Miscarriage

Several years ago, I sat in a bathroom staring at one word on a white stick: Pregnant.

I hadn't been trying to get pregnant. I was on birth control. We didn't want kids. But there it was. The word.

The next day I went to the doctor, because one of my medications was forbidden for pregnant women. My urine test was inconclusive so they sent me for a blood test. I was frantic. How long would these results take? How long before I knew if my life plans were ruined or not?

That night I had a miscarriage. Two weeks later, I found myself crying hysterically over a pregnancy I had never wanted. I was stunned at how badly it hurt to lose a pregnancy that I hadn't even discovered until days before it ended.

After that, my husband and I decided we needed to make a permanent decision regarding kids. I was on medication that could cause miscarriages, and obviously birth control wasn't foolproof. We needed to take permanent action one way or another. After several months of prayer, discussion, and consideration, we decided to try for kids. I changed my medications, went off birth control, and started taking prenatal vitamins. Within 2 months we were pregnant.

That child is 6 years old now, and she is the best and most complicated blessing I've ever received.

In her book, Holy Trinity and the Power of Three, Cynthia Bourgeault discusses a concept known as the Law of Three. This law is the idea that every whole thing, material or non material, contains three forces: affirming, denying, and reconciling. Something new arises, which is affirmation, and then it is blocked, which is denial. Reconciliation occurs and something new comes into being.

For the last few months I have been "in the process" of ordination. I was seeking to be ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal church. That journey came to an end last week. The answer is "not now." And it's not the answer I wanted to hear, or expected to hear. It hurts a lot. I've cried a lot. But every time I pray about it, God reminds me of my miscarriage.

God's call to me is the affirming power. My church joined in that affirmation. The Bishop of my diocese became the denying power when she said "not now." And now I wait for reconciliation. Because when the reconciling force moves, something new will come.

My husband and I conceived a child by accident - life found a way, to paraphrase Jurassic Park. Life became an affirming force, only to be denied. There is no blame there - the medications I was on probably caused the miscarriage, but that's not my fault. And then my husband and I became the force of reconciliation. We participated in the affirmation and the denial, and ended up creating my daughter.

This post is in no way a criticism of the Bishop. Denial is not wrong or bad, as every parent knows. I have faith that her "not yet" is somehow part of God's plan for me. Her role in stopping the process is just as important and good as my role in initiating the process. And now I am in reconciliation, waiting to see what new wonderful blessing is being ushered into my life.