I’m getting dressed and it’s starting to feel like fall. I reach for my go-to cozy jeans and pull them on, but they almost don’t zip. I do a sit test and a squat test in the mirror and decide there is no way these are going to work today. I fold them back up tucking them in the drawer with a gentle little goodbye to my favorite jeans. A part of me thinks I won’t see them again for months. A part of me still doesn’t believe.
I look at my belly in the mirror. When I turn sideways, there is the tiniest little bump—the smallest proof of life.
Outside, my son’s little boots crunch on fall leaves. By now, I thought I would have had a massive belly. I would be in maternity pants or just leggings and big sweatshirts. Instead, I’m squeezing into my clothes letting them linger for as long as possible. There was a baby who was here—a baby who I planned to welcome in the fall who won’t ever meet us here.
We walk around the garden, and I pull the final blooms from the beds. It’s almost time to admit to myself that these flowers aren’t blooming anymore, that the frost is finally here. But it’s hard to let go.
After lunch, once my son is asleep, I slip into sweatpants and crash onto the couch. I’m tired. I let my hand rest on my belly. I’m missing my second baby, but right there, there is a little bump and I say a gentle prayer for my third baby. Will you stay awhile? I wonder. Please stay.
Pregnancy after loss feels different. Milestones take on a new meaning. A kiwi-sized baby feels like such an accomplishment while also gripping my mind with fear and hope side by side. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to my naive state in my first pregnancy—everything felt like wonder and joy and the worries were distant and far. This time, the worries are close. They sit beside me each day as unwanted companions and I have to quiet their voices. I have to tell hope to speak up, too—and it’s not easy—hope is hard work.
I go to the gym and I have a little baby bump. I modify my workouts. And still, sometimes I feel like I don’t even believe. It’s hard to explain until you have looked loss up close, known the odds were crazy low, and still found yourself on the wrong side of them.
But isn’t that true of miracles too? That’s what hope whispers if I listen—that miracles still happen too. Maybe this is one.
I wondered if my body was ready to be pregnant again. One doctor smiled and told me, “you’re the perfect age to have a baby.” Another said, “it’s going to be hard. Having another one right after losing one. But I think you can do it. Actually, I want you to do it!”
Sometimes it’s nice when other people believe for us when we feel tentative and unsure.
My fall baby is in heaven. I can’t wait to hold that baby one day. Meanwhile, my body made space for another baby, another story, and said yes—we’re willing to risk it all and surrender all over again.
I lost my baby the week of Easter in 2025. On Good Friday, I miscarried at home and my husband and I cried and prayed on our bathroom tile floors. When I told a friend I was pregnant again, she said, “this feels like springtime.” And she’s right. It does. First, we have to make it through winter, but when the frost starts to disappear and roots whisper about new life in the ground—I’ll be welcoming my Spring baby, whose due date is the week of Easter in 2026.
Two Easters, two babies. One I wait to meet in heaven one day. One I pray to hold in my arms almost exactly one year after our loss. Both are loved. Both are a part of me.
This is our story—carrying grief and joy together, through the seasons, with open hands, letting new life grow quietly within me while I still long for who was lost. This is the tension of loss and new life—I’m learning to carry both.
