Sunday, March 18, 2007

Hikmah...


Thoughts recorded on February 09, 2007...


A friend visited me at the flat this afternoon, and we started chatting about what friends normally chat about, which more often than not, have no definite starting and definitely nearly always start to look like there is no ending....(Hahaha!)

Anyway, at one point both of us started to talk about how much we have in common with each other. For a start, we share the same birthday, albeit, she is one year younger than me. We went to the same secondary boarding school, we both have legal backgrounds, we both are now doing our PhD in Newcastle (and check this out - under the SAME supervisor!), and we both try to avoid our supervisor whenever we can! And we somehow realized that we also have one very significant experience in common - we both lost our second babies through miscarriages in Newcastle while both of us were studying - me, while I was doing my Masters in 1997, while she was into her second year of her PhD in 2005.

And we started talking about it and how we overcame the grief of losing our babies, when at the time it happened we thought it was just not possible to be happy again...

Talking about it brought tears to my eyes, even after ten years...

I was at the stage of working on my Dissertation as part of the final requirement for my LL.M when it happened, exactly 12 weeks into my second pregnancy. Nothing could describe how shattered I was and how unfair I felt life was to me for taking my baby away from me... I can still vividly remember when Ayah made the phonecall to tell my supervisor the news. The tears from my eyes just could not stop flowing! I refused to speak to anybody who called to ask how I was - even the sound of the phone ringing was so unbearable because I just could not understand why people wanted to know what actually happened, and how I was coping. I just lost my child! How did they think I was coping??!! I just did not want to talk about it. I did not know what happened - I just knew that I had lost my baby. Every time the phone rang I would start crying... (In retrospect, we are so thankful that we had so many people out there who cared about me and Haizal...Thank you so much, for all your do'a through that very difficult time for us).

I had so many questions on my mind - why did it happen? why did it happen to me? was there anything that I did which caused the miscarriage? was it a baby boy? was it a baby girl?

Ayah was very, very sad, too...but, he had to be strong for Mommy. I still remember the words that he said - "Ada hikmah behind all of these, sayang... The baby could have been very severely deformed, or very seriously ill if the pregnancy were to continue until full term, maybe. Your body has a natural way of knowing all these and that was why you had the miscarriage... Kita kena banyak bersabar..."

But, at that point in time, I was just too distraught to accept any words of comfort from anyone, even from your Ayah. I was full of self-pity that I forgot that Ayah was also feeling the pain....I remember saying to myself when I was feeling really down - "What hikmah can there be when I had just lost a child?!"

But now, I know what the hikmah were and are...

Had the pregnancy continued to full term, my baby would have been born in March 1998, and chances were - Ayah and Mommy would not have tried for another baby so soon after that. And chances were, YOU would not have been born into the world on 8th April, 1999 - the next year...

YOU, Hasya Sofea Haizal - my darling princess, WERE and ARE the Hikmah...

You have brought so much joy to our lives, and never fail to continue bringing it, in your very special way.... And we want you to always know, as your Ayah always says - You are our favourite second daughter.... just as K.Long Hanna is our favourite first daughter and Hilman is our favourite (only) son...Because YOU ALL are what matters now. All of you, and the life we have now are the Hikmah which presented itself after we lost our baby angel...

So, to all the mothers out there who had gone through the same heart-wrenching experience of losing your babies, I hope this entry could somehow ease the pain which you still feel, which creeps up deep in your heart unexpectedly every now and then while you are going around your daily routine...when you suddenly think of your baby angel...

You have to believe that everything happens for a reason, and there is always a Hikmah behind it. The Hikmah will be in different forms for different people, and sometimes you might not even know or realize it as the Hikmah. But, whatever form it takes, you will have to embrace that Hikmah, and the pain will be so, so, so much more bearable...And in time, all the sadness that you felt or are now feeling will be a memory so precious that you will not cry because of the grief, but instead you will cry because of the joy that Hikmah brings you...

To MY baby angel, and all the baby angels up there in Heaven - whom I know are safe in HIS care... Al-Fatihah...

Do'akan Mommy and Ayah will see you there....one day... Insya Allah...

Wassalam...

4 comments:

Sue said...

Yes....InsyaAllah.Thx 4 sharing your part of the story.

wanshana said...

Dear Minah Celoteh,

If this posting could help even just ONE mom out there to overcome the grief of losing her baby, I bersyukur that I could make a difference in how she looks at her life and redha dengan ketentuanNya, so that she can go on with life to embrace all the hikmah out there, and find the many reasons to be happy again...at times when she feels it is not possible to smile ever again...

Unknown said...

Dearest wanshana (kak wanshana, I presume),

I got here through Ailin in Aalborg's blog. I, too, have lost a baby in a m/c a few months back and still finidng a way to overcome my grief. It is very hard for me to accept this, and to this very day I still struggle with the issue.

Thank you for sharing your story. I have yet to figure out the HIKMAH behind it all for me, but I am now able to accept that there must be a HIKMAH behind it all - mind you, I had the hardest time believing this was true... :)

Take care.

wanshana said...

Dear autumn lutonski,

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your baby...

I know how difficult it must have been for you - even now you're still trying to come to terms with it. It is perfectly understandable - it is still very fresh and very raw.

It has been 10 years for me, but I can still vividly remember that terrible episode in my life. But the pain, (believe me or not) is so 'distant' now that most of the time I don't feel it anymore. I believe this is because I have embraced the Hikmah of it all.

YOUR Hikmah,in whatever form it may be, will present itself in time, insya Allah.

My best wishes and prayers are with you.

Take care.