Loss and grief are challenging emotions to process. I told myself that I couldn’t be sad – I have so, so much to be thankful for and I know women who have suffered “worse” losses than I have. Come on Lisa, be strong. You can’t afford to fall apart. I can force my mind to think of a logical and good perspective: Mark and I have been blessed with two beautiful, healthy babies even after enduring troubled pregnancies + We have not personally suffered a miscarriage before.

The truth is though, I am hurt, heartbroken, empty and sad.

My mom, sisters and a few sacred souls I’ve shared this sorrow with have had beautiful words to share with me and even an article from a mother who has endured this tragedy. In it she said, “I remember being afraid to cry. I didn’t feel as if I deserved to cry because “I wasn’t that far along,” and “this happens all the time.” I remember holding back the tears with every ounce of my being and not being able to look my husband in the face because I knew his pain would break me.” I could resonate with her sentiment entirely.

I haven’t wanted to talk about it. There’s never really a good time to interrupt conversations or any ounce in my body that wants all attention on me and my sorrows but, I need to be real about how I feel and God is whispering to me that it is my responsibility to share and own my honest life. He wants me to speak truth and good will. To let someone else know they are not alone and even to let someone else know that though life has its challenges, good will prevail.

It’s called a chemical pregnancy or in another woman’s words “the unspoken or secret miscarriage”. Likely the one so many women before us could never know about because testing technology wasn’t nearly as sensitive as it is today. I was eager to test because we have been praying for a third baby for quite some time, so naturally I was ready to know as early in my cycle as I possibly could. I should have known better, as any of you who have struggled to get pregnant may relate to, that every month of disappointment does a number on your heart. But this time, it was different. We finally got a positive test.

I wanted to rejoice and shout it from the mountain tops! There was a faint line that any woman knows means ‘celebrate, you’re having a baby’. After all, a line is a line. I showed Mark the instructional pamphlet with examples of positives to assure him of the good news while my mind was screaming miscarriage statistics and the voice inside kept telling me “this is your time, be prepared”. I tested over the course of the following days with the line getting slightly darker at first and then not changing, and maybe even starting to fade slightly. In simple, pragmatic words: We lost the baby.

But, it’s not so simple. We lost the baby that I had already dreamed about and planned for and questioned what gender it would be and what nursery theme I should browse on Pinterest. I thought of names, I looked up due dates and secretly contemplated birthday parties – since it seemed fall would be a busy time of birthdays in our household. I bled and felt pain and squeezed my babies harder than ever and cried myself to sleep. “Treat it as a period”, they say. But how can you, really, when your body is ridding itself of a life?

I’ve given myself and my heart time and space to be quiet. I’ve been operating in survival mode, distracted by the chaos of our lives that never seems to end, but for whatever reason, God is pressing that today is the day to speak. To overcome this writer’s block that I’ve so clearly put up out of fear. Fear of judgment, of getting too personal, of the unknown. Someone recently told me though, if you have even this slightest whisper of a thought to do something, an idea or a motivation, God is calling you to act on it.

I am healing now and trusting that “He is at my every tomorrow” because it’s the only thing I can do. He is so good and wraps us all up in these times of heartaches. I do my best to trust with all my soul that He has a plan, but it doesn’t soften the hurt. Time may soften it, but I will forever dream of our baby’s place in our family. I don’t know how, but I am sure that I will recognize my little one immediately in Heaven some day. Until then, I know that baby of mine is being swaddled and swayed by the most tender hands.

Tears and hugs from momma, sweet little one.