The following lament was written in the aftermath of a miscarriage and then edited and published several months later. We pray it gives grieving mothers words to say in the midst of their loss.
Yesterday my husband texted me, “Missing you and baby!” Today he cannot text me that, because today I do not have a baby. Today I have a single ultrasound of a child who will grow no more. Today I have a handful of unused names. Today I have pain — pain everywhere. What I do not have today is a baby.
Yesterday I dreamed a hundred dreams, the kind and number afforded only by nine months of pregnancy, some sixteen hours of labor, baby’s first cries, too long and too fast newborn nights, pacis and stuffies and siblings and growing, growing, growing, changing, changing, changing — love. Today I said goodnight to those dreams. Today I tried and failed to cry myself to sleep. Today I have red eyes, not dreams.
Yesterday we talked to the baby’s brothers about becoming bigger brothers. Today we wonder whether to explain “miscarriage” to a toddler or to hope that he’ll forget. It’s unlikely given that today we found him sitting on the couch, staring out the window, saying, “I hope the baby is sweet, nice, kind, and gentle.” Today is mysterious for parents and kids.
Yesterday I bowed my head and praise fell from my lips like Niagara Falls. Today my prayers struggle for breath near the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Today I have complaints, questions, fears — I remember hearing that these, too, can be prayed. Today I try praying them. Today I miss yesterday’s prayers. Today I miss yesterday, because today I do not have a baby.
Grief Under Eternity
In the days and weeks to come, all the “at leasts” try to settle in and make their peace. “At least I know I can have a baby.” “At least I can try to have more babies.” “At least I have a husband.” “At least I have other kids.” “At least I don’t have chronic illness, or cancer, or some other apparent health problem.” The list runs long. Its help is short-lived.
Because for every “at least,” ten “What ifs?” storm in. What if there is a problem? What if it’s a long-term problem? What if it’s an untreatable problem? What if I can’t have more kids? What if, two hundred or two thousand tomorrows from now, I still do not have a baby? When then?
“At least” cannot sustain women who possess eternity in their hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). That sense of eternity makes our miscarriages heart-wrenching. We feel in our bones that life is meant to last. Men and women were made this way. We were made like our God (Genesis 1:27).
But often it’s so hard to go to him — to him who took him or her away. Yesterday, when he had given — yesterday we ran happily to our Father and Friend. Today we may avert our eyes, stumble back, and call him only “Lord.” We may be able to declare aloud the beginning of Job 1:21: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” But the second half we whisper, cry, or maybe even deny for a time: “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
All the Days
However little or whatever way we say his name, this Lord promises to remain our shepherd (Psalm 23:1). Our high-pitched wails do not exasperate him, and our half-hearted prayers do not discourage his care; he will quiet us, lead us, restore us, guide us (Psalm 23:2–3). Our love for him may feel faint, near falling; his love for us saw him far more than feeble. His love for us saw him on a cross — dead.
This crucified Shepherd knows the color of bright red blood. He knows abdominal pain and a wound infinitely sharper than what we feel in our womb — the pain of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). And his Father knows the pain of losing a Child:
God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
The Father who loved not only his Son but me, the Father who did not spare his own Son but gave him up to die so that we might live — this is our God.
It is because of these promises that I know, even right now, that this Father and Son, reigning in heaven, are not laughing at me. They do not laugh at mothers who miscarry, as if our lives were some kind of elected yet cruel joke. No, they are working “all things” (Romans 8:28), yesterday and today, to assure us who believe that
goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. (Psalm 23:6)
Yesterday this was true, today this is true, and tomorrow this will be true. Perhaps, one day, we will sit in the new heavens and new earth, every lost child now found and crowded around us, and we will rejoice in this truth without tears — finally.
As We Wait
Until then, God welcomes a mother’s joy and sorrow (2 Corinthians 6:10). He draws near to, not away from, the mother who says to the Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). His presence alone allows mothers to look past, present, and future in the eyes and say, “I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4), even as we grieve this valley of death.
Then we pray, every day, that on the other side of this valley are more babies, living and breathing babies, babies with birthdays and birth weights and birth certificates. But we do not dwell on what we cannot control. We dwell on the God who promises always to dwell with us. And we will be okay.
Desiring God