Nathan Theophilus

Sensitive Content Warning: this is the story of our recent miscarriage.

Last month we found out we were pregnant with baby #3! 

We don't have a history of getting pregnant "easily," per se (although I say that recognizing there are MANY, MANY couples who have endured years of waiting to get pregnant - my heart goes out to you if that is your story). 

Before Samara, we felt like the Lord clearly spoke to us and told us it was time to start trusting him with this area of our lives. I thought we would probably be making a pregnancy announcement very soon after that, but it was 10 (sometimes very long) months before we actually conceived.

With Jemima, knowing it had been a long time and an emotionally exhausting process to get pregnant the first time, I think I anticipated it would be similar, but it actually was only 4 months.

And with both girls' pregnancies, I just knew even before I took the tests what the results would be. I physically felt different, and I just had that gut feeling. Also, I think taking pregnancy tests and getting negatives are one of my least favorite things, so I think I waited a full week after I expected my period to test with both of them.

We love our girls, and have always assumed we'd have "children" (note the plural), but we never set an exact number on it (well, to be more precise, I make many statements about the number of kids we'll have: when I'm pregnant, I regularly tell Gabe, "I don't think I will ever want to do this again. This one is the last one." Gabe always says, "We'll see." And once the baby is sleeping more and their personality is coming out, I regularly say, "I could have half a dozen babies if they're all this much fun!" And Gabe still responds with, "We'll see."). Our usual strategy is to just not prevent pregnancy from happening, hoping it will just happen at some point, and then when it hasn't by a certain time, we start being more intentional about it.

Well, it just happened. And I was a bit surprised because it hadn't been the usual long wait.

But the reason I took the test and found out it HAD happened was because something didn't feel right.

I had an afternoon and evening of intense, low abdominal pelvic-type pain. Knowing pregnancy was a possibility, Gabe and I decided to go ahead and get a test and see the result. But I didn't actually think I would be pregnant - I didn't have that gut feeling about it.

So our excitement was painted with a bit of surprise and also a tint of concern.

I talked to my midwife from Jemima's pregnancy the next day, and she suggested an early scan to rule out an ectopic pregnancy situation. I booked the scan for as early as I could, which was still four days away. I continued to have achy pain for two days but hoped for the best (while knowing the statistics, of course: about 25% of pregnancies end in loss) and began to really warm up to the idea of having another baby.

With both Samara and Jemima's pregnancies I'd been aware that I would love grow to love whichever gender the baby turns out to be, but I really had wanted girls both times. The Lord was gracious and that's what I got! But this time, every time I thought of the baby, "she" just didn't seem to fit. I found myself thinking of the baby as "he."

Before I could get in for the scan, though, I started to bleed. At first I hoped it was just spotting - not at all uncommon in early pregnancy - but as the day wore on, I knew the chance of seeing a healthy, albeit young, baby on the screen at the scan was growing smaller all the time.

Sure enough, when we went into the scan, I told the technician up front: "I started bleeding two days ago - I'm pretty sure I know what you are - or, rather, aren't - going to find." And when the fuzzy grey images came up onto the screen, I didn't even need her to tell me that we weren't seeing a baby - there was nothing there.

When I first realized this pregnancy was not going well after I started bleeding, I made a point to lay down and spend time with the Lord while Gabe took the girls for a walk. I wanted to say a few specific things to the baby (trusting that if he was already gone, the Lord would deliver my message!) because I knew I didn't yet have confirmation that the baby was gone, which meant there was a chance he was still with me. I told him, "I love you; I'm proud to be your Mama; You are welcome in our family and in our life, but if the Lord is leading you to be with Him, it's OK. You will be OK and we will be OK. You can go."

And then I told the Lord that it wasn't so much the idea of losing a baby that made me feel anxious and emotional, it was the idea that my baby might feel pain or fear or a sense of aloneness while it died, and I wouldn't be able to hold it or offer it comfort. The Lord gave me a sweet gift: He said, "Dani, I am still forming this baby. You can't touch it or hold it, but I am doing that right now. I'll be with it. It'll carry it from your womb, through the veil that is death, and into eternity. Don't worry. I've got it."

Gabe and I decided to name our baby because names are important to us. Naming our children is one of the great joys of pregnancy for me. I have a document on our google drive where I record unique or cool names I come across, and I love researching a name's meaning, it's popularity (or lack thereof, ideally!), and connecting the name meaning to the significance of that pregnancy or our life circumstances around the baby's birth.  While Gabe and I choose the name, with both Samara and Jemima's names we've felt like the Lord has confirmed our final choice in specific ways during the end of pregnancy.

So we named our baby Nathan Theophilus, and here's why:

Nathan is a Hebrew name, which is in the Aramaic family line. Both our girls have Aramaic names. I wanted this baby to have a name that "fits" with our girls.

Nathan can mean "Gift of God," but perhaps more literally it means "gift" and it comes from the Hebrew verb, "to give." We intentionally chose Nathan rather than Nathaniel because Nathaniel means specifically "Gift of God." While, of course, that is a beautiful meaning and it does apply to our baby, we also wanted to articulate that what God gives to us, we freely want to give back to him. So Nathan is both a gift TO us, and a gift FROM us.

Theophilus means, "Lover of God," "Friend of God," or "Loved by God," (depending on what website you look at!) and it is the name we chose for if Samara's pregnancy had ended up being a boy. Gabe suggested it right after we found out we were pregnant with Samara. While "Theophilus" sounded like a mouthful to me, I absolutely loved the meaning, and I loved the nickname Theo. Obviously, we didn't need it for that pregnancy! But by the time we were pregnant with Jemima, I told Gabe I'd never be able to use Theophilus as a first name because the name Theo had grown in popularity and I have this thing about avoiding trending names... I just want my kids to feel kind of unique. So we nixed it from the name list for Jemima's pregnancy.

But it just seems to fit this baby. If we had given the name Theophilus to a baby we would raise, it would have been a prophetic declaration of who we hope and pray and intend to direct the child to become - someone who loves God and is a friend of God. But to give it to a baby that will only ever experience life in God's presence, who will never realize its heart has become divided in some way and drawn to other things besides God, and who will never face temptations to let his love for the Lord grow cold - man, it just feels right. Our son literally will be loving God every moment of his existence!

I know everyone processes a miscarriage in their own unique way - and there are many, many factors that probably play into that.

For me, with this miscarriage, Gabe and I are struck with how we don't feel a huge sense of loss. Perhaps that is due to already having two busy little girls that continue to need our moment-by-moment care and that just doesn't leave a lot of time for sitting in grief, perhaps it is due to the fact that it was so early, perhaps it is due to knowing the true cost that we experience going through 9 months of pregnancy and the first year of a child's life - worth it, absolutely, but also not something we enter into lightly. We were and are willing to have more children and walk that journey again, but we weren't expecting it to be right now, and we don't feel like we have a right or even a need to try to hold on to grief about this baby not coming into our family here on earth.

Gabe summed it up well one evening while we were talking: he said, "Man, I feel like if God willingly gave us his son, how can I beg to hold on to mine if he asks for it back? Our children are his to begin with, and I want to be willing to be like him and give my most precious thing back to him."

I feel such peace that our baby hasn't missed out on something - he's fully alive (perhaps more fully alive than I am as I write this!) and he's already gained what I can only look forward to having: life in God's actual, face-to-face presence, in a home that was designed and made for him, with people who love God with clarity and nothing to hinder their worship of Him.

Knowing he is there, though, already experiencing what that whole, full, real-life-as-God-intended-it-to-be existence, it does make me long for eternity a bit more poignantly.

I don't assume I'll get to witness his growing up (I assume babies that are miscarried go through some kind of "growing up" process even in heaven), but I know it will be a sweet meeting when I encounter him as the man God designed him to be. And really, what a gift, to have a son that loves the Lord and is fulfilling the purpose he was created for in eternity.