If suffering is part of life, why do we take it so personally?

A couple of weeks ago my mom told me that at church her Relief Society teacher said, "If suffering is part of everyone's life, then why do we take it so personally?" I thought about that for a while.  Everyone has their thing. Everyone goes through crap at some point in their life. Yes, some have it worse than others and yes, some handle it better than others. But if there is one thing I have learned through my dad's death it is that life is not fair to anyone. And there is no point taking your specific trials personally by thinking that God is treating you differently than "so and so."

Little did I know that I would soon have an opportunity to apply that little piece of advice. In July I found out I was pregnant. It was a happy surprise. (It was a planned surprise, we just thought it would take longer to get pregnant like it did with Eva.) Then I quickly did the math and found out that the baby would be due on my dad's death date: March 30th. I was really excited to grow our little family of three, and the thought of the joy that a new baby brings a year after my heart was broken in a million pieces felt like such a beautiful gift from God.  After all, that baby would have just spent time with my dad in heaven, and it would be the closest physical connection I could have with my dad. I knew that the timing was not just a coincident.

(Eva and I going out to lunch after getting my blood drawn. We had a fun time and she really cheered me up.)

And then a couple weeks later I woke up from painful cramping. It went away after a little bit, and having a miscarriage never even crossed my mind. Later that afternoon I was doing the dishes when the cramping came again. I doubled over in pain. This time the cramping came with lots of blood. And I knew I had miscarried.

I wasn't too sad about losing the pregnancy. If anything it just made me more grateful for the baby I do have.  I knew that miscarriages happen in 25% of pregnancies. It was bound to happen at some point in my life. But the coincidence of the due date being the same as my dad's death date did hurt. That night in my prayers all I could say was, "Really? Why the coincidence if I was just going to lose the baby? I don't understand. " I felt like I was slapped in the face.

Then a couple days later I started to feel super sick. Like pregnancy sick. Like wanting to throw up all day sick. I called the doctor and the results from my blood test showed that my levels were pretty high. So she had me go in and get a sonogram. 

During the sonogram the technician showed me on the screen where there was a little baby with a strong heartbeat, then she moved it over and showed me another sack with no baby in it, just remnants at the bottom of the sack. She then said, "Looks like you were pregnant with twins, but you miscarried one of them."

I immediately thought, "What the heck? What a rollercoaster! Seriously." I knew I miscarried. I had come to terms with a miscarriage. And then come to find out that I was still pregnant, but that I had actually been pregnant with twins! I felt bad that I had taken the miscarriage so personally and questioned God and his timing. But overall I felt a sense of comfort that I was actually still pregnant, with a baby that she told me was now due on April Fools Day. Which was very fitting for this little guy, "Surprise your pregnant! Just kidding you miscarried. Just kidding you are still pregnant!"