The Truth About God Through Heartache and Loss: My Thoughts In Honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

“I am so glad that you are pregnant again—I was praying that would happen for you soon.”

These are words that I have heard often over the past couple of months that have evoked a vast array of emotions in me. (Before I explain, let me be clear that if you have said these words to me, I am not offended)! As many of you know, Caleb and I have had a bumpy-road journey towards growing our family: a difficult 3-year season with a health issue, dark periods of wrestling with God and doubting His goodness, a long adoption match that fell through prior to the adoption of our son, and most recently, the loss of a child whom we had prayed for and tried for a long time to conceive. Along with these heartaches, we have also experienced great joys—the nearness of God through heartache, the sufficiency of His grace and provision, a deeper knowledge of His goodness, the abundant love of the body of Christ, the inexpressible awe at the way God brought our first child into our lives, and the blessing of another child on the way.

After the loss of our child in April, Caleb and I were crushed in a way that is difficult to express. When we first found out we were pregnant, we were in shock and disbelief. After a long period of trying to conceive, I had started to feel at peace with not being pregnant. From the very start of our marriage, we had already made the decision to grow our family through adoption—whether we were able to have biological children or not. After having taken box after box of negative pregnancy tests and ovulation tests throughout that year, we were in a state of disbelief when that first test showed up positive at 4 weeks—we were excited, but it didn’t completely sink in until we were able to see our baby’s heartbeat on an ultrasound screen for the first time at just 6 weeks. For those of you reading this who have experienced a long period of trying to conceive before getting pregnant, you know that it can feel like an eternity—the weeks of waiting before you eagerly take a pregnancy test, the repeated months of seeing a negative test. It begins with, “Oh well, maybe next month,” and turns into, “Maybe I just won’t be pregnant…maybe I should just stop putting myself through this each month & give it up.” All that to say, while 6 weeks pregnant might not seem like a long time at all to some people, it felt like a long time to us—and we cherished each day of it.

Being a naturally anxious person, I definitely had my concerns along the way; but for the most part I was just really excited. I had no real reason to be anxious, so it was easier to push aside anxious thoughts & try to focus on the blessing—we were pregnant! We had prayed for this child for so long, the timing was perfect as we had just started planning the renovations for our new home, and we just felt so deeply that God had been listening to our prayers. Feeling confident our baby was another boy (for no real reason except a “feeling”), we had already named him “Simeon,” meaning: “God is listening.”

Fast forward 3 weeks later when I received a call from my doctor while I was in the middle of the grocery store saying that something was a little off with my blood work results & that I should come in immediately for an ultrasound. Somehow I knew in that moment that we had lost the baby. I tried my best to hold it together while I was driving to meet Caleb at his work—repeating to myself, “Maybe baby will still have a heartbeat. Maybe there was something wrong with the test.” Having a medical background and having heard the test results, I knew these thoughts were a long shot—but I couldn’t accept that my baby had died without seeing evidence, and I needed to be able to see through my tears enough to drive.

I was supposed to be exactly 9 weeks pregnant at that ultrasound, but the baby was only measuring 8 ½ weeks. A flutter of anticipation built within me as I could see our baby was so much more developed than our last ultrasound; We could see a head with a little belly and little nubs for arms and legs. My eyes darted around that screen to detect any hint of a beating heart, but nothing moved. The sonographer lacked expression as she pointed out all of the anatomy of the baby, saying “Well, baby is measuring 8 ½ weeks—I see head here, and limbs, but as you can see…”

“No heartbeat.” I finished for her. Saying the words were a knife to my heart.

Being far enough along, my doctor gave me the option of miscarrying naturally (which may have taken weeks) or having a surgical procedure. I felt numb as it sunk in that my body hadn’t yet realized my baby was dead, and it made me angry to think that my body was still trying to hold on to him when there was nothing it could do. My biggest fear was being home alone with my son whenever my body naturally decided to miscarry, so I chose to get the surgery the next day. Being in that hospital was one of the hardest things I had ever experienced as my mind immediately jumped to “This isn’t right—I’m not supposed to be here.”  I was supposed to be at a hospital in 6 months to deliver a healthy baby, and instead I was having to say goodbye to a baby who was so big in my heart, but too small to have the privilege of ever meeting in this lifetime.

Caleb and I were surrounded by so many reminders of God’s nearness. When we arrived home from our doctor appointment on the day we first received the news, close friends had already graced our doorstep with flowers and letters of condolence. I took lots of time to be alone and to cry out to God as I sat in the nursery of our new home that was in the beginning stages of renovation at the time. I wrote in my journal all of the feelings I was experiencing simultaneously:

Broken. Blessed. Crushed. Encouraged.  Alone. Surrounded. Forgotten. Remembered/Heard.

I wrote, “I don’t understand why, and I don’t think there will ever be a simple explaination. All I can do is weep, grieve, and morn this loss—keeping my eyes fixed on you—desperate for hope and comfort.”

Writing is how I process best, so I wrote a poem on the day of the surgery—processing through my feelings of God’s nearness during this time compared to a time a few years ago when I was blind to the nearness of God during hardship. Here is what I wrote:

Simeon: God is Listening.

God was listening to my cries
While in secret, I fed myself lies.
“You’re all alone, no one understands,”
spat the Devil,
“Your God, He has no plans.”

For two years, bitterness spread through my heart
causing words of truth to depart.
I cried to the Lord, seeking His presence each day,
but felt as though I was talking to clay—
cold, unmoving, seemingly didn’t care.
His presence did not soothe me, though I knew he was there.

“Trust in the Lord,” my husband said.
He was patient with me, and persistently led.
By God’s great faithfulness and His amazing grace,
He opened my eyes so I could glimpse his true face.

Warmth, not cold. Alive, not unmoving.
Compassion in his eyes, He was not at all uncaring.
“Cast your cares on me, for I care for you.
In this world you will have trouble, but take heart—I promise to see you through.”

It was then that I placed a deeper trust
in the one who made me alive from the dust.
God listened to my cries—after hardship came blessing.
He gifted to us our son, Silas, by start of the next spring.
As the snow melted away, He gave warmth to my soul.
Little by little, He made my “broken” whole.

A year went by and there were blessings anew!
Our baby a year old, and another on the way too!
He was safe in my womb, knitted together perfectly.
We praised God for this gift, and prayed fervently.

“Lord, please keep him safe. Let us hold him in our arms.
We beg of you, let him come to no harm.
We love this little life, and we’ve named him Simeon
to remind us how you care—to our prayers, you always listen.”

Today I sit in the room meant for him.
There is no crib, the lights are dim.
My eyes are swollen and blurred from tears,
voice shaking, crying “Why?” to my God who hears.
Two hearts once healthy within are now broken—
one loud with sobs, the other unspoken.

There is great sadness and indescribable grief.
Knocking on the door, I can hear unbelief.
“Where is God’s goodness now?” he taunts, in his quest
to blind me again, this unwelcome guest.

“Great is Thy Faithfulness.” The tune rings in my head,
Softly at first, then louder I said,
“I will remember His promise this time, though it’s hard.
He said there’d be trouble, but my heart he would guard.”

Yes, there are tears—for this babe we still yearn.
Reminders of this loss fill my mind at every turn.
My soul longing for comfort, He brings along friends
who cry with me while my heart mends.
Never forgotten. Never alone.
My Savior, He listens from His all-seeing throne.

He knows my heart and feels every bruise.
He reminds me: this baby, we did not fully lose.
Safe in God’s arms, our baby rests in His care.
Our baby is in heaven, his soul finds rest there.

This corrupted world is so hard and though I don’t understand,
I can know my God listens
and is faithful to the end.

The name Simeon—once representing to me how God had blessed me with another child—had taken on a new and deeper meaning. I had experienced firsthand that God ALWAYS listens. Even in the heartache, He is there. Even when prayers are not answered in the way I had hoped, He is faithful.

Fast forward 3 months later, and Caleb and I discovered another baby was on the way. We had decided to start trying to conceive as soon as we could—partly expecting another long wait like the last time. We wanted to be overjoyed—to fully praise God for this new blessing in the midst of our heartache! But it was difficult. We knew how easily this baby could be taken away, and we were more hesitant this time around. Our emotions still raw from our loss, it was hard for us to tell people. This might sound ridiculous, but I was afraid to hear people’s excitement for us while I myself was struggling with so much fear. When people would say things like, “I was really hoping this would happen,” it made me feel as though maybe others would think that this baby was kind of like a replacement to me for the one we had lost—someone to help our hearts heal & make everything feel better. To Caleb and I, it felt as though this new pregnancy made it easier for those around us to forget Simeon's life, while he was still very much present in our thoughts and hearts.

While I can say that being pregnant has in some ways helped with the grieving process, it also opened up wounds for me that others cannot know—that quite frankly, even I don’t understand. For example, I was SO excited to see our baby at our 21 week ultrasound to finally know whether this baby would be a boy or a girl. Up until that point, I had been thinking of this baby as a girl—not because I cared either way, but because it helped me to separate this baby from our first pregnancy in my mind. I went into the ultrasound thinking I would be feeling nothing but joy when I walked out, but seeing my sweet healthy boy on that same screen where I last saw Simeon brought up some unexpectedly heartbreaking emotions. While I was SO happy to be having another boy and SO grateful to see this healthy little one squirming around, the reaction that came out was a flood of pained tears. Reminders of the loss still come at every turn with this pregnancy, and I cannot always anticipate when they will come or how they will make me feel. While this baby is an unbelievable blessing from God and wouldn’t trade him for anything, he cannot “replace” the baby we lost. He is his own new blessing. While the dream of expanding our family is being fulfilled, to Caleb and I, losing our child made us feel like there will always be a “hole” in our family that will only be made complete in Heaven.

As October is miscarriage/infant loss awareness month, I have been thinking of my friends who struggle through various challenges with growing their family—each of them with their own unique set of experiences & process of grieving. I wanted to share my story, not because I think it relates to everyone else’s experience, but because I wanted to share how God has been faithful to me through it all. It wasn’t because He gave me another child (believe me, I still have my fair share of anxieties through this pregnancy even though the “dreaded” first trimester is over), but because He has taught me to trust Him deeper, to know His love more completely, and to KNOW in my head and in my heart that He is listening ALWAYS. 

And He is still teaching me.

Whether your experience resonates with my own or not, my prayer for you (whoever had the patience to read through this in its entirety) is that you would know this same truth about God—that no matter what hardship you face, He is near & His is listening to all who trust in Him and call on Him for help. Though our circumstances cannot bring us lasting hope, Christ can.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." -Romans 15:13

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For further reading on the Lord's nearness in times of grief:

Psalm 13

Psalm 34:18

Isaiah 26:3-4

Matthew 5:4