My 3rd Miscarriage

Our little butter bean.  We have been on a roller coaster of emotions for about 2 months.  2 negative tests and then a positive one. We began to share the news immediately and were thrilled to be adding number 4 to our clan.  I never love the first trimester of pregnancy, but the hopes of a sweet new baby make all that drama worth it.  My fears of miscarriage were present, but different from with Hannah.  Hannah’s pregnancy was perfect and my fear of loss was unnecessarily great.  My fears in this pregnancy while not absent were less and my faith in God’s plan was greater.  Mostly because when I look at my sweet Hannah’s face I am reminded that God’s plan is best.  I know that I wouldn’t have her if I didn’t go through the first two miscarriages. In the heartaches of life God strengthens us and teaches us.  These are a few of the reminders and revelations of God’s word that I have been given through this sweet life.

I do not understand God’s ways

We will never choose the ways God does.  We don’t choose cancer, miscarriage, death or any other thing that comes from the fall.  The Israelites would never have chosen to walk the long way around to get to the promised land.  His ways are truly higher than ours.  I have those questions; I have those things that I don’t understand.  I have had thoughts of why did I get pregnant, I would have rather not gotten pregnant than had another miscarriage and while we are on the subject, God why do you even allow miscarriage, can’t you just stop the pregnancy?!?!?  And that’s where I stop and say I don’t understand, I’ll never understand, it’s not my job to understand.  But what I do know and understand is that God’s word says that He works all things to the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.  I choose to believe his word over my finite mind.  And no matter what I ever go through, I can always look to Job who tells us “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” It is only by grace and through the prayers of the body of Christ that I write this. For in my natural self, I would be in a much different place.

Celebrate life

I have said this before in our miscarriages and I don’t care how many more I experience, I will always celebrate life with no regret.  C S Lewis says “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves).  I can’t say this is always easy especially when you don’t know the outcome yet.  I said with faith (wanting to give into fear) when I didn’t know if this baby would survive that I really wanted to celebrate life and beg God for a miracle until there was no hope.  During that process I felt weak and mostly that I was stumbling along in my faith (as we do and we need God’s grace). I got to see my baby’s heartbeat twice, so little and helpless and I’m so thankful God let me love this sweet baby for a short time.  I’m thankful for those who celebrated with us and were joyful with us.  I will always by the grace of God celebrate life.

His word is living and active

Hebrews 4:12 The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edge sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 

This is where I was in my pregnancy with Hannah. 

http://crouch23.blogspot.com/2016/10/carrying-rainbow-babies-with-hope.html

I didn’t really know how to ask God for my baby(with Hannah).  I was stifled and hindered by fear.  Not that I didn’t pray for her, but not as much as I prayed for this baby.  I begged and begged God to save this baby.  As soon as I found out last Tuesday that I wasn’t measuring as far along.  I prayed in faith by the outline of Philippians 4 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”  I took my worries to him and I’ll tell you I did not feel peace during the prayers.  I didn’t feel peace as the reality of another loss was hitting me.  I wanted to control and did all I could to try to find out what might be wrong.  I googled more than I care to admit and struggled to turn to God.  I didn’t feel this as I was living out the beginning of the verse of surrendering my concerns and desires unto his hands.  I prayed my desire and I begged for the life of my child.  But as we all know God’s word does not return void and today God’s peace has been in my heart, possibly greater than it ever has before.  The peace that passes all understanding and human explanation has guarded me.  Where we should have been broken God’s peace upheld us. We prayed and prayed with passion and desire that God would save our baby but as David got up and praised God after his baby died, so we choose to do so. His word is perfect and true.  I want to say too, I have no 4 step plan to make this happen, this is the work of the Holy Spirit and God through His living and active word.  

We share our grief with our children

This has been a hard one for me.  As soon as I knew that it was possible the baby might not make it, my heart just hurt to have to tell John and Abby and I struggled to know what to do.(tell them, ignore it, don't tell them etc.)  Tonight as I was eating my 2^nd Reese Pumpkin, John wanted to know why I was eating a 2^nd treat, so I told him that I had been in the hospital today.  And he asked “to get the baby out?” (he still remembers me going to get Hannah out at the hospital)  In that moment, I just felt I needed to tell him the truth.  “Yes buddy, we had to get the baby out, but the baby is in heaven with Jesus.”  He looked really sad and said “we wanted to keep the baby, didn’t we?”  I said yes, buddy we did, but the baby is with Jesus in heaven and God is still a good, good Father.  

How to be in this world but not of it, isn’t always easy

It’s not always cut and dry on how we are to be human yet be filled with the spirit.  God has given us emotions and made us human: to feel, to be in relationship, to love and to grieve.  As Ecclesiastes 3 tells us, there truly is a season for everything.  I long for heaven where the season of sorrow will be gone, but while we are still here, we will always face those things that grieve us and weigh heavy on our hearts.  We will have those things that I talked of before that we will never fully understand. We may be able to look back and see the redemption, but sometimes we just don’t get it.  One of my prayers as I walked through this, mostly as I felt I was failing since I was trying to control and not trusting as I should, was “God how do I glorify you through this?”  Sometimes, it is very hard to know where our human flesh and our spirit collide in a way that is perfectly pleasing to our father.  And of course, we are all sinful and will always fail and fall, but we learn to be human in our grief and sadness knowing that God is right there with us comforting us and present in our darkness and hard times when we can’t even function.  We make a choice to trust him and communicate with him through the whole thing.  I haven’t figured it out and probably never will, but I will say that walking through this has shown me the power of his peace and how sometimes it comes after the struggle.  It’s supernatural without a 10 step plan.  It comes through surrender and trials.  I wasn’t there with the first miscarriage, and especially not with the 2^nd, but today God has done something new in my heart.  There will most likely be grief to come over my sweet baby, but I pray I grieve in the peace of God knowing “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” Psalm 34:17-20.  But for today, I enjoy and rest in his supernatural peace.

Waiting on Hannah

Just breathe.  Or be still and know that I am God.  Things I’m not so good at doing.   I want a plan, I want to have everything together and I want to map it out so that I will have all my bases covered.  I don’t like survival mode, yet that is the place that I find myself most often.  Abby was almost 3 weeks early, so the fact that I’m still pregnant is a little surprising to me.  I knew and even told myself that just because she was early, didn’t mean that Hannah would be too, but in my heart, I believed she would be early. 

Expectations can get you into a lot of trouble.  Or at least put you in the way of temptation.  When you expect something or even make plans to do something, and it doesn’t happen, temptation is at your door.  The temptation could be to be angry or fearful.  Once given to anger or fear we may try to control our situation, blame God, question God or be given to depression.  Fear is directly connected to our trust in God so as we fear, we remove our trust in God and put it in ourselves. 

This last 2 weeks has been so hard to trust Him.  Like I mentioned, I thought that since Abby was early, Hannah would be too.  So every day, has been a struggle accepting that today was not the day either.  Mike and I had it planned just right in a way that would be perfect for our family.  Hannah would come during Mike’s break and he would be here to help me when she was born.  And now, we are at the point where his break is almost over and Hannah still is not here.  One of the funniest things is that I’m only 39 weeks pregnant, so my due date is still a week away, yet I have been wanting her to come for 2 weeks now.  My expectations of what I thought would happen have shaped my whole outlook to the point where I even dismissed what was really normal. 

So today marks 39 weeks of pregnancy with Hannah.  And I have to step back and ask the Lord for forgiveness for not trusting, being ungrateful and giving way to fear.  I haven’t trusted His plan.  I have in a sense been ungrateful for my sweet girl.  (Beggars can’t be choosers right?) And the fears from earlier in the pregnancy have returned.  After having two miscarriages back to back, you would think I would have “gotten it” by now.  How quickly we turn from realizing all the blessings God has in store.  How quickly we, like the Israelites, turn back to our idols of sin (whatever they may be).  

So when I step back and take a different perspective, I see that Mike and I have gotten some much needed quality time together and our marriage has been strengthened.  (Those of you who have been through the newborn stage, know that quality time is not likely with a newborn).  I see that we have been able to slow down a bit, relax and spend time with our two children.  And I know God has many other reasons why this sweet baby has not entered the world yet, some of which I may never know. 

I’ve never really been good at waiting and this is no different.  I still want my baby to come NOW, but I stop and remember that my job is to “be still and know that He is God.”  I surrender, and will have to surrender with the next Braxton Hicks contraction and several times after.  But I choose to trust Him, surrender my fear and my desire to control.  He is the God of the universe.  He knows what He is doing and He is worthy of my trust, my praise and my thanks.

My Fifth Pregnancy

Not many people know about our second miscarriage.  It’s not that we didn’t want people to know.  It’s just that, well I’m not even sure.  I guess I didn’t want my status update to be: “we lost another baby.”  The second miscarriage was what’s called a blighted ovum, which means the baby never developed.   The second one felt more like a loss of a pregnancy rather than a loss of a baby, but nonetheless, a loss.  I was at a much better place in the first loss, trusting God that He knew he what he was doing, even if I didn't understand. However I did ask questions, like why did I get pregnant in the first place? Why just not get pregnant?  But with the second miscarriage, I was pretty upset that it was happening again....didn't want do feel pregnant if I wasn't really pregnant and didn't want to walk this road AGAIN....I was full of fear at the beginning of the pregnancy when we didn't know if it was a miscarriage or not. During those weeks of uncertainty, I didn't know what/how to pray. But the only comfort came from reading God's word. I didn't know what to say to God, but God had comforting words for me from His word. I think after the first miscarriage, I really felt I handled it well....I was trusting in God's sovereignty and even though I was sad, I was ok. But the second one I was humbled even more because I didn't handle it well. I was mad, fearful and hurt. I wanted my babies to be here, I knew that everything would be okay, but in those moments of uncertainty, I was not ok and I was not happy with my circumstances.(This was in February 2015).

Present day June 2015, we are so excited to be 10 weeks pregnant.  We have an appointment tomorrow and it has been quite a journey to overcome fear.  Pregnancy after miscarriage is much different than my first two pregnancies.  My first two pregnancies were not filled with temptation to fear or visualization about appointments.  In some ways I wish that I could go back and not experience that heartache, change the past and have my sweet baby Daniel and Hope.  But first off, I couldn’t have both of those babies, and I couldn’t be pregnant right now, but the most important reason is: God didn’t allow it to happen that way, and He has a reason.  I may never fully realize why, and that’s ok. 

Sometimes I wish that “zap theology” worked.  That I could pray a prayer that would remove my fear and automatic peace would follow.  But God designed it where we are involved and uses these situations to draw us to Himself.  We are to work to overcome our sin (don’t be confused, I’m not saying work for our salvation).  But when it comes to fear, there is action to be taken.  I have had to work so hard to not fear the loss of this baby.  I have been on a roller coaster of one minute feeling everything is ok, to the next where I’m imagining my husband with cancer and finding out that the reason we have had miscarriage is because he is passing cancer to them.  There have been good days, bad days, hard day and just pure exhaustion.  Yet in the midst of it all, I know that God is calling me to trust in Him.  Reminding me that no matter what He is with me.  He knows what is going to happen and He is and will be with me through it all.  He has been faithful to give me scriptures, books and friends to help me as I walk through the first weeks of this pregnancy.  At about 7 weeks I had a turning point when I read something that talked about God not giving us grace for imagined situations. That worry is a sin and that we need to confess it, not look for grace. (not that God doesn't help us, but it's through confession and forgiveness not grace). I realized that I was just expecting my baby to die instead of living my life, taking care of my children and trusting that my baby was ok, until I learned otherwise.  Since then, the temptation to worry has been present, but I could always look back to that moment when I chose to trust that my baby was ok.  I’m nervous about tomorrow, but I choose to trust.  I don’t want to walk through another loss.  I want my baby to be ok.  But even if he/she is not, I trust the Lord.  He is good.  He is faithful. He is my God and my Savior.  

What My Unborn Child Taught Me

Daniel Moses Crouch

My sweet baby Daniel is resting in the arms of my heavenly father.  I will soon share the whole story of the day we found out Daniel no longer had a heartbeat, but today is about what Daniel has taught me.  I had no idea how much such a young child could teach me.  God brings good out of every situation and I would not have chosen this way to learn these lessons, but I am here so I choose to embrace them. 

Our sin brings death, Obedience brings life.

My natural response to a situation of this nature is usually “God, what are you doing?”  However this time, by the grace of God, I have been able to say “God, I trust you.”   I could shake my fist at the Lord and say, “why me?”  I could walk a path of bitterness and anger that would lead to depression and death, but at what cost?  What good will that bring?  Don’t misunderstand me, I do have those questions, why?  What is your purpose?  But I don’t stay there, I choose to bow in humility and say God, I trust you.  I know you have a plan and a purpose.  There has been such peace and comfort in this.  It doesn’t make it hurt less, it doesn’t make it less sad, but it does bring peace in the midst of suffering.

Humility

In Daniel 6, Nebuchadnezzar is humbled through a long stay in the wilderness and at the end he says this in verse 37 “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just.  And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”  This verse brings me great hope as most of my issues and problems are rooted in pride.  I’m thankful that God is able to humble me and that in the loss of Daniel, I can look to him and say as Nebuchadnezzar has said “Everything you do is right and all of your ways are just.” I like to control and think that I’m in control.  I am learning that I am not in control, God is.

Someone always has it worse

When I have needed to remind myself of God’s truth and hold on to his sovereignty, I have read Job 1:21.  “ Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The LORD gave and LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”  If Job, who lost everything can say this, then surely by the grace of God I can too.  In my loss I have considered how many women have experienced much greater pain.  I have two beautiful children that help ease the pain of the loss of Daniel and we have never struggled to get pregnant (quite the opposite).  I know of women that have struggled to get pregnant and then lost their baby and don’t have children.  They are barren and that is a whole different kind of loss.  I’m not belittling the loss, because it is still painful and sad, but I have so much to be thankful for in the middle of my loss.  This reminds me of my brother-in-law who died from cancer. I vividly remember being in the hospital right before he passed away and he said, “I used to ask God, why me?  And now I say to God, why not me?”  We don’t get to choose our circumstances, but we do have control over how we face our circumstances.  We can face them with a “why me?” attitude or we can face them with a “why not me?”

God’s sacrifice takes on a new meaning

God sent his only son, to die for my sins.  I have heard this story my whole life, but the loss of Daniel has given it such a deeper meaning.  God chose to send his ONLY son to die a horrible death so that we could be free.  Our baby went quietly and we didn’t chose for him to go.  God’s sacrifice was so great and he knows the pain of our loss. 

Celebrate Life which belongs to God

Mike and I have always shared early about our pregnancies, saying that we would want the support if something went wrong.  We never dreamed after 2 healthy pregnancies something would go wrong, but I am so thankful that we have this perspective.  I’m thankful that I celebrated Daniel’s life, got to hear his heartbeat, and celebrated with my family and friends.  I’m thankful for the time that I got to carry him in my  womb and though I never got to feel his movement, I’m thankful for his life and little bit of time that God allowed us to love him and carry him.  It has reminded me to celebrate life which belongs to God.  First of all: Celebrate life no matter how long it is life.  Celebrate the lives of your families and friends because we are not promised tomorrow.  As James 4:13-15 says “ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  Secondly: All we have belongs to God.  As I have grieved the loss of Daniel, I have been tempted to fear the loss of my other children.  In this fear, God has reminded me that they are not mine anyway.  God has blessed me with the stewardship of my children.  My children belong to the Lord, and I must learn to live in this way.  And further, everything, every minute, hour and day belongs to the Lord.  We are merely stewards of our time here. 

I will always miss my baby Daniel, but I know I will get to hold him one day along with several other mothers who have suffered this same loss.  But even this small child has made a difference in my life.  Praise be to God!

I don't have the answers

I strongly feel that I should be putting laundry away and emptying the dishwasher, but for now I’m writing again.  My anger has driven me to my knees today.  I find myself not recognizing myself as an "angry person".  It takes a lot to get me angry and overall anger hasn’t really been a struggle for me.  Well….1 Corinthians 10:12 says the following: “ So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!”  Today I was angry.  I just want my sweet little boy to “listen and obey.”  And he went into the pantry where he KNEW he was NOT supposed to go and he got a spanking.  I’m not so sure that time-out would have been a more appropriate solution….but even if a spanking was the right course of action this time.  I was angry and I don’t want to be angry when I spank.  I want to loving and kind and full of love.  I want to have everything together, everything in it’s place and sit down and rest when it’s naptime.  Once again, here I am aiming and wanting perfection in the midst of a chaotic, messy and sinful life that I am part of and responsible for.  Even in the midst of my sin, I am thinking how can I overcome and become a better mom that doesn’t get angry and is okay with the mess.  Still in my desire to overcome I want to be perfect.  So there it is, PRIDE.  Pride is the root of my sin.  I care more about what I want and how I look and perform than I do about glorifying God. 

So where do I go from here?  I know I have to work on my anger.  I know I have to work on my pride.  I feel so overwhelmed by the sin that has to be worked on in my life.  I feel that parenting has brought me to a new level of seeing my inadequacy.  I have to go to the cross.  I’m not talking about my devotions, because I’ve been doing ok with spending time with God.  I’m talking about carrying my cross daily, hourly, momently.  In those moments of discipline and when my son has disobeyed for the 4^th time in a row, I have to pray for wisdom as I make decisions.  Fear looms in my mind that somehow I’m screwing everything up.  I have to trust the Lord that the Holy Spirit lives inside of me and will help me.  I don’t have the answers, I’m just one mother struggling along with the rest of  the best.  I want to be the one that is telling all other moms how to do.  Instead I’m the one struggling along, sometimes just to keep them alive (for real).  But nonetheless I am here and I am striving to get my life on the right track of seeking God’s glory instead of my own.  

What really matters?

I just made my favorite cinnamon tea latte and am tempted to guzzle it while I hurry on my way to finishing my chores.  I long to contemplate life over a cup of tea while I frantically try to do it all.  There’s a rat race in my mind and I only want peace.  I constantly log the things I have to do and dread them all at this point.  I want to do all these other things but yet I can’t get a handle on just the little things.  Then it comes to me.  I have to get really organized about doing my housework and other chores so I’ll have time for the fun things.  So I stop to enjoy my tea and spend some time with God while I sip my tea.  Both kids are asleep and I can’t decide what is more important: a nap or a blitz around the house.  A nap is usually never my choice, but today it was.  And I feel freer to take breaks and write and spend time with God when I take naps (well I do today anyway).  It forces me to stop and slow down.  There is a fine line there between taking care of myself and being lazy and irresponsible.  There is a fine line between having grace for myself and just not doing what I needed to.  I haven’t found the balance, but I’m teetering along the tight rope.  Lately I have had a phrase frequent my mind “What really matters?”  On days like today, I want to throw my hands in the air and say “ I don’t care what really matters, I want to get all my chores done and I want everyone else to cooperate and I want to be in a selfish, mean, bad mood while I’m doing it.”  I hate to admit it.  I don’t like this about myself, but this is where I am today.  Until just now.  I’m stopping.  I’m going back to where I should have started my day.  I’m going back to His word, His promises.  I’m going back to remember what really matters.  Will you join me?