Sad News
Ken July 26th, 2006
I’ve been meaning to write more regularly for some time now, but haven’t been able to find it. However, some sad news is the occasion for this update. Though most of you were unaware, last Thursday Renee had her 10 week prenatal doctor’s appointment, but the doctor was unable to hear a heartbeat with the Doppler microphone. After an ultrasound, our worst fears were confirmed…we had lost our baby.
There is really no way to describe the flood of emotions that come over you when you lose a child, before birth or after (I would assume). There is shock, disbelief, anger, grief all rolled into one. We had started the day like any other, and had planned on a routine Dr. appointment where we would hear the baby’s heartbeat and start guessing if it was a boy or a girl (supposedly girls have higher heart rates, so according to this method of gender guessing, Jonathan should have been a girl). Anyway, it was a devastating day and we are still in shock and reeling from this hurt.
Renee had to have a D&C (dilation and curettage) to remove our baby on Friday and has been feeling fairly decent until today, when she began having some painful cramping. Though we were unaware, somewhere between 10-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that statistic does not change much for people who have had a healthy baby before. The doctor said that Renee’s body looked fine and healthy and that he could see nothing that would prevent us from bringing another healthy baby to term in the future and that this was probably some random thing that happened that we would never know the cause for.
We did decide that we wished to name the baby though, and after tossing around a few gender neutral names we decided to go with the Hebrew word for covenant and name our baby Brit. Though we are hurting, and frankly a little upset at God right now, we still trust in His faithfulness in keeping His covenants with us. We are reminded of it whenever we see a rainbow and read of His promises in His word. Though we are devastated we look forward to the day that Brit gets to introduce us to Jesus and give us the grand tour of heaven. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, both for Renee’s physical health and as we continue to grieve the loss of Brit. We have seen God’s love towards us through the prayers and acts of mercy of our family and great friends. We have been encouraged through the words of our favorite songwriter Andrew Peterson when he wrote Lullaby. It’s been too hard to listen to since Thursday, but since our family is all too familiar with the loss of an unborn baby recently; the words are an encouragement as they float through our minds. Thanks for your love and prayers.
Ken, Renee and Jonathan
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[...] were told the baby did not have a heartbeat. After Renee went through two D&C’s to remove Brit, we both wrestled with how to grieve after such an unexpected and heartbreaking loss. In many ways, [...]