Grief.

If you know it you know it. That tight feeling in your chest, like a hand grabbing your heart and crushing it, or squeezing your lungs so you can’t breathe. Or a very distracting, far away picture that only you are looking at. And you just keep staring.

There are hundreds of different reasons for grief, and many levels of it. Mine isn’t going to look like anyone else’s, but I’m almost certain everyone’s is forever in a state of flux. It moves and changes every day, just like an ocean. Some days you ride the wave up, others, you come crashing down. It is an ocean that I was remarkably unaware of, until I had my own taste of grief.

2020 was a crazy year for everyone. The world seemed like it was ending, but not mine, mine was just beginning.

Me and my husband of three years traveled to the southeastern corner of Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with my extended family.

That Thanksgiving morning would be the biggest surprise of my life.

Two lines making a positive test later, my husband and I were deciding what to do and how to handle this exciting news while surrounded by friends and family, we couldn’t imagine not telling them, so we surprised everyone and they shared in our joy.

Watching my parents’ faces light up when they heard they were grandparents will always be one of my favorite memories, but there was this small voice in the back of my head saying, “you’re not supposed to tell everyone this early, just in case.” But that, “just in case”, seemed very unlikely and far away.

I don’t regret telling everyone then. To this day I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell your loved ones such happy news as soon as you want to. Is it to protect them? Is it because you might burden others with your grief unnecessarily?

All I know is I couldn’t have made it through my grief without all the friends and family who supported me through it

Tragedy

I was almost three months along when the bleeding started. Three months of imagining the future, of loving the child in my womb. It was supposed to last so much longer…

The bleeding came on suddenly and very heavy, but there was no cramping so I was sure it would be fine. It was recommended to me to go to the doctor “just in case.” Unfortunately I was under the opinion that there was something the doctor could do, should anything be wrong.

The night before I went in to be seen the cramping started, and part of me knew. We spent that entire night in prayer, pleading with God for the life of our child.

My doctor’s visit the next day seemed to be going well, I got to see the baby on ultrasound and they said they thought they found a heartbeat, I had a cervix exam that looked good, so I was feeling very optimistic that God had spared this child. It wasn’t until the end of the visit, when they sent a new doctor in that she told me the baby had died three weeks ago. A missed miscarriage she called it.

All alone (thanks to covid), with the second biggest surprise of my life, I sat in shock, wondering how this could be God’s plan for me. I wanted so badly to believe this wasn’t happening, but I knew, it had already happened.

What now?

Going home to tell my husband his baby was dead was surreal and very painful. We cried and praised God, for He is good. We reminisced about the memories and the “what ifs”. We felt grief for the first time that night. And we didn’t know how to move on.

But as anyone with grief will tell you, you just do. Morning eventually comes, the clock still ticks whether you see it or not. It isn’t really a choice, it just happens, but you’re never the same again.

I was scheduled to go back to the hospital to discuss my options, since my body wasn’t getting the memo that this wasn’t a viable pregnancy. We set a date for a D&C that wouldn’t be necessary.

I went home that day with severe cramps, preparing myself for the worst “period pain” ever. I am forever grateful to my midwife, who was the only person who told me what I was about to experience could be like labor. I was not mentally prepared for the pain that was to come.

I had contractions for three days, on the third evening they turned into something akin to “transition” where they come one right after another, stacked, lasting a minute or more with the urge to push.
It was the most painful thing I had ever been through, all without a light at the end of the tunnel. I thank God for my husband who got me through those nights.

Strangely, after all of that, I still didn’t pass anything of significance. It wasn’t until three days later that the blood bath finally started. There was a lot, and I think I’ll always feel some guilt that I wasn’t able to retrieve my baby’s body from the toilet to bury. It was all quite traumatic for a naive girl of 21.

Healing

They say time heals all wounds, I disagree. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, God does, but we need time before we can see Him clearly.

Right before my first experience with grief God was teaching me a lot, mostly about His sovereignty. He was showing Himself to be so much bigger than I’d always imagined. He is an all powerful, all knowing God who doesn’t let anything happen outside of His will. As Psalm 103:19 poetically puts it, “The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.”

This God is in control of everything that happens, both good, and to us, what might be seemingly bad.
He has a greater plan that might not always align with my own, but that’s where faith in Him, even when I don’t understand, comes in.

Some might think that they wouldn’t want to trust a God that allows evil to happen, but when the other option is trusting a small god who is out of control, my Yahweh God is the one I want to know.
This new belief of mine was to be tested in light of this”bad” that was happening to me. Was this God, who let my baby die, in spite of my prayers and faith in Him, really one to be trusted?

I found that answer to be a resounding, yes! He is so worthy to be trusted. Besides the fact that me not believing God was sovereign didn’t make Him any less so, this truth gave purpose and meaning to all the pain and suffering. There’s no promise that we will ever understand God’s plan either side of heaven, but we can know He has one. And it is good.

Second Chance

Several months after my first child was born we were ready to try again. I’m not sure how much of trying again is still yearning for the child that was lost, but either way, we were ready. It took a little while, but by November we were expecting our second. We were very excited and optimistic, what happened to us the first time was crazy and unexpected, surely it wouldn’t happen again.

Of course our eyes were now opened to this world of grief, but we held onto hope.

Until I was 7 weeks.

This time was different…the smallest light brown/pink color was all it took and I just knew.
We were supposed to go work in the mountains for a week just a few days after the spotting started, but fear of it being as painful as last time made me question if I should go.

In hindsight I’m so glad I did. This time was so much more peaceful. We were in the quiet, beautiful mountains, and I was only spotting lightly the whole week. We were even hopeful it would all be fine, and spent every day in prayer, but God once again, had a different plan. The ride out was no where near as painful as what I’d experienced before, I still had some contractions, but God was so merciful and it was all over by the time the three hour ride down was done.

No doctor visits, no internet to constantly google all the what if’s, no outside opinions. It was just us. And when we got home we buried this baby peacefully.

Blessing Through Pain

I can’t tell you how my heart hurt to watch two babies born little and dead, but my hope in God never wavered. If He promises suffering it can’t be meaningless, and if nothing else it brought me and my husband so much closer to each other and to Him.

I don’t know your suffering or your story, but I do know that God is good and I encourage you to put your hope in Him. Wanting God more than anything, even more than my babies, is what got me through. When you find peace in Him it really does surpass all else. And while my ocean of grief is still moving and changing every day, it is God who is my anchor.

I am so blessed to now be 13 weeks along with our third child. I try to be honest and talk to God about all my fears and dreams, but wanting His will, whatever it is, more than my own is where I yearn to be. It is ok to not be ok sometimes. Go to Him with it all, but don’t treat Him as someone to make your wishes come true, pray as Jesus told the disciples to, “Thy will be done.” We all need more faith, and I hope that if nothing else, my story has inspired you to ask Him to increase your own faith.

Though You slay me, yet I trust in You.
Job 13:15

Meet Amanda!

Amanda is a follower of Christ above all. She is known for her love of dance and horses. She is a dance instructor and also competes in dance herself.

Amanda lives in SW Colorado with her husband, Ruth (beloved border collie), her kitties and 2 horses.