Jasey Knott

Three weeks ago, I sadly experienced an early miscarriage (you might remember my post on Sunday 22^nd April). Today, I want to share a bit of the journey I've been on over the past couple of weeks.

As soon as I found out that I was pregnant, I was soooo excited and I prayed to God, giving this baby up to Him and trusting that he would use the situation for His glory, no matter what the outcome. I surprised Adam by telling him when he got home from school camp. We were overjoyed, but we were understandably trying not to be at the same time, knowing we have to make it to at least 12 weeks before we can have a stitch put in my cervix.

I went to the doctors, as I was instructed to do immediately upon finding out I was pregnant, at my 6 week check- up. They booked me in for an ultrasound and blood test. They made jokes about me being very fertile! lol! And before I left, one of the gynos, who I saw with Jubilee, tried to reassure me by saying “I really see no reason why you should miscarry.”

 The very next morning, I was praying again for God’s will but added in there: “please God, keep the baby safe though, I really don’t feel like having my character tested again.” Hours later, I wiped pale pink urine. I panicked a bit but remembered from the bleed I had with Jubilee, that if I didn’t get any pain, this could be normal for me and not to stress, so we went about what we were doing for the day and tired not to focus on it. By 8:30 that night however, severe cramping came on and we knew it was all over. I buried what we had in Juby’s pot at the base of her olive tree (which has really grown lots of shoots recently).

We didn’t go the hospital until 2 days later- just to have it confirmed and everything checked- there is nothing they can do anyway- a miscarriage is a miscarriage and it will just happen if it’s going to. It got me thinking more about Jubilee because I found myself feeling doubly disappointed about losing her and that if I hadn’t I would still be pregnant with her and all this would not be happening.  I also found myself telling people that I had “miscarried again” and I corrected myself after the first couple of times- remembering that although medicine would label her birth “a late miscarriage” or a still birth,” I had a live baby inside me who was alive for almost her entire birth and had the privilege of witnessing her heart beat its last. Although a doctor accidently broke my waters, I still went into labour on my own and so, I’ve decided from now on that I will make a clear distinction between the miscarriage of Jasey and the “premature birth” of Juby when I’m speaking to people about their births (which happens quite a bit! So blessed to be able to share my story with others).

Despite the overwhelming feeling of disappointment flooding my soul once again, I feel blessed that at least, I did not have to have a D&C (excellent job, body!) and that we have had blood tests and ultrasounds confirming that there is nothing wrong with me. The gynos confirmed that the miscarriage was unrelated in any way to our loss of Jubilee and that we were (in their words) just in the “unlucky” percentage of pregnancies that end in miscarriage. Whilst I have grieved this, at times, it felt like there wasn’t much to grieve for except my own selfish desires. I’ve felt, at times (usually when I’m wearing my human blinkers and not my Godly glasses! lol!),  like we have gone one step forward and ten backwards. 

In the weeks since, in conversation between my husband and I, what seemed to happen was that we still talked about Juby like she was our only baby, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable like I was forgetting or ignoring the life that we had created and carried, even if it was very brief. In the past couple of weeks, I believe God has placed it on my heart to name this baby with a name meaning that includes/derives from ‘grace.’ I researched some names, and as we have no way of knowing if we were having a boy or girl, have tried to choose a more unisex name. Today, we decided on “Jasey” which means “God is gracious.”  We aren’t going to make a big deal of it but I certainly feel healed in a way, just being able to call our baby by name and not just “the other baby we lost.” God has indeed been very gracious to us! Praise God, we will soon be good to go again J