After Five Lost Pregnancies, We Stopped Asking God “Why” and Started Whispering “If”

After five lost pregnancies, we stopped asking God why and started whispering if.

If we ever hold a baby.
If we ever hear a heartbeat that stays.
If we ever bring one home.

We promised that if a baby ever arrived, we would celebrate every second.

Faith was the only thing we had left to hold onto.

Eight Years of Waiting

I’m Hannah.

For eight years, my husband Mark and I tried to become parents. Eight years of appointments. Eight years of careful hope. Eight years of holding our breath every time we saw two pink lines.

We painted a nursery five times.

And we packed it away five times.

Each time felt quieter than the last. The tiny clothes folded into boxes. The ultrasound photos tucked into drawers. The crib disassembled like it had never held a dream at all.

Eventually, we stopped buying baby clothes.
We stopped choosing names.
We stopped talking about “when.”

Hope became something fragile—something we were afraid to say out loud.

When Faith Is All You Have

There is a kind of grief that only parents who have lost pregnancies understand. It’s invisible. It’s silent. It doesn’t always come with casseroles or condolences.

People mean well. They say, “Just relax.”
They say, “It’ll happen.”
They say, “At least you know you can get pregnant.”

But after five losses, words don’t land anymore.

So instead of asking God “why,” we started whispering “if.”

If You still have this for us.
If there’s a child meant to call us Mom and Dad.
If we’re supposed to keep believing.

Faith stopped looking like certainty.
It started looking like endurance.

The Day Everything Changed

Then Ivy was born.

Healthy. Breathing. Crying.

And finally in our arms.

I remember staring at her chest just to watch it rise and fall. I remember counting her fingers over and over, like she might disappear if I blinked too long.

A few hours later, Mark walked into the hospital room holding two heart blankets. He had bought them quietly while I was resting.

He wrapped Ivy in one.
He wrapped himself in the other.

Then he climbed onto the bed beside her, careful and gentle, like he was holding something sacred.

He looked at her and whispered, “We waited so long — she’ll never feel alone again.”

And in that moment, eight years of heartbreak met one perfect, breathing miracle.

Celebrating Every Second

We don’t rush anything now.

We celebrate ordinary moments like they’re holidays. Midnight feedings. First smiles. The way her tiny hand curls around Mark’s finger.

Because when you’ve lost five times, you understand what a single second is worth.

We don’t take pictures because we’re afraid we’ll forget.
We take pictures because we never want to stop remembering.

From “Why” to “Thank You”

There were nights we thought we wouldn’t survive the grief. Nights we questioned everything. Nights when silence felt louder than prayer.

But somewhere between the tears and the waiting, we learned something: faith isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just a whisper that says, keep going.

Today, when I look at Ivy, I don’t ask God why anymore.

I say thank You.

Not because the journey was easy.
Not because the losses didn’t hurt.

But because every second with her feels like a gift we once thought we would never open.

If you are still in the waiting…
If you are still whispering “if”…

Hold on.

Sometimes the longest waits carry the deepest miracles. 💛