Part 19: Goodbyes

"What should we do for the service?" the woman asked her husband. She wondered if he thought it strange that she wanted a service in the first place. Her husband seemed okay with it, so she didn't worry too much about it. As they discussed the details, the woman made some notes.

"This looks good!" she said smiling. "It will be a wonderful service." 

Just then a faint emotion stirred within her and began to crescendo. Before she knew it tears were filling her eyes and she started to sniffle. At last an audible cry emerged.

The woman's husband took her in his arms and comforted her. "Just let it out," he said in a warm voice.

While she had cried different times over the past couple weeks, it had been about other things—the stress, her condition, the long road ahead. This was the first cry in awhile that actually grieved the loss of her pregnancy, yet it felt just as fresh as the first time and emotionally it was just as hard.

The cool Sunday morning air filled her lungs as she made her way to the backyard where she found her husband standing by the small spruce tree. Sunshine settled upon the tiny hole beneath the lower branches he had dug just moments before in preparation to receive the package she held in her hand wrapped in a white napkin.

Together they stood looking down at the site, the wind blowing and the sound of passing cars traveling along the nearby country road resonating in the distance. They began to sing:

How great is our God.
Sing with me, how great is our God.
And all will see how great, how great is our God.

She placed the tiny package into the small hole. After each shared a few words, the husband closed in a prayer.

“Dear Lord, we thank you for the gift of each other and for this pregnancy. Even though it wasn't a baby, it was still special. We pray for healing in the months ahead—spiritually, emotionally, and physically—so that someday we can try again and be blessed with a baby.”

With a small spade they took turns covering the newly filled space with a mixture of soil and wood chips. Every spade-full finalized reality. Dreams of starting a family, caring for a baby of their own, passing on the many things they wish to teach, and enjoying God's gift of a new person had been postponed. They offered up one more moment of silence, then turned and together walked away.

Part 18: The Delivery

It was just like any other Saturday morning. She awoke at her normal time while her husband lay sleeping under the mound of covers. He would be there till at least 9:30 a.m., to the detriment of the woman, of course. An early morning chat with her husband over coffee was her Saturday morning dream, a dream, unfortunately, crushed every week. Alternatively, she knew his dream was to sleep in, and somehow she worked up the weekly discipline to restrain herself from harassing him awake before the allotted time...most Saturdays, anyway.

Her first stop was the bathroom.

Ummm...that was weird.

The woman had passed clots before, and large ones at that, but this did not feel like a clot. Peering into the toilet she saw a dark shadow resting at the bottom. Curiosity got the best of her and she fished it out.

Upon further examination, the woman determined that what she had in her possession was indeed the mass from inside her uterus. It measured a little over 3.5 cm in length, just like what the doctor explained from her ultrasound a week and a half earlier.

She hurried to the bedroom.

"Honey," she whispered nudging her husband hoping he wouldn’t mind too much. "I think I just passed the tissue."

Looking at her with tired eyes he acknowledged the situation and lovingly rolled out of bed to take a look.

"Yeah, that definitely looks different than a clot," he confirmed, still a bit groggy.

They deliberated the meaning of it all, wondering, perhaps, if it was a good sign for things to come. Little did they know it would mark the end to two and a half months of the woman's bleeding. They questioned what to do with the the tiny mass. After a few moments of silence, the woman replied saying, "I think I'd like to have a funeral."