To My Child Whose Name Will No Longer Be Miscarriage

Our Keepsake Journal is Here! 🎉

I call you miscarriage when I talk about you, but why? You had a heartbeat. You lived inside of me. We celebrated and jumped for joy the day we found out about you! After over four years of negative pregnancy tests, you were the first positive pregnancy test I had ever seen! It was such a beautiful moment in my life, and yet, I label you as a painful miscarriage.

The minute I saw spotting, I knew you were gone. I was devastated. I cried all day. Tears that no one saw. Tears that I choked back into my throat until it hurt while I launched rockets with my students. Throughout the school day, the tears only got harder to hold in and the bleeding only got heavier.

After my last class, I raced out of the building. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. I began to sob uncontrollably. I cried so hard that I couldn’t see the road but somehow the car drove to the doctor’s office. It was a pointless appointment. I knew in my heart that you were gone. Yet strangely I hoped and kept going through the all-too-familiar “but-maybes”:

“But maybe this spotting is normal.”

“But maybe this spotting isn’t my period but just the result of implantation.”

I couldn’t stop crying. As the doctor did the ultrasound and found no heartbeat, I wanted to vomit.

“Maybe it’s just too early.” she says. “Go home. Get rest and if the bleeding and the cramping gets worse, go to the emergency room.”

Sure enough the bleeding got heavier. The cramping was excruciating. I never knew I had so many tears. I never knew that my heart could hurt so deeply. Huge clots came out. This can’t be happening. My husband raced me to the ER just for them to tell me something I already knew. You were gone.

It was after midnight before we got home. I didn’t want to sleep, because I didn’t want to wake up and be hit with the reality of losing you. When my eyes opened in the morning, my heart sank. It wasn’t a dream. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to get out of bed…ever! But I had to.

Like a zombie, I got up, drove to school and went about my day…launching rockets again. It was like nothing ever happened. For everyone else, it was just another day. But for me, it was the day that I lost you. It was the day that I reached a new level of failure. I was no longer the woman who couldn’t get pregnant. Now I was the woman who couldn’t take care of her baby well enough to stay pregnant. I hated myself even more than I already did. I fell into a deep depression—worse than I had ever known.

I felt guilty. I felt full of shame. What could I have done differently to care for you? How could I have protected you better? I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t name you. I’m sorry that I failed you.

All joy was gone…all hope was lost…or at least that’s what I thought.

Fast forward seven years…while cleaning out the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I discovered four pregnancy tests and I cried.

I cried tears of joy because I now had three miracle children. I cried tears of sadness because I thought of you. I started questioning God again about losing you, and He showed me just how important you were in my journey. You were a symbol of hope. In the midst of all of my disappointments…all of my negative pregnancy tests…all of my sadness, you showed me that my body was actually capable of getting pregnant. At that moment, I started to see you very differently. You were not just a miscarriage. You were not just a tragedy or an awful experience I went through. You were a miracle.

And then it hit me. You were my first baby. You were my first daughter. (I just know it!) I have been blessed with not just three kids, but four!

The day I acknowledged you as one of my children, a wave of healing came over my heart. A wound that had been unknowingly open for so many years was finally closed, and I want to thank you. Thank you for bringing me hope when I had no hope. Thank you for allowing me to be your mom—even if it was only for a little while. Thank you that I can now smile when I think of you. And as I’m dancing with your little sister here on earth, I can celebrate that you are dancing in Heaven with Jesus. I can’t wait to meet you someday…Marion Hope Leeb.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now

So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Her View Shop

infant loss day misscarriage

Christine Leeb

Christine Leeb--Speaker and Christian Family Coach specializing in Parenting and Child Discipline. Founder of Real Life Families--a non-profit organization building better families through free classes and resources. Mother to three awesome (and exhausting) children from whom she shamefully hides brownies. Wife to one patient (and polar-opposite) husband with whom she constantly quotes "Friends". www.RealLifeFamilies.org

My Baby Was Stillborn, But Still Born

In: Child Loss, Grief

My baby was stillborn, but still born. In a cool white hospital room where so many had been born before. My body trembled and shook as his body worked its way out of my womb and into the hands of a doctor. He was void of breath, of sound, of movement, but he was still born. My baby was stillborn, but still lived. In the darkness of my womb. The outline of his body was visible against the darkness of the screen, his presence undeniable. The sound of his heartbeat drowned out the sound of mine as I watched his...

Keep Reading

I Am Not My Child’s Death

In: Cancer, Child Loss, Faith, Grief

We are NOT what has happened to us or what this world says we are. That is not what defines us. While we are grieving parents, that is not what our whole story has to be about. Although, at times, we feel that our story is over. We ask, how do we go on and live full lives without our sweet Sophie with us? I’m still not 100 percent sure I know the answer to that. BUT the Lord says I am beloved. I am redeemed and accepted. I am holy and chosen. I am righteous and complete. I am...

Keep Reading

The Hardest Moments After Losing a Child

In: Child Loss, Grief, Motherhood

Within the first three months following the death of my newborn daughter, I participated in one baby shower, attended two first birthday parties, had multiple infants in and around my home, and watched not one, not two, but five of my closest friends take happy, healthy babies home from the hospital. And in the midst of my own life-altering experience, I purchased, wrapped, and mailed a gift to every one of those new babies, because they deserved one. In the days and months after my daughter died, I didn’t run away or hide from babies at all. And this seemed...

Keep Reading

6 Commitments I Made to Myself After Child Loss

In: Child Loss, Grief, Kids, Motherhood

Following the death of our infant daughter, I found myself facing an opportunity to activate the immense power of personal choice. Time and time again. Hour after hour, day after day. It felt as if every moment that passed provided me with a choice: to let the grief consume me, or not. In the midst of the most emotionally complex experience of my life, my ability to survive felt as simple as that. Will grief consume me, or not? Once I began believing that Olivia had lived out her life’s plan completely—that she had come, she had loved, she had...

Keep Reading

To the Moms and Dads Who Suffer Loss: You Are Not Alone

In: Child Loss, Grief, Infertility, Motherhood

You are walking the hardest path anyone will ever walk—living this life without your children. Your losses have come in many shapes and sizes. You’ve lost tiny heartbeats early in the womb. You’ve screamed and sobbed through labor to deliver a silent but perfect little bundle. You’ve held a fragile infant for hours, days, weeks, or months, only to give him back to Heaven. You’ve watched your little one grow into a curious toddler and then held her a final time as disease or an accident took her away. You’ve lived a full childhood with your baby and even watched...

Keep Reading

A Letter to My Mama, From Your Baby in Heaven

In: Child Loss, Faith, Grief, Miscarriage

Dear Mama, I know you miss me and wish you could watch me grow up. But instead, you sit in that rocking chair, tears streaming down your face, arms wrapped around the blanket that was supposed to be mine. I see you crying, Mama, wishing you could hold me. Wishing you could look into my eyes. Wishing you could hear me cry or call you “Mama”. I want you to know Jesus rocks me to sleep every night and while He does it, He tells me all about you. I know tulips are your favorite flower and that every spring...

Keep Reading

God Actually Does Give Us More Than We Can Handle

In: Child Loss, Faith, Grief

I used to be someone who said, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” That was before I had faced any hardships in my life. I didn’t know who God truly is. When people are going through something hard and decide to share it, it makes people uncomfortable. It’s hard to watch others who are hurting, and it’s hard not knowing how to help when it’s someone you love. “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle” is a very well-meaning encouragement that I know is meant in love. I’ve said it before! But it’s not really...

Keep Reading

Why I Got a Tattoo With My Teenage Daughters

In: Child Loss, Grown Children, Motherhood, Teen

“We should get a tattoo, Mom.” I laughed. I knew it was just my younger daughter, Sarah’s way of getting herself a tattoo—to go along with her nose ring, and six ear piercings. She didn’t really want me to get one. Did she? “Truth!” My oldest, more conservative daughter, Elle, chimed in. “We should all go.” What? Home from college just five minutes, maybe she was bored. I heard tattoos really hurt and she hates pain, like I do. I glared at my two daughters, now 17 and 19. They can read my mind. I knew it! There was something...

Keep Reading

I’m Not Sure How Long I’ll Need an Antidepressant to Feel Normal…and That’s OK

In: Cancer, Child Loss, Grief, Mental Health

I tried to wean off of Zoloft and couldn’t. And that’s OK. I had never really been aware of the world of antidepressants. My life has been relatively uneventful—with the normal ups and downs that most of us go through. I knew people on medication for depression but never understood. How can you be THAT sad that you can’t just be positive and make the best of your circumstances? How can someone be THAT unhappy ALL the time to need medication? I didn’t get it. I felt bad for people going through it. Then my 2-year-old was diagnosed with Stage...

Keep Reading

To the Young Warriors Fighting Cancer, You Are Superheroes

In: Cancer, Child, Child Loss, Health

Most people never get to meet their heroes. I have, in fact—I have met many heroes. These heroes didn’t set out for greatness; they fell victim to a terrible disease and faced it with courage, might and bravery like I have never seen before. And when we talk about this type of battle, there is no such thing as losing. whether the battle ended in death, life, or debility, each of these heroes defeated. My heroes are the innocent children who battle cancer. I high-fived, hugged, wept over, laughed and played with my heroes for 10 years as a nurse. And you better believe I...

Keep Reading