My Darkest Corners of Grief

Hope through Infertility and Miscarriage

My Darkest Corners of Grief

Hope Through Infertility and Miscarriage

It is November 2014, and the text box sits empty, staring at me. I wonder whether we should bother to send out Christmas cards at all this year. I am so tired of the torrent of perfect, smiling faces that poured into our mailbox every December; these beautiful Shutterfly cards masterfully engineered to hide every flaw.

My fingers jab the keys harder than necessary as I finally type, “Despite their best and constant efforts, Carter and Lindsey have failed to make a baby. Again. Check back next year.” Air huffs from my nose as I chortle at the thought of the overly-nosy Susans from church reading the gold cursive writing, their eyebrows flying up.

The joking words reveal the truth I am beginning to believe about myself. What do we have to show for another year? No one is interested in the business I've started, what I am learning, or how I am actually doing. The prodding questions always revolve around one thing. I am adept at my short, polite answer for when we will start our family. I want to unleash the weight of our pain, spew the truth all over them and let them stand there in the awkwardness. Instead I grit my teeth and give a little smile, secretly wishing the asker would have an inconvenient road closure on the way home or maybe step on a Lego.

It feels as though no one cares to see me as I really am— childless, devastated, and afraid.

After trying to get pregnant for two years, we received many rounds of testing and were given the frustrating diagnosis of “unexplained infertility.” The desire to be a mother has been banging around in my heart since I was a child, and I feel like a failure.

***

When the second line—positive—finally arrives on a pregnancy test months later, I feel the cool of the tile floor beneath my knees before I realize I've collapsed out of relief. I am awash with joy, tears of praise and thanksgiving pouring out on the bathroom floor.

The weeks that follow are sheer joy. It is a precious pocket of time, savoring the hope, pure and untarnished, a beam of sunlight.

The future of parenthood unrolls before us—a sparkling promise of colors brighter than before, riches of love deeper than we had ever known.

I miscarry in the emergency room, a cool and disconnected doctor intoning, "There was nothing you could have done. This is perfectly normal. Unfortunate, but not uncommon."

I already knew. I'd seen it on the face of the ultrasound tech. She patiently answered my many questions, letting me know I would have to wait for the doctor’s prognosis. But she'd caught my eye, holding my gaze in her giant blue ones. Then she looked away before murmuring, “Good luck.”

***

Three dark weeks of processing pain follow. I have only begun to explore the depths of my grief when I discover the unthinkable.

I am pregnant again. It feels like waking from a terrible dream, relief flooding my senses. God’s good plan for us is still intact! We will have a baby after all. My battered hope slowly regains confidence over the coming months.

***

I wish I could tell you my luck with ultrasounds changed. Two words, “Something’s wrong,” and my fragile strength crumbles. A week later, our second baby is gone.

Five months of pregnancy and all I have as proof is two positive pregnancy tests and baby announcement photos that would never see the light of day. Maybe this is all I will ever be—an invisible mother with empty arms—destined to forever bite back hot, bitter tears when a baby waves at me in the grocery store.

This lie whispers to me from every dark corner until I believe it fully.

***

I spend much of the two years between our miscarriages and the birth of our daughter fumbling around in the darkness of depression. My grief is an unwieldy weight that demands my attention nearly all the time. For weeks, I wake up and have to remind myself our babies were gone.

It is enough to keep me in bed permanently, but that's not a viable option. So I turn on a worship song and tell myself I HAVE to be on my feet by the time the song is over. I sing with a broken voice in the dark room. The curtains are always drawn, pillows wet from tears, baby clothes hidden from sight in the closet.

***

Even while I am too busy looking at my anguish to see him, God is quietly unveiling his perfect provision. While I angrily question whether God had a plan for me, He is enacting a beautiful one that leads to sweetness I could not yet comprehend. He is sowing the seeds of deeper relationships with Himself, my husband, and my future children.

Jesus has seen and counted every tear shed over our lost babies. He collects them in His hands and whispered, “I know, dear child. I have already made this right in Heaven. I have gone before you and laid your path. Wait on my perfect timing.”

A couple months after our miscarriages, a mentor looked me in the eyes over our coffee and asked, “Can you heal from this without having a healthy baby?” There it was, the hard truth spoken by the Holy Spirit through the lips of a loving friend.

I was waiting for a healthy baby to wash me clean of all my pain. I had made an idol of my imagined child, setting the full weight of my hope on their fragile existence.

That night God called me to Psalm 130:6, which says, “I am counting on the Lord; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word. I long for the Lord more than the watchman longs for the dawn.”

The force of my longing finally shifted from a full nursery to a full relationship with the Lord. And as surely as the morning came each new day, God delivered me from the shadowy house of broken and weary disappointment I had built for myself. He made me new again, with overflowing joy. I learned to pick up my faith more often than my fear. I forgave my body, forgave myself, and forgave God.

Even on the worst days when the waves of emotions crashed over my head, I knew God’s promises had the final word. The reality of Christ’s love does not allow our emotions to be king. The creator of all things showed me that he sees me, loves me, and was already carrying my future for me. He invited me to pry open my fists and lay down the enormous fear I was carrying.I handed my burden over to him, with trembling and tears, and he let me rest. I looked around with new eyes and saw the green pasture we were already living in.

In the emergency room awaiting the news of our first loss, I remember having the strongest sense of peace. I was sure the doctor was going to waltz in any second and let me know everything was fine. “Your baby and you baby will be okay,” I heard from the Holy Spirit over and over. When the doctor instead told us that our worst fears were coming true, I felt betrayed. How could God lie to me like that? After the second loss, I shared with my dad how angry I felt God had intentionally deceived me and then let me go through it all again so quickly.

“Lindsey,” he said with tenderness, “Your baby is okay. Both of them are. Better than okay. God is holding them in heaven right now, perfected in his light.”

I sniffled at this, comforted by the thought of the most perfect Father holding my babies. “But what about me?” I sobbed. “I am NOT OKAY.”

“Well, God keeps his promises. So you can be assured that you will be in time, pumpkin.”

***

Habbakuk 3:17-19 says, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.”

Today I erased this Habbakuk passage from our blackboard above the kitchen table where it has been for years. I am holding Vera, my beautiful daughter, in my arms. We did tread on high mountains, even before we knew of our daughter’s life. We crossed the deep waters of pain to find our feet on the holy ground of healing through Christ’s sufficient grace.

My brokenness was covered, mended, and fortified by holy iron.

God continues to bless us by using our story of waiting and loss to encourage others. If you have gone through a miscarriage or infant loss, please hear me saying that your baby is known, loved, held, and perfected in Heaven. Whether it happened yesterday or thirty years ago, it’s okay to feel like you can’t let go. I want to loudly affirm your pain—it is valid, and others are wrong if they patronize or minimize. I mourn with you. I feel their entire lives as well, the empty space of what might have been.

If you haven’t walked through the pain of miscarriage or infant loss first hand, you can still do the holy work of being a comfort to one who has. Just sit in the pain with your grieving friend. Sit there and let her wail, scream, or be silent and simply show her she is not alone. We can hold the corners of our grief together. We can ask each other if our babies had names and say them out loud. We can pray for each other and petition for deliverance to the holy ground of healing. We can look each other in the eyes and speak truth until the enemy slinks away and only God's good promises remain.

THAT is the Christmas card I wanted to send to everyone this year. I wanted it to say “I wish I could sit in your living room with you, drink a bottle of wine, laugh until our guts hurt, cry over the sharp edges of this broken world, and remind you that our faithful Lord is in the middle of orchestrating his sovereign plan over your life.” For some reason Carter didn’t think that would fit very well on the card…

So in leu of the living room wine, I will just remind you that God sees you. You are known and deeply loved. The creator of all things has called you by name, redeemed you, and will carry your burden if you will only let him. He is bigger than the darkness, and he will have the final word, my friends. You will be okay. Lean into him with your full weight and keep watch in the night. The light is coming, even to the darkest corners of your grief.