Ask the Blog Team: How Can You Tell If Your Desire To Have Another Baby Is Not Just Your Heart Longing For The Baby That Has Died?

Welcome to our Q+A series, Ask the Blog Team. In this series, the Hope Mommies blog team joins together to answer questions that are commonly asked in grief. If there is a question or topic that you have wrestled with in your grief that you would like the opportunity to see how other Hope Moms have processed or answered, we would love to hear from you. You can submit your questions here.

How can you tell if your desire to have another baby is not just your heart longing for the baby that has died?

After losing my stillborn son at 37 weeks, our family didn’t feel complete. We had prepared to be a family of five and still felt we should be (we had two living girls). We knew we could never replace our son but wanted to “complete” our family. It was more of a longing to be a family of five and not a desire to replace our son.

- Shelly

Hope Mom to Zachary Robert

I think it’s important to take an honest inventory of how you’re processing your grief, your stage of life, your spouse’s state of mind, your body’s ability to conceive or carry again, how many living children you have or desire to have, etc.

For me personally, I had back to back losses (miscarriage and infant death) with no living kids, so there was no question that we wanted to have more kids. I did, however, always want three kids and have to stop after my two living kids were born. I had three c-sections in fewer than three years, so for the sake of my body and health, I needed to make that choice before I was “done.”

I also heard a statement that really helped me years ago from another loss mom: It will never feel like your family is complete, because it never will be on this side of heaven. You’ll always be missing your Hope Baby and having additional babies will not change that.

- Sam

Hope Mom to Baby Martin and Maxwell Spencer

I don’t have an answer to this. God gave us an innate desire to grow our families. It’s really hard to differentiate that longing after a loss. My advice is to evaluate whether you are mentally, spiritually, and physically in a healthy place to try again. Have you given your Hope Baby the necessary grieving period? Would counseling be helpful?

I had more than three years in between my loss and living child. It didn’t feel so awesome in the wait, but looking back I know the extra healing time was beneficial. I enjoyed every moment of my pregnancy not burdened by overwhelming fear and anxiety. The fears I had about another child in year one post loss had been completely covered by and dealt with in the Lord’s truth. These are things that simply take time, and that time is different for everyone.

- Kayla

Hope Mom to Anna Joy

I’m not quite sure how to answer this. I got pregnant three months after my daughter was born and died because I desperately wanted another child. I am not sure if I wanted another child at the time, or if I wanted Isabelle. However, when my son was born, I knew right away that he was not his sister. I loved him. I think we will always long for our babies who died, but that should not make us fearful to try again.

- Ravyn

Hope Mom to Noah and Isabelle

I was pregnant again within a few months of my first loss. My husband and I had both felt ready to try again and continue growing our family, and there really wasn’t any thought of trying to “replace” Simeon. When this pregnancy also ended in loss, we decided to wait for at least a year (in accordance to the advice we had been given by my medical team) before making the choice to try to get pregnant again or not. I also felt like my heart really needed that time to process my grief and really lean into the Lord. However, God had different plans for us. Just a few months into that year of waiting, I discovered that I was pregnant again. It completely took us by surprise, and I was absolutely terrified to be jumping into a new pregnancy again so soon. I didn’t feel ready, but God was enough through it all. This surprise pregnancy really deepened my faith, and opened my eyes to see God’s goodness in my life in ways I hadn’t noticed before.

- Ashlee

Hope Mom to Simeon and Odelle

After we lost Chance, our 3rd baby and surprise pregnancy, I assumed we would try again because “how could we end growing our family on loss?” I was talking to my therapist about this and she challenged me to take about six months time in thought and prayer to truly see if we felt God’s call to have a third or if it was just our own flesh assuming we would try again because again, “How could we end growing our family on loss? Who does that? What a tragedy to end on, right?” We spent those six months in prayer and truly taking inventory of our hearts, desires, and our capacity for parenting another child (our first has significant special needs). What do you know? We both felt in complete peace that we were done growing our family. We “ended” on loss, but make no mistake, God completely restored and redeemed it for His good and glory. We feel so lucky to end our story with our son who continually points us to heaven.

- Brittnie

Hope Mom to Baby A and Chance Michael Blackburn

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