To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the
oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that
they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he
might be glorified. – Isaiah 61:3

  It was the worst of times.  Never before had I been so physically ill, and then so emotionally spent.  We wonder if this event triggered the start of my celiac disease, but we’ll never know for sure.

  Thrilled to be pregnant, to be providing a sibling for our firstborn, I didn’t mind the constant nausea and constant throwing up so much.  You do what you have to do, to get the result you want.  Weight fell off me.  The couch became my resting place, day and night.  Counting down the days until I would be in the clear, and have more energy to be more present for my family.  Just when I thought that it would be safe to announce the news to friends and family, just after a new trimester had begun, we were faced with the news of loss.  Of emptiness.  Of deep, deep sorrow.  There was no heartbeat.

  Faced then with an awful decision – should we wait for my body to expel the lifeless form of the child itself and risk needing a D&C anyway because of the chances of infection, or should we go ahead and schedule the D&C.

I wanted neither option.  I wanted the weeks and months to progress – my dreams and hopes to be fulfilled.  I wanted to Mother again.

But we chose the operation.  As much as I was aghast at the thought of having the baby ripped from me, and scared silly at the thought of my first general anaesthetic, we chose that option.

I remember farewelling my firstborn for the day – aching to just hold his little hand in mine, to seek comfort from what I already had. I remember the awful blue gown and the plastic underwear.  The procedural questions and the signing of my rights.  The little white pill to help me relax.  The tears when my husband was not allowed to come past a certain point.  Sitting on a hard bed, my boney butt aching, just wanting to be living another life.  I remember being wheeled into the green and metallic room.  My arm sticking out at my side, being poked and then counting backwards……10 9 8.  It doesn’t just happen on tv programmes.  Then the waking up, all of a sudden, tears flowing right away. Not a woeful ‘poor me’ cry, but that deep sobbing,’ my heart is aching’ cry, that gutteral from the depths of my being cry.  I remember counting down the hours until my husband could pick me up, being wheeled in a wheelchair down to the hospital lobby and then out to the car.  I remember being glad that I wore black trousers that day, so that the leaking was not so obvious.

 I felt so anonymous yet so obvious.

Then it was time for the healing.

That’s part A of my story.  It was awful.  It was hard.  It was painful.  It was sad beyond sad.  BUT.  Don’t you love God’s BUTS?  However grammatically wrong they are – they are significant – BUT God was there.  There was a part B of this story.

When I was waiting to be wheeled into the operating room, a woman came to sit with me.  She said her name was Joy and she was a student, doing a midwifery course.  She asked if I minded her sitting with me, and we exchanged small talk, and then she walked with me as I was wheeled in.  She was allowed in the operating room, and I saw her face, and then I didn’t.  She wasn’t around when I woke up, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the afternoon.

A few weeks later when I was thinking about the whole ordeal, I was remembering how appreciative I was, to have her there, how her presence had brought me some comfort.  I wrote ‘Joy’ a thank you card and then rang the college that her course was through, to get her last name.  They had no record of a ‘Joy’ doing their course.  I thought maybe she had been attending another course, so I sent the card off anyway.  But then the thought came to me.  What if ‘Joy’ was actually an angel?  What if God had sent her to be my comfort when I needed it most?  I’ll never know for sure – but it is my opinion that she was an angel.  I was mourning, yet God had given me Joy for mourning, in the best way he could.  In the presence of someone that could just be by my side.

So often when we are going through ‘stuff’ we feel so alone.  We’re not.  We are never alone. We have everything we need through Him.