The Duggars and loss

It's been announced, yes, that Michelle Duggar has had a miscarriage.

I'm so deeply conflicted about this. I'm absolutely sorry for them. Losing a child, especially that far along in pregnancy, is so painful. Regardless of how many children one has, a parent anticipates a child for so long, feels him or her moving inside of her, and to have it die... I can't, and won't imagine. It devastated me to go from being pregnant one minute to waking up a couple hours later and not being pregnant anymore. My baby was alive, and is a beautiful boy now. I don't know how I'd face life if I'd lost him.

I am grateful that she has other children that she has the opportunity to take solace in, but I imagine, too, that she has to provide comfort, as much as one can, to those children. If she gets pregnant again, it's never going to be with the innocence of anticipation that someone who has never lost a child, or had a preemie, has. I know the thought of being pregnant again fills me with as much fear as it does joy, for many reasons, but primarily the fear of loss. The fear that I will love that child so deeply, be literally connected to him (or her) and then lose that child prevents me from even considering another at the present.

So, yes, while on one hand I am not terribly surprised that this pregnancy did not go well, I feel true sorrow for her and her family. I know her body is probably tired, and I disagree with her that she could go on trying for children, or simply not preventing them, because I think God allowed us discover birth control so that we could better take care of our bodies, and take better care of the children we have.  My father himself comes from a large family, and I know there were times where he and his siblings did not feel they, as individuals got enough attention. It's not that they weren't cared for, but they lacked something. I would never choose that for my own children.  I think there's selfishness, even greed, in that.

Nevertheless, no one deserves the pain of losing a child. Just having my own son has made me much more sympathetic to that. I loved him before he was conceived - I yearned for a baby. I adore this child, and I have known women to face life without a baby that they felt moving and living inside of them. I cannot imagine the pain of that loss, not truly. I can try, and that in itself shakes me to my core. I honestly do not, cannot, imagine living after something like that, or wanting to. I'm not saying or advocating suicide if one loses a child - not at all - I just don't know how I could face it.