Feeling Forgotten by God
Lament Series:
Feeling Forgotten by God
Suffering Through Losses
Lead to Finding Hope
BY ALLISON NAYLOR
It’s funny when we decide we want something. It’s like you’ve planned and prepared for so long to not and then the moment you decide you want it you automatically think it will happen. Perhaps it’s our culture or this microwaved life we have been given. This idea that we can google or pin our way through ideas and perfect lives and dreamy vacations and the color of our bedroom in minutes. But what happens when you decide... its time! I’m ready! Let’s do this! And it doesn’t happen?
My husband and I had been married for three years. I remember the conversation leading up to deciding we wanted to have a baby. He was finishing up his second to last semester of grad school and we felt like we were in a good place to bring a little babe into the world. To be honest the first time we got pregnant it didn’t take long. We were as shocked as we were prideful that it didn’t take long. I remember seeing the two lines and just thinking how easy it was. And then a few weeks later there was blood. It was almost like an ice cold reminder that life was way harder than I thought. But my optimism got the best of me and month after month I would remind myself that plenty of women have miscarriages and that we would get pregnant again quickly.
Flash forward one and half years later (yes. you read that right) A very long eighteen months of trying to get pregnant again. Each month anticipating and wondering if it would be the day! The month passed where I should have delivered our first. It felt like a funeral every single day for 31 days straight. And finally eighteen months later, we saw the two lines once again.
Weary from the trials and often feeling forgotten by God it was hard to show any excitement. What if and maybes ran through my head. And then my worst fear happened again. My doctor called and said things didn’t look right. And sure enough, we lost our second baby. The second time I just felt angry.
Bitterness and sadness flooded my very being as I was physically enduring the pain of losing another dream. I remember feeling so forgotten by God and so angry at others. Every time I would go on Instagram or Facebook there would be another baby announcement. Pink and blue balloons flooded by feed and gripped my heart. Something that I felt both so happy for them and yet so sad that we couldn’t hold another one of our babies.
A few months later my dad was in hospice and we had pretty much decided to take it off the table for a while. And then on October 10 he passed and on October 27 we found out we were pregnant for the third time. As I write this post I look over at my nearly five month old baby boy, Rowan August (named after my dad.) Upon finding out we were pregnant the third time my dr literally said, I have no idea why or how this is happening. But I knew. I knew that ultimately it was the Lord. Who had given and taken away. And I knew that my suffering was ultimately for my good and His glory.
And as Roe coos next to me I am once again reminded that even during the months where I felt forgotten and like a women who had a body who kept failing her, that I in fact was seen. And you are seen. Whether you got pregnant again and it was a surprise or you have tried for five years or you keep having failed adoptions. Don’t give up friends. I see your hurt, I see your lost and I stand with you. But more importantly, the Lord does.
…
Five weeks have passed since I first wrote these words above.
Within that time we have suffered our third miscarriage. These babies would have been exactly twelve months apart. A beautiful chaos.
This miscarriage felt different though. Because of the other two losses we were closely monitored and we had already seen the heartbeat. And then we went in for our nine week appointment. As she wiped the wand against my belly she was quiet. Looking at the screen we saw our beautiful little babe had grown but there was no heartbeat. Over the course of the next few hours we called our family and friends (who already knew our previous happy news) and told them our now sad state. They brought food and sent us texts and called and came to see us. We invited people into our mess this time and we felt loved and valued. We also decided this time to have a procedure to remove the baby. I wanted them to test the tissue and find out answers. And we did find out answers. It was a baby girl and she had a rare disorder that caused her life to end early and without any hope of survival. We decided to name her Liv. In some way its more therapeutic that we know her gender. And in other ways it hurts more.
We are hopeful that even with three losses we will have more babies. And even as my incredible doctor pulled me into surgery she whispered that Rowan was my hope. And you see, he is something that I am hopeful in seeing him and that we can indeed have a healthy baby. But he is not my hope. Jesus is our hope. Because even if I can never be pregnant again or have babies of our own we know that Jesus is better.