How can I find healing, peace, and joy after a miscarriage? - Podcast Episode 105

Welcome to the GotQuestions podcast. One of the purposes of our podcast is to cover questions that we receive frequently on GotQuestions.

And this is one, I wouldn't say it's all that frequent, but when we are asked it, we're almost always ministering to someone who's going through a very difficult time in their life.

So our topic today is the subject of miscarriage. Many, many couples have dealt with miscarriage, sometimes multiple times, and their heart, their mind always goes to, why would

God allow something like this? Why would God allow me to get pregnant and get so excited about having a baby, only for us to lose it?

So we're gonna be discussing some of these topics today with two authors who've just recently written books on this topic.

So our guest today, we have Abby Wedgeworth, the author of Held, 31 Biblical Reflections on God's Comfort and Care and the

Sorrow of Miscarriage. And then also Eric Shoemaker, the author of Ours, Biblical Comfort for Men, Grieving Miscarriage.

So both of you, welcome to the show today. Thanks, Shay. It's good to be here. Yeah. Thanks for having us.

All right. So Abby, why don't you start us off and just tell our listeners a little bit about your personal experience with miscarriage?

Yeah. So my husband, David, and I had just celebrated the birthday of our first son when we found out unexpectedly that we were pregnant with our second child.

And we heard a heartbeat at our first appointment and we rejoiced. We were kind of overwhelmed initially when we found out we were pregnant just because we hadn't been expecting to be pregnant so soon.

But at my next appointment, so the second appointment that we had after hearing the heartbeat, they struggled to find a heartbeat and yeah,

I won't bore you with the ins and outs of that day or that story, but it was a sad, sad experience of having what was called a miscarriage.

So that baby died in my womb and did not continue to grow.

So my body held the baby for a while as a lifeless form.

And then we ended up using medication to induce the miscarriage after certainty that that baby was no longer living.

And then we had a chemical pregnancy later. So yeah, that is briefly our experience with pregnancy loss.

Yeah. Eric, same question to you. What's your personal experience with miscarriage?

Yeah, my wife, Jenny and I have experienced four miscarriages. And so our first was

Jenny suspected that she might be pregnant and had taken a pregnancy test and found out that she was pregnant.

And then the next day started bleeding. But she ended up going to the doctor just to confirm that she actually had been pregnant and to make sure.

It was fairly uncomplicated, but still a shock to us.

And we would later have three more miscarriages and they were spread out and they were at different lengths of pregnancy.

And so one that was far enough along that Jenny was induced to labor at the hospital.

And that was the only baby out of the four that we were able to hold and to see. And so each has been very unique, a unique set of circumstances and brought different aspects of suffering out for us.

For sure. So Melissa and I, as far as we know, have never experienced a miscarriage.

If it was, it was very, very early, but we have never been able to have children at all.

So obviously not the same thing, but I remember some good friends of ours who thankfully, praise

God, were able to have three kids, but they experienced multiple miscarriages before and even in between the kids.

And we were just talking with them one day and they were like, I think I started with, I can't imagine how painful, difficult that would be.

And they were kind of like, well, at least we've been able to have kids. We can't imagine wanting kids and not be able to have them at all.

And we're like, okay, let's not get into comparing who's hurting the worst, but everything related to fertility and the desire to have kids and not being able, it can be extremely painful and difficult.

So my heart goes out to both of you and your spouses. And I truly, I can't imagine how painful that would be.

And I thank God that we never had that experience because I think never being able to have kids and then to really get our hopes up,

I think that would have been borderline devastating for Melissa and I. So I thank him for that mercy in our infertility journey.

So question for both of you, I can answer, maybe Abby, you go ahead and start again. What are some words of encouragement you'd like to give to someone who's experienced a miscarriage?

I think, yeah, my first, miscarriage is a really unique type of loss because of the hidden nature of what or who has been lost.

And so I think there's this loneliness that accompanies that sort of grief, even within marriages.

When miscarriage is experienced within marriage and you would think that you had someone with whom you could share this loss really intimately, it's just because the baby is not yet visible, at least not beyond an ultrasound.

I think it can be really easy to feel unseen. So I think the first thing

I would encourage someone with is God sees. That he's the God who sees. And that he knows a lot of the details of miscarriage can feel untellable because there's just a lot of, it's really raw.

And it's sometimes, I think what some people would, it would feel grotesque to describe.

And so I think the encouragement that God sees and that he knows that he's with you in the details, the seemingly untellable details of your experience or your trauma,

I think is a great comfort. Secondly, I would say that he is in control. When God sees

Hagar in the wilderness and she names him Elroy, the God that sees, she proclaims that he's not just a

God who sees, who looks upon her, that he's a God who looks after her. And so the second thing I would encourage with is just that God is in control and that he is not merely a distant observer of your sorrow, but that he, especially through the person of Christ, enters into your suffering with you and is at work to glorify himself through it and to work for your good if you love him.

And so he sees and he knows and he's in control. And that, yeah,

I think that would be my primary encouragement to someone who has just endured this loss.

I probably wouldn't speak very much if I was with her. I'd probably be busy helping her, doing her dishes or something.

But if I were given the opportunity to speak, that's probably the two most important things I would say. Excellent. Eric, same question to you.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I want to say, Shea, thank you for sharing you and Melissa's story, just giving us a little insight into your journey in infertility.

Because you're right, all these things that deal with fertility and pregnancy, they can be very, very painful.

And I think about in the garden as the Lord is spelling out the consequences for sin.

And he says, I shall increase your pain in childbearing.

And it's easy for us to think about that in terms of the actual process of laboring and delivering a baby.

But really, I think these topics of infertility and miscarriage really,

I think, give us a glimpse of how pervasive the curse is and the deep pain that the fall has brought into this world.

And even with miscarriage, thinking about how common it is,

I was just thinking the other day, we just couldn't even fathom the number of children that have been miscarried.

And to think about that being an evidence of how broken our world is and how much we need a

Savior to come and make everything new, it's just overwhelming what Christ has done for us.

In terms of what I would say to someone, I would echo everything that Abby said and probably initially not speak very much other than to express my sorrow.

If we had time to have more conversation and they were asking questions, I think one thing that I would say is don't rush your grieving because of the unseen nature of miscarriage.

There may be nobody else in your life that knew about the pregnancy, or there may be a handful of people, maybe there's a whole community of people who know, but none of them experienced this pregnancy as intimately as you did, particularly as a mother and also as a father.

And so you're thinking about it all the time and you're preparing for this child to arrive.

The other people aren't. It's not their constant. And so the loss for other people is grieved quicker than it will be for parents.

And because they haven't seen and felt what we've seen and felt, and they haven't gone through all those indescribables like Abby mentioned, it's easy for us to think they don't know.

And I'm a burden if I keep grieving longer than the initial time

I tell them or longer than a week or whatever time period we set ourselves. But miscarriage, and I think

I would think in some ways for infertility, is it is a manifold loss in the sense that it has so many facets to it.

And our understanding of that grief unfolds over time.

And so we think of miscarriage as this event that happened at this time, but every mother, and I hope many fathers would pay attention, is going to remember the due date.

And most mothers, Jenny and I can think back to, we have children that wouldn't exist if those pregnancies hadn't miscarried and we love those children and we're thankful for them.

But we also know if these children hadn't been miscarried, they would be this age at this time and they'd be doing this at this time.

And this is when high school graduation would be, and this is when college graduation would be. They might be getting married around here and we'd be grandparents.

And so you can't possibly know all of those elements and how they'll impact you when you're whatever age or just having had the miscarriage.

That can only come with that passing of time. And it's right to mourn that miscarriage 25 years later when you understand where your 25 years would have been at 25.

And so don't rush it at all. And I think just to echo

Abby, to know that Jesus really does know our sorrows.

I just think of that on the last interview that I did with you,

Shea, with Elise. We talked about that passage in Hebrews that Jesus had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect so that he could be a faithful, merciful high priest.

And the author of Hebrews points out, it's not just for the atonement of our sins, but so because he was tempted in every way as we were, he can sympathize with our weaknesses.

He entered into the fullness of human nature, except without sin, so that he would know what it was like to live as a human and experience all of that pain and sorrow and know what temptations we faced and he would successfully overcome them on our behalf.

And so the author of Hebrews says, so that he can know how to help us in time of need, we can go boldly to his throne.

Obviously, Jesus was never pregnant. He was a male human being and is a male human being.

But I think that passage can teach us that he definitely experienced situations that were in some ways, essentially the same as what we've walked through in terms of loss and heartbreak.

And so he doesn't just know it in the sense that he's omniscient and he has this intellectual awareness.

He has a very real experiential awareness of what we're feeling and going through to the extent that he can know how to help us.

And so even though he's unseen, just like most of the loss, he's very much present and ready and able to help us.

Yeah. I love that too, Eric, your words of it's right to grieve. And you said it in the context of 25 years later, but I think that's such an important thing to say to someone, especially in this day and age where life in the womb is so often invalidated or dismissed as invaluable or expendable.

I think it's so important. And my doctor did this, praise the Lord, when I was weeping uncontrollably in the ultrasound room, he placed a hand on me and said, don't apologize.

The loss of life is always worth grieving. And I think it seems so elementary because we value life in the womb.

But I think that women, especially this day and age, need to hear this is a loss and it is right to grieve.

You're not being overdramatic. You're not being attention seeking. This is really sad.

And that's why those words you said of I'm sad with you are so important to say. Go ahead,

Eric. I was going to say to Abby's point about living in a day and age where life in the womb is sometimes not considered life or is negated and dismissed, thought lightly of, treated lightly.

One of our experiences after I brought Jenny home from the doctor's office,

I was running to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and got in my car, turned on the radio, and it was

Iowa Public Radio. And they had a state legislator on and he was discussing abortion legislation.

And he was not pro -life. And he was expressing his frustration that pro -life persons would be against this legislation.

And he said, I don't know why this is such a big deal. It's only, you know, it's only, you know, allowing or maintaining the right to get an abortion for up to so many weeks.

So, you know, it's not a big deal because the child's not that far along. Well, the week he named was the week that our pregnancy was at when

Jenny miscarried. And so, here's, you know, a state lawmaker basically saying what just happened to you is not a big deal.

And that's a really hard thing. And we're in an age right now, especially at the very present, where these conversations about what point a pregnancy is at in the context of abortion legislation is very, very front and center in our news cycle.

And that can be very traumatizing to hear. Yeah, no doubt.

Well, Eric, thanks for sharing that. That's, I'm even trying to guess what my emotions would be if I was in your situation.

I'm not sure if I'd be tremendously sad or angry at hearing something like that. But, okay. So, Abby, kind of going back to what you were sharing earlier, what do husbands and other friends and family need to know about helping a woman who has experienced a miscarriage?

Hmm. Man, every experience of miscarriage is so unique, you know, as unique as every miscarried baby is.

And every marriage is unique. So, this is sort of an interesting question. I think for husbands in particular,

I would just encourage them that they can't be all things to their wives. It's a very personal decision to share or not to share.

But I think that, you know, as the church, we are commanded to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

And so, if we make the decision to withhold our tears from the body of Christ, it's difficult for them to fulfill that command with us.

And so, I would encourage people if they're able to welcome community into that experience.

And for husbands in the areas where they feel weak, you know, maybe, and they're probably also grieving, even if it's at a different pace or in a different way than their wife.

But I would encourage them to employ their community to be what they cannot be for their wife.

So, if that's serving her, or if that's talking with her when they feel all talked out, or giving her a break while they're at work and can't be home with the kids or whatever, if they're living children, yeah,

I think I would encourage them to acknowledge their humanity. And then also, I think the other counsel I would give is to grieve with them.

Eric and I have talked about this some, but there seems to be an attitude among men, and this is not every man, this is not every family, but my experience and what

I have observed, and it seems what he has too, is that men seem to generally feel as if they should be the strong one.

And it feels a lot better, I think, as a spouse, at least for me, when someone's in the ditch with me.

And so, I would also say, don't be afraid to climb into the ditch and cry with her, or be sad with her, or need with her.

Yeah, and then I'd also just say, to be honest, if you don't know what you're thinking, just say, I don't know. And if you don't know what you're feeling, just say,

I don't know. I think the honest presence is more important than feigning any sort of strength, or I think it's important to just be authentic.

That's the best thing we can bring to our marriage, is authenticity and presence. Did you say others, or just spouses?

Spouses and, or just maybe say something briefly about non -spouses, like friends and families of a woman who's experienced a miscarriage.

What are some words of advice on what to say, and maybe what not to say? I love this question for friends and family also.

I think in the same way we were just talking about valuing and extending dignity to the unborn.

And one of the things I would urge friends and family is to refrain from any comforting statement that would begin with at least, particularly at least it was early.

We have got to validate life in the womb at every stage. And if we're going to do that to protect life in the womb, we've got to do it to grieve life in the womb.

And so I think to say it was, I don't know if that, we imply things with our statements without meaning to, right?

So at least it was early is, is it less of a baby? I guess that less sad.

Or if we say, this is probably for the best because if the child had disabilities, well then what are we saying about people with varying mental and physical abilities?

That they're not valued, that they wouldn't be loved children. So I think we've got to be careful to hold out hope that is concrete, to not offer empty hope through fluffy falsehoods, like of course there'll be another baby.

Well, that's not a guarantee. So I think I would encourage friends and family, one, to validate loss at every turn, to validate grief at every turn.

This is sad. God is with you on your path out to not rush their grief.

As Eric mentioned, I think we're so well -intentioned, we don't want people to be sad. And so sometimes from a place of compassion, we push them when really we need to lament with them and just say, this is sad.

And God's willing to be with them in their sorrow. And so we as the people of God should be also. Yeah.

So I think those are things to be careful not to say. And to say, I would encourage very little.

Maybe I'm sad with you. And in the places where they ask or leave space to encourage,

I think also if you're going to share scripture or truth about God, which is important, we do need to hear it.

I think the written word can be a really sweet way to do that in cards or because in the same way, we need to be careful not to offer fluffy falsehoods.

I think we also need to be careful not to offer trite platitudes. So heartfelt communication of biblical truths is better than dismissal.

So yeah, I think it's always a good practice to imagine how someone else might be feeling.

But also as you did earlier, Shay, to say, I can't imagine, to not pretend that we are omniscient as God is, or that our experience is exactly the same because we don't know exactly what another person is going through.

But when we say, I can't imagine, it's such a gift because it sort of opens a door. It's hospitable. It allows people to sit down and express what they're feeling.

So I think asking questions is always a good idea. Yeah. I mean,

I really resonate with what you said there. And that even with our journey in infertility, some of the very well -meaning things that were said to us at that time were,

I mean, hurtful. And thankfully now, Wilson, I can look back and even laugh at some of them that like, wow.

But this is something you want to be really careful about because you don't want to miscommunicate and you don't want to sound trite or even share a scripture that is absolutely true and applies to the situation, but is not what the person really needs to hear.

A lesson on God's sovereignty is often not the best timing to go in conjunction with someone who's experienced a miscarriage.

That comes later for sure. So Eric, same question to you.

What do wives and or other friends and family need to know about helping a husband or a father who's just recently experienced a miscarriage?

Yeah. I love that question and I'm glad you asked it. And I think the very first thing

I would say is to encourage them to remember that every child has a mother and a father, which means that both a mother and a father lost a child in a miscarriage.

And obviously the mother experiences both pregnancies.

She is pregnant. He's not pregnant. And technically, her pregnancy has miscarried.

He hasn't, but he still experiences it. And obviously there's much more, it's not just more obvious, but she experiences it in physical ways that he cannot understand.

But it's still his loss and it's their loss together. And and that means that he's experienced a loss and he's suffering.

He will grieve this. I would add to that that fathers will grieve miscarriage.

They may grieve it differently and at a different timetable. For the mother, she learns the baby's no longer alive.

She's experiencing things physically now. Her body's gone through changes to become pregnant. Now it's going through changes to rid itself of the baby.

And it's going through these changes, transitioning back to not being pregnant. And she's also aware immediately that this child inside of her is no longer living or has exited her body.

And that brings an immediate grief, an immediate sense of loss, and a profound understanding,

I think, of what's occurred. And I think, like Abby mentioned, many men and husbands, and this is a perennial issue in the counseling office, is, my husband doesn't understand me, just for normal marital things.

And he's like, I'm trying to help, but she brings up what she's sad about.

And he goes and tries to find a way to fix it. And what she really wants is for him to listen.

And I think it's often he, and sometimes because he has to, he switches into the helper mode in terms of she needs to get to the hospital.

He needs to make sure she's comfortable at home, pick up prescriptions, make sure the kids are fed, if there's other children, all these decisions.

And that's good because someone needs to do those things. But his mind isn't necessarily immediately on that loss.

It's on taking care of his wife and his household. And so for wives, that can be hard because she's wondering, am

I alone in my sadness now? Does my husband not care? Did he not value this pregnancy?

And then I think for husbands, you know, they want to be honest.

And so the wife asks, How are you doing? I don't know. I'm not feeling anything right now, you know, or I'm fine.

And, and he might answer that he's fine because he feels like to admit his own sorrow would be to detract from hers.

Or he might not be feeling anything. And then when things are taken care of and things are settled a bit, he begins to think about what's happened and what he's lost.

And maybe his mind returns to the daydreams he was having of playing football in the front yard with a kid.

And all of a sudden he's grieving and, but his wife seems to be doing better. And so he's wondering, can

I even bring it up now? You know, is it too late? I don't want to make her sad again. And I think also what goes along with that is, because of the reasons already mentioned, how apparent and obvious miscarriage is as something that a woman experiences, we don't hear many men talking about miscarriage.

And in fact, this book, Ours, is the only

Christian resource that we've been able to find for men that are walking through miscarriage.

And so it's just simply not talked about. And in my own experience, you know, I want to apologize to anyone that I've forgotten, but even in returning to church, you know,

Jenny had a group of women around her that were weeping with her and hugging her and sympathizing with her.

And when I walked into church the first Sunday after one of our miscarriages, I had one man who walked up to me and hugged me and he had lost a child within its first year after being born, born with a genetic disorder.

And he wanted to make sure to meet me at the door and give me a hug. But really, I can't recall being hugged by anyone else.

And I can't recall, there may have been a few, but I can't really recall people asking me how

I was doing. If the miscarriage was mentioned to me, it was in the context of how is

Jenny doing. And so a lot of men just have never seen a man talk about it and they don't know how, and they don't know if they're allowed to.

So I think what Abby said about drawing them out with questions, I loved what you said earlier,

Shay, about, you know, in that conversation with that other couple, you know, saying, Hey, let's not get into comparing, you know, suffering isn't a contest and every suffering is valid because it's all part of living in a world under a curse as we wait for our

Redeemer to make all things new. And I think just to remember that, that it's not a contest.

And to say those words, like you said, Shay, I can't imagine. You know, the father can't imagine what the mother's experiencing and the mother can't imagine what the father's experiencing.

And to just say something as simple as, can you tell me what it's like, what you're feeling right now, what you're thinking?

Sometimes those questions might be, what makes you sad? What were you looking forward to that you're sad about now that because it won't be there?

Those are ways to get men talking. And I think I said this when Abby and I were talking about the book on a different podcast.

I've just noticed in my, well, my own personal life with Jenny and I, and then also with many men that I've counseled, men seem really reluctant to, you know, sit down at a table, cross the table with a cup of coffee and look each other in the eye face -to -face and pour their hearts out about how they're feeling.

But you get them side by side, you know, even riding next to his wife in a car where you're looking out the window and not at another person kind of looking into your soul, all of a sudden they're talking, you know, you're on a walk hunting or you're on a drive or you're in the fishing boat and you're not looking at each other.

And all of a sudden you're starting to pour yourself out. And so even to just as much as I think a mother should set up, should have an environment that's comfortable for her to share, find an environment that's comfortable for him to share and make it as non -awkward as possible.

I it's always going to be, but just, just giving consideration to how he communicates and in what environments he communicates best,

I think we'll go a long way. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent points. Both of you maybe for, before we jump into the closing question,

I just want to ask both of you. So Abby, first, what led you to write Held and what's the main, what's the main, if you could summarize it, what's the main message you're trying to communicate to women who've gone through a miscarriage?

Yeah, to be honest, Shay, what led me to write Held was when I experienced pregnancy loss, it was way more sad than I ever imagined it would be.

Cause I felt like mostly I'd heard of miscarriage in a sentence where women go, oh, I lost a baby at this many weeks.

Oh, that's sad. You know, and I, it never occurred to me all that is wrapped up in that experience.

It's a trauma. It's truly a trauma. And I doubted things that I never thought

I would doubt. My physical experience was so difficult.

Again, without going into detail, I was anemic for a long time after our miscarriage.

I was physically weak. And, you know, Eric, I love you that you mentioned that the woman going through the physiological experience of pregnancy and pregnancy loss.

There's, I mean, you go through afterbirth, there's postpartum hormones.

And my, my experience after miscarriage was similar to my postpartum experience after birthing, living babies, there were all those difficult mental health things.

And so what led me to write held was after I started blogging about our experience of pregnancy loss publicly, the women that I was hearing from who felt so lonely, who felt like no one else had been through what they were going through, who felt like anything they were receiving or reading was really fluffy or untrue or unhelpful.

And so I thought, how can we, how can we think about miscarriage biblically?

I wish that I could hold these women's hands through their journey through grief. And so that's what held is held is a companion.

The book is designed to be a companion on a woman's journey through grieving pregnancy loss.

And it does that through tethering her to scripture, inviting her to pray and really taking head on her questions without minimizing the difficulty of what she is experiencing by validating her sadness.

And that is the number one way that I'm like, just pumped up when I hear of people using the book is without a doubt when people give it to other people to care for them.

But the other thing I love to hear is I just nodded as if you had read my mind.

And that's what I love to hear because obviously I didn't, but just for women to feel seen and not by me primarily, but by God in their suffering for them to feel seen and to not feel alone and to clearly perceive his promises and his goodness to them, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

And it walks through Psalm 139 verse by verse. And that's the other thing

I love to hear is that women close that book and open up their Bibles because they learned to treasure God's word as they were reading.

Powerful. And Eric, what about you? What was the main motivation for you in writing ours?

And what's the, maybe the one takeaway that you really want men to take from going through the book?

I felt like the experience of miscarriage was bewildering and lonely.

Like I said, I'd never really heard many men talk about it or many women talk about it. And so there was a lot of time at doctor's offices, at home, being alone.

And, you know, even, you know, Jenny's sleeping or Jenny's, you know, rushed out of the room for emergency surgery or these things where you're left alone and you don't know who you can talk to about these things.

And so I took a similar approach as Abby did. It's a 31 day resource that tethers men to scripture.

And I picked the gospel of Luke. And I did that because I wanted the men who read the book, each chapter is based around a different question.

And I tried to address as many as the questions, as many as I could, of the questions that I experienced or that I heard other men experience.

And we try to answer those questions from the life of Jesus. And what I really most of all is for men who read it to see who

Jesus is and how he suffered and how he viewed and treated sufferers.

And to know that they're not alone in their suffering, that the suffering servant who died for their sins and rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God to prepare a place for them, he is with them and he suffers with them and he loves them deeply.

And he knows what it is to suffer and he's not ashamed to call them brother. And that's what

I hope comes out of this is that long after they finished reading my words, they would stay in God's word.

And, you know, I'm walking through a miscarriage with them from afar on the pages of a book, but I pray that when they put it down, they'll keep walking with Jesus.

Yeah. I just want to thank both of you for listening to God and going through the process of writing these books.

These are topics that a lot of people have dealt with and there's not a whole lot of resources out there, as both of you have said.

So thank you both for going through difficult journeys of producing these books.

I've had the opportunity to recommend them to several friends and acquaintances already, and we'll look forward to continuing to do so.

So this has been the God Questions podcast with Abby Wedgeworth, the author of Held, 31

Biblical Reflections on God's Comfort and Care in the Sorrow of Miscarriage, and with Eric Shoemaker, author of Ours, Biblical Comfort for Men, Grieving Miscarriage.

So again, Abby, Eric, thank you for being on the God Questions podcast today. Yeah, thanks for having us.

It's been a joy, thanks. And thanks for the work you guys are doing at God Questions. Why, thank you.