Watchful Waiting
Advent is a time rich in metaphors of motherhood as we watch and await the birth of Christ. Especially for those of us with young families, the season is filled with anticipation, tradition, and memory-making. During Advent, we honor Mary’s acceptance of motherhood—her courageous yes to God, despite so much uncertainty.
A couple weeks ago, I was invited to speak on my high school’s podcast to reflect on motherhood and Advent. At the time we recorded, I believed I was pregnant. My first ultrasound was scheduled for two days later. My husband and I planned to share the news with our extended family and friends at Thanksgiving that we were expecting our third child. I didn’t expect the midwife to tell me that I had miscarried.
The grainy black-and-white image showed an empty yolk sac, five weeks along. There was no embryo. I learned there in the office that I’d had a “missed miscarriage,” so I had not yet begun bleeding. I found myself in the period of “watchful waiting,” the medical term for observing whether the pregnancy would pass naturally or if I would need intervention.
So I began Advent waiting—anxiously, watchfully—not with the yes I thought I would share with Mary, but for the no of a passing pregnancy.
Grief came in different shades. What could I have done differently? I’d had two healthy pregnancies. I’d been doing all the things I was supposed to do. I’m not, as Elizabeth was, of an advanced maternal age. I felt betrayed. My body was giving me familiar signals that I was pregnant—nausea, fatigue, hunger, night sweats, mood swings—but the ultrasound showed that I wasn’t. Could I trust my own body? Even more than self-blame and confusion, I’d felt so confident that I was ready for a third child, that I’d planned conception for the right time for me and our family.
Miscarriage is humbling. We relinquish control and say goodbye to a future we had envisioned for ourselves. We’re forced to revise well-laid plans and question how much we can plan at all. What yes could God be asking of me?
While I waited, I reread one of my favorite anthologies, the first book I picked up after the birth of my older daughter: Home: 100 Poems, edited by Christian Wiman. I recalled the profound proximity I felt in those early days to life and death, to the physical miracle of creation. There’s an excerpt in Home from Herman Hesse’s Wandering: Notes and Sketches that struck me anew. The longing for home, he writes, is a longing for the mother. “Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.”
As I worried about not passing the pregnancy naturally before my next follow-up appointment, Hesse’s lines offered me a new perspective. I could set aside the urge to move past this limbo. Instead, I could choose to be grateful for this time. These were my last days as both home and grave to this unborn child.
When I finally did begin to bleed, the morning of my follow-up, I was surprised by how much miscarriage mirrored childbirth—the checking and counting, the pains in the middle of the night, the hormones. I even used extra postpartum pads I’d saved from after my younger daughter’s birth.
I felt I was experiencing the inverse of Advent.
During this time, I’ve been surrounded by love and support from family and friends. I’m so grateful I haven’t felt alone. I knew intellectually that miscarriage is very common, but that fact has become personal in the stories and gentle kindness others have shared with me. One in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage, a truth reflected in the experiences of the women in my immediate and extended family. Life and death coexist.
A friend who also recently experienced her first miscarriage has checked on me regularly, even calling late one night when she knew I was suffering. Those moments have been such a gift. We commiserated over symptoms and the lack of control we have over our bodies. It’s terrifying, I said, but this lack of control can also bring us peace. Miscarriage, pregnancy—neither is in our hands alone.
Motherhood creates a beautiful circle of dependency. The fetus and then the infant is totally dependent on the mother, and in turn, the mother leans on others (though as a society we could certainly support mothers better). Even through my loss, or perhaps because of it, I continued to participate in that circle of dependency.
I realized from that conversation with my friend that I do share a yes with Mary: to surrender.
I thought I’d already learned from two pregnancies that I’m not in control of my body, spiritually or physically. But I live in the twenty-first century. I live by schedules and to-do lists, goals and calendars. I love to believe I’m in control. I needed the reminder that the circle of dependency begins with God.
To a modern ear, surrender sounds passive. “Let it be done to me according to your word.” But this Advent has shown me the opposite is true. There is great strength in surrender. It’s a choice. And there is great work in what is then asked of us.
This is the yes I aspire to.
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