The grief of miscarriage

This is for those beautiful people who are going through an early miscarriage.

The day after we buried our first baby, the grief set in. My friend had talked about the ache. Now I felt it.

The ache is in your chest, it is physical pain. I had never felt it before in my life.

It didn't take long for me to realise my body was in grief. My spirit was in grief at a deep level. My mind was separate from it.

I think this is why they say you can't understand what miscarriage feels like until it has happened to you. Because your body and spirit feels the loss of a pregnancy in a unique way.

I felt and thought many things.

I felt over-dramatic. Like I was making a big deal out of nothing. My baby was less than a centimetre long. It wasn't really a baby was it? It was a blob.

I felt different. I saw many sweet miscarriage quotes and pictures on Pinterest. They spoke of heart beats, they had little footprints. My baby didn't have a heartbeat or footprints. She was a little blob.

I felt shame. I certainly didn't blame myself for the miscarriage, but I was ashamed to have fallen into something negative and depressing that would make people feel bad and uncomfortable if they found out.

I felt empty. It felt so wrong to have the gestational sac buried out in the garden. I wanted to somehow put it back inside me. It was supposed to be inside me. I wanted Charlotte back.

I felt silly. Because I phoned and asked for a copy of the ultrasound scan that showed the little blob and some bleeding. I wanted to see it again. I wanted to keep it.

I felt alone. I knew no-one in my city who had been through a miscarriage. All my support was long distance.

I felt confused. Who should I tell about this? I am not a terribly private person but I didn't want to break the social norm and tell everyone. I didn't want people to think I had over-shared. I told a handful of friends. I told all my piano student families because I needed to justify time off. I tried to keep it a secret from our entire church.

I felt blank. There were things I knew I should feel but I couldn't feel them yet. Our feelings come as we are ready and capable of dealing with them.

I felt angry. I was at peace with having had the miscarriage and knowing God's plan, but I still would feel angry sometimes. I needed to yell and hit pillows even if I knew it was irrational. I needed to scream at God.

I felt like I was feeling the wrong things. I was supposed to be jealous of babies. But that would be like losing a one year old baby and being jealous of a ten year old. Being around babies felt fine. Hearing of people in early pregnancy felt awful.

I felt frustrated at my husband. I wanted him to be sad! He didn't feel the grief I felt. He didn't feel most of what I felt. He was sad in a different way.

I felt like I wanted to run away from the ache. Sometimes it was physically strong in my chest and I couldn't make it stop. Sometimes I would cry but then I would stop because tears made no difference. I would try to find something to distract myself from it but I didn't feel like doing anything.

I felt shaken. My faith was shaken. I visited my friend's stillborn baby's grave. She had peace and the joy of heaven in her eyes but I felt physically sick. I looked around the cluster of children's graves with their decorations; a whimsical Willy Wonka world amidst the name plaques and the stillness. How God? I asked. How can you let them die?

Amidst all of this, I was far from totally broken. I was back and forth and my heart would often be in contrast to my mind. I didn't feel totally devastated. I felt like my baby was deferred, not gone for good. I still believed I would have a baby soon. I was blessed to have never been through 'trying for a baby' and I had never fully expected this baby to survive. This was not a shock. This felt like the way it was always going to be and I had peace. My little girl Charlotte was happily in heaven. God was holding me.

I learnt not to expect grief to be sensible or to follow a pattern or to stay on one side of the fence or the other. I learnt even more to let myself feel what I felt. To express whatever came out. To embrace the process. God was very gentle and comforting.

We mustn't be afraid to vent at him and we mustn't be afraid of pain. The moment I let him right into my anger or grief and share it with him is the moment I find release.

Your miscarriage was God's plan?!

In considering the possibility of another miscarriage, I am thinking about life and death. A friend said she cannot understand how a miscarriage can be God's plan.

The thing is, God creates life, knowing well that it will die. He still creates life. Because that life is in his plan.

God got around my fearful attempt to avoid getting pregnant this time. He chooses.

People ask, "Why would God create a little life for it to die so soon?" "How can God let a child die?" "Was this baby an accident?" "I don't understand how a miscarriage can be in God's perfect plan and purposes!"

These are heavy questions.

I do believe that if our world was untarnished by sin - by The Fall - my babies would not have died. But this isn't a perfect untarnished world as God originally created it to be. It is tainted and God allows death. He sees far beyond what our intellect does and it is better for me to be eternity-minded like Him.

I do know that my babies are blessed to never have to live a moment on this earth, they are with Jesus, never knowing hurt or pain or suffering. They are living in the perfect fullness of the love of God with all their needs and desires fully met. How is that unfair to them? 

If I say it is unfair to me, then I am looking with earthly perspective. God gave up his own son. Jesus said take up your cross and die to yourself. This world was never going to be easy. Yet we are so blessed to have God's kingdom on Earth. 

The thing with sickness and suffering is that it is often fully orchestrated by the enemy. God never intended for it. If we have cancer or arthritis or depression we cannot say, "This was God's ultimate plan."

But a miscarriage.... a baby.... The enemy cannot create life. Ever. He will always bring death. God creates life. He creates life even knowing it will die in the womb. Because that life is part of his plan.

My babies were not an accident or a scheme of the enemy. Their names were called by God before time began, they were formed by him in the secret place and they are now with him forever. He didn't kill them, he created them for eternity.

And they have been and will be used in my life for great purpose.

Like a child

A post I never published that I think deserves a share.

November 16th, 2014

Miscarriage. I don't know if I can do this again. 

I know I seem like I cope well with these things and I truly do, but sometimes I don't. 

Sometimes I cry so hard I choke and I feel like my world is inescapable and way too hard.

God does so much when we fall to our knees. When we are weak, He is so very strong.

Our hearts cry, "Jesus, help!" 

Jesus says, "Be a child."

That is honestly what he said to me this time.

I am proud to be strong enough to cope with hard situations. Little children, however, don't feel proud when they stifle their tears and don't need a parent to help. They don't think like that.

I feel great when I show the world, even those closest to me, that I am coping well. Little children fall apart with no shame. 

What is it to be a child in the kingdom? It is a putting down of self and a picking up of shameless humility. It is a taking off of masks and a choice to move into authenticity. It is allowing God to meet us where we really are. I think it is also allowing people to meet us where we really are. 

Today I am going to take off my brave face and see what happens. You might consider joining me.

Two special cushions

In August I lost a pregnancy at eleven and a half weeks. The baby never grew past six weeks. Two months later I lost another one at four weeks. Both little lives were girls. God named them Charlotte Hannah and Zoe Grace.

The story of Charlotte

The story of Zoe

When we lost Charlotte, my husband bought me a beautiful cushion with butterflies on it. Butterflies have been a special symbol of my healing and transformation over the last few years. Charlotte was part of that transformation process. I learnt so much about faith and standing on who God is, rather than the promises I think he has made.

I only had one lonely cushion though. I hunted online in all sorts of places for another cushion to complement it but I never settled on anything.

During my second miscarriage I was lying in bed and I looked over at the butterfly cushion. That moment Holy Spirit said, "Look on the Target website, there is another cushion for Zoe." 

I grabbed the iPhone and did a search. As I scrolled the cushions I wondered which one was the one? As soon as I laid eyes on it I knew. It was beautiful. it had the same background fabric, it had a butterfly on it, little flowers, and it was one of my favourite colours. There was free shipping online that day.

Zoe brought me healing too. Her name means life. When I lost her, I felt that it was the first hard thing that had happened to me that God was fully in and through and around. (I don't mean God wanted her to die - let's talk about that later.) I had total peace about it. I didn't feel angry at God, I didn't shut him out of my heart at all, I came to his loving arms and I finally felt totally safe. I felt like I could unpack all the hard things that had happened to me over the past five years and he would comfort me and love on me and be my safe place. 

My friend had one word from God about my second miscarriage: cleansing. God was cleansing me of all the junk from one trial after another. He was cleaning out my heart. He cleaned out my grief over Charlotte. He cleaned out whatever remained of the fear, uncertainty and frustration that I had carried from countless trials long before Charlotte. I felt cleansed. I felt more healed. I felt ready for my next baby. I was no longer desperate for another girl. I was ready for my baby boy.

My girl: Zoe

The evening I realise I might be pregnant, it immediately dawns on me that the occasional pain in my side could mean it is ectopic. The possibility of surgery weighs heavy again, as it did two months earlier with my first miscarriage.

My husband prays for me and a heavenly peace fills me along with revelation that I am safe, no matter what happens. That my safety is 100% certain in God. What else is 100% certain? Gods love. I am sure of God's love. In my mind I turn this truth into a song lyric: "My safety's as sure as your love for me."

The next day I recognise at least three pregnancy symptoms. I am pregnant again. I don't know how I feel about that. My miscarriage was only two months ago. I surrender to God's plan. I am careful to cast down imaginations, to not entertain fear. Not to figure out the future. I have come so far since the last pregnancy. I thank God for his healing.

I am crying and crying that night. A deep conviction has come. I have been pushing away god's blessings and plans for me. I wanted squeaky clean perfection. Perfect kids, perfect friendships, perfect house, perfect everything. Perfection suddenly seems so sterile and cold, so empty of the rawness and randomness of life. God made creation so messy. I want to embrace messiness, it is where I find revelation, joy, grace. Perfection is sterile and empty, like a stark white laboratory. Why did I want it? I am so terribly sorry God. I embrace mess; I want it.

I take two tests. One that night, one at 4am. They are so faintly positive. But a faint line is a line. I am pregnant. My side is a little achy.

I don't sleep again. I write a song.

During the morning I briefly wonder what my baby's name is.

"Zoe". That came out of nowhere. I wonder if it was God or just a random thought. I have told myself I won't ask god for any details. I don't want to know.

"This is just a pregnancy to me, not a baby." I tell my husband.

I push the name Zoe from my mind but it won't leave.

I see the doctor the same day. He is not concerned about the pain, it is not a gynae pain. I am four weeks, two days pregnant.

"I welcome you baby. I love you. I welcome you for however long you're meant to stay." I say to my belly when I arrive home. I am expecting the baby to have a short stay.

We will see what happens.

A few hours later I begin to miscarry. Again. It happens to be pregnancy loss awareness day.

During the night I feel the sickness of death over me. I am crying. "Was I really pregnant?" I ask my husband. "Yes, you were."

I know life begins at conception but do I have a baby in heaven or is this pregnancy somehow empty of a soul?

Zoe. Did God give me that name or did I just think it up? I take the name into my hands. I tune in to Holy Spirit and put my mind to rest. "Zoe Grace." My first baby's middle name Hannah also meant grace.

Okay, I will look up the meaning of Zoe and see if it fits. I google it at 5:30am.



"You're joking." I say out loud in shock and awe. I cry knowing that this pregnancy is life. And knowing so deeply that it will bring me life.

My tears of grief flow strong and deep but God holds me.

Zoe Grace. For a moment I wasn't sure, but now I believe that you are my girl and I love you.