Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice

I haven't posted in the last few weeks. Every time a (female) blogger (of childbearing age) takes an unannounced blogging break, I immediately suspect pregnancy. And I'm right about 90% of the time.  So if you suspected me, you were right. I was pregnant. 

Was. Past tense. Today we got confirmation that we will be miscarrying again. We suspected that might be the case for a while. I had three ultrasounds and each one showed only a gestational sac a couple weeks behind in growth. But today, I would have been 9.5 weeks pregnant (8.5 by my first ultrasound) and there was still an empty sac. No baby. No heartbeat. 

There were also other things that pointed to a miscarriage from the beginning - a relative lack of symptoms, getting a positive test on the late side - all sadly similar to my miscarriage in October.  But I hoped that I was just being paranoid and there was a little voice in the back of my mind reminding me that miscarrying back to back is rare and that surely, it wouldn't happen to me again, at least not now.  Maybe later, after we'd had another healthy pregnancy and child.  But not twice in a row.  After all, lightening never strikes the same place twice. 

Except it does. In fact, it hits the Empire State Building hundreds of times a year.  Lightening is attracted to certain things and whatever makes a place attract lightening once will continue to attract it over and over again. 

Going into our appointment today, we knew that we were most likely looking at a miscarriage so we are doing surprisingly well at the moment. I'm sure we'll have some hard times ahead of us, especially as I actually begin to bleed, so I ask that you keep our family in your prayers.  

It's hard to let go of not only this baby, but also the idea of adding a new (living) member of our family this year.  We had so desired Lucia to have a sibling close to her in age, but looking ahead, we know that she will be at least three before a new baby is born, if we are ever so blessed.  We continue to struggle with realizing that we do not have the ability to plan our family and fertility and that we are subject to forces beyond ourselves, both nature and our God.