It started with a horrible car accident and now sings with a poignant twang in my heart. My daughter’s name is Hannah Brielle, and I haven’t met her in this life. The hurt from the loss of my child has never gone away but has been relegated to the anchor of my rainbow.
The rainbow is special because it signifies God’s promises after a storm, and that is exactly what my sons are to me. My sons are my rainbows seen through my tears after the storm and pain from the loss of my little girl. Psalms 139:13 says that God formed the delicate, innermost parts of each child’s body and knit them together in the mother’s womb meaning that God knows each child and his/her unique purpose in life.
I’ll never understand why my little girl is not here in my arms growing as a woman of God upon this earth, but I do know that the God who formed her purposed her for my life. I know that tragedy and accidents happen, and it was one of these that took Hannah from my life, but as God does, He sent my double rainbow in the blessings of my sons. Triumph over tragedy doesn’t mean there is not pain. Triumph means that I can see the glory in the end and know that in truth, the moments I had with her though few and faint made me ever so grateful for the rainbow babies I birthed.
Miscarriage for whatever reason or cause is a painful and often unexpressed loss that has been hidden for many years. I’ll always remember that the days and weeks after were followed by story after story of moms in my family and my husband’s family sharing of their loss in early to late pregnancy and of the older generation sharing of the loss of babies born and gone too quickly. These stories, each of them special in the mother’s heart, had rarely if ever been told because the pain was great and the mourning very private. The fathers of these babies suffered also in their quiet ways, but the mothers held a sense of guilt and confusion as to why their bodies betrayed these babies. I too suffered with this and, it was not until I was expecting my first “rainbow baby” that I understood my body.
When I became pregnant again, my body started the miscarrying process all over and through this quick awareness of what was happening, I immediately consulted my doctor. I was now classified as a high risk pregnancy as I had a condition known as RH+factor which essentially means that my husband’s blood type which the baby took was not compatible with mine, and my immune system was fighting the baby as an alien invader aiming to cause problems. Shots and intervention allowed a healthy baby boy to be born to a very grateful and thankful set of parents.
Every holiday and special occasion I still think and wonder about my sweet baby girl, and I taught both my boys they have a sister in heaven. The pain doesn’t ever go away, but through my tears I see my “rainbows”-my now nearly grown baby boys, and I know that God blessed me. Somewhere over the rainbow my pot of gold, Hannah Brielle, who would be 19 years old, awaits me in God’s presence.