What does baby loss mean to me? Exploring key questions for Baby Loss Awareness Week

This week is Baby Loss Awareness Week (#BLAW2018). It’s a time for raising awareness (excuse me while I state the blindingly obvious) but also a time when those who have lost children in pregnancy, through stillbirth or death in infancy (or, indeed, a combination of the three) may be prompted again to think about their experiences. For many, thinking about their loss – or losses – is a regular occurrence. For others the week may be a trigger that brings to the surface decades-old grief that has been pushed away out of sight and out of mind. For some it might be a time when they are forced to relive losses that nobody else knows about and, therefore, nobody can support them with. We don’t necessarily know who around us is living with experience of baby loss, this week and every other week.

For me, my little Lentil is never far from my mind but sometimes I have particular reason to think of him and consider the journey that we’ve been on since he came into our lives. As well as this week being #BLAW2018, last week marked the anniversary of the day we learned I was pregnant – unquestionably one of the happiest and most exciting days of our lives. A day when we celebrated answered prayer. A day when we looked excitedly – and a little nervously – to the future. A day when we had no concept of what was around the corner. And, with that anniversary past, it means the anniversary of the day we learned that our tiny baby had died before we’d had chance to see or feel him move is fast approaching.

The experiences of each person affected by baby loss are different and, however any of us views it, there can be no denying that, for most, it’s a life-changing and hugely-emotional thing to go through. I can only share my experiences while acknowledging that other people’s will be vastly different to mine.

So what do I think when I consider my baby loss? First of all, I ask myself, have I really suffered a loss?

The answer to that might seem obvious; I was pregnant, eagerly expecting a baby, and then I wasn’t. The baby was gone. I’d lost the baby. But then I consider two questions: 1. Was he truly mine to lose? and 2. Have I really lost him? And to me the answers to both questions are clear.

Lentil was never truly mine to lose. Yes, in an earthly sense he was created in my body and half his genes came from me; there’s no argument there. But ultimately he was created by God and he was God’s to do with as he saw fit. We always knew God would only ever loan us a child to care for for a season. We had so wanted that season to be longer that the few weeks we had, and to last long enough to hold our child in our arms, but we knew that God’s plans for Lentil’s life were far greater than ours, and He knew the good that would eventually come from it.

In the Bible, the book of Job sees its title character praise God in the midst of terrible loss and suffering with the words, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21) Job knew that, whatever earthly troubles affected his life, God was in overall control and knew best. And we knew and know the same thing when it comes to God’s decision to call Lentil home to Him before we even had a chance to meet him.

And here we find the answer to the second question, because we have known from the outset that Lentil wasn’t lost, that he hadn’t ceased to exist, that he wasn’t here one minute and gone the next. We knew that God called Lentil home to Him, sparing him the all earthly suffering – the very thing we were experiencing through our miscarriage – so that he might go before us to Heaven. And we have no doubt that one day, when we reach the end of our earthly lives, we will get to meet him.

There will undoubtedly be challenges on the path from here to there – times when we think of what might have been or consider how our lives would be different if Lentil was still here on Earth with us. But we have gained so much from the experiences we have been blessed with through Lentil and the many and varied ways we have seen his life and our story touch so many people’s lives.

In one sense we have lost out on the experiences mums and dads often take for granted – his birth, reaching developmental milestones, his first day at school and all the other things that stick in parents’ minds – but we take immense comfort from knowing that our darling Lentil is safe in the arms of the ever-loving Father who will never stop caring for him.

Sarah Moore is the author of For the Love of Lentil, A journey of longing, loss and abundant grace, which tells the story of her experience of pregnancy and miscarriage. Copies of the book are available here.