the spiritual side of pregnancy after loss

Pregnancy after the loss of a baby – following miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death – is a daunting prospect. 

From a distance I used to think “trying again” or “having another baby” must be a happy, hopeful, healing part of parenthood.

(File this away under “Things I Didn’t Really Understand Until They Happened to Me.”)

The truth is that pregnancy after loss is a whiplash of emotions. Every day, every week can feel like an uphill climb. The blissful innocence of preparing to welcome a baby has disappeared.

Instead, you cautiously guard your heart – maybe – and you worry about all the frightening realities in the back of the pregnancy books (the chapters you never bothered to read before).

You know that anything can happen.

I wrote about this truth in our pregnancy after miscarriage. Now that I’m pregnant again after the deaths of our twins, everything feels more intense.

Along the way I have found a few good resources, a handful of places for help on the journey:

• Pregnancy After Loss Support (their online Facebook groups are wonderful, too)
• Still Standing Magazine (a great resource for parents dealing with infertility, miscarriage, neonatal loss, multiple losses, stillbirth, and SIDS)

But the spiritual side of pregnancy after loss? No one says a word about this.

I want this to change.

Pregnancy after loss is a physical, emotional, AND spiritual experience. It’s intense and isolating and overwhelming. It raises all the hard questions about life and death and God.

So here are 5 parts of the spiritual side of pregnancy after loss. Whether you’re a parent on this journey – or a friend or relative trying to understand why your loved one doesn’t seem as happy as you expected in their new pregnancy – I hope this helps you.

1. Pregnancy after loss means there are no guarantees.

You know now that babies can die. This is a terrible truth to learn. You no longer assume anything about how your life or your child’s life will turn out.

Spiritually? The challenge is to trust.

You may be angry at God. You might feel like God has betrayed you. You may not be sure what you believe any more.

It is hard to trust that this journey will end well. But trust is not a one-time decision to be made. You’re learning to believe in your body, your life, and your God in new ways. It’s never easy, but you are not alone.

“It is the Lord who goes before you.
He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you.
Do not fear or be dismayed.”
(Deuteronomy 31:8)

For me, the companionship of God is the only thing I can trust right now. I don’t know what will happen next. I only know that God has been with me in the past, God is here in the present, and God will be with me in the future.

For now, that is enough.

2. Pregnancy after loss brings a daily temptation to despair.

When you know the worst that can happen, it’s hard to stop thinking it could happen again. You’re always holding your breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Despair thrives under perfect conditions like these.

Spiritually? The challenge is to hope.

You may hate well-meaning comments that “everything will turn out right this time.” You might hold off preparing for baby because you don’t want to take apart another nursery. You may delay sharing the news that you’re expecting, because you hate the prospect of turning around to share sad news again.

“For in hope we were saved.
Now hope that is seen is not hope.
For who hopes for what is seen?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
(Romans 8:24-25)

I cannot see what lies ahead, whether our baby will be born safely and come home to live with us. I have to hope in what cannot yet be seen.

But I believe that hope is a gift given to each of us by God, in our own way and time. I know that hope is like a muscle and it strengthens with practice. So I try to stretch and hold it whenever I can.

For now, that is enough.

3. Pregnancy after loss raises conflicts of anger and jealousy.

One strange part of expecting after loss is that you can still envy other pregnant women. Their easy joy, innocent bliss, and assumptions that their baby will simply be born – healthy and alive.

You never get that innocence back, and it’s tempting to stew in anger and jealousy. Why did this have to happen to me?

Spiritually? The challenge is to seek peace.

You may find prayer nearly impossible. You might feel flooded with negativity and worry how your emotions are affecting your baby. You may keep asking why God let this suffering happen.

“Do not worry about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
(Phil 4:6-7)

In the stage of life when many friends are having babies, I often find myself in the middle of conversations about pregnancy and newborns. So I have to learn how to handle the emotional triggers.

Sometimes I pray for God’s help to listen with compassion. Sometimes I remind myself that it’s okay to feel however I’m feeling. Sometimes I simply find a way to step away.

I don’t want to project my story on anyone else’s, but I’m not the same person I used to be. So I try to befriend myself and practice mercy on my own heart in the ways I imagine God does, too.

For now, that is enough.

4. Pregnancy after loss knows you cannot control.

You could not save your last baby. You could not do what you wanted desperately to do: protect the child you loved. You can feel helpless in the face of all you cannot control – which is nearly everything in pregnancy.

Anxiety breeds here.

Spiritually? The challenge is to practice humility.

Today’s parenting culture can lead you to believe everything is up to you: if you make all the best decisions, your child will “turn out right.” But you know the opposite is true.

While this feels frightening, it’s also the beginning of humility. Because we cannot control so much about our lives, we can only serve each other with love.

Remembering how you and your child are held within a wider embrace of God’s love can start to free you from anxiety and the desire to control.

“And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
. . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.”
(Matthew 6: 27, 33)

Whenever I start to worry about what-ifs, I remind myself that I have the choice of where to dwell in my thoughts. Do I want to live in a dark future that has not yet happened? Or do I want to live in the possibility of goodness?

Humility reminds me that my life and my baby’s life are held in the hands of God. I do not need to do everything; I only need to take the small steps I can do to care for both of us.

For now, that is enough.

5. Pregnancy after loss understands the reality of fear.

You’ve dealt with the worst. You can’t shove it away like it never happened. You’re terrified of what might happen next.

Fear can define pregnancy after loss.

Spiritually? The challenge is to choose love.

You may feel chased by fear, running through a thousand scenarios in your head of how everything could go wrong. You might lie awake in the dark crippled by anxiety. You may not believe, deep down, that you will be able to love your baby.

But the nurse who leads our support group for pregnancy after loss says that the decision to try again does not come after “getting over” your grief, but comes from believing you are ready to love again and to love someone new.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
(1 John 4:18)

This Scripture verse used to irk me. Humans can’t be perfect; what’s the point of trying?

Then I came to understand that perfect love cannot be of our own doing. Instead, this is an invitation to let God’s love enter our hearts, to help us do what we fear we cannot do.

Whenever I fear that I cannot carry – or birth, or bring home – this baby, I try to remember that all I have to do is take one step beyond fear. Not ten or twenty. Just one.

Once I get to that place, I can start to love this child with new love.

For now, that is enough.

. . .

What would you add to this list? If you’ve experienced pregnancy after loss, what were your struggles of faith – and how did you cope?