To Remember

I remember once in middle school, when everyone is all about themselves and sometimes unintentionally unkind, one of my best friends told me, "I know you're going through a hard time right now, but what I'm going through is a lot worse." The comment, of course, felt like a giant slap in the face. Shortly afterwards I somewhere read a quote that was something along the lines of, "Pain is pain, no matter the form." And I thought, "Ha! It doesn't matter how bad things are for you, that doesn't mean they aren't bad for me too!" When, what I should have thought, was that we all go through hard things, and there is no way to judge whose trials are "harder". They are trials for a reason... because they try all of us. My thirteen year old mind couldn't really comprehend that, but I think I'm starting to get it now.
Because how often are we guilty of ranking trials in order of how much they should be hurting us? How often have you told yourself, "Well, this could be worse, it could be like what happened to my poor neighbor last year. But it's a lot worse than what happened to the girl I heard about at work."
Like it or not, we want pity. We want recognition and support for what we're going through. Maybe we need to be told we're strong in order to behave as such. In any case, I think that's why I was keeping this, mostly, bottled up. I didn't want everyone to know because it wasn't everyone's business, or because I didn't want to look like I was complaining. But then something else happened: the holidays. Where a bunch of well-intentioned people would ask, "So how long until you two have a baby?" Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. And then my still slightly out of control hormones (or maybe this is my new personality?) take over and I'm choking back tears and pasting on a smile. And that's when I realized these things would be much easier if it wasn't such a secret. If they knew, they'd never ask. They might just be a little bit more careful. 
So, here it is.
On November 7th, I found out I was pregnant. We weren't trying, but since I haven't been able to take birth control for 90% of our marriage, we knew it was a possibility. However, this was the first month I really didn't even consider that I was, mostly because I'd been having some medical problems for the last few months, that basically ended on the note of, "If you don't have surgery, you're going to have a hard time getting pregnant. If you do have surgery, it could make it so you can't get pregnant." Encouraging words, aren't they? So we decided to put it in the back of our minds and deal with it when we decided we wanted kids, if and only if we had a hard time. 
And then, bam, that little blue plus sign is staring you in the face.
Actually, I was so sure that I wasn't pregnant, that I threw the test away before waiting for the results. Oops. A few minutes later I had a strong feeling to go back and look at it. 
So, seeing as I had recently been told this might not be a possibility for me, I was pretty excited. And let's be honest, us newlyweds are supposed to act all calm and cool and "I don't want a baby until my husband does" but I have always wanted to be a mom. And it's true that the minute you find out you're pregnant, you become one.
Two weeks later, I woke up and realized I was spotting. I called the doctor and they told me it was normal, Caleb gave me a blessing, but still I couldn't shake this bad feeling that, in truth, I'd had throughout my pregnancy. I told myself not to be pessimistic and that everything would be fine, but now I don't think it was pessimism. I think it was Heavenly Father preparing me for what was going to happen. 
The doctor told me to call back if the bleeding got worse. So I went to work, and shortly afterwards, it got worse. I was a wreck. We hadn't even told anyone yet, and we were waiting until Christmas to tell even our families. (Which is also why the holidays were a little rough this year.) Long story short, we went to the hospital and they confirmed what I already knew: I was having a miscarriage.
I don't mean to be unkind, but I had always assumed that miscarriages, especially so early on (I was about 7 weeks) weren't that big of a deal. They weren't as bad as what a friend or neighbor or so-and-so went through, but worse than most things I'd been through. So I guess I was a little surprised by the emotional turmoil that I was suddenly under. It was a loss, sure. I was sad, but mostly I just felt so useless  and unimportant. Like, one second I was responsible for another life. I was going to be a mom, I was on top of the world. Then, in a matter of hours, it was all gone. Suddenly, I was just Anndee again. Even with my wonderful husband being so sweet and taking such good care of me, I just felt alone. Suddenly, being "Just Anndee" didn't feel all that great anymore. 
It was really rough for the first two weeks or so. Everything  made me cry, and all I could think was how far along I'd be, when I was supposed to be due, even silly things like how my baby wouldn't have a summer birthday like I'd been thinking, or how I wouldn't be pregnant on Thanksgiving. Things that, on the outside, didn't seem to matter, because that's the problem with miscarriages: we can just try again, right? You just get pregnant again, and then you're fine.
But I wasn't fine. I had lost this baby, our baby, some nameless, sexless little thing barely the size of a pea, and somehow I had some attachment to it? And the more time passed, the more the few people who knew about it would forget, and expect me to move on. And don't get me wrong, I am not wallowing in this pool of depression thinking I will never overcome my trials. I just realized that this baby, this tiny baby that I will never get to meet in this life, didn't matter to many people other than myself, and that's because no one ever knew it even existed. And that just didn't seem fair. I want my baby to matter, I want it's brief stint here on earth to be known about, at least by those closest to me. Because it matters to me. Because for a brief second, I was a mom, and that was important, and I had this glimpse into the eternal plan and what's really important and who I am intended to become. 
So I know that everyone has trials, and that some may seem far more difficult than others. But in the moment, it hurts. And I truly believe we all go through the specific trials we go through for a reason. Maybe part of that is to help someone else. So I hope that by sharing what I've been through, it can help someone else. I know it helped me to be able to talk to the wonderful people who opened up to me about their miscarriages, and to realize there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
There still is. I don't know what will happen from here, but I know that I will be exponentially more grateful when I do have a baby. I will be begging for morning sickness, because I know now that means a more viable pregnancy. And I will tread more lightly around people, because everybody goes through things, and I'm not here to rank them above or beneath my own.
And of course, I'm SO grateful for what I have!