Falling pregnant after two miscarriages

I believe that motherly nurture and affection is a reflection of God’s heart of love for people everywhere. Mothers and fathers at their best express just a tiny fraction of the beautiful, unconditional love that God has for all of his children. As part of his image in me, God gave me a deep desire to be a mother from a young age. When I was at school, my friends would call me ‘Mum’. It was a permanent joke that I would be the first of my friends to have a baby, and at university I was often the person mopping up messes at the end of a night out.

So, after two and a half years of marriage, when I fell pregnant I was overjoyed and filled with deep hope and contentment.

As a teenager, I had been told that I had PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome) and would find it difficult to conceive but God, in his faithfulness, gave us a baby on our first try! He always proves himself faithful. We heard some clear prophetic words about our baby - whose name was Joy. We had reached the 7th week of the pregnancy when I started to bleed heavily late on a Friday night. It was the 3rd March. We prayed, declared and spent time shoulder to shoulder with our church family throughout the weekend, but found out after a scan on the Monday that our baby was gone. I was rooting myself in the Psalms - “From the ends of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in Your tent forever; let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings.” God is close in the midst of the storm. He is closer even than a heartbeat.

I remember feeling such loss and grief that a precious life was gone. And because it was so early on, I couldn’t share the journey with people. Very few people had known that I was pregnant, so how could I explain my joy and share my loss with them? My husband was steadfast and loved me through the grief. He still continues to. A big part of this testimony is how God used something painful to knit our hearts together in a new and deeper way. He redeems everything that is lost - He says in His word, “I will redeem the years that the locusts have eaten”.

Immediately after we lost Joy, I fell pregnant again. This was a wonderful and surprising discovery when we were staying with my mother-in-law but it was harder to rejoice and delight in the early stages of this pregnancy. I again miscarried. I remember watching the first blood dropping, and falling onto my knees. It’s hard to find any other way of explaining the feeling, besides saying that I wanted to scoop our little one up and somehow just keep him or her. It still makes me feel so sad that someone created by the King of Kings was flushed away.

Amidst our pain, God showed me what it is to praise and worship from a place of hardship. Bill Johnson said once that we have a unique opportunity while we’re on earth to offer a sacrifice of worship from a place of pain, since there’ll be no pain in heaven. He met me in worship. His kindness and love endures forever - He has never left me, or my babies - He is forever strong, forever true. He is the healer of my grief and the healer of my body. He is the Creator and what He says stands forever. No other word, no other authority, can stand before or against Him. What a beautiful God! He dwarfed the pain and he took me by the hand and walked with me into wholeness again.

On 29 September 2017, we discovered that we were expecting our third precious baby. We had just moved full time to Cambridge, where my husband left a long career in teaching to work as a Worship Pastor in our wonderful church. We moved with nowhere to live, and God provided three different houses for us at exactly the right time, one even while I was 7 months pregnant! Thank you Jesus. Through the kindness of others, he met all our physical needs. Our baby grew strong - very, very strong!! We prayed over him every night, particularly that he would have 110% physical and mental strength, and when he was eventually born 13 days overdue on 15th June 2018, there were some complications with my labour because he was kicking so hard and moving so much! The doctors just couldn’t understand that his heart rate wasn’t elevated, he was just incredibly strong and active!

After a tricky labour and eventual Caesarean, we welcomed our lovely, lovely boy and named him Gabriel Alexander Ethan, meaning God is my strength, defender of men and firm, enduring strength. He is absolutely gorgeous, full of life and passion and focused determination. He reflects the heart of God in a totally different way from anyone I’ve ever seen before! He's now nearly 9 months old and is crawling, standing, eating loads, clapping and generally finding joy in every part of life :)

God has proven himself faithful to me after heartbreak and hurt. He gifted us with our son; Gabriel is in our care but isn’t “ours”. He belongs to God and he always will. To anyone who is waiting for the arrival of their promised little one, or who has gone through the pain of miscarriage, God is faithful. He heals, He restores and there is always hope.