Twisted Comfort

Warning: This post has images that may be disturbing. The images are from the Bodies Exhibit in Atlanta and include images of unborn children. Please do not read if the idea of these images bothers you. I will also warn you that this post is a bit on the graphic side, as I describe the physical details of a miscarriage.

I'll admit that though I had seen the Bodies Exhibit before, and had been through the Reproduction room, I did not know how I would react this time around. Surprisingly, after the exhibit, I felt comforted. Before you persecute me for being heartless, let me explain.

The room is one of the saddest things I can imagine. The Bodies Exhibit shows, in various ways, the preserved bodies of humans. Some donors end up as only an organ on a table, others are literally flayed and laid bare for all to see. To me, it was surprisingly uncreepy (no smell) and incredibly interesting (how did they do that)? In my limited knowledge of the human anatomy, I just tell myself that all of the donators (except the icky black lungs) died of natural causes after long lives. It helps me focus on the cool factor and less on the "this is so sad, this is someone's momma" factor. But the reproduction room... there is no such help. It is just plain sad. The room documents the growth of a baby from 4 weeks every week until about 16ish weeks (can't exactly remember).

Series of Remains of Unborn Babies Documenting Gestational Growth

Now let me first say, that I have no idea how these little ones lost their lives, and I really don't want to know. I tell myself, again, that they all passed of natural causes, just like my little one. So how did I find comfort in the tiny bodies of so many unborn children?

As I was actually in the process of losing my sweet girl, I was so distraught. Obviously it is a very, VERY hard thing to live through, but I remember it was very hard for me to process that my child was literally passing through me in what appeared to be a heavy period. I remember actually having this idea: "I'm flushing her down the toilet!". I remember being terrified to look in the toilet; afraid I'd see something "baby shaped". I really wanted to ask the doctor to take her out, but I was scared of a D&C and that he would think I was crazy. I told myself that part of the process was my body absorbing or "breaking down" the remnants of my pregnancy... that a baby wouldn't really come out, it would just be "tissue". I have no idea if any of this is true, but it's how I dealt with those days.

I remember sometime in December reading about Michelle Duggar's miscarriage of her little one. I read that she had held her child, and that the family had held a funeral service and buried her in a cemetery. I felt like such a bad person. Who throws their child away? I should have done something more.

Michelle Duggar Holds 19 Week Daughter's Hand

So back to feeling comforted. My little girl probably didn't live much past five weeks. It was exactly six weeks when I began bleeding. The presence of blood doesn't necessarily mean that your baby has died of course; lots of people spot throughout the pregnancy. But the bleeding, cramping, and extremely low HCG levels, meant that my little one had already died. So at five weeks of life (so short)... what would she have looked like? I couldn't find an image of the five week baby from the Bodies Exhibit, but here is a computer generated image at six weeks (the real thing was way more beautiful and amazing).

Computer Generated Rendering of Baby at 6 Weeks

While it's crazy to think that within this tiny, tiny baby (the size of a lentil) there is already a heart beating at 100-160 beats a minute, it's also wild to see how tiny they really are. While venturing through the reproduction room, I was reminded over and over how much the formation of life is a miracle. I don't know how you could walk through this room and not see the hand of the Father in the formation of each little bone. It is simply unbelievable! While it broke my heart to see the little ones, in a sick, twisted way, I was strangely comforted to see how truly small she had been. At the beginning of week five, the embryo is about 2mm, and by the end of the week, about 5mm. Now obviously, it is possible to extract and even preserve a five week old baby, and maybe I should have been more assertive. But I felt better knowing just how tiny she was. I couldn't have found her, cleaned her, held her like I dreamed.

I know that all of this probably makes me strange (who thinks about these things) and also a bit twisted (who finds comfort in these images). But it's all the truth. I also take comfort in these promises:

It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

…Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

1 Corinthians 15: 42-44, 54-55

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart".

 Jeremiah 1:5

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139: 13-16

The Lord knew my sweet little one before she was even conceived. Before her heart began to beat, before my body even recognized her presence, the Lord had written all of her days. I will probably never understand why she died, why the Lord called her home so soon, but I take comfort that no matter where or how her little body ended up, the Lord is far more powerful than death and decay. He will call her from the grave to be with Him in heaven, and there, I will finally hold her hand.