My First Time With Other Babies Born When Mine Was Due

A few weeks after I miscarried my first baby, a close friend who hadn’t even told us she was trying to conceive, warned me about thirty minutes before our small group girl’s accountability meeting that she had been trying to conceive, and was in fact pregnant. I did a decent job in that moment of putting on a happy face and faking excitement. But during the ten minute drive from where she and I had coffee to the house where we were having group, I began to unravel at the seams. By the time I arrived, my heart was bitter and angry, and I was barely holding it together. As we went around the circle sharing what God was doing in our lives and what He was teaching us through it, I listened as one after another of my closest friends shared how God was teaching them to trust Him in their pregnancies. 

When it got around to me, the yuck in my heart exploded out of my mouth. I believe I spat out something along the lines of, “I’m not pregnant, and I don’t really trust God right now. And listening to the rest of you talk about your pregnancies and baby showers makes me want to vomit.” It was not my finest hour, and almost four years later it remains a moment of rawness and painful honestly that marks those relationships. I’m thankful that I felt secure enough in our friendships to be honest, but I really wish I had been a little more gracious in the way I shared my feelings.

Shortly thereafter, I was again pregnant and things were okay. August rolled around, and while I could feel Max kicking inside my belly, I was not giving birth to our first baby. In September, another friend became the first mom in our group to give birth instead of me. Then in October, the first friend’s son was born. And in December, my son, Max, was born. But then he died, and we left the hospital with empty arms.

For the next six months or so, I struggled being around that friend and her son. As our group kept having more babies, her son and Max remained the only boys. Her son—the baby conceived around the time I lost our first, and born with no complications shortly before Max. This one friend and her baby seemed to represent everything I had lost, twice. 

To be totally honest, it wasn’t even a conscious resentment or bitterness, it was a subconscious feeling festering right below the surface. But it was making my heart ugly whether I knew it or not.

That summer, I was spending some time reading the gospels and stumbled across the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In this parable, Jesus talks about a landowner who goes out early in the morning and hires workers for the day. Then, a few hours later, he goes and finds more. Again and again he hires more workers, the last being brought in toward the end of the day. When the work is finished, he distributes the wages, one denarius for each worker, regardless of how long they had worked.

Not surprisingly, the workers who had been there the entire day were angry and upset that those who had worked the least were given the same wages. In Matthew 20:14-15, the landowner replies to their grumbling with, “Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

Suddenly, my resentment came crashing into my consciousness. I heard the Lord say so clearly to me, “Take care of yourself and your life. I give as I see fit, and I have given you a gift and a burden especially fitted for you. Do not begrudge my generosity toward others. Just do your work, and know that I see you.”

I know how hard it is to see babies who were due around the time yours was. I know how painful it is to see a little guy toddling around and know that your son should be there too. Sometimes it is good and right and necessary to make a little space for your grief. Step away from social media for a season so you don’t have to follow that certain person who’s pregnancy is too closely aligned with yours. Say no to attending the baby shower. Create a little distance. Protect your heart however you need to when it all feels a little too raw.

But do not let bitterness or resentment take root in your heart. It does nothing to quench the deep despair you feel. And while it may go unnoticed by others, it will start to twist your grief into something ugly and rotten. Ephesians 4:31-32 reminds us to, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (NIV).

Trust that Jesus sees your pain and your loss. Trust that He holds your baby tightly in your absence. Trust that He gives good gifts and will not withhold that which He knows you need. Trust that one day you will be able to see other babies and feel just a twinge of sadness as opposed to that overpowering pain that threatens to swallow you whole. 

Shortly after I came to realize that I was holding on to resentment and bitterness toward my friend, she asked me if we were okay and shared that she had sensed a distance over recent months. I confessed exactly where it was coming from and how the Lord had been revealing Himself to me through this journey. I can now enjoy our friendship and spend time with her son without feeling like she has the life and family I was supposed to have.  

Will it be really hard to see pictures from her son’s first day of kindergarten in 2.5 years? Absolutely. Will I cry and long to hold Max’s stubby little fingers as we march bravely into his first day of school? Definitely. Is that her fault? Of course not. 

My prayer for you as you continue to walk this journey and process through feelings of longing, anger, hurt, and the sense that things just aren’t fair, is that you will remember God’s faithfulness. Know that He is a generous God, and the gifts He has given someone else have nothing to do with the gifts He has given you. And above all, I pray that you will see your sweet baby as a gift. Perhaps not a gift that you got to hold or raise or parent in the way you expected, but a good, good gift nonetheless. Do not begrudge the Lord’s generosity and kindness. Dig deep and find ways to be amazed and grateful for His generosity and kindness in your life and through your Hope Baby.

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Sam is a graphic designer and marketing professional in Frisco, Texas. She and her husband, Spencer, have been married since 2011, and have two children in heaven, Baby Martin (Jan 2016) and Max (Dec 2016), and two in their arms, Lachlan (Dec 2017) and Meryn (Aug 2019). They enjoy serving in their church, building community, and restoring their 100 year-old home. Sam is in two book clubs and can always be found with a book in her purse and a warm beverage in her hand.

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