Where the Rain Fell First

A story of silent knowing, sacred loss, and the healing found in surrender

May 27, 2025

It had been over a month, and I could no longer ignore the need to understand what was happening with my body. Bleeding for that long isn't normal. But I had postponed being responsible, not out of neglect, but because stepping into the unknown is frightening. I wanted to believe I had already pieced together the explanation of the complex problem being presented. But deep down, I knew it was time to stop avoiding and start listening.

I sought a provider whose reputation spoke of open ears and an open mind. I wasn't just looking for answers; I was searching for someone who wouldn't silence the story my body was trying to tell.

Moving to a smaller town brought a new challenge, lingering just beneath the surface of convenience, in a place where options were limited, finding the right care meant looking beyond what was close and easy. It meant being willing to go the distance.

On a heavy morning that wore a veil of gray, I headed to the provider I hoped would offer both answers and understanding. The sky was filled with heavy clouds, hanging low and swollen with rain. The casting shadows that stretched across the hills and backroads blocked the sun. The air felt dense, like it, too, was holding its breath. Each drop that began to fall tapped against my windshield like a quiet warning, urging me forward while reminding me of the weight I carried—both in my body and in my heart.

The gloom foreshadowed what was to come.

But first, I had to do the familiar ritual of vulnerability—sit on the sterile exam table, bottoms folded away, a thin paper drape barely veiling the lower half of my body. It wasn't long enough to reach around my back, leaving my skin exposed, my dignity somewhere between the crinkling paper beneath me and the air that swept across my bare backside. My cheeks pressed against the edge of the table, cold and uncomfortable, as I waited, exposed, uneasy, and desperate for someone to walk in and tell me what my body had been trying to say all along.

The door opened and the doctor entered briskly, his voice cutting through the tension in the room: "No biopsy today—you're pregnant."

But I already knew this wasn't good. I knew the truth, that this wasn't the kind of pregnancy that ends with a baby in your arms.

The ultrasound I'd just seen didn't reveal the familiar image of the soft, gray silhouette of a tiny body curled safely within the uterus. Instead, the screen showed something else. Something is wrong. And though the words hadn't been said yet, my body had already started whispering the truth.

There had been a baby—one I never knew was there—trying to grow in a place it was never meant to be. Outside the womb, it clung to life in the shadows, unaware that the space it had settled into could never sustain it.

My mind drifted, untethered. The words had been spoken, but they birthed new questions instead of answers. I couldn't make sense of it. There was grief, but not the kind that follows something known or named. This was grief for a life I hadn't even realized existed. And yet, maybe some deeper part of me had known all along. The part of us that feels before it understands, that whispers what the conscious mind isn't yet ready to hear.

Maybe that part had tried to give me something—time, presence, connection—even if only for a short while. Maybe it held on for me when I didn't know what was slipping away. Trying to maintain a grip on something that was never mine to keep.

But before this moment, before the doctor walked into the room, before my body resigned to what was actually happening, my long, dreary drive had brought words to my mind, forming a poem that spoke directly of what was to come…