In God's Time, Never Ours

Janele Hoerner, a mother of 13 souls, shares what she has learned about miscarriage and the need to reach out to others for prayer.

No words can adequately express the sadness a mother’s feels, during and following a miscarriage. To the world, the loss of the developing child seems so minimal. In the moment, it feels as if only a small number of individuals can even understand what you are going through. It can seem like no one is really there with you as you mourn. Fathers can even have a hard time understanding or sympathizing with mothers suffering miscarriage; nothing physically happens to fathers. In addition, they may not have developed an attachment to the child yet because they may have not even seen the baby on an ultrasound.  

To most outside of the parental duo, it is easier to focus on the women as an individual in physical pain rather than a parent mourning the loss of a child. In some respects, it is even easier for others to ignore your pain altogether. Searching within themselves to begin to sympathize with you, at any degree, takes courage and the willingness to put themselves in your place, which many people choose to not do. Most essentially, for another person to consider the loss of another member of the family or future community takes an awareness of the reality that we are not in control of our bodies as many people want to believe.  

Learning to reach out  

Over the last almost 20 years I have had five miscarriages to my knowledge. I have had natural miscarriages, a natural miscarriage the ended with D&C operation, and a laparotomy with a removal of a Fallopian tube. Throughout my earliest experience, I had told not a single person or all the prayer networks I could think of. What I have learned is that with reaching out to many people and prayer networks I have felt such a peaceful assuredness and was never in a state of worry — which is not like me at all.  

I was in such a state of peace and resolution with our most recent loss because I believed that God would provide the outcome. I believe this was because of the number of prayers that were surrounding our family. We prayed, trusted, hoped, and allowed God in to choose what was best for our family as a whole.  

Asking for prayer is always the better way

I have learned that when faced with medical dilemmas, doctors do not always know what is best. They can suggest what will be the best outcome, but that does not always mean acknowledging and advocating for the life of the child. It may not feel like an easy choice to include many people in your personal feelings — but, in my experience, telling others so their prayers can ascend to the heaven and be united with your own is always the better way.  

If or when family is not a trustworthy choice, reaching out to an anonymous prayer network is also a valid option. [Editor's note: you can reach out to Holy Cross Family Ministries for prayer at any time through WorldAtPrayer.org.]

I do not know why I have had five miscarriages — and I have so many questions still, but I hope our story can help another in some way. I am told 10 to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that many people do not even know they miscarry because it can be so early in the pregnancy that the baby goes unnoticed. It is only because of my Natural Family Planning charts and my very keen awareness of my own body that I have been able to know about these five lives conceived and lost, though eternally celebrated.

I hope you are given the courage to speak out if you are or have been in this situation. I hope you find comfort in others' prayers and that you find a way to celebrate the lives of the miscarried souls in your family and in God’s family of souls. Being a Catholic mother is not about the number of living children that we have to show off. It is about our trust in God to use us as He wills!  

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Copyright 2024 Janele Hoerner
Images: Canva