Guest post by Alison Gillaspie
“I am sorry to tell you this, but you’ve lost the baby.”
“You lost the baby a little under two weeks ago.”
“We need to schedule surgery if that is how you want to handle this…”
The words were coming from my doctor’s mouth and all I could do was sit there raw, numb, reliving the range of emotions from a few weeks before.
Six short weeks earlier I’d been sitting in a bathroom stall staring at the stick in my hand, two pink lines staring back at me. Women dream of that moment—the one where they discover they are going to have a baby. I wish I could say I felt elation in that moment, but I was just not ready for a child. What would I tell Eric? We had just gotten married, Eric was in seminary, and our families were hundreds of miles away. How were we ever going to handle this?
Within the next few days I had made a doctor’s appointment, told our families, and cried. A lot. I kept asking, “Why now, God?” All I received in return for my questions was silence. At our first doctor’s visit they told us everything looked good and they would see us in four weeks. When we left, I had finally smiled about the road ahead of us. We could do this. True, we were new to the world of marriage but we could handle it. God was going to take care of us. After all, it was His plan for our lives that mattered most, not our own.
And there we were four weeks later, leaving the doctor’s office with a new-found despair. Why would God give me an unplanned pregnancy, just to yank it away? Why would He ready our hearts for a baby and then make us deal with the grief of miscarriage? My mom flew down to be with us during the surgery. Friends and co-workers were supportive. Through it all, we just had no answers.
After the surgery my mom went home, Eric went back to class, and I returned to work. The days went on, and everything slowly went back to normal. Eric was about to graduate from seminary and we were flying to various churches for interviews. Soon after Eric accepted his job to our first church, I made a shocking discovery. I was pregnant again.
This time was different. There were no tears, just excitement. There was no “What are we going to do now?”, just preparing for the road ahead.
During the months we waited for Carter Mason’s arrival, I received my answer to the questions I had been asking God during the first pregnancy and miscarriage. God knew I needed to rely on Him completely to take care of us, no matter what the challenge. God knew my heart needed to be ready for becoming a mom. Through the loss of one baby, He helped to prepare us for our new little one to arrive. God took a young couple and all of their preconceived notions about life and turned their focus to Him.
God was not silent during those trials, and He is not silent during the rough times we face every day. He was holding us the whole time, ready to show us the road ahead. He continues to hold us close and point us in the right direction, even when we don’t understand where we are going. We now know that we have to trust His direction and believe that His plan for us is perfect—even when it means enduring the dark times to get to the light.
Alison Gillaspie is the owner of Deep Rooted Marketing where she is a marketing virtual assistant and consultant. She loves seeing women succeed in all aspects of life! Alison currently lives in Lexington, KY with her husband and her two sons.
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Wonderful piece. Thank you for sharing. I haven’t experienced the heartache of a miscarriage, but I have dealt with various trials and asking the Lord “Why?” With age and wisdom through many trials, I’ve learned to ask “What?” instead–as in “What do you want me to learn through this situation?” Thanks again and God bless your ministry.