Held in Hope, Finding Jesus in the Midst of Pregnancy and Infant Loss ~ Brittanie Freshour / Kayla Fowler Ep.165

Pregnancy and infant loss is a grief that many women carry quietly. Whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss, it is a journey that can leave families feeling isolated, misunderstood, and searching for hope.

In this deeply personal conversation, Deborah Murphy is joined by Kayla Fowler and Brittany Freshour, leaders of Held in Hope, a ministry that walks alongside women who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss. Together, they share their own stories of loss, the questions they wrestled with, and the ways God met them through unimaginable heartbreak.

Kayla shares the journey of multiple miscarriages, the prayers she prayed, the moments when God said "no," and how community helped sustain her faith through seasons of grief. Brittany shares the story of losing her daughter Sadie at 36 weeks, the profound sorrow of stillbirth, and how that experience transformed her relationship with God.

Rather than offering easy answers, this conversation honestly explores grief while pointing listeners toward the hope found in Christ. Kayla and Brittany also share how their experiences led them to help other women through Held in Hope, creating a place where no one has to walk this journey alone.

If you have experienced the loss of a baby, or if you love someone who has, this episode offers compassionate encouragement and the reminder that God is near to the brokenhearted.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Kayla's story of multiple miscarriages and how God sustained her through each loss.
• Brittany's experience of stillbirth and the impact it had on her faith.
• The importance of allowing yourself to grieve and giving loss a voice.
• How community can make a difference during seasons of deep sorrow.
• The difference between cultural hope and the hope found in Jesus Christ.
• The heart behind the ministry Held in Hope and how it serves grieving families.

Connect with Held in Hope

Held in Hope provides support for women walking through pregnancy and infant loss through monthly gatherings, online connection, and a private Facebook community.

Email: heldinhope1519@gmail.com

Facebook

Book Recommendation: Held - by Abbey Wedgeworth - this is the book that we have been going through as a group at our Held in Hope meetings, each chapter is so rich and points the reader back to the Bible. 

Here are two FREE Ebooks for you!
1. Shame Off You: 10 steps to shattering shame in your life, HERE.
2. ABC's: CLICK HERE for a FREE E-book to help you combat lies and replace them with God's truth.  For more encouragement, check out some of our offerings at www.reclaimedstory.com

Did you know we have a jewelry line that speaks to your identity in Jesus? CLICK HERE to shop. Every purchase helps support our mission to provide healing and hope to women worldwide.

Would you partner with us to spread the message of hope and healing? You can DONATE HERE.  Living the Reclaimed Life is a Reclaimed Story, Inc. podcast, An Arizona non-profit corporation.

If you would like to connect with a safe group of women doing real-life together, join our private community, “Reclaimed Story Community” or on  Facebook  or Instagram.

Transcript

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Held in Hope, Finding Jesus in the Midst of Pregnancy and Infant Loss

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Speaker 1 0:04

Hey friends! Welcome back to Living the Reclaim Life podcast, where we have conversations that revive hope, inspire healing, and encourage a vibrant life with Christ. Today's episode is one that carries both deep grief and profound hope. For many women, the loss of a baby is a pain that is so difficult, and it's something that can't even be put into words. Whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss, it's a grief that often feels invisible to the world, yet deeply personal to the one who's carrying it. My guests today, Kayla Fowler and Brittany Freshour, know this pain firsthand. Kayla is a wife, a mom of three children here on Earth, and four babies in heaven. Brittany is a wife, a mom of two children here on Earth, and one daughter, Sadie, waiting for her in heaven. Together, they lead a ministry called Hell and Hope, where they walk alongside women navigating the heartbreaking journey of pregnancy and infant loss. In this conversation, you'll hear their stories of loss, the questions that they wrestled with, the ways that God met them in their deepest sorrow, and how God has taken their pain and transformed it into a ministry of comfort and hope for others. If this topic touches your story, I want you to know that you are not alone. God sees your grief, He cares about your pain, and He is near to the brokenhearted. So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and join me with this powerful conversation with Kayla Fowler and Brittany Freshour. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 1:28

Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Joy in the Morning. Joy in the Morning exists to support those walking through grief, helping individuals and communities better understand loss, so that no one has to navigate it alone. Through speaking, resources, and training, they equip people to come alongside those grieving with compassion, strength, and hope. Their heart is to care for widowed women and others experiencing deep loss, while also helping the church build meaningful, lasting bereavement ministries. Be sure to check out their support app on their website at joyinthimorning.org. That's M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. It's designed to equip you to be the kind of friend that someone in grief truly needs. Welcome

Speaker 1 2:00

back to Living the Reclaimed Life podcast. I am your host today, Deborah Murphy, and I am so excited about the conversation we are going to have today on today's podcast. Today we are talking about a very tender and sacred conversation, and I have two beautiful ladies that are joining me today. You know, statistics tell us that many women listeners right now have either experienced the loss of a baby themselves or loved somebody who has experienced loss, yet many families suffer this grief in silence, and many carry it alone. And so I am joined by two incredible ladies to talk about this journey personally. And first we have Kayla Fowler, who is a wife of 12 years. She's a stay-at-home mom of three beautiful children. She has four precious babies that are waiting for her in heaven, and she serves as one of the leaders at Hell. Healthy, and is an event coordinator for Shiloh Christian Ministries. Hi, Kayla, and then Brittany Fresh Hour. She is joining us. She is has been married for 12 for 13 years to her husband Anthony. She is a mom of two children here on this earth, and then a mom of Sadie who is waiting for her in heaven. Brittany is a speech language pathologist, a leader at Heldon Hope, and a coordinator for Momco at Shiloh Christian Ministries. So thank you so much, ladies, for being here. Before we jump into this difficult conversation or the difficult parts of your stories, I would love for our listeners to get to know the two of you a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about your families or what life looks like today?

Speaker 3 3:22

Well, hi again. I'm Kayla. Thank you, Deborah, for this opportunity to sit with you and have this really important conversation. I'm so excited for what we're going to dive into today. But a little bit about me: I have lived here in Sierra Vista for pretty much my entire life, or at least all that I can remember. I met my husband when I was still in high school, so I guess you could call us high school sweethearts. We got married. We had three beautiful children, as you mentioned, we've had four losses in that journey, which has thank God made us stronger and has shaped our relationship with our kids, our relationship with each other. Today, I think it's also shaped us as people. I have been following Jesus for about 13 years now. I think I've been going to Shiloh for that entire time. I love Shiloh. I love my Shiloh family. I've been serving as the event coordinator at Shiloh for I think it's been oh seven years now so quite some time I love it I love getting to help people bring their events to life to help bring them the vision that they have in their head helping them to have that happen another piece that I didn't share with you in my bio is that I also serve at CareNet Pregnancy Center I've been serving there for about I think as long as I've been an event coordinator actually so for about seven years and that's also a huge blessing. So that's a little piece of who I am.

Speaker 1 4:24

Nice. Okay, Brittany.

Speaker 4 4:26

I'm just going to echo quickly what Kayla said. Deborah, thank you for having us. Thank you for finding me at some random walk for life. We're just really excited to be able to share and love on these women. But so right now for me, it's summer break. It's a much needed time to rest and recover. Like you said. I'm so I work as a speech language pathologist part time. I run two meetings for Monco, which is amazing, an amazing ministry that I get to be a part of. And then also held in hope and being a mom and wearing my wife's hat. So this is the season for me that's a little bit quieter. We started a garden. That's what's bringing me joy right now. So every morning my kids want to walk out and see if anything has grown. And just in a season of growth myself, like how do I come out of this season of busy and learn from it and how to manage my time, and so that this next season is a little less crazy busy. But I'm so so just feel so rewarded in every season and what the Lord has in store. So I'm appreciative of this time and like Kayla. I grew up in Sierra Vista, so got to leave for a little bit. My husband was active duty maybe when we met, and so moved around with him, and then he got out of active duty, maybe, and now he's in the reserves. But we moved back home when when we realized that life is easier with grandparents around, and my kids just love having their both. Since my my in-laws and my parents live here, and so it's just been really nice to have a safe space for them that's outside of our home. So we're just loving life at the moment.

Speaker 1 5:41

Awesome! Oh my goodness! Well, that is amazing. I am so appreciative of you, ladies. One of the things that I really, really appreciate appreciate about you guys is that you are willing to have a conversation about something that a lot of people aren't willing to talk about. They want to keep this. They want to avoid the conversation. They want to keep it silent. They they want to just you know keep it between themselves or just by themselves, and so thank you so much for your willingness to share these tender parts of your life, and for going ahead and giving a voice to other women who have suffered in the same way. So I'm just incredibly thankful for that. So I am actually going to just dive right in now and just ask you both to share your story. Can we start with you, Kayla? Can you just share your story?

Speaker 3 6:18

Sure. So my story starts about I think it's been six years now. It was 2019, so probably longer, seven years. So I had my first daughter. That was a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy and delivery, and then we got pregnant about a year after that. And immediately when I got pregnant, I began to bleed. I sorry if I get emotional. I'm going to start with that. So immediately when I found out I was pregnant, it began to bleed, and I just, in the depths of me, could not bring myself to say that I was losing that baby. And I sat on my daughter's nursery floor, and I pulled out my Bible, and I was like, just just sitting in His presence, just sitting with Jesus, and asking Him to bring me hope, to bring me something that I could root myself in. And he brought me to what's become my life verse, which is Jeremiah 29:11, that says, "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for hope in the future. And immediately, I took that scripture and I started proclaiming it over my baby, and I proclaimed it and proclaimed it. The day went on. Later, had a conversation with my doctor, who was like Kayla, you know, you have too many health concerns. You really have to go to the emergency room, regardless of what you think is going on. And I was like, okay. So I went. We had an ultrasound, and that whole time, I laid on that exam table with this ultrasound that I could not see because it was over here. And I just cried out to God, and I cried out to God, and I proclaimed this scripture. And I, this is one of the very few times I felt like I could hear God audibly say to me that scripture was not meant for your baby, and that hit me. And I was like, "What do you mean? And he said, "I meant that scripture for you because you needed to know that through this you're going to be okay, and I still have plans for you. And so I took that, and we went back to our room. The doctor came in. She didn't even say a word to me. She just held me. She hugged me, which I know is not often the response that people get in the emergency room. So I'm incredibly grateful for that. And she told me, you know, you lost, you lost a baby, and we we went on from there. From there, we went to pick up our daughter, and it was my mother-in-law actually at that time who just held me and prayed for me and said, you you need to grieve this, and it's okay to go through every stage of grief for this. You need to give yourself that space. And I didn't realize how important that piece of advice was going to be, but it's the advice that everything I give to these women is rooted in now. And so I did. I went on. I grieved my baby. He has a name that I'll share with you. His name was Emmett. I lost him at five weeks. I have no earthly way of knowing whether or not he was truly a boy, but I feel in my soul and in my heart that that's exactly what he was. So fast forward about six months from there, we got pregnant again. It was right around Christmas time, and we were so excited. But things again immediately, I started bleeding. It was much earlier this time. I did have some labs drawn, and then about 48 hours later, I ended up going to the emergency room because it just it just wouldn't stop. It just kept getting worse, and so went to the emergency room. My HCG actually did come up a little bit, so we were like, "Oh well, maybe we're not miscarrying, and the doctor came in the room, and I tried to ask questions. And this is one of those not so great experiences in the emergency room. And he just looked at me and he said, "Well, it really doesn't matter what we do. It's all in God's hands now.

Speaker 3 9:10

And while that's true, and it absolutely was in God's hands, that is not at all what I needed to hear in that moment. I was really struggling, and I honestly was struggling in my faith to be looking at a very similar situation to what I had just been through, and so time went on. Eventually, I did end up miscarrying completely, and and then it was Christmas, literally the next day. And so that night, I was going to bed. I was right before I got the results. I was going to bed, and I looked at my husband. I said, "You know, this is a girl, right? And her name is Emerson Ray. And so that's the name of our second sweet baby in heaven. And of course, immediately following that conversation, I got the results that we had miscarried her, and so Christmas was really hard that year. I remember sitting in church and just being like, you know, God, where is my baby? Where is my answered prayer? Where is everything I hoped for for Christmas this year? And it was pretty silent at that moment. I don't, I don't remember him really saying a lot to me. Things got pretty hard. I reached out to some friends just for some support, and they came right alongside of me, and they helped me, and they walked through it with me. And actually, this is so it was Christmas. My mom had gifted me a bag that just said God is good all the time. And the interesting piece of this is my mom doesn't have a close relationship with God right now, so praying for and believing for that. But this bag, she gifted me this bag, and I tossed it to the side, and I said, "Is he really? And my mom looked at me, and she said, "Yes, he is. And you will know that, even if today doesn't look great. And so, one of those times that God used a person to meet me where I was. So, anyways, move on. We, I just dug in, and I said, "Okay, God. Well, I'm gonna be here, and I'm gonna be here with you, and I'm gonna be here for you, regardless of what this situation looks like. And you told me that you have a plan and a future for me. So I don't know what that is, but you better use it. And in all of this time, I had started coordinating at the church, and I actually one of my first events that I coordinated was a grief. We'll call it like a convention almost. It was just this outreach to other parents in the community who had lost a child put on by another family. And one of the most profound things that was said during that conference was she gave everybody glow sticks, turned off the lights, and said, "Is your glow stick serving its purpose? And everybody was obviously like, "No, not on yet. And she was like, "Okay, break it, crack it. Now is it serving a purpose? And of course, when you crack a glow stick, it starts to glow, right? And that was something that stuck with me was that sometimes God uses our breaking for a purpose. So I told God, "All right, well then I'm not going to sit in silence, and I'm not going to suffer in silence. You are going to use this, and I'm not going to leave until you do. So after that, pretty much immediately after that miscarriage, we got pregnant with our son. It was actually a pretty uneventful pregnancy, thank God. A pretty uneventful delivery. He's a healthy five-year-old now, and then about six months after having him, we got pregnant again. And there are many emotions that followed that revelation that that day that we found out, which was Mother's Day. And you know, at first we were scared, like we have a six-month-old. What are we going to do with a third baby on the way? So terrified. And then eventually we kind of came to terms with it, and we went to our first ultrasound. And you know, I've had two babies at this point. I know what an ultrasound should look like. I know what a baby should look like at eight weeks, and on that ultrasound, things just did not look great.

Speaker 3 12:03

And the ultrasound tech was being really quiet, and she wasn't talking to us until she eventually got up and said, "You go ahead and get dressed. I'll be right back. And I looked at my husband and I said, "Something is not right. I said, "I didn't see a heartbeat. I didn't hear a heartbeat, and now she's getting somebody else. So something's wrong. And the tech came back in the room, and I don't know if it's from working in the medical field or if it was really that plain on her face, but something was on her face that I was like, "We're done. And I immediately started sobbing. And the unfortunate part of this is I was on one side of the office, so she had to take us from there all the way through the waiting room, full of happy pregnant women, across to the other side to talk with a midwife. And the midwife came in and said, "Your baby no longer has a heartbeat. It stopped relatively recently because the dates match where you should be right now, and so she gave me a list of options, which were you know I could take a pill to induce a miscarriage, I could have a DNC, or I could go home and wait, and I just didn't feel right about any of it, and I said I'm going home. So we went home, and I just didn't know what else to do, so I put on worship music and I texted my mother-in-law, who I consider to be my spiritual mom. She's been my mentor in my faith for a long time, and so I texted her and said, "I need to come to the church. I need to pray with pastors. I need advice. And I got there, and I just said to my pastor, "You know, I just really think that I'm not supposed to buy in to this miscarriage. Like, I feel like I'm supposed to pray for this baby. And so he was like, "You know, I have no idea what's going to happen. I can't sit here and tell you that, but I think that we absolutely should pray for this baby, and so we did. And there was a group of us that for four weeks we prayed, and I fasted, and I began to look more pregnant, and I began to feel more pregnant, and my labs kept coming back normal. Well, four weeks go by. I finally go to my next appointment, and I am believing without a shadow of a doubt that I am going to see my baby alive on that screen, and the tech does the ultrasound. Or I'm sorry, it was my midwife at this time that did the ultrasound, and she said she hasn't grown. There's no movement. She's still eight weeks along. Nothing has changed, and now at this point, you've had this baby inside of you, not alive for four weeks. We cannot sleep on that anymore. You have to have surgery, and obviously, I was crushed, absolutely crushed and devastated. How could God not answer me with a yes? I've never gotten anything but a yes from Him. Everything we always talk about, I feel like in our faith, is that God answers prayers. And so I was so distraught, and I didn't know what to do. But I knew that there was church that night, and I knew I needed Him. And I I went and I sat and I sobbed at the altar and sobbed and sobbed and I listened to somebody else share some miraculous story of what God did for them that day, and I just sat there and I was like, that was supposed to be me. I was supposed to stand there and give my testimony of how you restarted my baby girl's heart, and so we named this baby again. They did actually well, hold on, that's part of that story, but we named this baby Ember, and I was like, that name is so important. Embers are what fires start from. Like there's something important there, and so you know I'm scheduled for this DNC, and I'm telling God, if you can answer just one thing, I don't want to go to surgery. I don't want to do this.

Speaker 3 14:49

I don't want to lose my baby in a cold operating room while I'm asleep, and I don't get to see her or hold her any piece of this, regardless of how small she is. And pretty much 24 hours later, right after my appointment with the doctor for the console, I began to miscarry, and I-sorry if this is too graphic-but I delivered her that night on my bathroom floor with my husband, and my midwife was on the phone the whole time. She was incredible, and she just coached my husband through. This is what to expect. This is what's going to happen. This is normal, and we both held her, and we didn't know because she came in in a sack, and so we didn't open the sack or anything. And I didn't know what else to do other than put her in a bag and call my doctor and say, "I miscarried last night. Do you need to see the remains? Do you need this? And they said yes. And another cruel piece of this story was walking into the waiting room with my baby in a bag and having to hand it to the front desk. We got those results back later that basically just said they couldn't even do a gender on her remains because she just had sat in there for so long that her body had deteriorated so much, and so again, I don't know that she was a girl. I have no physical way of knowing that, but I know in my heart she was a girl, and her name was Ember. And so the weeks following that were a lot of rebuilding some things, a lot of breaking, a lot of trying to understand that sometimes God does say no. And there's actually this song we were singing at church at that time, and it was the lyrics are because your yes is perfect and your no is too, and it took a long time to learn that this was all a piece of His plan, and that I have no way of knowing what could have happened during that pregnancy, what could have happened to that baby in the future. You know, I have no idea what His plan is in its entirety, but I I have to sit in the hope of knowing that he does know and he has his reasons and there's a reason I had to lose her and there's a reason I had to go through all of this loss and all of these no's and not understanding any of it, but I do know that that time of prayer and fasting and that time of community that gathered around my husband and I and that time together in worship and in prayer and in just soaking in His presence, I truly believe is the reason that I'm still here today, that I'm still walking with Jesus today, because I think that it is a very real possibility. And there were some very real moments that I just wanted to leave and walk away. And had it not been for our community, it would have been so easy to do. So fast forward past that, about six months after that, we got pregnant again, and I felt like before I got pregnant with this baby that God had told me things were going to look really scary, and that I just needed to trust Him that He was going to work things out. And so I get pregnant, and I'm at church with my son in the nursery, and I feel a gush of blood. And I go to the bathroom, and sure enough, I'm bleeding. It's a lot, and I'm like, I can't, I can't do this again, God! Please don't make me do this again. And I went into the sanctuary and I pulled two of my very trusted friends out and I said, I need you to pray right now. And we went to the back and we prayed together and they laid hands on me and we prayed and prayed. And I went home and I laid down. Thankfully, had an appointment with my midwife the next morning, but like somewhere in my head, it was either I was losing or something crazy was happening, and so I didn't sleep that night.

Speaker 3 17:43

I woke up incredibly early just out of fear and anxiety, and I went to the appointment with my midwife, and she was like, "Well, let's just take a look at everything. This could be so totally normal. We already know you have some hormone issues that cause you to bleed in pregnancy, so let's just let's just look before we start getting worried about stuff. And so she did an ultrasound and there's a healthy baby on the screen, which is not what I expected, and then also not what I expected is she's like, wait, hold on, there's something else here, and there's a second healthy baby on the screen, and so now not only do I have one healthy baby, I have two healthy babies, and I'm terrified for twins, but ecstatic that this is happening, that God has doubled my blessing, and so we we go home. We start mentally preparing for what all of this is going to look like. We tell our kids who we're I think four and one at the time, and so we're telling them this exciting news, and they're excited. And we my midwife is like, you have to have another ultrasound next week because we we need to know what we're looking at. It needs to be like a real tech that does the ultrasound. We need to know what kind of twins are we looking at. All these things. So go to the next ultrasound, and I can't see the screen, and the tech is being very, very quiet, and it's starting to take a really, really long time. And I finally look at her and I tell her, "Listen, I've had a lot of miscarriages. Please don't be so quiet. Please just tell me everything that you're doing. I need, I need something. And she was like, "Well, here's the heartbeat, and I was like, "Okay. And she goes, "This is the only baby I can find. I cannot find a second baby anywhere. And I've looked all over, and so we leave that ultrasound. I guess with what we we couldn't accept at that time as just one healthy baby and having had lost one of the twins. And when you have an early twin loss, you don't see anything. You don't actually physically lose anything because the other twin just absorbs the cells. Yeah. So so we went home. The bleeding's still happening. My midwife calls me and lets me know, yes, there's only one baby. We think you probably have something called vanishing twin syndrome. There's no way of knowing whether or not I did something wrong and there wasn't actually twins, or you really did lose a twin. But you do have something called a subcortical hematoma, which is bleeding under the placenta. And so, anyways, we went on. I had another ultrasound, still believing that I'm having twins. Like maybe there was just something wrong in that ultrasound, and God, I really felt like in my time with God, He gave me two names, and the names were Arya and Cyrus. And so in my heart, I believed I had a boy and a girl twin, and they were still growing, and they were going to find them at the next ultrasound. They did not find them; just a large subchorionic hematoma. And even though my midwife said there's no way of knowing, when we had found out it was twins. There were several people in our church community, in our church family, that just shared with us that they really felt like God had told them we were having twins. People who why would God tell that to? And so now I strongly believe God did that so that I would know that yes, it was twins. There's no mistake about that. That yes, Cyrus exists and he lives in heaven and he waits for me and his twin sister. And so, moved on. That pregnancy was actually a very complicated pregnancy for the rest of it. Many complications with my placenta, complications in delivery. But thank God, I have a healthy baby girl. And so after that, it took some time to actually be able to grieve the twin. I needed some space to just be healthy for the baby that I was carrying, and then space to get through the postpartum depression after having my baby. And eventually, when I did get to sit down, it was hard.

Speaker 3 20:43

It was hard to think that I had to, that I loved it, that I was so excited for it, just to turn around. And he is not here with us. So that's kind of my story, and that was kind of the end of it. But I, like I said in the beginning, I told God I wasn't going to go through this without some kind of purpose, without something, without partnering with other women, because this is such a painful thing to walk out, and to walk it out silently, to walk it out alone is just so much worse. There were so many things in it between that waiting room experience, between talking to different medical professionals that just didn't seem to care. That I was like, God, something has to change, and so that kind of led to what I'm sure we're going to talk about later of the partnership with these other women and making sure that other women feel heard. But that's my story.

Speaker 1 21:25

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing and for allowing the listeners to just hear the love that you have for your kids, and then the grief that you were the journey of grief, and releasing them to be able to feel those hard, hard feelings themselves. Thank you so much for that. Oh my goodness, Kayla, what a blessing to hear your story, all of the parts of it. I appreciate you so much. So tender. So, so Brittany, would you share your story, please?

Speaker 4 21:52

Absolutely. So my story looks a little different than Kayla's, but I always remind her and the other girls that that experienced their miscarriages early that God holds all of our babies, and it doesn't matter when we lost them; they were all babies. So, I guess to start my story, I had Finn, who's now six, completely uncomplicated pregnancy. He was our first. It was easy, even morning sickness. Like I was so blessed. So, getting pregnant with Sadie was like, okay, well, like you know, my body knows what it's doing, and nobody in my family, at least until we talked about Sadie, ever talked about loss. So we talk now about how I kind of lived in this bliss bubble, like nothing bad had happened to us, and my mom even talks about how she felt like that was God, like because we're walking and doing what we're supposed to do with the Lord, nothing bad's happening. Well, insert reality check here. So, but even so, I guess fast forward. We even with Sadie early on, things were uncomplicated. About halfway through, I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which wasn't what we had gone through with Finn. But because of that, that meant non-stress tests and ultrasounds would be coming for me. So obviously, with gestational diabetes, you have to to eat a certain way, and I was monitoring that. And she was just very active. She was an active little baby in my belly. I'm like, this girl. I remember telling people because it was calm. I'm like, I don't know if this is going to be a gymnast or like what, but she just never stopped moving. And so I had to go for my first non-stretch test, and that day I hadn't felt her move. I mean, we're 36 weeks at this point, and I remember walking into my. I'm gonna echo Kayla again if I'm emotional. Sorry. I walked into my husband's office, and I'm like, "Give me candy. He's like, "Brittany, you are not allowed to have candy. And I'm like, "No, you have to give me candy. It will get her to move. Like, I'm trying everything. She's not moving. Something is not right. Anyway, so gives me candy, and still she was not moving. So went to my mom's stress test in the core tech. I just feel so bad for them because how terrible to have to, you know, tell somebody that bad news or not be able to find a heartbeat. So anyway, as Kayla was saying, I'm praying, and I guess my walk with the Lord was not very close at that time. Again, I lived in a bliss bubble. I was doing what I was supposed to do. Life's great. Who needs God when you know you're just dragging Him along? And that's kind of what I tell people about that part of my story. Like, yes, I believed in God, but I was not following Him until probably until right around Finn coming along because I think something changes in us. Right, like when a baby comes. At least for me, I want to raise my child in the way that I was raised, I grew up in the church, but I think until that point I had my mom's faith and not my own faith, and so wasn't really active in it. But anyway, so I'm praying, and she said, like, I can't, I can't find it. Like, I'll be right back. And then they moved me right next door to an ultrasound room, and they couldn't find a heartbeat. And I just remember it felt cold. The doctor came in and he just said, "Yeah, there's no heartbeat, and then like walked right back out. And I'm like, "Nice talking to you. And I just, I'm like, "Hey, can I call my mom? Like, they're like, "Okay, hey. I'm like, "Yeah, I just need to call my mom. So I call my mom. I'm like, "Mom, I need you to pray for me. This is the day before my dad's birthday. I'm like, "I need you to pray for me. She's like, "Why do I need to pray for you The baby died. Baby died, and she's like, "What? Like this is? What are you talking about? Like what happened? And so anyway, they're like, "We don't know. So she did. She prayed for me, and I felt so bad. She was out.

Speaker 4 25:09

She's a teacher, so like mid workday. What? What news? But so then I called my husband and let him know. But he knew because I had said, you know, something's not right. Anyway, and he said even he was praying, which is not something that he was doing at that time. So, so it was really hard, and I just remember they take me to a different room and were just throwing gifts at me. Like it just felt like you know you they want to do the right thing, but like here's this heart pillow and here's this like maybe your son would like this or maybe you're you know you can take this and I'm just like I I want her out. Like, just get her out of me. Like, what's happening? Why? Why is this? Like, what did I do? I think that was the biggest thing. That it took a while to work to. Like, what? How did I cause this? You know, my son came and he was fine. So I went home and this sweet lady. At this time, we were living in Tucson. She called me as I'm on my way home, and she said, like, you. She gave. They gave me a book at the hospital, and she just said, "You have to love this baby while you can. So do me a favor, go home to your husband, read this first chapter of this book because you're going to need it. Like you, you only have a certain amount of time. You could just, and that's how. And I'm just so grateful for her because the book talked about like loss and what it can do to your marriage. The book talked about just being able to take the time with your baby because whether she's alive or not, like she was my baby, you know. And I think I absolutely needed that because my attitude before she called was just like, get, get. I'm, I'm a grave, basically. Anyway, so the doctor called. I went in that night. So my parents came from Sierra Vista, picked up my son. I just remember being like, Happy birthday, Dad! Like that stuff. So now his birthday. I try my best to smile and be grateful for this wonderful daddy he is, but it's just bad. Yeah. Anyway, so we went in, got induced, delivered. And I'm just, I guess, again, just so grateful for those people that have to like. That's a hard job to deliver a baby that's not crying, but I remember that morning I went into my Bible app and the verse of the day was I'm just gonna read it was and after you have suffered a little while the God of all grace who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ will Himself restore confirm strengthen and establish you and I sent it to my mom my also spiritual mother but she gets to be my mom too why do I suffer? Like that's. I'm like, what are we? What's the suffering part for? And anyway, I can't remember what you were. I just remember that was so timely, because even though it said like you are suffering, and like I get that, but you're gonna get through this. Like I'm gonna restore you, and I talk about that day like obviously worst day ever. Would not recommend this year out of 10. But the way that the Lord met me there, like the Bible says, you He gives peace that surpasses understanding. Like absolutely, because I was able to sit and like just love on His daughter, and hold her and just care for her and know that He was caring for me during that time. I just don't know. My heart goes out to the people who have experienced loss like this, and they don't have a God that is sitting with them. And you know, so we delivered her. We spent the night with her, and then left the next day, which was horrible. Leaving your baby at the hospital is hard, but I think it was a turning point in my relationship with the Lord, like by far, like 180. So we, at that point, Anthony and I were both like at different sides of the spectrum. Right, like I was like, okay, I'm ready to try again. Like we have to have a baby. I've always wanted to.

Speaker 4 28:36

He always said, like I wanted to, and she wanted to. So we compromised and had to. But he was like, no, I I don't want to have more babies. Like that was, and you know, I think obviously we talk about women who have experienced loss. Like our husbands also experience those losses. I just prayed, and I trusted God to change His art, and luckily He did. And I think part of it was just like my. I had to be honest. Like I feel like my body is a grave. I cannot end my motherhood journey with this. I just can't do that. So he he agreed, and we got pregnant again with Paisley, and that with without the gestational diabetes, I had that too. But other than that, that pregnancy was uncomplicated, but it was scary. And I remember so many times people would be like, "Well, you're past the hard part, and I'm like no like I lost my baby at 36 weeks like it's all the hard part.

Speaker 5 29:24

Yeah.

Speaker 4 29:24

Um, but even in those moments where I would like have doubt or have fear, I felt like the Lord would would prompt or even sometimes like to think like it was Sadie that was like, hey, Paisley, give her some kick. Like she needs this.

Speaker 3 29:36

Yeah. Beautiful.

Speaker 4 29:37

So yeah. So it was. She's definitely our rainbow baby. Um, she's three now, so Sadie would have been four this year, and it's just been, like I said, it changed my walk, it changed my relationship with him, and like Kayla said, I think from the get-go, like I would start writing, I started writing in a journal to her, and it wasn't long before I was like, God, what is Sadie's purpose? Like over and over, that was in my head, like Sadie's purpose, Sadie's purpose, Sadie's purpose, because I can't imagine that he would allow that to happen without there being purpose in that. And we saw it like right away. My sister-in-law, who didn't grow up in the church, I guess just saw that our faith remained through that loss, and she asked my mom to walk her through the prayer of salvation, and my dad, who hadn't gone to church in my whole life, started going to church. We started going to church, so it was like while I wouldn't trade that, you know, I'd love to have my daughter. I just know that even from that point, the Lord allowed waves of just goodness to come from her life, and I know that it's not stopping. Even four years later, you reach out and you're like, tell your story.

Speaker 6 30:42

Yeah.

Speaker 4 30:42

Oh yeah. So that's your story. Beautiful.

Speaker 1 30:45

Thank you so much for sharing, Brittany and Kayla. Both of you. Thank you so much for your stories. I talk about the waves of mercy. I'm I'm curious. What is that wave of mercy with withheld in hope? What does that look like? That wave of mercy that you were talking about. What do you guys do with that ministry?

Speaker 4 31:03

Hey, you want to take this?

Speaker 3 31:04

Sure. So, Held in Hope was founded on the need to share the hope that we all found in our losses with other women who maybe don't have somebody to talk to, who have not found that hope yet, who feel alone. And when we started it, we made a promise with ourselves, with God, that we would do it if only one person showed up. And there have been many times that only one woman shows up. And sometimes we do our Bible study, but a lot of times we just sit and we talk and we be the community and the hands and feet of Jesus for women who are going through unimaginable heartbreak, honestly. And so it's it's given us that that's the heart of held in hope is just to share that this thing feels so so so alone, but we are held in the arms of Jesus and Jesus is our hope.

Speaker 1 31:52

Amen, amen. So for any of our listeners that are listening today, and there maybe they have walked through loss or they are walking through loss, how would they find you in this this ministry? How would they be?

Speaker 4 32:04

Oh, two different ways. They can email us at held in hope 151 nine@gmail.com and then we also have a private Facebook group. We like to keep it private because a lot of times people aren't as ready and willing to share their stories in a public vector, I guess. So that is held in hope dash SCM on Facebook, and they can be part of our group that way. We offer Zoom so that people we've had people that have moved away and they want to join, so they're more than welcome to join our group that way and come. So we meet at Shiloh Christian Ministries. Obviously, people that are not living in Sierra Vista, Arizona, can't come to our meetings on the third Monday of the month. But we would love to have anybody who wants to pop on, even if it's just to listen. Like that's what I've told some of the people who are hesitant. Like I'm not ready to talk about my story. If you just want to sit with people who get it, who are willing to pray for you and sit with you in this grief, who want to just love on you? They can do that too. So that's at 5p.m our time every third Monday of the month.

Speaker 1 33:07

Wow, that is so awesome! I'm so thankful that you have decided to allow this to be your rainbow, right? The the beautiful part after the storm of life. I also love the part of your stories that you guys don't minimize the pain, that you're you're willing to give it a voice, and you're not pretending that it didn't hurt. You're not pretending that grief is going to disappear magically. But your your experiences show such a beautiful part of God and who He is, and I'm just so thankful for that. Thank you so much for how you ministered to me today, and I know for sure all of our listeners too. Well, before we close today, can you both just give me one word, just one word that describes your journey that these ladies can hold on to? This one word, if they are suffering any loss.

Speaker 4 33:52

Oh, I think. Oh, we met. I know you said one word, but Kaylin and I met this morning, and I think the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway that we wanted anybody to have is the hope, and not the hope that this culture gives-not wishful thinking, but the hope that the Lord gives-that we can trust and eagerly await the moment where we get to run to our babies in heaven. Lord, we have this hope because we have the Lord; we have heaven waiting for us, and they're there waiting. And we want all of these listeners to know that that's available for

Speaker 1 34:25

them. The

Speaker 4 34:25

Lord has that. It's

Speaker 1 34:27

beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, thank you, ladies, so much for for being here. I'm wanting our listeners to just know through this these beautiful stories, you can know that God sees you, He loves you, and He is near you, and He draws near to the brokenhearted. Thank you so much for joining us today. We want our listeners to know that they are never alone, and so thank you for just giving a voice and letting them know that they are not alone today. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Living the Great Claim Life. If you're a part of today's conversation and it maybe encouraged you, or it was something that that lifted you up or gave you hope for your journey? Would you just go ahead and share this episode? Thank you, ladies. Have a wonderful day, and you listeners have a wonderful day as well. Bye bye.

Speaker 7 35:09

Thanks for listening. I pray you found hope in today's conversation, and maybe even feel a little less alone in your story. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram at Reclaimed Story. Want to learn more about living a reclaimed life and how you can be a part of our growing community of reclaimers, check out our website at www.reclaimstory.com. And if you enjoy these inspirational podcasts, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.