Finding Peace Following Miscarriage

I was tempted to lay down my peace recently when I was scheduled for an ultrasound appointment while pregnant with Riven. Even though everything was standard and there was no cause for alarm, it brought up the searing memories of losing our baby at 23 weeks several years ago. As I shared about this on social media, I was flooded with messages from other women who have experienced miscarriage and know what it’s like to be in the grieving process. Either they’re grieving a loss right now or they’re in the stage of wanting to have a baby after loss, but they’re nervous and timid and still grieving. And then there were women messaging me who are currently pregnant and who fear the loss of a pregnancy. The psychological impact of miscarriage can’t be disregarded.

2,800

The truth is that recent studies show that within the next 24 hours, 2,800 pregnant women in the United States alone will find out that their baby’s heart is no longer beating and she is forever going to be changed. Whether it’s four weeks pregnancy, 10 weeks pregnancy, 20 weeks pregnancy, or even just a few days before the due date, it doesn’t matter. Child loss is heavy. Pregnancy losses can plunge us into despair. Even though lots of people experience this, it doesn’t mean it’s easy or that we should get over it quickly. But I have some good news today and I want to offer support: grief and peace are actually not enemies. They’re dance partners at times in life. Jesus himself experienced grief and actually gave us an incredible picture of how to navigate it. And thankfully we have the Holy Spirit as an incredible dance partner as we are both navigating the desire of wanting more children and healing from our loss. 

my story

Every woman who has lost a baby during pregnancy knows exactly where she was when she found out. For me, if I close my eyes and think about it, I remember that the house smelled like toast. And in the background was the latest kid song on repeat. I was flopping down on the couch for a mid-morning break. We had four kids, ages five and under, and I was 23 weeks pregnant, lapping up that second trimester energy while I had it and all was well.  I remember sitting on the couch. I gave my belly a quick little rub and a pat. One of my favorite things to do and in the second trimester as the baby kicks get stronger is I like to poke at the baby a little bit to see if I could feel those little heels give a kick in response. But that morning was different because my little girl didn’t poke me back. However, I knew it was the morning and I was busy chasing around littles and it’s possible that I just lulled her back to sleep. So I wasn’t too concerned about it. After working and being with the kids for awhile longer, I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby’s little heel not kicking me back. I tried to let it go and I didn’t want to make it something that it wasn’t. I decided to go upstairs and grab my home doppler. I couldn’t find her heartbeat and at 23 weeks, it’s not difficult to detect a heartbeat. And so I poked her again and nothing. I listened on the doppler again and nothing. I couldn’t get anything. It was just the squeaking noise of moving the doppler around on my belly.  

It was nearly 11 o’clock in the morning. We were an hour out from nap time when I loaded up all the kids to go see the midwife, We all drove down to her office and I laid on the midwife’s table and she said what I didn’t want to hear..

“I don’t hear a heartbeat, either.  We’re going to need to go in to the hospital and confirm via ultrasound.”

The ultrasound allowed me to peek into my womb to confirm that my sweet, lifeless girl was still snuggled in there. She was no longer with us. She wasn’t alive anymore. The next 24 hours honestly were a blur. Absolute blur. The nurses were kind to me. It was my first hospital birth. It was my first time experiencing an epidural. It was a surreal birth for me. In fact, I have a I have a video from that time and when I look at it, I don’t even remember recording it. But I will never forget how bright the sun shined in my eyes as the automatic doors of the hospital closed behind us and me standing there holding a keepsake box with no one in my womb and our baby in the morgue. 

the 5 elements of grief at play

Women experience different types of child loss than what I had at 23 weeks, but we can all agree that pregnancy after loss hits different. The emotional pain leave a distinct mark on our souls. 

So you can see why my recent ultrasound for my healthy pregnancy took me right back there to that moment we lost our baby. There was no reason to worry this time, but the emotional distress still rose up in me. Traumatic loss will do that. It’s been five years since we lost our daughter and I still count kids and sense that I’m missing someone. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. 

Grief is wild. It has five elements to it. It’s a dance between anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sometimes it hits you out of nowhere. You can just be triggered into grief. Even five years later, it will hit me sometimes. And I will experience grief all over again. It’s almost as if I relive the experience of miscarriage.

I’ve also learned how to experience grief from a position of peace. The good news is God doesn’t require his kids to be robots ever. Remember, Jesus wept.  

I have a few things that have been really helpful for me. I want to share these things whether you’re somebody who has lost a baby through miscarriage in the past, you’re walking through it right now, or maybe you experience triggers like I do when you are experiencing your new pregnancy.

Some of the things that have really helped me….

The Lord is your shepherd and sometimes shepherds carry the sheep.  

The Lord is there and he’s close to the broken hearted. 

He’s there for those of you whose spirit are crushed.  

God is binding your wounds in this moment.  

He is near to those who are mourning for they shall be comforted. 

He cares for you and he will sustain you.  

a new person

If you’re still longing to have a baby or you’re in the middle of grief and you’re just wondering how to navigate this season, I want to tell you that you absolutely can. In fact, I believe that you ran into this blog because the Lord is inviting you to remember that grief and peace dance, that they’re not enemies. The things that happen to you have allowed you to learn resilience. And one of the things that is really important to remember about resilience is that’s not about how fast we bounce back from something. Resilience is the moment something happens and it provokes you to be a new person. And, honestly, you don’t bounce back from losing a child. You are a new person who leads different and mothers different and it’s part of you going forward.

Resilience is something that, with each trial, tribulation and stressful event, we are changed and we grow and we evolve. It’s not a race to hurry up and get better. I think that’s why we feel so strange sometimes when it feels like the world has stopped when we’re in the middle of grief. You’re thinking is everybody else just going on and I’m just in this time where the world is standing still? When am I going to jump back in and be a part of the normal?

Good news today is that God’s love never gives up. It’s always hopeful and it endures through every circumstance. You can absolutely navigate the difficult time from a position of peace. Your grief doesn’t threaten your peace. Peace is actually a component of grieving well. 

anchoring thoughts to remember

If you’re longing to have a baby after your miscarriage, I want to offer you some anchoring thoughts and philosophies that have served me so well. 

One of the things that were was really helpful for me was to stay on top of the things that I could control, like diet, health conditions, exercise, taking supplements, praying, journaling, getting outside and getting lots of sleep.

It’s so tempting to close down and buy the lie from the enemy that we’re never going to experience pregnancy again. The feelings of sadness can overwhelm us. Your job is to keep your heart open to that possibility and not give way to the enemy and the mind games that he is going to throw at you and that your flesh is going to throw at you in this season.

Something to remember is that you don’t have to brace for another loss. Bracing for miscarriage reveals your belief that you think it’s going to happen again, but the truth is it’s possible. He made you and designed your body as a woman to carry children and this time things could go really well. You can have a healthy baby. 

You’re going to be really tempted to meditate on all the ways that you could possibly experience loss again. Your brain works really, really hard to help you avoid the discomfort of loss. It’s trying to look for all the ways that you can prepare in advance for avoiding this feeling. I’m telling you one of the best things that you can do is to meditate on how it’s possible everything could go right. I’m not saying that’s easy, but it has helped to not lay down my peace as much. 

Another thing that has helped me and will help you is to go all in on your love with your next pregnancy. Again, this kind of piggybacks on the the bracing yourself for loss tendency. I know it’s really tempting to pull back wait until you know for sure that the baby is healthy and has a heartbeat before you get excited because of significant anxiety. But I’m asking you to get excited about your next pregnancy. Go all in on your love for this new baby because a baby needs its mother’s love from the moment of conception. Holding back on your love for baby is not going to help you or your baby.

A thought that really helped me in my pregnancies after loss was the mantra different pregnancy, different outcome. That was my motto. I had to tell my brain that it’s possible that this pregnancy will result in the birth of a healthy child because this is a different pregnancy. I’m going to have a different outcome. Your brain is going to throw so many curveballs about this pregnancy or your next pregnancy, or even entertaining another child coming into the world after your loss. But taking your thoughts captive is crucial.  One of the easiest slogans to remind yourself of is different pregnancy, different outcome. You can have a successful pregnancy.

Something else to consider: triggers drive you to the feet of Jesus.  Every cramp, every symptom you have, every moment that you’re overwhelmed by the spirit of fear, when you think that you’re going to lose this next baby, or you’re going to lose the next baby, or you’re thinking to yourself, will I ever get pregnant again? These trigger you and they trigger your grief. These moments and these triggers are  meant to drive you to the feet of Jesus. That’s not a bad thing. When I stopped seeing triggers as a bad thing and I saw them as an invitation to more and deeper healing, I stopped designing my day in such a way that helped me avoid being triggered.  What do I mean by being triggered? Well, when close friends announce that their baby was born and it was supposed to be born the same time as the baby you lost, you’re triggered and you’re thinking my other baby should be here. I should have my baby. This moment here is a divine appointment and it’s a divine invitation from your King and your God to come sit at his feet. He wants to bind your wounds  when someone announces a new pregnancy or has a baby shower or any number of other triggers. Go sit at his feet. Triggers drive you to the feet of Jesus. And when you remember that, you stop being dictated by them and you can see the hand of God.

The next one is a little bit tricky for me to explain, but it’s so powerful and I’m going to trust the Lord is going to teach you what I mean by it.  You must learn to immediately break off agreements. For example, when you become pregnant again, you’re going to hear of others who are losing their baby. You’re going to hear the bad news during pregnancy of other people losing their babies. And you are going to be very tempted to make an agreement that this is going to happen to you again and that their announcement and their grief is evidence that it is going to happen to you again. And you will make an agreement. Your job is to break off that agreement because when you agree with something on a very soul level that it’s going to happen to you again, you start designing your day and you start designing your life as though you’re preparing for loss. Breaking agreements means that you stop and you recognize you’re starting to believe that this is going to happen to you again and you need to break this off. 

The last thing that I want to share with you is God is poised to surprise and delight you. Your babies, all of them, are strategic. Even the ones that you’ve lost, the ones that are earth side.  They’re all strategic and I don’t know why it’s our time when it’s our time. Whether that’s at five weeks pregnancy, 20 weeks pregnancy, 39 weeks pregnancy, a one year old, a two year old, or a 30 year old. I don’t know why we go to be with the Lord when we do, but every human life is strategic and God has a plan and purpose for them. 

a healing balm

I knew that when my daughter was born sleeping, that she was strategic. She was a part of God’s heavenly plan. And I want to tell you something super cool. My daughter Lulu was supposed to be born full term on September 27th, 2018.  She was born at 23 weeks in May of 2018. 

I became pregnant with our son Landrick, baby number six, and he was born full term, September 27th,  2019. It was exactly one year to the day that my daughter Lulu was supposed to be born full term. That was her original due date. I wept when he was born. I was just a puddle of mess.  I was so moved that God had that date picked for him and it would be a healing balm for me.

That’s what I mean when I say God is poised to surprise and delight you. He didn’t have to do that. My son did not have to be born exactly one year after my daughter’s original due date. He didn’t have to do that, but that was planned. That was by design. And He surprised and delighted me, and I look back on that day with such joy. It was such a redeeming moment and I want to invite you that God is able to redeem the storms and the trials. He’s able to dance with you during your grief. He’s able to handle every single outburst of anger and the questions of why. 

the invitation

If there’s anything I could tell you, Mama, it’s that you are loved.  You are seen.  God gives you the desires of your heart. This doesn’t mean he’s a genie in a bottle. It means that he put your desires there to have a baby. He put that desire in your heart to long for the baby that you lost.

He knows there’s a day coming where he’s going to wipe every tear from our eyes and everything’s going to be made right. And we’re going to be able to ask him questions about what was going on. There are a thousand things he’s doing in your life right now, sweetheart, and you can only see three of them. 

Child loss does not get the final say. Your invitation is to trust him deeper and to talk to him more. The invitation for us all when it comes to cultivating peace on purpose is to say yes to the hard work of not worrying. God says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding comes.  

Choosing not to worry about this new pregnancy, choosing not to worry about future pregnancies, choosing to go all in on your love and being open to more, to trusting God with your fertility, to having anxious expectation that he’s up to good. Grief and peace are not enemies. You can have peace while you grieve and that is good news.  You can plop down on that couch and weep and know that you’re being held. You can know that peace and good things are coming your way.  

Thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me. I pray that it has helped you in some way and, if it has, that you will share it with other that need to know that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, can be theirs.