Mother of Three–With Only One to Hold

Hello, my dear Bread for Beggars readers. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to sit and share with you the joys and struggles of parenthood. Even now, I’m nervous, shaky, and have a tiny pit in my stomach as I type. I almost told my friend and editor, Mark, that I simply can’t do it. There’s so much to say and I don’t have the words. But these words, however I find them, need to be shared. Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. The month of October is dedicated to remembering. So here, dear friends, is my story…

There’s a reason why this post is so very difficult to write and why I haven’t shared in so long. Since January, I’ve had two miscarriages. And honestly I hate that word: miscarriage. It doesn’t fit. It’s unloving, cold, shallow, lacking of all feeling. I say it this way: I am the mother of three children; with only one to hold. Before we knew their faces, heard their laughs, or held their tiny frames.

Painful. Raw. Devastatingly sad.

Both were very early losses…just a matter of a few weeks along in both pregnancies. The symptoms were real. The tests were positive. The physical pain…horrible. It was almost too quick to believe. I had an extremely hard time even speaking the words the first time. We lost our baby so quickly, in the blink of an eye, that it almost didn’t seem like we were ever pregnant. What a cruel, heart-breaking, harsh consequence of sin. Right there, crushing my heart. When we lost our second baby I truly couldn’t believe it at first. It took days of awful physical pain, countless tears, and just begging for it not to be happening…again, so soon.

I’ve been through weeks of just pure sadness. Due dates come and go. Friends get pregnant and joyfully welcome their new little blessings. All the while, I’m silently grieving.

I was living an unspeakable nightmare.

Unspeakable. I never would’ve guessed how many women I know have suffered like I have. We don’t talk about it. We don’t share. It’s a hidden devastation. There’s a very simple reason for that: it hurts. It stings. It’s hard to imagine that anyone can have even the smallest sense of what you’re going through. It can shake even a strong faith at times.

Only when I finally shared what had happened with friends, did I see how many women I know had gone through the same thing. 17 of my friends had been through this…had lost children before they could meet them. 17.
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There is a bittersweet comfort—an indescribable solace—I found when these amazing Christian women shared their stories and prayed with me and for me. I wasn’t alone. They showed me ways of grieving and also ways of remembering our children. Helped me to see that it was okay to be horribly sad at times and then to keep going. They helped encourage us to name our babies. To talk about them. To acknowledge them.

Even more than all of that, they reassured me with Jesus’ grace and love. A dear friend reminded me that my children were known before I knew them.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” — Psalm 139:13-16

God knows my babies. He is a gracious God so full of love that he sent his Son to pick us out of the depths, wash us in his innocent suffering and death, and give us eternal life. I know he has heard my prayers. He promises to do so. I know he knows the desires of my heart. He knows how I longed to meet those babies—to hold them, love them, have them baptized, and share the love of Jesus with them. The greatest comfort I have is knowing that God’s grace is immeasurable. His will is always just and good. Whatever trials, pain, and suffering I have to endure just brings me to his grace all the more. When I am broken-hearted and losing hope, his grace through his Word builds me back up. His will is always good. He gives me strength beyond measure through Jesus to face my days remembering my Seth and Anna.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”  — Ephesians 3:14-21

Dear Jesus,

As I struggle daily with the loss of our two babies, reassure me with your Word, your grace, and your mercy. Lift me up. Guide me to find true comfort in you alone. Heal the broken hearts of families everywhere who have lost babies. Give them true hope in your death and resurrection. Fill the void in ours hearts with your peace. Give us strength to face each day renewed in your love.

In your name, I pray. Amen.