I know firsthand just how vulnerable babes can be. God had a purpose for His Son’s babyhood, just like he has a purpose for my babies. Christ’s purpose was fully revealed in Scripture and carried out in 32 years here on earth (although of course, he rose again). Two of my babies’ purposes were carried out in a much shorter timespan, and they’re mysteries to me. But I trust God with their lives. And in spite of whatever theological hangups people might bring up, I trust God that they are with him.

“I lost a baby once.”

I was sitting in a circle of new friends, gushing over the news that a brand new mom had shared with us. She smiled shyly, looking down at her flat belly: “I waited to announce until we’d gone to our twelve-week appointment,” she said, “Just in case.”

As soon as a member of our circle admitted that she had lost a child once, my eyes shifted straight to her, an intense feeling of camaraderie burgeoning inside of me. But then she shrugged off the pity of the circle and said, “It was super early. I didn’t even really see it as a baby. It was more the idea of a baby.”

And my open mouth clamped shut, the “me too” freezing on my tongue. Because when I’d lost our first baby, he had felt like an idea, yes –a dream deferred, absolutely… but he’d also felt like a baby. A little human being whose heart was silent on the ultrasound when it should’ve been humming like the most beautiful music to a first-time mama’s ears.

I felt like a wuss who’d been heartbroken over a glorified two-months-late period. I didn’t dare speak up. The conversation moved along without me as the tiny crew congratulated the new mama on holding back her news so that she wouldn’t have to “un-tell” it.

How embarrassing.

THE NEWS I NEVER HAD TO UN-TELL

The story of my first miscarriage has already been told.

I told it for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that I had announced my pregnancy pretty broadly. Then my seven-week ultrasound turned into a week-long wait for the missed miscarriage to begin. Three months into my marriage, I suffered the type of miscarriage that only 1% of young mothers will ever face. It was not announced by blood in an ill-fated bathroom trip, but by an awkward ultrasound tech rooting around for a nonexistent little heartbeat.

“Have you had any bleeding?”

“No,” I whispered.

“And you’ve been feeling nausea?”

“All the time.”

My body hadn’t got the message that my baby was no longer growing.

I walked into the imaging center a hopeful first-time-mom and exited a first-time-mom whose idea of motherhood would be forever tainted by the loss of her first child. For me, the positive pregnancy test would never conjure images of 9 months leading to an inevitable birth; for me, ultrasounds would always be the scary precursors to silent funerals bleeding on the bedroom floor; for me, pregnancy would always hold fear.

MOURNING INTO DANCING

Then my boy was born.

My beautiful boy.

Walter Wynn was every healing thing I needed after my miscarriage.

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