Lauren’s Story

We both heard it clearly: God’s call on our lives to be parents. We felt hopeful, grateful, and a little scared. In time, we questioned those words “parents” repeatedly and even doubted our ability to hear God accurately or trust Him, because what we didn’t know and barely understood was that our first child, Isaac, would be the child we wouldn’t raise here on earth. 

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My husband, Eric, and I were hopeful when we started planning for a family. Getting pregnant proved difficult. My sister and friends announced their pregnancies, threw baby showers, and grew beautiful, round bellies, while I got my period month after month and cried each time. Then one day, despite all our calculations, we found out we were pregnant. “Finally!” I thought, “We’re going to have a baby!” Our pregnancy was smooth sailing overall. I remember singing and reading to our baby, imagining our soon-to-be life and of having cousins close in age. Our little two-bedroom condo would be cozy for our growing family.

We set up the nursery towards the end of our second trimester on a Saturday, excited and giddy. Then, on the following Friday, at 29.5 weeks, I found myself calling our OB’s office asking for an unexpected check-up because something didn’t seem right. I hadn’t felt the baby move in awhile.

The minuscule moments that unfolded in the next 48 hours occurred in slow motion and became embedded in our brains. The nurse, the ultrasound, the room, the lights, the echos, the quiet, the confusion. Eric walked into the exam room seconds before the doctor came in. As the nurse put her hand on his shoulder before the doctor even put the doppler on my round belly, he knew. He looked down.  I stared at the ultrasound and my baby’s beautiful spine that I loved seeing. I begged for the baby to move. Then the words, “I’m sorry. Your baby has no heartbeat.” Silence. Tears. It was horrible. Life as I knew it stopped. Literally stopped.

Nothing prepares you for what it’s like to hear the news that the baby you’ve been carrying for seven months is no longer alive. Nothing prepares you for what it’s like to tell this news to your family and friends, who you just saw days, even hours, earlier when everything was fine. Nothing prepares you to deliver your child who isn’t breathing—not getting to hear that first cry. It was incredibly hard, and that is an understatement. I wanted out of my body and out of my mind that was racing, numb, and questioning everything I thought I knew. I wanted to find an escape to this unbearable pain. Didn’t God want us to be parents? This must be a mistake!

In the hours that unfolded, we were cared for with God’s provision and grace by amazing labor and delivery staff. We delivered a baby boy who weighed 3 pounds, 3.7 ounces and was 17 inches long. He had a full head of dark, black, almost curly hair, and we marveled at his perfect fingers, toes, soft skin, and beautiful face. The room felt both extremely unsettling and somehow peaceful at the same time. We hesitated in holding him because he was so small and we felt numb. We struggled to name him, not knowing how to do that given the names we had initially considered. We named him Isaac, which ended up being just right.

I remember watching my husband hold Isaac cradled in his arms in the hospital room. Eric was shivering and trying to look at our son, yet fighting back tears to do so. I remember our parents holding Isaac and whispering sweet words of love to him and watching the nurses sponge bathe and hold Isaac with respect and care. I remember the nurses sponge bathe and hold Isaac with respect and care. I remember the photographer from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep who came and took pictures of our son. She commented that the book we had been reading to Isaac during pregnancy was one of her children’s favorites. I remember feeling more confused, numb, and scared than I had ever felt before.

We were discharged and went home without a baby. I cried tears upon tears, dreading waking up, yet fearful to sleep because of my nightmares. I specifically remember calling out to Jesus within the first 24 hours of being home, our nursery freshly set up in the next room.

I asked, “Jesus, where are You?” 

I sensed Him whispering, “I’m right here.”
“Jesus, why? Why did this happen?” I asked.

He responded, “Oh, my child.” 

Those words, “Oh my child,” seemed so strange to me at the time, yet they have come to remind me of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love, His ability to connect with me in the depth of my pain. There I was, grieving my child who had died, and God was calling me His child. I came back to those words again and again as an anchor in my grief. God reminded me that I, too, was His child—a part of God’s family—and that our son, Isaac, is His child too. I began to consider, in a completely different way, what it meant to be a parent, with out without a child in my arms. God had allowed us to be parents, even though it looked entirely different than I anticipated.

For days and months, maybe even years, my anxiety wrecked me. Depression set in, and the reality of living out my grief was at times unbearable as I faced many nights crying out to God in angry, hot, overwhelming tears. Yet, somehow, I sensed God’s nearness. It felt heavy, and it felt sacred. Heavy, because of the depth of the pain. Sacred, because of reminders from dear friends and family, pastors, and strangers, that God is near to the brokenhearted. 

I clung to these words of lament and reminders of hope. I wrestled with believing that God is who He says He is—that He is good, even if, and especially when, I didn’t understand. Trust me, I didn’t always “feel” agreement with these truths. Yet, I forced myself to say out loud, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18), and “I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1). 

When I wondered if God saw me in my pain, and if God cared about me, I heard the words, His words, again, “Oh, my child.” Yes, I genuinely believed that He knew and understood and cared about it all.

Almost five years have passed since Isaac’s birth. Our role as parents has grown through two miscarriages, adoption, and a living biological child. It has been beautiful, messy, and hard. We continue to wrestle with the reality that we are parents without all of our children here with us, a uniquely difficult role to play. We love all of our children with a fierce love. 

Deep in my soul, I ache daily to hold and adore Isaac and our babies in heaven, and wonder at what they would be doing now. It has been an extremely difficult road, one that we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves as parents yet feel honored to be walking. We have experienced that a parent’s love endures and extends beyond the joy of getting to experience life with all of our children here and now. We remind ourselves often that Isaac and our babies are living life as it was intended—in the presence of God, our heavenly Father. We ache that they’re not with us in the way we anticipated, the way we longed for and imagined. Yet, we cannot wait to experience life with them. We are deeply grateful that our first experience of being parents began with Isaac and has included two precious babies that we will someday meet in eternity.

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Lauren is a part-time working mama to Isaac and two babies in heaven as well as her boys Samuel and Nathanael at home in Colorado. She is a mental health therapist, recovering perfectionist, and truth be told, often feels overwhelmed as she tries again and again to reorient herself to live life as God intended. Lauren loves all things that bring out a deep belly laugh and tears to her eyes, really (good) hot coffee, Kansas sunsets, trail runs, and being with others who can share in both the joys and sorrows of life. 

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