Shannon’s Story

It felt strange to call it grief. After all, how do you grieve someone you’ve never seen? How do you grieve what never could have been? 

The due date would have been 12-12-12. How perfect, I thought, as I built dreams and plans. How perfect, I thought, as I sat pleased with the way I had designed my family. But, more than a plan, it was a life. I had started to think of names, to wonder if we would paint pink or blue. I had started to envision how this little one would fit into our family; I monogrammed a Big Sister t-shirt for my toddler. 

And then. 

And then. 

And then. 

My happy, perfect secret stole away in one angry red flash. 

But, perhaps one flash is not the right image. You see, for me, an ectopic pregnancy was more like a continuous pricking. 

That first night, the ER doctor sent me away with an empty sonogram. After the weekend, my OB repeated the sonogram and blood test, and looked up from the new data with a furrowed brow. The life was still there, but it was growing where it could not grow much longer. To move forward meant either shots, surgery, or serious internal damage. None of which could result in the saving of that life.

There in that sterile room, we sat with the heaviness of that impossible choice-which-is-not-a-choice. We prayed, we called some trusted advisors, we stared at each other in bewilderment. Surely, we thought, surely we shouldn’t have to take action to bring about the inevitable. 

Inevitable. That was the key to the moral dilemma. No choice we made, no action or inaction, could give us the baby we wanted. So, we turned to look at what would cause the least amount of trauma and chose the shots. 

My arms were already bruised purple from blood tests to confirm the ectopic. I gritted my teeth to prepare for more needles. And so began the months-long process of blood draws and testing, over and over—it was a rhythm that saved my health and fertility, but a rhythm that stalled my grief. 

It was a funny sort of holding pattern: there I was pulling my sleeves over the blood draw scabs and bruises in various states of healing, all while reassuring people—myself, really—that I was fine. Just fine. Perfectly fine. 

I did the thing I do when I would rather not feel the heaviness of grief: I blocked it out. And I kept running, I kept going, at exactly the pace I’d been running before. 

It took two months before the dam holding back my grief finally broke and I found myself standing over my kitchen sink crying into a pile of dirty dishes. But, again—it felt strange to call it grief. After all, what is the proper way to grieve someone you’ve never seen? And how does one grieve what never could have been? 

I thought the right way, the faithful way, the good way, was to avoid the flood of negative emotions like sadness and anger and doubt. Those feelings terrified me because I thought they might reveal me as a fraud—as though I didn’t have enough faith to fight off the darkness. And, did I have the right to grieve when others have experienced so much worse?

But as it turned out, the Lord met me in my breaking. He met me in my grief. 

Isaiah 43:1b-2 (HCSB) says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.”

God never expected me to evade grief. He never called me to a bravery devoid of emotion, or a power drawn from my own well of strength. Instead, He calls me by my name. He knows my story, every nuance of my ache. He knows my fear, my anger, my sadness and walked with me into the flood of grief. 

And He walked with me to the other side. Blocking out the grief only caused it to well up and overflow at exactly the wrong times. Instead, wading straight into the waters of grief and dealing with it head on helped me to integrate the story into my life—the experience is not forgotten, but instead gave me a layer of strength, a layer of wisdom, a layer of compassion.

I know the Lord better now. I’ve seen what happens when I face the emotions that feel too big for me. I’ve seen exactly what courage He gives when my own resources are depleted. So, I moved forward into new stories, taking with me what I learned when I passed through the waters that threatened to overwhelm me. My God brings gifts of peace and courage—He’s done it before, He’ll do it again.  

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Shannon Owen lives in Houston, Texas with her husband, Lee, and their two girls, Avery (6) and Kate (2). In 2012, between her two girls, she miscarried a baby at 8 weeks due to an ectopic pregnancy; read more from Shannon about her Hope Baby here. She taught high school English, but traded in her grammar textbooks for board books after Avery was born. However, words and stories are still very much a part of her life. 

During a lengthy NICU stay after her daughter Kate was born, Shannon dusted off her pen and started a blog to keep friends and family updated on Kate’s progress, but kept writing because it was catharsis. Kate was born with a congenital, non-progressive muscle and joint disorder as well as bilateral vocal cord paralysis, which causes a blockage in her airway.

Shannon also writes for Abide, an audio prayer app, and has had some of her reading plans featured on YouVersion. You can find her at shannonowenblogs.com.

Shannon and her family are very involved in their church, Houston’s First Baptist. Shannon and Lee help teach high school juniors and seniors, and Shannon leads and teaches in the women’s ministry.

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