42- Remembering Hannah

This is episode 42. Today’s topic is not an easy one to talk about, but it’s important. This is Pregnancy and Infant Loss awareness month.

As many as 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the March of Dimes. Some statistics say that roughly 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in loss. This could include miscarriage in a variety of forms, stillbirth, & infant death.

Out of 4 women close to me, all 4 of us have experienced at least 1 miscarriage. Not all of those were common knowledge. Many women go through this type of loss very privately. My grandmother’s first baby was still born. I don’t know if she had other miscarriages. My sister lost her first baby at 22 weeks, a sweet little girl, our precious Elizabeth Ann. Unfortunately, loss is all too common.

I am not talking about this today to scare you, rather to help you anchor your trust in our Sovereign, wise and good God and to honor the memories of the many little ones lost. I pray it will also help us to be better friends and support to those in our lives who have experienced this type of loss. If that’s you, mama, I’m so sorry for your loss. I pray that as I share my story today and you remember your own little one or ones, that there will be sprinkles of joy mixed in with the sadness.

My little Hannah would have been 5 years old this month, if she had been born around her due date. We lost her too early to know if she was a boy or a girl but for multiple reasons we decided to assume she was a girl and named her Hannah Tulip. One of our other children helped to name her which was really special.

My pregnancy with Hannah was a huge surprise! I think my husband and I walked around in shock for about a week before we told anyone. During that week & the ones following it, our excitement grew and so did our love for that little life that was growing inside of me. We saw God’s fingerprints all over this pregnancy. I had my first prenatal visit with a mid-wife and started considering a homebirth. Then at around 10 weeks my body started miscarrying. We learned from a scan in the OB’s office that we had lost the baby several weeks before. I’m thankful I didn’t know sooner. I chose to let the miscarriage happen naturally so the OB sent us home with warning signs to watch for and instructions of what to do if there were problems. Thankfully, there weren’t.

I cried a lot over the next days and weeks. In the early days I was tempted to accuse God of playing a sick joke on us. We hadn’t asked for that child but we had already grown to love her and then she was ripped from us. I knew that God’s word says he is Sovereign, Wise, and Good but I certainly didn’t feel like that was true. It felt like he was being unloving, even mean. I had to decide if I was going to believe my feelings or if I was going to believe His word. I remembered another verse from the Bible, Jeremiah 17:9 that says, “The heart is deceitful above all things” and I know from experience that’s true. I also knew from experience that God’s character is Good and His word can be trusted. So I chose to believe the truth of his word and prayed that he would bring my feelings in line. I remember laying on the couch on our back balcony and listening over and over to the song by Shane & Shane, Though You Slay Me . One of the lines says, “though you ruin me, still I will worship.” I prayed that would be true of me. In the middle of that song, you hear John Piper preaching on suffering and he says it’s totally meaningful – that through trials and suffering, including loss, God is working in us a peculiar glory. I prayed that I would believe it. Another line in the song references God who is the One who’s all I need. A significant part of my story from a number of years earlier includes learning to understand and believe that very phrase, that Jesus is ALL I need. Did I still believe that? Even now? I prayed that I would. It was a slow process and I had to fight for faith. I’m thankful for people who prayed for me and church family who checked on me & sat with me. And slowly by slowly, the Lord did bring my feelings in line with his word. He reminded me that it’s good to grieve the loss of one we love and that I could grieve with hope. And he showed me His goodness in the middle of the difficulty and pain.

Tears came easily and often during that first year following the loss of Hannah and have gradually come less in subsequent years. God has been so faithful to anchor my heart in His love for me. It was difficult at first but now I like to remember that pregnancy and think about Hannah. One way we remember her every year is with a Christmas ornament that I made for her that first Christmas.

If you are struggling through a season of loss, I encourage you to take your pain and your questions to the Lord. Choose to believe that His word is true and cling to it, like a life line. There are a number of places in the Bible that the writers model this for us. They were dealing with difficult emotions and difficult questions and they took them to the Lord, trusting Him, learning to trust Him. This is called a lament. I have found it helpful to read biblical laments and at times, write my own. Let me read Psalm 13 as we come to a close today:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

You can even turn those last verses into a prayer:

Lord help me trust in your steadfast love. Please teach my heart to rejoice in your salvation. Lord, I don’t feel like singing but help me to remember and know that you are good and that you have dealt bountifully with me.

Fight for faith, mama.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t personally experienced loss, pray for your friend who has. Grieve with her. Don’t be afraid of the tears. Don’t be afraid of silence and not knowing what to say. Your prayers and your presence are more important. You may need the biblical laments to help you process the grief, too. That’s ok.

It is good to grieve those we’ve lost. We live in a fallen world and things are not as they should be. Grieve well and grieve with Hope, my friend. Christ is coming back and one day He will make all things new. Today, allow Him to be your refuge and strength.

Thanks for letting me share my story with you. If you’d like to share yours with me, I’d love to listen.

Show notes:

In this episode, I talk about pregnancy and infant loss and share my own story. As I mention in the podcast, I'm taking the time to address this difficult topic to help us anchor our trust in our Sovereign, wise and good God and to honor the memories of the many little ones lost. I pray it will also help us to be better friends and support to those in our lives who have experienced this type of loss.

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