Encouragement for Pregnancy After Loss
ARTICLE BY DOTTIE SODERSTROM
When you know so intimately what can go wrong, it’s hard to believe everything will be alright.
We were eight weeks pregnant and just one month into the initial coronavirus lockdown when we lost our baby, Isaac Shalom. What I wanted most that isolated Mother’s Day was not to be the woman who’d lost a baby. I never imagined this type of loss would be a part of my story.
As we walked through the miracle of our pregnancy after losing Isaac, it felt impossible to let myself be fully happy while also still honoring the baby that we lost, as though total joy were somehow a betrayal of his brief life. It became a balancing act during that pregnancy after loss to hold both delight and grief in imperfect tension, recognizing the painful truth that someone had to die so that this new life could exist.
Every doctor’s appointment was filled with anxious fidgeting until I heard the heartbeat, and the doctor said that everything was going smoothly. I hesitated to take frequent bump photos and delayed creating a baby registry, fearful that something could still go very, very wrong. I wanted to protect my heart from getting my hopes up, but I realized that in doing so, I also shielded myself from truly celebrating the blessing of this son’s life. It was as though trying to feel something halfway meant not really feeling anything at all.
As the pregnancy progressed, and we moved farther away from the miscarriage, I felt like I embodied my then-two-year-old’s frequent phrase, embarrassed to admit her pain after any injury: “I’m not hurt, but I’m not okay.” Nothing was actively wrong, but I knew I wasn’t falling wholeheartedly into joy over this new life, and I wasn’t sure how to move forward with celebrating life after death, this side of heaven. How could I unconditionally love this little boy with my whole heart while not erasing the brother who came before him? I could not reconcile how to move forward while leaving one child in the past.
Eventually, one strategy that became helpful in merging the pain of the past with the hope of the future was talking with the Lord about the pregnancy loss-related trauma in my body, mind, and heart.
Using tools from a prayer ministry, I asked the Lord to help me see what lies I was believing and how to replace them with His truth. I also asked Him to show me where I was holding onto trauma physiologically and how to release that to Him for healing and freedom. I felt as though He whispered to me, “Stop living in what if and live into what is.” For me, this meant it wasn’t helpful to continually dwell on the past loss, asking why us?, and wondering what could have been, or fixate on the unknown future and what could be; I had to learn how to be present in the moment, grateful every day for the chance to risk loving another little life for my whole life.
After this revelation, joy became easier to fall into, though it wasn’t constant, and gradually that became okay. I accepted the reality that our pregnancy after loss would be bittersweet, and I acknowledged that this rainbow baby neither replaced nor erased Isaac’s life. I slowly came to understand that I could be both grieving on some level and simultaneously over the moon with delight for this new life. It wasn’t either/or.
The pregnancy was still a daily lesson in trusting and surrendering to the One who knows sorrow and grief. Those of us who’ve lost a baby know with certainty that life is fragile, but we can also know the One who holds everything together even when it all falls apart.
Those of us who’ve lost a baby know with certainty that life is fragile, but we can also know the One who holds everything together even when it all falls apart.
I knew that the enemy who “came to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10 NIV) had already stolen so much from us; I didn’t want to let him take my joy, too. I felt that I needed to be diligent in taking my thoughts captive (2 Cor. 10:5 NIV) when I became worried that we might lose this baby, too—when kicks were a tiny bit less active than I expected or when the nausea eased up even the slightest bit. My doctor was understanding and said to call whenever I was concerned, and she never made me feel like I was overreacting. Her reassurance and support were helpful. I was also comforted by reading the familiar words of Psalm 23, knowing more now what it means to be in “the valley of the shadow of death” (KJV). When I became overwhelmingly anxious, the Lord would bring my mind back to a familiar mental picture of walking with Him in the sun beside the quiet streams of that psalm, calm and at peace.
Now that I have that wiggly baby in my arms, I am constantly reminded of how the Lord has provided so much for us after such a devastating storm. While we didn’t see the miracle we initially prayed for, that life would be breathed back into Isaac’s tiny body while we waited all weekend for conclusive news of my hCG levels, what we have now is a delightful baby boy who is a testament to the restoration of hope and a reminder of how faithful the Lord is to work all things together for good (Romans 8:28 NIV), even when the path doesn’t look like we think it should or hoped it would.
MEET THE AUTHOR
DOTTIE Soderstrom
Dottie Soderstrom holds a PhD in English from Auburn University. She lives in Marion, Indiana with her husband and children where they serve and minister at Indiana Wesleyan University and Kingdom Life Church. She can be found on Instagram @dotterstrom.
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