This was the fifth time I’d seen those two pink lines letting me know that a baby was on the way, but I only had one child to show for it, so I’d learned to damper my happiness and excitement. Each miscarriage brought its own unique flavor—one was marked by anxiety, another anger, deep sadness, and then apathy. I’d learned not to get too close to a pregnancy, but this time I leaned into it in a way I hadn’t before. There was a tender and growing elation, and I felt immediate love and gratitude.

Sure, there was no telling what the outcome would be, but this felt every bit a miracle. We announced our baby-on-the-way to close friends and family that very night. No one, least of all us, was expecting this surprise!

I dusted off my mental list of baby names while I did dinner dishes: long-time names that never left my list, names I’d outgrown and wanted to drop, and new names I’ve come to love. Would the first and middle name flow? Should it match my son’s name, or is that too cheesy? What name would my husband want? It felt good to dream of the possibilities.

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The next day, I even dared to think pink and took a detour through the baby section while grocery shopping to look at baby girl outfits. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years . . . I bought baby clothes. This was going to be an August baby, so the winter outfits wouldn’t do, but a flowery pink onesie with matching pants would be perfect. I put it in my cart and proudly displayed it to my husband when I got home, and he kissed the top of my head.

I carried this magical little secret all day, letting it consume my thoughts and cause a smile no one else understood. Everything changed the next morning. Those two pink lines turned red, and that little baby I was so excited for wasn’t coming anymore.

I told my husband, and it must not have registered because he walked away, and then a few minutes later came back to kiss the top of my head again and say sorry. We called both sets of parents and told them to tell our siblings so we wouldn’t have to share sad news again and again. And then I moped.

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t in the depths of despair. It didn’t feel like a betrayal from the universe as it had in the past. But there was something else under all of this. Thankfulness perhaps? And under that, maybe a little bit of hope? Gladness that this short, short pregnancy was marked by love and not fear?

That had to be it. Once I said those words aloud, it embodied what I was feeling—the blues that follow the end of a big event you’d looked forward to while simultaneously being glad said event happened at all.

To be honest, I’d given up on having another baby. We had our four-year-old who felt miracle enough with all the tests and treatments we went through to get him. Then as we were about to try again, COVID shut the world down and all the fertility clinics with it. A baby would have to be a sheer act of God at this point, and when it didn’t happen, I accepted that with an appreciation for what I had and moved forward. But then this happened.

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I never thought I’d get a surprise pregnancy test, when you feel a few symptoms coming on and you think you might be late and then remember a spare test hanging out in the back cabinet, so you take it just in case and it turns out positive. I got to feel that bubbly giddiness that comes with unexpected happiness, a true surprise in every sense. Something I’d always wanted—a surprise, untimed, and unmedicated pregnancy—and been given with this little one.

The next miracle . . . I wasn’t anxious. God gave me the strength to love this baby from the moment I knew it was there. No moment of this pregnancy was lost to the preoccupation of loss. That innocent joy I felt with my very first pregnancy and subsequent loss was something else I thought I’d never get again, and yet I got it.

And then, little baby, even though you left too soon—the shortest of all my pregnancies—you left something behind. You left hope. Hope that this might happen again, hope that God has good things planned that I’m not aware of. Hope that there will be room for another pregnancy, a pregnancy that won’t be wracked by fear, another baby we get to bring home because the world is full of unexpected wonders we can’t fully grasp.

So, little one, I’m sad I lost you but thankful I had you. Your tiny life was full of hope and happiness.