Four days ago I joined the ranks of the millions of women who have suffered the loss of a miscarriage. I was thirteen weeks pregnant on Saturday. That night we were out to dinner as a family because the day before all of our belongings had been packed into boxes and there was nothing left to cook with. While I was sitting there I started bleeding. Fortunately my doctor was able to see me an hour later. There was no heartbeat when he searched on the ultrasound. There was no baby to see at all because the baby had died, tissue broken down, perhaps a few weeks earlier. It’s called a “missed miscarriage” I think, because my body didn’t recognize that the baby had died until a couple of weeks later. On Sunday I revisited Telki (the hospital where Elise was born) for a D and C to prevent excessive bleeding or incomplete passing.

Before this personal experience I believe I thought that the fact that miscarriages were common (I’ve heard 1 in 3 pregnancies) would make it less painful. I was wrong. It is still the loss of our baby. And the loss of a dream. And there are still all the awful questions…Why did the baby die? What was wrong that it didn’t continue to grow? Was there anything I did wrong? When did this baby die? Was it a boy or a girl? Will we be able to get pregnant again? Will we ever be able to carry an infant to completion again or will we suffer this kind of loss in the future?

For now I’m really too numb to decide anything about the future. My heart is not yet ready to hope again.

As a post script: Thank you to all of our wonderful friends in Budapest (especially the Cannon family, Coppage family, Nagy Gabi, Julie, Stirlings, Becky, Rebecca, Lippolds, and Tunde) for the love, words of sorrow and comfort, visits, gifts, and assistance to help us get through our last 2 1/2 days before moving. We love you!

….we fly to America! It is surreal at this point. Good days & bad days as the move approaches.  Very encouraging things are happening with our home church in Atlanta - a great friend has taken over organizing volunteers to help us repair our house when we get there (first 2 weeks of June). It is so healing to know that the body of Christ is rallying to our aid.

 But we also have struggled with discouragement in so many other areas. (See scott.friderich.net for more details). Now we really need prayer for faith and provision for all of the other unknowns when we return.

 In the end, I am so glad we came and lived here in Budapest.  Though it can be a wearisome place to exist cross-culturally, it has been exhilirating to live this adventure and grow our family here.

 By the way, we are expecting baby #3 at the end of November!

We had a busy 2 days last weekend, celebrating the holiday and developing our family traditions. Here are some photos to show you about it. On Saturday we went to a local shopping center where they had an Easter bunny walking around and free face painting.

Then later that night we did our egg dying/painting (of the beautiful brown eggs here in Europe). And Elena helped me decorate bunny cupcakes.

Here are the little dolls in their Easter dresses (very hard to get Elise to stand still!).

After church we went to lunch at our friends’ house where the girls got to hunt for the eggs we dyed. What fun!

Then today we conducted our own little egg hunt in the backyard garden of our building with plastic eggs my mom sent from America (filled with candy). The girls were thrilled to stuff their faces with m&m’s afterwards.

Today Scott caught Elena picking, and when he asked her if she needed him to “help” her she said…

“I learned to get boogers out myself. I learned it from the Bible.” 

Scott said, “Oh really. What does the Bible tell you to do?”
 

” It says to get a napkin, stick it right inside the nose and then try to pull it out. That’s what is says and I can do it myself.”

Kids are so entertaining.

Okay, so I have not demonstrated much success in regular blogging since Scott initiated the family blog 2 years ago. And now he wants me to have my own site!! I am gonna try to be more regular (should eat more fiber?).  But at the moment Elise is screaming “Mommy, mommy” at my leg because she has had acid poopies and a diaper rash and simultaneously wants and doesn’t want her diaper to be changed (sorry if that is tmi).  Elena has been saying all morning that she doesn’t feel well and has puffy red eyes and pink cheeks. Besides these customary demands, I’ve got a household to begin packing, a broken dishwasher, a landlord to inform of our upcoming evacuation, moving companies to contact for shipment quotes (these will all have to take place in second language), and tons of praying to do about our future. I’m not complaining. The truth is the Friderich family has quite a bit of experience with major change and I think I enjoy a little bit of chaos.  Just anticipating that blogging very often may be a challenge.

Saw Walk the Line last night.  Excellent movie.  You all probably already know that, since I think it may already be available on DVD in the US.  But it is just now playing in theatres here.  I was inspired by the portrayal of June Carter’s character to be the kind of partner/wife who is exceedingly supportive and loving even in the midst of trial. And Reese Witherspoon was fantastic.  Also a fan of Joaquin Phoenix.  Made me want to learn more about Cash’s real life.