Redeeming Hope
I concentrated on breathing slowly, trying to ignore my husband’s useless attempts to comfort me as we walked out of the doctor’s office. Alan dug his keys out of his pocket as we approached the car. “At least you weren’t that far along,” he said.
Hugging my purse to my chest, I glared at my husband. Almost five months seemed far enough along to me. I blinked away the stinging in my eyes as I remembered the nurse’s failed attempt to comfort us by saying that “the fetus had stopped developing” so she doubted I was “as far along as my chart indicated.”
The fetus? No. The baby stopped developing. My baby, who was far enough along to have a heartbeat and far enough along to be a loss, was worth grieving.
Alan opened my car door and placed his hand on my shoulder. “It’s not that big of a deal,” he said. “This happens to a lot of people.”
Shrugging away from his touch, I slid into the passenger seat as anger, confusion, and resentment widened the gap between us. Staring out the window in silence didn’t stop my husband from bombarding me with what I now recognize as well-intentioned platitudes used to process his own confusion and grief.
Over the next few weeks, I concealed my feelings behind a lipstick-glossed smile at work. But baby-sightings in-person and on television triggered explosions of grief. At home, I lashed out at my husband.
Eventually, I asked for a divorce.
Alan urged me to give our marriage one more chance, to give our friendship a chance. “Let’s take a vacation,” he said. “If you still want a divorce when we get home, I won’t try to stop you.”
Reluctantly, I agreed and . . . even more reluctantly . . . I had a wonderful time remembering why I had fallen in love with my husband.
After our return, I still struggled to cope with the overwhelming grief. I was planning to ask my husband for a divorce when I found out I was pregnant with Xavier.
Month after month, I enjoyed the wonder of Xavier’s tiny body growing in my womb. I also lived in fear of losing him and felt overcome by guilt for being happy.
I struggled with these feelings until Xavier was in kindergarten, until I began to grieve my loss with an enduring hope for redemption through my personal relationship with Jesus.
Though I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus when I’d lost my first baby, God comforted me through His people. After I surrendered my life to Christ and began seeking Him through the prayerful reading and studying of His Word, I experienced the power of His redeeming hope flowing in and through my life.
God began using my story to help comfort others with the same comfort He used to comfort me, even before I knew He was pursuing me!
One day, my friend called me crying after her miscarriage. I shared my story with her. I assured her that all her feelings were valid and that her baby’s life was valuable, no matter how far along she was in her pregnancy.
I encouraged her with the hope we shared in Christ. Though the pain was heart-wrenchingly real and the grieving process inevitable, we would both see our babies in heaven one day!
That assurance brought me joy and, twenty years later, made me realize that I wanted to give my baby a name, even if no one else thought it was important.
I don’t know if my first baby was a boy or a girl, but I do know that baby is safe in the presence of my loving Savior Jesus. And I am certain that I will be worshiping the Lord alongside my precious baby when I get to heaven.
For this promise, I rejoice!
With that promise in mind, I named my baby Kai, which means “rejoice.”
Losing Kai led to grief that the enemy used in a vain attempt to destroy my marriage. That same grief revealed my desperation for Christ’s redeeming hope. That grief also allows me to comfort other women who have suffered the loss of a child through miscarriage.
I can’t change what happened when I lost Kai, but I can rejoice in the ways God is using our story to point others to His redeeming hope.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4, NIV).
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As I took a break to process my feelings while writing this article, I reached for a box Xavier made when he was in elementary school. He told me the box was meant for me to keep my “treasures safe.” He still doesn’t know that I use his box to keep the gifts I received from friends who comforted me after my miscarriage.
I opened Kai’s Memory Box and pulled out a small plastic angel encased in a clear heart and a smooth white quartz rock with the word “Blessings” inscribed across the flat front surface. Then, I pulled out a silver lapel pin, two tiny feet “the exact size and shape of a 10-week unborn baby’s feet.”
My baby had tiny toes before that day the nurse said, “the fetus had simply stopped developing.” That silver pin was like a hug from God affirming that my loss was significant and real no matter who minimized or dismissed my feelings and my right to grieve.
Today, over twenty-seven years after my miscarriage, I wrote a long-overdue message addressed to my first child: “I love you, Kai Dixon.” As I tucked the love note into Kai’s memory box and closed the lid, I shed tears of grief and rejoiced in the redeeming hope of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Though the pain still feels overwhelming, I’m grateful for every moment of Kai’s life. I may not have had the opportunity to see Kai’s tiny toes, but I know they were as real as the heart that beat for months inside my womb before my little one entered the arms of Jesus in heaven.
These emotions aren’t easy to face. Our story isn’t easy to share. Some people will not feel the same way I did after my miscarriage, and that’s okay. But I’ll keep sharing our story and praying that God will comfort others with the same comfort He used . . . He uses, to comfort me as I lament my loss and rejoice in the assurance of Christ’s redeeming hope.
“Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” (Psalm 107:2–3, NIV)
–Written by Xochitl Dixon. Used by permission from the author.
