It was Valentine’s Day. I held my husband’s hand with nervous excitement as we entered the ultrasound room. I had already heard our baby’s heartbeat five weeks earlier, but now, at 13 weeks, we would both get to see our precious child. It took only a few seconds of the ultrasound technician’s silence to confirm my deepest fears. Tears started streaming down my face before she even said anything. And then she said those two dreaded words, “I’m sorry.” I looked at Grant and together we stared at our child, frozen in time. It seemed we had come so far, but this was as far as we would go. As I looked longingly at the sweet frame of our little one whom we would never get to meet on this earth, I found myself praying silently, “Jesus, this is why you came to die. This death. This hurt. This pain. This is why.”
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Castleberry Hearts 
Your story made me cry, but I am always amazed at the bravery of mothers (and fathers) who lose a child. It must have been so painful to experience that loss, and I am truly sorry. My own mom went through a similar ordeal before she had me…and a few years later, two beautiful twin girls. As I child, I always assumed that we had an older brother or sister that we never got to meet, and I felt guilty that the rest of us had been born healthy and happy. But when I talked to my mother later on, she said that the pain and the prayers she embraced after losing that first child motivated her to keep trying, and to hope that God still had many children planned for her life.
Thank you again for your reflection, Grace!