Mourning - a slow and scattered process

As I sit here and try to make sense of the loss of my unborn child, I cannot help to reflect upon all of the well meaning advice I have gotten for coping. Many people have offered a religious outlook on the loss, and I genuinely appreciate it, because talking does help. I will take any type of comfort on the topic of early pregnancy loss.

I guess, I tend to be more spiritual, rejecting the authority of organized religion. I was raised Catholic, but I never really thrived in an what felt like such a oppressive sect of Christianity. I cussed a nun out during my Confirmation classes when she informed our class that a man was coming to lecture us on how abortion is murder. I told her that a man, who will NEVER have to make that choice, should not be coming to class to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. I told her that if a woman wants to come and talk - fine, more impactful, a woman who made the choice and regretted it.

I have explored other forms Christianity, but nothing felt right. I am very liberal in my political beliefs, so I turned to a few Unitarian churches, open to gay marriage and not so focused on the anti-choice movement. That did not fit. I guess, I am just not comfortable with with such public rituals revolving around biblical doctrine. I tend to be a bit anti-authoritarian.

But for me this is not a religous journey. It is a phychological and scientific journey. My baby died of complications arising from a freak extra chromosome. I hear the diagnosis over and over again - Alobar Holoprosencephaly. If she had lived to make it into this world, I would have gazed upon her deformed features with love. I would have watched her suffer a painful journey in an already painful world. I would have spent my time with her waiting for her to die. The babies who have lived more than a year with alobar holoprosencephaly did not have the facial defomities that my baby had.

So as painful as this choice is, I would have chosen not for that to happen, that choice was taken away from me. Even so, I am happy that I live in a country that gives woman the right to chose. I firmly believe that this does not mean that I am not in touch with God and all his glory, or that I am going to hell. Hell would be making my child suffer her short time on this earth in order to subvert my alleged tenure of eternity in Hell for making the choice not to impose suffering on my child. Someone might decide otherwise, that just would have been my choice.