Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.--Eckhart Tolle

This year I suffered two miscarriages—or “missed miscarriages”--at twelve weeks gestation.  Before I became a mom, I saw friends go through fertility issues, but I always felt disconnected from what they were experiencing.  I hurt for them but wondered why people wanted children so desperately. Parenthood seemed like, well, a kind of martyrdom.  No more happy hours, late nights out, or impromptu dinners.  No more snooze button.  My own son was a surprise, a disruptive, delightful waking from a long, dreamy sleep. And I’ve been awake ever since.  

When we found out we were pregnant for the second time, I took it for granted that things would go well.  With JD, I had been one of those obnoxious women who truly relished the experience of pregnancy.  I religiously practiced my prenatal yoga, dutifully swallowed my vitamins, hand-crafted my birth announcements. Yes, I even enjoyed labor until I dilated about seven centimeters and promptly decided to assuage my husband’s fear of my discomfort with an epidural.  Charitable of me, I know.

When I miscarried (both times) I was told, “God makes things happen for a reason.”  As if this were some sort of orderly universe with an avuncular deity who magic-wands the wombs of women: “Baby for you, cancer for you.”  I realize some find the idea of God’s attention to the minutiae of our lives comforting, but for me, something about that idea minimizes our pain.  And, for me, something about that idea minimizes God.

So rather than finding the reason in God’s plan for me, I prefer this:  If this experience walked into my life as a teacher—what would be his lesson?  What did my babies come to teach me? And then I look at the giggling little toddler beside me wrapped up in his little blue blanky. What a miracle that he made it here when so many things could have gone wrong.  What a miracle that he shook me out of my sleep and brought me into the now. Thank you my little wise ones.  Lesson learned.