Have you ever felt the winds shift in your direction, in your favor and you think, “oh my gosh, it’s finally my turn, my time!”

The winds changed for our family about a month ago when I got my first positive pregnancy test. Rob and I took a selfie with the tests to memorialize this monumentous occasion. We shared the photo with literally every one of our closest friends, with our family. We were greeted with tears, screaming and excitable cursing in absolute gladness and joy. For all our friends know the struggles we’ve faced, and anyone reading this blog or following on social media knows. Infertility. Adoption. Pediatric stroke. Special needs. Brain surgery. Breast cancer. Finally, redemption.

Sixteen years of marriage had never brought us a positive pregnancy test before. And sure, I’d be right at the cusp of 40 (due date February 16) but it seemed this baby was arriving right on time.

We saw the heartbeat. A life being knit and formed.

And then two weeks later, the winds changed.

The heartbeat was gone. The life that was once forming with great anticipation had come to an abrupt stop.

When did you stop growing, little one? When did you enter Heaven? Did you look back and smile at us? When was the decision made that we’d never meet here on earth? (It was made before I ever entered this earth).

Gasp. Breathe.

I try hard to catch my breath.

Grief.

Unimaginable grief.

The doctor said, “Take your time,” as he left the room.

Our little selfie with our positive pregnancy sticks will be something we keep close to our hearts, and our friends and family will keep that moment of hope tucked inside their chest too. It was a moment we all collectively celebrated and I will hold dear the celebrations that were lavished onto Rob and I, no matter how short the duration ended up being.

Do you know that song from Hamilton, when Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza have to go through the unimaginable?

There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down.

If you see him in the street, walking by her side
Talking by her side, have pity.
They are trying to do the unimaginable.

Many things in our life have been unimaginable and because of that we stopped asking why a long time ago, but this surely does beg that question. The grief is layered. A miscarriage after so much struggle. So much suffering. So many tears. Our tattered threads of hope to achieve a pregnancy disintegrated with every passing year. I thought, this is our chance! It felt like a last chance.

The Lord is not cruel. He is redemptive. I believed in my heart and soul this was one of the ways he was redeeming parts of our story. I believed this was our wind shift. But the winds shifted again too quickly and our sails were not prepared.

Shipwrecked. Again.

I always said I’d rather never be pregnant than go through a miscarriage because I didn’t think I’d have it in me to go through it. Yet here we are, faced with another 2 Corinthians situation.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”
– 2 Corinthians 4:8-9