By Danielle Moncrief 
Thinking about my baby boys today, who made their home in my belly for 18 and 20 weeks.
They felt my heart beat thousands of times. They knew who I was.
They were just starting to hear their brother’s and sister’s voices and all their shenanigans.
They were forming their own individual fingerprints, yawning, hiccupping, sucking and swallowing, developing so quickly and moving all around in my belly.
I held them. They were both about the length of my hand.
I looked at them, no movement. Tiny, but fully formed. I saw the umbilical cord attached to their belly buttons, a little face with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, two little ears on the sides of their heads, two arms, two legs, 10 fingers, and 10 tiny toes.
Looking at them gone, I hoped and prayed they knew how much I loved them, that we were so excited to have them, and so sorry that they didn’t make it.
I wondered what they would have looked like as newborn babies.
I was eager to see their eyes open and look at us for the first time.
I still miss the thought of wrapping them up on me and carrying them around the house while they took their morning naps all warm and squishy, with the fresh scent of a newborn baby right under my nose.
I looked forward to creating the bond you develop through nursing, and experiencing all the sights and sounds unique to your newborn.
I pictured the interactions they’d have with their daddy, siblings, grandparents, and cousins as they got older. I wondered what their personalities would have been like. What funny things they would have said and done.
And then you realize all the dreams and longings you had as their mother will not happen anymore. They’re all of a sudden just gone.
The hardest part of pregnancy loss is knowing you won’t be able to experience anything with your baby. Knowing they will be understandably forgotten. No one will get to know them. Nobody saw them, but you. You won’t hear their names called out. People won’t ask you about them. And all those things are okay and expected, but it’s still hard. They will always be on your mind and in your heart. They were as real to you as anyone else you know.
I’m finding even though that emptiness and longing is strongly felt some days, God can heal it, even without what we think would be a happy ending. You see, I never had a rainbow baby after my two losses.
But I have found that God still heals. He heals by providing rest to your soul, comfort, peace, and joy to your heart and mind, just like He does with any devastating thing we live through.
Knowing that His love for you is more than you could ever comprehend receiving from anyone else, and that His character is so honorable and good, you can trust Him with your life and how your life unfolds. He gives us a change in perspective.
He is for you and not against you, when we seek Him with all our strength. He is just and righteous, and is outside of time, so we can know that He holds everything together in one big picture, and understands all the things we don’t, even when His ways aren’t our ways. And that it’s okay to not know why.
God created us to be dependent on Him, and these burdens are what He promises to carry for us. We get to witness His strength pouring in through our weaknesses.
Thinking today of all the mommies who have lost a baby they never got to see or hold or watch grow up. Whose dreams were shattered within a second of not hearing a heartbeat.
I’m praying you remember God has a sovereign plan and a purpose for it all. He sees your hurt, understands it, and is loving you through it. There is hope for the future. But for now, in the middle of our reality and through our pain, we can recognize our need for a Savior and a Heavenly Father who is able to mend the brokenhearted and right every wrong according to His full knowledge and perfect timing. Put ALL of your trust in Him!
Originally published on the author’s Facebook page
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