Learning to Trust God After Pregnancy Loss

After multiple miscarriages, becoming a mom was all I could think about. Single mindedly. Almost every hour of every day. I desperately wanted a baby. It was heartbreaking to think about the babies we had lost. I was angry that God had not answered my prayers. It was a season when it felt like everyone around me was pregnant and raising families, which magnified the void in the home my husband and I wanted to create.

Before experiencing infertility and pregnancy loss, I can see how my relationship with God was legalistic and transactional. Subconsciously it made sense that if I followed the rules, I would get rewarded. If I was good enough or had enough faith God would answer my prayers the way I requested.

Not only was my heart breaking but my faith was cracking wide open too. 

But then something beautiful happened. The Lord met me with my broken heart and broken faith. He didn’t leave me to fix them myself. There hasn’t been another time in my life where I felt the closeness of God. The near constant thoughts about babies became a running conversation with God and we worked through it together. He put this verse on my heart:

“Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.” Deuteronomy 4:39 NIV

There is one God…and I’m not God.

This was a hard thought to wrestle down. Do I really believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was already more than I deserve? Do I trust God with my life? Do I believe that His plans for me are better than the plan I have for myself? Will I still believe God is good that he loves me if I never become a mom? Can I have a happy, fulfilling life if it doesn’t look like what I had planned for myself? These were the questions that started to fill in the gaps of my sadness, and I wanted my answers to all be yes. I began to pray for God to change my heart.

Slowly but surely my prayers became more trusting and less demanding.

Until another cycle would pass and I would think something along the lines of, “God, I’ve been trusting you with my dreams of being a mom for two whole weeks now. Don’t you think it’s time you give us a baby?” I’m not perfect, and this type of thinking will probably always be my stumbling block, but at least now I can recognize when I’m starting to think I’m deserving more from God.

There was no medical or scientific reason for our miscarriages and fertility issues. We spent a lot of money and time searching for an answer and a solution without success. I’ve had theories but they’ve all been proven to be unfounded over the years, one by one. I doubt we’ll know on this side of heaven. On the other side, we’ll have found the home we’ve been longing for our whole lives; and it won’t matter anymore.

In December of 2015 we had taken fertility treatments as far as we were willing to go. I had given up hope in the dream of carrying a pregnancy to term and having a biological baby when we got pregnant again. Then we had a reassuring ultrasound, another reassuring ultrasound, found out we were having a girl, and now she is a joyful six-year-old.

I want to add a disclaimer here. This story isn’t prescriptive in any way. Everyone’s pregnancy loss and fertility journey is unique. It bothers me when people hear this story and say “See, you just had to stop trying and quit stressing about it,” because that was the low point of my life. Just because I had given up hope doesn’t mean it wasn’t stressful.

God used this difficult season to grow my reliance on Him instead of myself.

Pregnancy after losses was scary. I was always worried that something was wrong or something bad was about to happen. Everything about growing a baby inside my body that I couldn’t see felt out of my control.

Now we are a family of six with four children running around. Parenting is an overwhelming responsibility and it’s easy to feel like we are making a lot of mistakes. Watching them ride bikes and jump on trampolines; knowing I can’t always keep them safe. You name it, it’s a choking hazard. I’ve had to back-slap three of our four and fourth started throwing breath holding tantrums and passing out cold. My husband and I will do the best job parenting we can, but in the end, we’re just humans and can’t control everything. We like to joke that our kids are our “free radicals.”

Praying through my heartbreak and anger with God, taking Deuteronomy 4:39 to heart, and relying on His strength saw me through the saddest part of my life.

Now when I feel overwhelmed, I know that God is in control. I know that He is good and that He is who He says. I also know that He loves my kids even more than I do.

Jessica Haberman is an emergency nurse and mom of four littles. She is married to an entrepreneur which is the source of many adventures. They are growing a small family farm in the Pacific Northwest. Jessica enjoys writing in her free time and blogs about faith, family, food, and the farm. You can find her on the blog or Instagram.

October 15th is pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day, so I have some special episodes about miscarriage and infant loss in the month of October every year. Here are a couple of them:

• Episode 5 (my friend and I both share our story)
• Episode 6 (Empty Arms Support Group).
• Episode 53 (Grieving the Child I Never Knew by Kathe Wunnenberg)
• Episode 104 (Infant Loss)
• Episode 130 (Infertility & Miscarriage)