Rainbow Babies

There are some things that women just don’t talk about.  For starters — our ages and our weight. 

Well—I’m 47, and depending on how much pasta and pastry I’ve eaten, I’m somewhere between 125-130 pounds.  (Go ahead…insert eye roll here.)

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I want to move on to the next thing that women don’t talk about: babies.  The miscarried ones. 

No one asks.  So I don’t tell.

Annnnd…my fingers just froze on the keyboard.  I actually can’t believe that I’m about to talk about it either.  But I think that it’s time. 

For 26 years, I have carried a child.  Quietly and safely tucked in the womb of my heart. 

And for 26 years, I have carried a loss.  Quietly and cautiously tucked in the womb of my heart. 

And for 26 due dates, D & C anniversaries and Mother’s Days, I have nursed the disappointment of an unfulfilled expectation.     

From baby dolls as a little girl to baby dreams as a young woman, I believed that I was made for motherhood.   

But when a sonogram revealed a little heart no longer beating, it was then that my own stilled within my chest and an ache filled my womb.  I began to swell with grief.  But I never delivered…

…until May 17, 2020…

In what would be the final weeks of this last “trimester,” I started to, after 26 years, finally push out the breech of heartache.  The weight, the pressure, the abnormality, was starting to be too much.  I wish that I could say that I held God’s hand as He coached me through delivery.  But I can’t.  Because I didn’t.  Through angry, breathy tears, I questioned Him.  I accused Him. 

And on Sunday, May 17, 2020, I watched Elevation Church Online.  I listened as Pastor Steven Furtick ministered “Flex Space.”  Isaiah 54:1-4.  Water started to break…  My ears heard the story of God’s promise to the nation of Israel, but my heart heard that maybe, just maybe, this was also His promise to me.   

Isaiah 54

“Sing, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
    than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.
² “Enlarge the place of your tent,
    stretch your tent curtains wide,
    do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
    strengthen your stakes.
³ For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
    your descendants will dispossess nations
    and settle in their desolate cities.

⁴ “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.
    Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
    and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

Labor…pains… 

This umbilical cord of emptiness… this placenta of sorrow…

“What I see as wasted, God sees as a stage.”  Snip.  “Waiting isn’t wasted, it’s flex space.”  Whoosh.  “He fills the spaces we call empty.”  Snip.  “It may take our whole lives before we make sense of certain things.”  Whoosh.

Tears…of new birth.

“And they overcame…by the word of their testimony…”

For more reasons than I can count, this post is hard for me.  It is my baby step of faith.  But if you’re visiting with me here at The RED PRESSpective, then maybe this Labor and Delivery ward/word is as much for you as it is for me.  At least I pray so.

August 22^nd is National Rainbow Babies Day.  It honors those babies born after a miscarriage, stillbirth or passing away of an infant.  I never had biological children; I never birthed a Levi or a Sierra, but on a bed in a Chicago hotel room, I conceived The RED PRESSpective. 

She is my Rainbow Baby. 

But before you congratulate me, just know that this barren woman is not singing yet.  Not really.  I’m trying, but I’m still off-key.  Although it still hurts, I’m starting to learn that God is a family planner.  Perhaps He’s promised a spiritual inheritance for me far beyond any legacy that I could’ve established physically.  Hence, The RED PRESSpective.  My Rainbow Baby.  The rainbow is a sign of promise, and for it to form, light has to shine through water droplets in the air at just the right angle.  Through my tears, the Son is shining.

What’s your rainbow baby? 

On average, it’s believed that approximately 20% of known pregnancies result in miscarriage.  Maybe you’re not in that statistic.  But as women, for 100% of us, we’ve nursed some type of disappointment.  What have you missed? What haven’t you carried to term? 

Is it a dream that you’ve given up on?  Maybe you’ve been abused. Can God use your testimony as a seed for ministry?  Before you were formed in your mother’s womb, God knew…

Rainbow babies signify hope and healing after the storm of loss.  Consider this from How Stuff Works’ “10 Myths About Rainbows”:  “When you’re looking at a rainbow, you’re looking at light that’s reflected by raindrops sitting above the horizon. But your horizon is always different – albeit, sometimes only slightly different – from everyone else’s, and vice versa. To put it a little differently, the center of the rainbow arc you’re seeing sits on an imaginary line stretching from your eye to the sun. Since your eyes and those of someone else’s, even someone next to you, can’t be in the same place in space simultaneously, the two of you can never see the same rainbow.”  Your rainbow, your perspective. 

Congratulations, sis!  You’re pregnant with purpose.  And the weight/wait is worth it! 

PRINCIPLE: “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.  Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”  Psalm 126:5-6