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Losing a baby is life-altering. It shatters your world. It shatters you. It leaves you in a panic, with so many questions that will never be answered this side of heaven.
Why did this happen?
Did I do something wrong?
Why would God let this happen?
How am I going to get through this?
What do I do now?
I have had to grapple with these questions twice now—after the loss of my twin babies, a beautiful daughter and son, who were born preterm and, two and a half years later, after losing another precious baby at almost 10 weeks. If you are asking yourself some of these questions right now, first I want to say how truly sorry I am. I wish this wasn’t your now. I wish this never happened to you. But please know that you’re not alone—that you’re going to get through this. If I got through it, so will you.
I hope to offer some encouragement to you by sharing some tips that have helped me to survive my tragedies. Really I wish that I could wave a magic wand and take all of your pain away, and take away all of my pain while I’m at it. But I know that’s just wishful thinking. Nothing will take the pain away—it will always be there. But there are some choices that we can make through this midst of our suffering that just maybe will help our broken hearts begin to mend.
How to Survive
1. Don’t ignore the pain
Let yourself feel the pain and experience the grief; letting the grieving process happen is one of the most important things you can do. It’s easy to have the tendency to just want to forget about, pretend like it never happened. Please guard yourself from this. The loss of a baby—no matter how far along—changes you forever. Let it.
As painful as it is, you need to let yourself feel it. Not dwell in it and stay in the deepest parts of your pain, but give yourself permission to feel whatever you’re feeling. The thing about pain is, well, it doesn’t feel good. Just like physical pain tells ours bodies that something is wrong, emotional pain works the same way. If we were to ignore physical pain and pretend like it wasn’t there, we would only be hurting ourselves more. We wouldn’t be tending to the cause of our pain, and whatever was broken in our bodies would never be able to heal.
This analogy holds true for the pain you’re experiencing now. If you stuff it down and ignore it, your broken heart, figurately speaking, will never heal.
2. Ride the waves of grief
After losing my twins someone told me that grief is like an ocean—it comes in waves. I have found this to absolutely be true. The bad news to this is that those waves can come and hit you at moments you’re not expecting it to or in moments that are less than ideal. But the good news is that there are breaks in between the waves. So when the breaks come, don’t let yourself feel guilty for having a couple of minutes or hours where you’re okay. Be kind to yourself, and if you are managing to feel okay in between the waves, let yourself feel okay.
3. Seek out support
This is huge. Don’t try to get through this alone! Reach out to your support system—family and friends whom you feel safe with. Talk to them, share what you’re experiencing. It’s good to talk about it. Many women also find it immensely helpful to connect themselves with others who have gone through loss. If you’re reading this right now, good job! Seeking support to know that you’re not alone is one of the best things you can do.
After losing the twins I felt compelled to read every book I could find about women who had gone through similar experiences. I needed to know that someone else had gone through this and had survived it. Years later, God put it heavily on my heart to write a book of mine to provide hope to others going through the heartbreak of loss. It’s called As I Lay Weeping: Where Sorrow and Suffering Meet Faith and Hope, and I hope you will consider reading it.
In addition to As I Lay Weeping, I also would highly recommend the following books:
I Will Carry You by Angie Smith
And Still She Laughs by Kate Merrick
Holding On to Hope by Nancy Guthrie
It’s Not Supposed to be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst
Seeing a counselor who has experience working with women who have experienced loss can also be hugely helpful. I did this after losing the twins and it helped me to process the experience and have steady support through all of the challenges.
4. Get something for yourself in memoriam of your little one
This has been something very important to me and something that has helped me greatly. I didn’t want myself to keep going through each day like my losses never happened or like my little ones were never here with me. They were here, and they were and are important.
And thus, NatalieAndNoahCo was created. This shop has been instrumental in my healing process and it has been such an honor to help so many other mamas honor and remember their babies; I handmake these baby loss memoriam products with lots and lots of love.
This mini-angel baby below is definitely a shop (and personal) favorite.
Our babies deserve to be remembered, mama, and getting something in memoriam for them brings us so much comfort in return.
5. Focus on getting through just one day a time
Don’t think too far ahead. Today is enough for you to handle. Jesus tell us in Matthew 6:24, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Well, Jesus was right. Life seems so daunting after loss. Focusing on getting through day by day, minute by minute, sometimes second by second, helps us to not become overwhelmed by all the uncertainties and fears that tomorrow brings.
When your future is stolen from you like it is when you lose a baby, it takes time to reorient your mind to what is now. To what your future looks like. So don’t think too much about your future now, about your tomorrow. All you have to do right now is get through this day. Which leads me to my next point…
6. Allow yourself to do what makes you happy
This one can be hard, I know, but it’s important.
Take a walk outside, get your nails done, drink a cup of coffee, call a friend, watch a television show. Like I said before, be kind to yourself. Get through each day as best you can by allowing yourself to do whatever you need to do to do so.
At times, you need a reprieve from the pain. While ignoring the pain as we know is not a good thing, allowing yourself to be distracted for a period of time is more than okay. It’s needed honestly. Think of three things right now that make you happy. Now set your mind to do these things!
7. Remain steadfast in your faith
However you’re feeling towards God or about God is okay. It’s okay to initially be mad at Him and question Him. Express how you’re feeling to Him, He can take it. But please don’t turn away from Him. Hold on to Him for dear life. He will carry you through this.
Believe that God is who He says He is.
Believe that He is good, even when nothing is good around you.
I highly recommend journaling your prayers and feelings to God—that is exactly what I did and it was one of my best outlets through the times immediately following my losses. I would recommend a journal like this that has scriptures at the bottom of each page. This way you can be reminded of the heart and mind of God each time you go to write.
Conclusion
You’re going to get through this. If I got through it, so can you. Losing a baby changes you forever. Let it. Let it change you into a person who, yes, is broken; who, yes, has scars on her heart—but who is also clothed with the strength, perseverance, and faithfulness it takes to get through this. I hope our babies are friends up there in heaven. Hang in there, friend.
If any other survivors reading this have any tips to add, please share them below in the comments.
