Navigating Pregnancy Loss & Trying to Conceive: A 5-Day PlanShembull

You don’t have to feel ashamed or embarrassed by your tears and grief. The circumstances surrounding a pregnancy that’s associated with loss can hurt, and you are allowed to weep as you wait for your miracle, even when in the midst of a joyful situation. Yes, pregnancy is life and joy, hope and goodness. But pregnancy after loss is so much more. It’s sorrow and death, fear and uncertainty dancing alongside the joy and anticipation of meeting the little life inside you.

That’s what this is, isn’t it? A delicate dance of not just laughter and joy but grief and tears too, swaying back and forth minute by minute. Some might expect that because you are pregnant again, your grief should take a backseat to your joy. Some days it will—some days the sound of a heartbeat or impact of a little kick will sweep you off your feet. But that’s not always the reality when loss has guided your steps for so long. When you’re carrying a baby after losing one, it will often be grief that takes the lead, the tears from what was and what might not be weeping you off your feet. Some days the two will be perfectly in step. Balanced. Tears in the morning and laughter at night.

In a world that avoids the hard emotions, that sometimes even mocks them—a world that ignores the pain associated with pregnancy after loss—you don’t have to hide your raw emotions, nor do you need to feel embarrassed by them. Even on the days you feel misunderstood or unseen, rest assured that God is close to your hurting heart and crushed spirit and that he’s weeping over the same things you are. What others don’t understand about your pregnancy, God does.

Prayer

Lord, help me to honor both the joy and grief of this pregnancy and remind me that both are accepted by you, even if others dismiss my grief. Thank you for promising to be near when my heart is broken and my spirit is crushed. Amen.