4 things early pregnancy taught me
Deeper awareness of my need
“His grace is sufficient for me, His power really is made perfect in my weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
One thing I know for sure is that I have never felt my need for God’s help more acutely than during pregnancy after loss.
After four consecutive losses, I know that my broken, ageing body simply won’t carry a baby to full term easily, and it has already failed me in this area many times before.
Of course, I still believe in doing all I can and that means taking all of the medication and hormone supplements I’ve been prescribed, cutting out caffeine, eating well and getting my 5-a-day, resting plenty, and cutting out all sources of stress as far as I am able to.
But even so, I know that all my best efforts may still not be enough and so I need God’s grace in such a tangible way.
The daily, sometimes hourly, fear and anxiety I can feel about history repeating itself again in every pregnancy, is almost unbearable at times. But it’s also teaching me to get on my knees daily, in a way I’ve never needed to before.
I find myself continually acknowledge my weakness and my lack and my desperate need for Him to carry me through this, and to do for me what I simply cannot do for myself.
2. Greater dependence day by day
“Give us today, the food we need” (Matthew 6:11)
When I find myself living in the uncomfortable spaces and waiting places of pregnancy after loss - between hospital waiting rooms, and early pregnancy assessment units, and under scanner machines - I am reminded of how important it is to learn to live moment to moment, and day by day.
The truth is that I simply don’t know what tomorrow might bring, and all I can do is choose to keep focusing on what’s right in front of me, in the here and now of today. All I can do is keep trusting God to meet me where I am and to keep providing for all my physical and emotional needs.
Just like the Israelites learned to rely on God’s provision of manna to feed them day by day in the desert, His provision of a pillar of cloud by day to shelter them, and a pillar of fire by night to light their way, so to do I too find myself forced to depend on God’s provision, day by day, and sometimes even hour by hour, or moment by moment.
I don’t know where this journey will take me or how it will all end, so I can’t think about painting nurseries or planning baby showers or birthing plans nine months ahead, but I can focus on the knowledge that His presence goes with me day by day, and He promises to provide all that I need.
3. Stronger assurance of God’s goodness
‘Surely His goodness and love will pursue me, all the days of my life’ (Psalm 23:6)
Don’t you love this idea of God pursuing us with his love and his goodness… actively, intentionally, fiercely, wholeheartedly… ?
I really want to be someone who knows God’s goodness in my life, and by that I mean that I want to be someone who really believes that God is good, no matter what my circumstances are, because I know that this is the kind of faith I need.
Too often ‘knowing God’s goodness’ has just become ‘christianese’ shorthand for expecting life to always work out and to go exactly to (our) plan. And if I’m honest, I know that I have sometimes had a tendency to measure God’s goodness according to my circumstances too.
So when life is good, then by extension that means God is being good to me. But I have lived in a different, more complex story for long enough now, to know that this isn’t the way that life always unfolds.
It can be really easy to think of Jesus as a sort of spiritual Santa Claus and to believe that if we only do the right things, that God will bless us…. which when you think about it, is really not so different to learning that if you’re well behaved, you’ll get all the toys on your Christmas wish list…
But that is clearly not how a life of faith works at all. If it was, then there wouldn’t be so many verses about suffering in the Bible or so many examples of christians with difficult situations in their own lives.
The Bible says that God’s love for, and goodness to us, is sure and steadfast. It doesn’t come and go, and it’s not dependent on our behaviour or performance at all. In James 1:17, it gets put like this:
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
So these day, when I say that I want to know more of God’s goodness what I really mean is that I actually want to know God more. I want to know a greater confidence in God’s unchanging goodness and love for me.
I find myself hungry for the Giver, and not just seeking the good gifts that He can give. Because I know that it is only He that will satisfy my soul. Because the truth is that even the very best gifts that we can receive here on earth are flawed and imperfect and come with complications and challenges too. Even motherhood, which is one of the greatest and most joyful gifts I have known in my life, still comes with it’s many difficulties and challenges too.
And so, whatever circumstances may be ahead of me in my motherhood journey, I know that I need a greater revelation of the unchanging goodness of God.
4. Less focus upon outcomes
‘For I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ (Jeremiah 29:11)
One of the hardest things about being on a miscarriage or infertility journey is that everyone and everything around you is so fixated upon a specific outcome - all the prayers, advice books, support of friends, medical treatment and care - it’s all focused on helping you to achieve a successful pregnancy.
But what if that outcome doesn’t come to pass? What pregnancy loss forces you to realise is that you’re not really in control of half as much of this process as you think you are at all. Of course you do all that you possibly can to stay healthy, and to give your pregnancy the best possible chance that you can.
But even so, things don’t always go to plan, and often there’s no reason or possible explanation that can be offered for this at all. And this also means that there’s no precaution or preventative action you can take to stop it happening again…
And so, slowly, very slowly, there’s this process of releasing the outcome which happens in recurrent pregnancy loss. It’s gradual, incremental, and almost undetectable at first. But over time there’s this slow unfurling of hands which are wrapped tightly around a longed-for outcome, and a learning to hold things more lightly… a sense of surrendering to the knowledge that what will be, will be.
And this is ultimately a good thing. Surrender is not the same as giving up in hopeless resignation. But there’s a letting go of the outcome that is healthy, because palms that are still clenched tight and holding onto what they long for, aren’t open or able to receive anything new at all.
That’s why can keep trusting that God has a good plan me and my family, no matter what.