Rhiannon’s Story

My husband Steve and I started our journey for a family in December 2013.  We’d only been married 9 months, but we knew we wanted children (at least 3!) and felt like the timing was right.    I found out I was pregnant only 3 short months later, and we were in happy bliss dreaming of the family we would have.  For a month we called him or her by our funny nickname, made sure I did everything exactly by the book, and eagerly waited for my first appointment.  We never dreamed our journey would be anything but perfect, so the news at my 8 week OB appointment that there was no heartbeat took us by complete devastating surprise.  There is no consolation in knowing how common miscarriage is—all we knew was that our hopes and dreams for our first child, a child we loved, were crushed.

We decided fairly soon after to try again. As heartbreaking as our loss was, we comforted ourselves with statistics and numbers, feeling like, surely it won’t happen again. This time we were scared; all the magic and wonder of pregnancy was gone, and it just felt terrifying.  We nicknamed our second baby but rarely spoke of him or her, just counting the days until my appointment. In July of 2014, at my first OB appointment, we got the sad news that I had again had a miscarriage.

The next few months were bleak. I couldn’t understand why God had spared so many of our friends’ babies but not ours. We loved them both so much, how could this be fair? We both hurt so badly, the word “heartbroken” seems inadequate. Looking back now, I can say I am thankful that we hurt together, and our bond grew stronger. I did a Bible study for women suffering miscarriage because I wanted to understand. I grew up going to church on Sundays, but God was only the God of Sundays in my world; He had no place in my life any other day. My relationship with Him grew in the few years leading up to our losses, but I didn’t know how to wrap my head and heart around what was happening. I wanted to know why, and through my study and prayer, I thought I found His reason. I now know I made the mistake a lot of hurting Christians make—I thought God was teaching me a lesson, and once I learned it I wouldn’t suffer like this again.

In December 2014 I found out I was pregnant for the 3rd time. We spent one very scary month waiting for my OB appointment, and we cried happy tears this time when we heard our baby’s heartbeat. Somehow we made it through the terrifying first trimester, and being left-brained people we again comforted ourselves with statistics that told us this time surely we would have a healthy baby. Our daughter, Violet, was perfect to us. Every ultrasound showed a beautiful bouncing baby, and we hoped and dreamed with complete abandon because we just knew she would be ours to keep.

I’ll never forget September 6th, 2015—I was 35 weeks and 5 days. It was a Sunday, and I was busy decorating and organizing her nursery. It wasn’t unusual for me not to feel her move when I was up and about, so it didn’t occur to me until I was getting in bed that I hadn’t felt her move in a very long time. She was such an active baby in the evenings, but that night no amount of cold drinks, snacks, or lying down would make her move. The OB on call told me to go to the hospital just in case, and I knew in my heart this was bad. I pleaded with her the whole drive to the hospital, please just move … I shoved and poked like I never had before, but I was met with only stillness.

At the hospital, the nurses tried in vain to find her heartbeat, not able to tell me what we all knew because they had to wait for the doctor and an ultrasound. The image of my daughter that night on the ultrasound will haunt me forever on this earth, how still and lifeless she looked, so unlike any time before. And in that moment, it was like the world broke open, like my body would surely shatter from the immense pain I felt. It would be about 36 hours later before we met Violet—she was born on September 8, 2015. Meeting her was both beautiful and horrible, a day we’d dreamed of but never imagined like this.

After that, we just felt lost. I was so angry. When I had the energy, I raged at God and demanded to know why He had done this. Why had He given Steve and me this story, this journey? Why couldn’t we have all our dreams come true, like other people we knew? This isn’t what I wanted; why did we have to suffer so much loss? For the first time in my life, I got really honest with God and asked Him hard questions. Looking back, I’m so thankful for how He used this time in my life. Instead of turning away from Him, He drew me closer by giving me the desire to understand Him better. I realized that my love and knowledge of God had always been based on my feelings about Him. And since He’d generally been “good” to me (i.e. kept me happy), it was easy to believe in His goodness. Even after our miscarriages, I convinced myself He was teaching me to appreciate our future children, so when I was pregnant with Violet, that now seemed like a “good” thing. This was the first time I had to confront His goodness in light of very real and repeated tragedy and pain. I had to dig into His character and know why He is good all the time, even when it doesn’t feel good.

Through that, my relationship with Him grew stronger, and I began to trust that He truly is the Almighty, the One who sees and knows all. I will likely never understand why our journey had to derail from our dreams, but I put that in His hands daily. It isn’t easy, some days I struggle very much with the whys, especially “why is this our life?”  2016 saw me walking through secondary infertility, and trust was a scary word as I continued to defy all statistics. But I know my God loves me, just like He loves the children I will one day meet. And I’m thankful for how He and my babies have shaped me and my husband. Our path has grown our love for each other and has given me compassion for the suffering and a voice for grieving parents. While it hasn’t been all happy these past 3 years, God has taught me joy, and I know these are the good things that come from Him.

– Rhiannon

Hope Mom to Baby Heisenberg, Baby Jesse, and Violet Catherine

We would be honored to share your story as a Hope Mom on our blog! Every Saturday we feature a Hope Mom’s story in order to showcase God’s faithfulness even in the midst of such deep sorrow. If you would like to have your story shared on our blog for this purpose, learn more and submit here:

My husband and I live in the Dallas area with our beautiful adopted daughter Lily and our two very cute and stubborn dogs. We’re also parents to 3 sweet hope babies and a daughter we so hope to meet this side of heaven in June 2017. Our family does not look how we dreamed, but God has blessed us immeasurably through our journey.

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