Multiple miscarriages turned her life upside down. Here’s how she found peace.
By Anna Kettle
It was December 2017 when my family plans were first turned upside down by a sudden and unexpected miscarriage.
As we left the hospital -- after the scan that had confirmed my worst fears -- I was devastated, and so was my husband Andy. We had just lost our baby, and we spent most of the run up to the holiday season in a fog of sadness, just going through the festive motions and feigning half smiles, but unable to summon any genuine joy.
My son Ben was two and a half at the time and settling into his preschool year and my husband’s new business was thriving. We had just moved to a bigger family home in Liverpool, England, where we live, so it felt like the right time to extend our family.
I never expected a miscarriage to happen to me until it did, even though I knew that it was pretty common. But once I had got past my initial disappointment, I reasoned that I would just take a few months to heal, and then try again.
Five months later, my husband Andy and I got pregnant, and everything felt like it was finally falling into place, but my excitement was quickly shattered again when I suffered a second miscarriage.
The second loss hit me hard. I was not prepared for the conversations with doctors about tests and screenings. Experiencing two losses within a six month period felt so unfair and it left me feeling angry, anxious, and undone. I spent a lot of time in tears.
And I had so many questions whirling in my head. What if something serious was wrong? What if it happened again and again? How many times were we willing to put ourselves through this? Suddenly nothing was certain.
In the months that followed we were advised to take a pause on trying to conceive while we had some tests at the local hospital’s recurrent miscarriage clinic. It was a small gift as it gave us some time to heal.
Then I miscarried a third time.
Miscarriage: Stillness and silence
Not only was it the third miscarriage that tipped us into the category of “unexplained recurrent loss,” but it also came much later in my pregnancy. It was a silent miscarriage, which meant we didn’t have any indication of anything being wrong until we were told that there was no heartbeat during a routine scan.
Nothing. Just stillness and silence.
I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, even though I was looking at the screen with my own eyes. Less than two weeks earlier we had seen our baby with a healthy heartbeat. Everything has been fine, but now we were being ushered into a quiet sideroom by some nurses and offered surgery options.
We were both in total shock and couldn’t quite take it in. How could this be happening to us again? This wasn’t supposed to happen again!
The experience left me completely crushed. We really felt that this pregnancy was going to be okay. We had prayed hard, trusted God, and felt God giving us specific promises about our child. We had also believed medical staff when they said that things looked good this time.
Discovering that they weren’t left us feeling let down by God.
But perhaps what hurt most was the loss of hope for future pregnancies. We were both 39 by then. Time was no longer on our side and our miscarriages remained “unexplained,” which meant no medical answers or possible cure could be offered.
Walking through this season left my husband and I with mixed emotions.
Why was this happening to us? Where was God? Why wasn’t he answering our prayers? Did he care about us at all?
I had no answers. But in the end, what else could I do except cry out to God in my brokenness? So that’s what I did.
I shut my bedroom door and just cried, shouted, and screamed at God. In fact, in the weeks that followed, I did this over and over again.
And do you know what I discovered? That right in the midst of my darkest moments, God was there also, still extending his hope, his peace, and his comfort to me.
Infertility is heartbreaking, but we persevere
Our infertility story is still ongoing, and we have not yet been able to have a second child. There have been hard-earned lessons about holding on to faith.
So here’s the hope that I’m fiercely gripping onto. I can trust my family will be the family that God will design, because my Father God is good and His Word promises me that I can trust Him.
It feels scary to let go of what I can’t control about my life, and to choose to put my trust in God alone, rather than trusting in what I hoped my future family would look like.
For me right now, letting go of control doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly stopped wanting a larger family. But by loosening my tight grip on this desire, I am able to open my hands to different possibilities and to feel more relaxed about how and when that happens.
Recurrent miscarriage is the greatest heartbreak I have ever faced in life, but I know without a doubt that He alone is the only sure hope – and it’s a hope that goes way beyond the grave.
Anna Kettle is a Christian writer, blogger, speaker and an award-winning marketing professional who lives in the beautiful waterfront city of Liverpool, England, with her husband, Andy, and 5-year-old son, Ben. Anna is a recurrent miscarriage warrior, a coffee lover and bookworm, a travel enthusiast, a gatherer of people, and a big believer in the healing power of words. Her first published book, “Sand Between Your Toes: Inspirations for a Slower, Simpler, More Soulful Life,” comes out in Spring 2021 and currently is available for pre-order. Read her blog, Notes on Life, at www.annakettle.com and follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.