Pregnancy and infant loss

We pause to remember babies and infants who have not survived, and the parents who mourn them. It’s a pain that, for many, remains like a scab over a raw wound.

For grandmother Elaine, 60 years have passed since her own miscarriage and that has healed the pain. But it hasn’t dimmed her awareness of what it feels like for a mother who has miscarried. “I feel very sad for someone in this situation. It’s like having a person who was alive, now dead.” Unsurprisingly, Elaine tries to encourage younger women going through similar loss. “It comes from knowing what it’s like…. the months of waiting for a child, the anxiousness. I very much wanted my baby, but when the miscarriage happened, I said, ‘God knows, and God has a plan.'” Today, Elaine calls herself a blessed grandmother of five and great-grandmother of eight.

Families share their stories

Elaine’s story of trust is not unlike six stories in the book, My Tears in Your Bottle, published by Bible Society Australia. In it, families generously share with editor Sarah Kindstead their experiences of trauma in pregnancy, childbirth and infant loss. “Sometimes the moments in life that should be the sweetest are actually the hardest. Where can a parent turn to when their whole world is abruptly cloaked in grief?” the book asks.

The intriguing title comes from Psalm 56, verse 8:

    You have kept count of my tossings;
    put my tears in your bottle.
    Are they not in your book?   

The psalmist declares that God knows every tear we’ve cried and keeps watch through our distress. Like the psalmist, we know that God will bring comfort and peace, if we only turn to him.

Pairing heartbreak with healing, each of the six stories in the book is a testament to the power of hope in God and the possibility of peace after overwhelming grief. These stories, and their accompanying biblical psalms, resonate with heartfelt pleas for justice, mercy and peace, and rest on the hope that can only come from God.

Tears in his bottle

The book is available for purchase in-store or online at koorong.com should you or anyone you know need help in similar circumstances.