The first time I’d ever seen a faint second line on a pregnancy test was two years ago. I was crying in my closet, fumbling with my phone to call my gynecologist to ask what was happening to me. Severe anxiety filled my heart and every inch of my body was shaking in fear. Sheer panic. My doctor encouraged me to take a pregnancy test to see if my body still had pregnancy hormones after passing my baby. One solid line and then... an ever so faint second line. Barely recognizable.
I never felt like rejoicing in that faint second line. It confirmed my fears. It was immediate heartache and loss. It brought me to my knees. My face turned ghost white. I’ll never forget images in my mind from that day. The phrase, “You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone” was all too real. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I realized I was no longer pregnant.
My more recent experience with a faint second line was eerily different than the first time. This time instead of immediate sense of confusion, gut-wrenching loss and grief, I felt an odd sense of peace. I felt hopeful. I felt like squealing to the highest frequencies. I felt like running through the streets and telling strangers that we made a baby! That God was working a miracle within me!
I can’t help but compare my two experiences of a faint second line and waiting for that pee stick to determine an outcome. It makes me feel deep empathy for the women who, month after month, have that dreadful two-week-wait after potentially making a baby. (Here’s some verses I cling to in that dreaded two-week-wait)
I ache with her as she, yet again, experiences the excruciating couple of minutes (that seem like forever) that she has to wait until she takes a deep breath and gets her courage to turn that stick over. She feels like her body is broken. Like it’s not doing what she believed it was designed to do. She questions why this God-given desire to bare children is not yet answered, while women all over the world squander their role as mothers neglecting their children. She asks God what to do. She asks the Lord to be near to her in her brokenness. She pleads for a miracle. She takes another test. She is hopeful. One line. One stinkin’ line. Not pregnant. Despair tries to sneak it’s way into her heart but it cannot stay. It has no place there. She is hopeful for next month. She is not alone in her waiting.
I remember feeling like her^ on October 15th this year. I took a pregnancy test and it was negative. I felt discouraged and alone. Then, the icing on top, an hour later I started my period. It was a hard day. October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness day. A day that is very significant to me after walking the road of child loss through miscarriage. Each year, on this day, my newsfeed is flooded with women in a close-knit community sharing their heartfelt attempts to draw awareness to the silent grief that invisible mothers carry each day. It’s a day to honor the families and the sweet babies that were gone too soon. This day is never a lighthearted day for me. I was sitting in my pity party, feeling empty and raw. I had no idea, NO IDEA what God was doing in the midst of my waiting, and in the middle of my suffering.
Fast forward a month or so later as I am sitting in my gynecologist's office. I was answering all of the nurses questions and I had realized something remarkable about God’s timing. The nurse asked me what the first day of my last period was so she could calculate my potential due date… I lit up! “OCTOBER 15th!” Could it be that God knew exactly what the day would mean for me? Is it true that He really holds all things together? Can this really be happening?! Is He restoring life to my womb? Is He redeeming all the ache this day holds for me? This day, for three years, has been so immensely heavy. The Lord is bringing beauty from ashes.
“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
Psalm 139:16
Sister,
I pray that you’d cling to the Lord who hears your cries in your wait. I pray that you’d feel His overwhelming presence in all of the unknown. My heart aches with you in your longing. Please know that you are not alone. You are deeply loved and heard.
With so much love, Cait
