Up until 2010, my life was pretty easy. Sure, I had moments that were trying, but overall, I had very few struggles. And the struggles I did have – like my bone graft surgery, my car wreck, and our pregnancy complications – all ended up working out in the end.

In 2010, that all changed. It was the first time I had a struggle I couldn’t fix on my own and God chose not to fix through His power. 

Pregnancy Loss and My Story: Part 4 (the one where we started losing babies we couldn’t wait to hold)

In late summer of 2010, we found out we were expecting our second child, and we were thrilled. After seeing a healthy heartbeat at our first appointment, we told our friends, family, and the Facebook world we were expecting. Our oldest child was going to be a big brother come April of 2011.

In fact, we were due right around Easter.

I remember thinking, “How neat that we will be celebrating the new life Jesus gives at the same time we are celebrating a new life in our family.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t how Easter ended up going.

Instead of giving birth, I was grieving the one I never got to hold. 

You see, in October of 2010, when I was 12 weeks pregnant and “supposed” to be past the risky part of pregnancy, I was volunteering at a pregnancy center in town. They needed a training scan done, so I volunteered. They pulled up the image on the screen, and I knew immediately something wasn’t right.

I had seen enough ultrasounds through volunteering and my own first pregnancy to know where the flicker of the heart was supposed to be located. There was no flicker.

The staff there handled our situation beautifully. They called my husband, and he came and picked me up and took me to our OB, who did his own ultrasound to confirm.

“I’m sorry,” he told me, “but your baby’s heart is no longer beating.”

Then he told me our options from there.

That was October 15, 2010 (which I later found out was National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day…ironic, isn’t it?)

My heart broke after that pregnancy loss because I had already fallen in love with that baby.

I learned then that you don’t have to see your baby to love him. 

But, as painful as those few months were, I wanted to shine a light for Jesus too. I wanted God to use me while I was hurting, so that people would know you can still worship, even when things aren’t going perfectly for you. So that’s what I did: I worshipped through the pain.

Then, on New Years Day 2011, I saw two lines on a pregnancy test.

I KNEW God was ready to redeem the previous few months.

Whereas 2010 was a year of loss, 2011 was going to be a year of redemption and joy. 

God was going to fix the brokenness. He was going to heal us.

Not even three hours after seeing those two lines, though, I began to miscarry for a second time. 

Why God allowed me to see that positive test, I still don’t understand. Because if I hadn’t, I never would have known. The sting of that second pregnancy loss hurt even more than the first because I felt duped.

God didn’t have to let me see those two lines, but He did. So I knew. And because I knew, I broke. Again.

After our first pregnancy loss, there was one emotion I didn’t let myself feel: anger. After two miscarriages, I couldn’t stop it. The anger that I buried in our first loss resurfaced with our second. And because there was no one else to be mad at, God became my target.

I still read my Bible. I still went to church. But I was angry. I felt betrayed by the God who promised never to betray me. I felt  abandoned by the One who said He would never leave me nor forsake me. I kept moving forward, because I didn’t know what else to do, but I was struggling a lot.

Then, 6 months later, we found out we were expecting again.

“This time is going to be different,” well-meaning people told us. “I just know it,” they’d say.

But it wasn’t. This time wasn’t different. 

While leading a group of students at Vacation Bible School, I felt like something was wrong again. I was going to miscarry soon.  (Interesting, isn’t it…how you remember where you were. I still find it ironic that I was leading kids in worship with this one…but that’s another post for another day).

I drove home that night and the song “Cinderella” by Steven Curtis Chapman came on. It talks about dancing with Cinderella while you still can because eventually she would be gone. I knew in that moment that my time would be short with the life growing inside of me.

My Cinderella wasn’t going to make it. Again.

I still can’t explain how I knew, but I just knew. This one was going to end in pregnancy loss too.

And it did. A few weeks later, the miscarriage was complete.

Three miscarriages in less than one year wrecked me.

They wrecked my body, yes, but they also wrecked my soul. I was more broken at this time in my life than I had ever been before.

Why wouldn’t God fix this? 

We prayed for healing. Other people prayed for healing.

But God didn’t heal.

And I didn’t understand.

Part of me thought that if I only understood our miscarriages, then maybe…maybe, I wouldn’t hurt so bad. Sure, understanding wasn’t going to bring my babies back, but I thought it could help.

If I only understood God’s plan in this, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. 

In October of that same year, I thought I might understand why….

Come back next week for more of this story.