Nineteen years ago when my wife was pregnant with what we thought to be our fourth child she miscarried. I remember the sobbing so clearly that we shared as we went to the doc's office, have the miscarriage confirmed and to be sent home. As I drove, we held hands, knowing the promise held by this chapter of our lives had, seemingly cruelly, been drawn to an abrupt close.
Fortunately for us, our doc had neither recommended nor performed the usual DNC to purge that which had been.

Weeks later, my wife still felt pregnant and wondered what was going on. She dialed the doc, we were asked to come in. Doc did some preliminary checking, shaking her head, wondering whether there was a tumor [cancer] growing where once there had been a vital child en ventre sa mer. Now, the technology of ultrasound was still fairly new in those years and the doc quickly made arrangements to perform it herself right then and there. Fearing the worst, we were moved to another room for the procedure. At once, the pictures crossing the screen revealed not a dreaded tumor, but a most viable little girl whose heart was beating strongly. Cleo had been pregnant with fraternal twins [our second set of twins] and only one had miscarried. Our miracle baby, Em, was still there very strongly making her presence known.

Now we were drawn so energetically away from the stages of grief regarding our lost baby to the dawning realization that another was still there and healthy, to boot. This was one that was written up in the medical journals as an issue for practitioners to alert to when miscarriage is presented, you see, since our doc always, always performed post miscarriage DNC but did not with Em in there. She felt for some reason that our grief being so profound that the added trauma of DNC was not warranted this time. God reached down and touched her shoulder warding her off because another had yet to come.

So, years later, Em will still ponder as do we her lost twin. Yes, there has been grief and loss even by Em regarding her lost twin; but we also celebrate the eternal joy of the miracle of Em's continued growth and arrival, now a vibrant and spunky daughter who is 4.0 in her first year of college with a hope to one day be a doctor herself.

The veil separating death from life is so tenuous, so easily breached that I have now and again found myself being drawn to Tom's thread even in recent months as I, in profound depression, contemplated deeply the questions Tom has posed for all of us to consider. Now healthier myself emotionally and mentally, I share my gratitude for each of your posts sharing moments and deeply held thoughts openly with us who here abide.

Tom, I have hope for you that the specialist with whom you work will be guided to the source of your overwhelming discomfort so that a means to overcome the source might become visible as the solution you have long sought. I pray those biopsies present roadmaps to the solution, and I await with anticipation the results just as you do.

Oh, and Tom and David, I took a moment to listen to each of your linked musical selections..... so beautiful and alluring. They cause one to think.

Blessings on all of you for the New Year,
Mark56