Review of “After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman’s Companion to Healing & Hope”
July 30, 2012
I read this entire book mere days after my miscarriage, when the grief and devastation were still so raw and unrelenting. My heart and soul were crying for answers. I always turn to books when I need more information, but this time I needed more than information—so much more—and I found it in After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman’s Companion to Healing & Hope by Karen Edmisten.
This book is perfectly titled. It won’t give you long-winded insensitive medical theories. Instead, it addresses the all-too-often overlooked issues of how much a woman’s heart and soul and faith are wounded by miscarriage. A woman needs to know she’s not alone or overreacting in feeling like her world has ended, and the real-life stories in this book give you that sense of shared suffering. They helped me to wrap my mind around the hard reality, but in a completely compassionate, therapeutic way.
The connection with other women and their stories is made even deeper because we share the same faith, yet with an understanding that faith doesn’t mean that miscarriage is easier for us or any less devastating. It also lets you know that that no matter what anyone may think or say, you have the right to mourn and remember your child—no matter how tiny that child, no matter how short a time your child lived. It is perfectly normal to love and miss your child beyond measure.
And as a Catholic, the fact that my baby had not been able to be Baptized before dying, hit hard. I found immense comfort in the words in this book: “[God] loves our babies even more than we are able, and the best thing we can do is to place all our trust and hope in Him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: ‘God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments’ (CCC, #1257). In other words, God gives us the rules (‘Baptism is necessary for salvation’) because we need them, but He can ‘break’ His own rules.”
After Miscarriage is priceless, yet it is so extremely affordable that every Catholic woman who has experienced a miscarriage should own a copy. It is full of true stories, facts, quotes, and helpful resources, including information on supportive websites and memorial items. This book is also compact enough so that if you did want to carry it with you in your purse, you could. Chapters are short enough so that you can easily stop and start reading as needed, or as you can handle. Yes, you most likely will cry reading it. I knew I would, but . . . I was crying anyway. We need to. Only then can the healing begin.
A book dealing specifically with miscarriage for Catholic women is long overdue. Think about it: Catholic women, in their willingness to be mothers (and in their complete rejection of contraception) are likely to become pregnant more often than many women. And since statistics show that about one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage, a Catholic woman’s chances of facing a miscarriage are, sadly, rather high. As the author of this book said after multiple miscarriages: “For me, being open to life means being open to death.”
The author and all those contributing stories to After Miscarriage were very brave and charitable in their willingness to revisit the pain and share with others in hopes of helping them heal. I count myself blessed that this book was available for me when I desperately went searching for something . . . something to help.
And it has. More than two months after my miscarriage, I reread After Miscarriage. I still cried, but not as much. I found more words of wisdom to help me heal. And now, finally, I was able to write this review.
Another step toward healing and hope.