A Daisy Service – My experience of miscarriage

by Anne Linington⁽¹⁸⁷⁾ Red Star

This morning, I was watching some of the 1800 boats sailing round the Isle of Wight. As the boats approached the Needles, they were lost to my view, but they hadn't ceased to exist. Around the Island and from the air, they could be seen, though no longer by me. Similarly, the children we have lost have not ceased to exist, though we cannot see them at present.

Mum was pregnant with what she assumed was a single pregnancy and miscarried following my father's tractor accident. In fact she was carrying twins and weeks later, Mum discovered she was five months pregnant. I was born the following March.

I always had a sense of missing someone; I was close to my brother and sister and cried on both their wedding days, because it felt like a loss, a bereavement.

When I was five, I was given a beautiful doll and from that moment, I longed for the day when I would have my own baby. I married young, too young in hindsight, but despite tests the longed-for baby didn't arrive. We later separated and went through a painful divorce.

Six years later, I remarried and the following year I was pregnant. The consultant told his juniors, “All babies are special, but this one is extra special”. Sadly, I suffered a miscarriage at fourteen weeks. Because of my counselling training, I asked to see this baby, whose heart-beat I had heard, and whose heart I had seen beating on the ultrasound screen in the days before.

We arranged a funeral service, and gave her our chosen name of Rebecca Daisy; Rebecca because we liked it, and Daisy after an older friend who had died earlier that year. Kind friends brought a bunch of Moon Daisies which were in flower.

My mental health took a serious decline; partly physical due to hormones and a haemorrhage, and partly emotional due to the loss, and earlier divorce. My emotional pint glass couldn't hold the quart that had been poured into it. Friends and family became increasingly worried at my abnormal behaviour. I couldn't even tell the Doctor the day of the week, and was admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital.

It was four months before I was fully discharged, having gone from a huge high to the depths of depression; but even at the worst times, I knew God was there; In a Christian midwife; a Hospital Chaplain; a William Blake poem on the radio; a visiting minister who came and sat with me every Friday afternoon. I later thought how Job's comforters would have done better if they had continued to just sit, and shut up.

Recovery was a long time coming, and Carisbrooke Priory played a large part in it; Regular prayer after the Thursday Services; the music group which began my recovered self-esteem; ten month old Marnie, who didn't seem to know I was allergic to babies! One friend, a practical Yorkshire-woman, wrote regularly, “You will get better!”. I am grateful to my husband, family and friends and the mental health team for my recovery.

By then I was forty-one and there was a substantial risk that this might occur again if I became pregnant. We made the difficult but active decision not to try again, believing that a conventional family was not God's will for us. Since that time I have worked at a Special Needs school, and now with adults with learning difficulties where I have found fulfilment in nurturing some very special people.

Twelve years later, I am training as a lay preacher with the Church of England; I continue to write, particularly poetry, and will finish with one written three years before my miscarriage; I was sitting in Mum's kitchen in Devon, and a picture came to mind of a tiny white lamb perched on my shoulder. I came to realise that this shoulder was God's and the lamb's tail was wriggling with delight as lamb's tails do; most significantly it was licking the face of God. For me this picture had relevance regarding my own twin, and years later for my own daughter.

The Lamb

Living, loving, lovely lamb

Perched upon God’s shoulder

Joyfully delighting in

The face he is beholding

Perfect, sin-free playful lamb

Fully whole are you

Spared the sin and suffering

Of this world below

Taken e’er you’re given breath

Lost from mother’s womb

Now enjoys eternal life

In your Heavenly home

Wish you back? I wouldn’t dare

You are free from every care

Missed you here upon this earth

One day I will see you there

Anne Linington

A "Daisy Service" was held at an ecumenical Centre for Christian Healing. Those who were affected by the loss of a baby at or before birth were invited to lay Moon Daisies on the altar in memory of each child. This was the testimony I shared on that day.

Article submitted Sunday, November 15, 2009 & read 208 times.

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» left by Marijo Phelps⁽¹⁹⁹⁾ (2 years 83 days ago.)

I am getting goose bumps, Anne, this is so anointed and touching. Thanks for posting this here. Marijo
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