I was lay­ing on the exam­i­na­tion table in shock. I was at my first mid­wife appoint­ment, and because of my symp­toms, the mid­wife wanted to do an ultra­sound. There, on the screen, as plain as day, life and death were co-existing. I saw Faith’s tiny lit­tle 7 week old heart beat­ing furi­ously and strong. And next to her was the evi­dence that was left from her twin.

I was rejoic­ing and griev­ing in the same breath. I had been bleed­ing. I was incred­i­bly nau­seous. And now I knew why.

I stum­bled to the park­ing lot, still unsure about how I was sup­posed to feel. I always rejoice at see­ing my babies in their ultra­sounds. But, I also found out in that one moment that I had been car­ry­ing twins, and that one had died. This was my first miscarriage.

Fast for­ward a few years, and we rejoiced at the dis­cov­ery that after 4 years unable to con­ceive, we were once again preg­nant. A few days later we were dev­as­tated to learn that this new life, with all our hopes and dreams for his life, was dying. Oh how I grieved.

And then the fol­low­ing year, it hap­pened again. This time, I car­ried the baby to 7 weeks. Mike was out of town on a busi­ness trip when I mis­car­ried. That was hard. But, God sus­tained me through it. Late one night, I went into the bath­room, and prayed that the Lord would allow me to see the baby and not inad­ver­tently flush it with­out know­ing. Right then, He plopped my per­fectly formed baby onto a clean tis­sue. I could see the spinal cord, the spots where the brain and heart and eyes were, the arms and fin­ger buds. The baby was about the size of a grape. I was only 7 weeks preg­nant, which means the baby was only about 5 weeks old. I was so amazed at how formed this lit­tle life was already. I called my old­est son upstairs to share this moment with me, to see his lit­tle sib­ling. We buried the baby in a hand­made paper box under the crooked tree in our back yard. I put a piece of flan­nel in the box beneath and over the baby. We read some scrip­ture, sang a hymn, and prayed together as a fam­ily, thank­ing God for the time we had had with this baby, and ask­ing for peace and comfort.

I have strug­gled with the whys of mis­car­riage. Why would God allow me to get preg­nant after pray­ing for all these years only to take away this bless­ing from me? I really can’t grasp it. But, I do know that my life has been made richer and fuller by going through this heartache. I have learned to lean more on God for com­fort and care. I have felt His hand sus­tain me through these deaths.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. –Romans 12:15

Also, it has allowed me to have greater sym­pa­thy and com­pas­sion for other moth­ers who are suf­fer­ing such loss. Had I not expe­ri­enced this grief, I would not quite be able to under­stand what a body goes through phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally dur­ing a mis­car­riage. I am thank­ful for these things in my life. I wouldn’t sign up for them, but obvi­ously God felt I needed it for my sanctification.

I know that God is sov­er­eign. I know that He ordains what­so­ever comes to pass. He has num­bered our days before there was one of them. This is true for you. It is true for me. It is true for our chil­dren. Even the ones in our wombs. We can­not add or take away a sin­gle day that has been ordained for us. And it is so hard to wrap our heads around that one. I believe God uses means to work out His sov­er­eign plan, but we can­not orches­trate it or force our will upon Him. We must always sub­mit to His will, if we like it or not.

Another thing that I hold onto is that each one of these babies are eter­nal beings. My few weeks of preg­nancy wasn’t for noth­ing. God ordained that their souls should be ush­ered into eter­nity from the womb. And I was hon­ored to be the ves­sel He chose to bring them into eter­nal exis­tence. How hum­bling. And how glo­ri­ous. My heart aches with the desire to hold them and watch them grow up. But, God had some­thing bet­ter in mind for them. I believe that they are at the feet of Jesus, wor­ship­ing and glo­ri­fy­ing Him. How thank­ful I am for that hope.

If you have suf­fered a mis­car­riage, I am so sorry. I under­stand your heartache. I want to encour­age you to name your babies, even if they passed years ago. They are eter­nal, and they deserve a name. They are real. Even if nobody else knew about them.

The other night, as we sat at the table for din­ner, my heart remem­bered my babies. I noticed that we have three chil­dren miss­ing from our table. I thought for a moment how sweet it would be to have Faith’s twin along with two more lit­tle ones sit­ting there with us. The baby would be turn­ing one this week.  Delight. But, I quickly remem­bered that we do have delight with those the Lord has allowed us to raise, and that I can have delight in the knowl­edge that I am a priv­i­leged mother to have ush­ered three souls into eter­nity through the ves­sel of my body, by the Lord’s choos­ing. Thank you, Lord, for this honor. I pray that I will never dis­dain the gifts that He has given me. Nine chil­dren, six on earth; the under­stand­ing of being com­forted by His hand through the heartache and pain; the hope of being able to com­fort other women in their sor­row; and a knowl­edge of His per­fect sov­er­eignty in our lives.

I pray my words give you hope. May the Lord bless you in your strug­gles. And may He give you peace.

I’ve linked up over at A Wise Woman Builds Her Home,  Deep Roots at Home, Cor­ner­stone Con­fes­sions, We are That Fam­ily, and Sim­ply Help­ing Him. Head on over for more encour­age­ment today.

Photo credit: kudaker / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND