I’ve been asking myself this week whether blogging in my current state is a wise idea. I’m not feeling particularly rational. I’ve been struggling to sleep. I haven’t spent hours in prayer or reading my Bible this week and I’m not really hearing God speak to me. Any observations or wisdom that might spill out on this page will not be made from my usual considered approach to our circumstances.

I’ve been trying to work out how to summarise the last two months when they are split so neatly into two such intense extremes. Today as I write this I am waiting to miscarry. My tired, tense mind can’t even begin to comprehend how to process this bit of information.

This time last week I was in a beautiful but tentative state of early pregnancy; grateful for every day that passed triumphantly and thankful for every reassuring symptom and sign of new life gently beginning to take shape inside my body. But just a few days later, at seven and a half weeks pregnant, I had my early pregnancy ultrasound scan, and where we had expected to see one, possibly two tiny babies beginning to form and hear the amazing sound of a heartbeat or two, we had the cruel shock of observing an empty amniotic sac and no new life to be seen. Several blood tests and another scan later and the outcome seemed pretty conclusive. We had a new term to add to our collection: “blighted ovum“.

The run up to our second embryo transfer had been so profoundly saturated by Father God’s words. We were led back to the same passages in the Bible over and over again, particularly those passages in John 14 and John 16 which talk about asking God for specific things and expecting to be heard and answered. Over the days leading up to our transfer so many beautiful moments unfolded. We live in a rural village and one day were privileged to see the birth of two lambs. The farmer told us that the mother had been declared barren when she was scanned with all the other pregnant ewes but here she was, a little late to the party, adding her own offspring to the collection. This event felt profound to us and we pondered the deep significance of its timing. Answers to prayer came thick and fast as we sought God’s face on the medical decisions we had to make and we saw positive outcomes blow the medics’ cautious predictions out of the water. Our God was in this. He had told us in no uncertain terms to entrust the outcome to Him and so far it was looking good.

I’m not going to tell you that I handled the Two Week Wait after the transfer in a perfect state of quiet trust and peacefulness. The fear and doubts shot out of my mouth even as my heart wrestled to keep them locked up. During an IVF cycle you are so hyper-aware of every single minute detail. Each step is nail-biting and each waiting phase feels fully loaded. On top of the mind games and waiting is an intense awareness of one’s body as additional hormone supplements must be taken to give the baby – or babies in our case – their best chance of survival. There is no switching off from twice daily pessary insertions and the delightful side effects they cause! But it has always, always been worth it.

The day I tested to see if I was pregnant I broke an agreement which my husband and I had made, that we would take the test together after work. He knew that if it was negative, I might never manage to get out of the house because I would be wrecked by the result. In my stubborn pigheadedness I decided I couldn’t wait another minute, but I had also talked myself into the conviction that I could not be pregnant. Fast forward an hour and I was sat on our prayer room floor howling in thanks to God and total disbelief that He would still bless His unfaithful, doubting daughter with her heart’s desire. The next three weeks passed in a mixture of amazed disbelief and tentative excitement.

Scroll forward again to the clean, bright fertility clinic suite and there we were in the aftermath of our appointment with nothing but confusion, shock and horror to hold our hands. As I sit here, still in disbelief, still trying to process the images that I have recently seen on-screen, I cannot work out why our circumstances have once again led us here. Pain, loss, disappointment and grief are beginning to feel like the only companions I will ever have in this life. We have lived so long beside them that I doubt I will ever get to hang out with joy or begin to dream again. I am so familiar with how it feels to live in the utter heartbreak of infertility that I wonder whether I’ll ever view life through any other lens.

I know that every woman handles miscarriage in her own way. Some are private, strong and silent. Some are more vocal, needing the comfort of others and the room to grieve openly. Some carry on as if nothing has happened. Others make it clear to all that their world has just fallen apart. Some run to God for comfort; others wonder whether He really can love them at all. There are many, many, many women who experience miscarriage, and many who never breathe a word about it. Every woman needs to be seen and heard in her own way during this hideous time. And loved, loved, loved. I am still zombie-like, groping about in the darkness for the words for this fresh devastation. Having experienced two miscarriages already, I am frightened of the physical pain and fresh sorrow that will accompany the bleeding when it begins.

And as always the same questions return. What about God? Where is He in this? What on earth did He mean by asking us to “entrust Him with the outcome”? We had experienced the joy of heaven over this new opportunity for new life and now this? How do I open myself up once again to let Him comfort me when He is silent now? How do I trust that He is who He says He is when life serves me nothing but pain and torment? How do I possibly believe that I am the apple of His eye when He continues to bless so many women around me with their miracle babies, but not me?

I turn to the Psalms, to poetry, to the words of David because I don’t have words to give Him,