrow some of that baby equipment soon.

We love you all.

-Jennifer, Mark, John and Morgan