Where is God in this?

On June 13, 2024, the lingering smell of a catered lunch made me gag so hard, I almost threw up in the lobby of my OBGYN office.

This was familiar to me; when I was pregnant with my son, Addison, I only threw up a handful of times — but I gagged every single day, multiple times a day, for most of my pregnancy. I could smell colors and all of them made me sick.

On that early June afternoon, I was nearing the finish line of the first trimester of my second pregnancy, and giddy with excitement for my husband to finally be with me for an ultrasound. I spent every OB visit alone during the COVID-19 pandemic (minus a trip to the ER, when I thought my water broke at 34 weeks with Addison but it turns out I just laughed too hard, and of course his birth at the hospital). I would FaceTime to show my husband, Chris, images of the ultrasounds while he sat in the car in the parking lot of the doctor’s office. This time, he’d get to be in the room with me to see our second little one.

I knew something was wrong when the ultrasound technician asked me if I was sure I was 10 weeks pregnant. The next few moments were an agonizing blur — we saw the little bean-shaped image, but where I expected to see wiggling and the rapid blink of a heartbeat, all we saw was stillness.

It took me a minute to realize it was my own voice crying and moaning “no” over and over as the ultrasound technician apologized and went to get my doctor. I remember two things from this moment: first, the painful physical sensation in my chest — it felt like something was cracking and tearing inside me — and second, the bewilderment and despair on Chris’s face.

It was and will forever be one of the worst moments of my life.

We were gently escorted to a private exam room, where I wept and learned about a missed miscarriage. At some point between the 7th and 8th week, the embryo quietly slipped away and my body never got the memo. My doctor and the staff at my OB office were gentle and kind — no doubt well-trained in delivering this kind of devastating news — and I left the office with an appointment the next day for a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure instead of the results of genetic testing we were expecting to do that afternoon.

We returned home to a deficient air conditioner, got Addison (recently turned 3, wild and wonderful, still figuring out how to part ways with his paci — oh, how I yearned to hold and soothe my baby) settled with grandparents, drove to a pharmacy to pick up pre-procedure medications (Mifepristone — a medication necessary to women’s reproductive health) and checked into a hotel near the surgery center since it was 85 degrees in our house.

We spent the night in and out of fitful sleep, accompanied by bouts of crying. We didn’t have words. I remember feeling so foolish — why didn’t my body know I lost the pregnancy? Why did I lose the pregnancy — what did I do wrong? Everything felt like it did when I was pregnant with Addison — which was a normal and healthy experience. I took my prenatal vitamins. I drank water. I exercised. I didn’t have alcohol or caffeine or deli meat or any of the forbidden foods. I’ve never smoked a day in my life. Why was my womb — a vessel of life — now a vessel of death?

I am a walking coffin, I thought, as I took the pill as instructed an hour before I was to report to the surgery center. A few minutes later I felt the familiar cramping sensation I had during my early labor pains with Addison. I was furious at my body for still being nauseous when the smell of hot pavement made me gag as we got in the car to leave.

The staff at the surgery center treated me with compassion. While I was being prepped for the procedure, I remember thinking about how glad I was to be going under anesthesia. I wanted to sleep. I wanted a break from the pain I was feeling.

I woke up with new pain — this time physical, and shuffled out of the recovery room to the car to return home (with a thankfully working air conditioner — somehow Chris managed to orchestrate a home repair amidst his deep shock and grief, while never leaving my side). I was exhausted. I got in bed with a heating pad over my abdomen and stayed there for several days. I oscillated between restless sleep, crying, and frantically combing any resource I could find on the internet, trying to understand what happened. I learned that between 1-5% of all pregnancies end in missed miscarriage. And even after the D&C, I still had some pregnancy symptoms. They decreased, of course, but my body still wasn’t getting the memo. I wasn’t prepared for how bewildering it would be to have a positive pregnancy test during my post-op appointments weeks later.

I think Addison knew something bad happened. Where he is usually bouncing off the walls, he spent a good bit of time snuggled in bed with us in the days immediately after. This was sacred time. I was reminded of a moment just a week before — Addison had been sick, so I slept beside him in our guest bedroom while Chris could get some sleep after being up with him the night before. Before I dozed off, I took a moment to think here I am snuggling with my two babies, blissfully unaware of the second’s departure. Now, here I was with my first baby, a bleeding, broken body, and the yearning for the second child I’d never get to see. Physically and mentally depressed, literally and figuratively gutted.

“Where is God in this?” my counselor asked.

I tipped my head back against the headboard (this was a virtual session, I still couldn’t get out of bed) and stared at the ceiling. I can’t remember if I was crying - I had reached a point where I physically couldn’t produce tears.

Where was God?

The notes on my phone during this time are bleak. At one point I wrote down “I don’t want to hear about how much God loves me while I’m bleeding out.” And honestly, I can’t really remember why I wrote this. When my counselor, who had accompanied me on my own faith deconstruction and reconstruction journey, asked this question, I remember feeling like I wanted to answer “nowhere - there is no place for God in this.” I wanted to rage and scream at the unfairness of pregnancy loss, infertility, and infant loss. I wanted to feel angry instead of bone-deep despair. I felt (and to an extent, still feel) both of these things.

But it was impossible for me to not see God in other people during this time.

God was in my husband — caring for my shattered physical body and taking lead on the daily necessities of parenting while we both tried to comfort our shattered hearts. This was the first time we experienced a grief this deeply that was uniquely shared between us. God was in our sorrow.

God was in my son — in his copper-red hair and sometimes brown, sometimes green eyes. In his squeaky laugh. In the way he says “milk” with the deepest southern accent I’ve ever heard in my life (sounds like “meeeeeeeeelk”). In the way he says “hiya mama” when he wakes up from his nap.

God was in our families, who searched for ways to ease our pain alongside their own.

God was in our priests — who drove to our house and left a stained-glass cross with an image of a dove on our porch, in remembrance of our loss; who continually checked in on us, and didn’t let Chris be a forgotten mourner; who added us to our cathedral’s prayer list; who checked in with me (and subsequently let me weep) on the first Sunday I returned to church after the loss.

God was in our church community - who read our names as they collectively prayed for those in sorrow, with immediate needs or concerns. God was in the hand-written cards from fellow parishioners.

God was in our friends — specifically: in one who, from hundreds of miles away, sent me a card and necklace in remembrance of the loss (which I rarely take off now - it’s absolutely become a transitional object of my grief) — in one who accompanied me through my PhD program and our early days of new motherhood, who still makes a point to remember my grief — in one who understands my grief monster — in one who I only see a few times a year at conferences, yet feel their love over our phone calls and texts – in our amazing neighbors who brought us flowers and continually show us love – and in one who offered to bring me to her mikvah. There are many more moments like these with our beloved people.

God was in my coworkers and friends — who remembered my due date months later.

God was in strangers on the internet who are united in this shared loss.

God was in the books I read (and in the words I still need to write).

God is with me and the dear friend who experienced a miscarriage shortly after mine.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized God was in all of it — this is the nature of incarnation. This is what it means to contemplate the full humanity of the divine. Jesus wept with us in that hotel room the night before the D&C.

And I believe, truly, God was (and is still) with me in the questions. In the rage. In the despair. In the bewilderment. In the sorrow.

God is with me and all women who have to make devastating decisions amidst a landscape of government interference and cruelty and shame. If there’s anything I learned from this experience, it’s that I don’t believe anyone ever wants to have an abortion. Having an abortion (mine was a missed abortion, same procedure) is horrible. It's brutal. I’ve witnessed how easy it is for people to neglect the humanity of those who are pro-choice, and the ways in which those who claim to be pro-life are no more than pro-birth. I believe women should never abandon or forsake their deeply-held convictions regarding their reproductive care — including making difficult, vulnerable, and necessary decisions; and I also believe the government doesn’t get to have a voice in those convictions. But that’s another post for another time.

And now, God is with me in the loneliness of miscarriage grief.

God was with us during during the holidays, when Chris and I felt a constant undercurrent of sadness that was hard to name or describe.

God was with me on what would have been our due date, when I wrote in my journal:

Today was your due date and I feel empty, somehow both empty and despairing. It’s like I’m hollowed out. I’m a tree felled, cracked open, insides mostly gone, but the muck collecting in the bottom of the hollow place is despair. I know flowers can grow here eventually but today there’s no signs of life.

God is with us as we navigate what we thought our family constellation would look like, and how that’s changed.

God is with me in the barre3 Brookhaven studio and the instructors who have truly helped me get my soul back into my body.

God is with me when my friends remember my grief amidst the loneliness.

Several weeks after the miscarriage, I asked my OB if I could have the copies of the ultrasound. Seeing and having access to the image was really helpful to my grief — yes, this was real, I was real, I was here, this happened, it seemed to say. Months later, I’m in a much better place, even though the grief monster still grabs me by the throat from time to time. I think I’m in a place where I’m grateful for the sadness as another reminder that this was real. I’m grateful for the grief as the pendulum of love. I don’t think I’d be able to access that feeling — that peace — without the presence of God.

And God was absolutely in my counselor when she asked me that question.