In Memory of ⚓️ Josie, Teagan & Ivy ⚓️

1 in 4 women experience a miscarriage or stillbirth. 1 in 100 experience multiple losses. Many others face fatal diagnoses and unknown timelines during pregnancy. You may be one or know one.

And then there’s me: a woman who checks each of those boxes, including infertility.

Let’s explore what that looks like: married nearly a decade. Living with an unknown future and continual disappointment, never knowing what small group or conversation we fit into. At some point, we were no longer newlyweds and seeing everyone else bypass us one by one into their new season of parenthood was another layer of hurt. It’s not just years of not having a baby, it’s years of wondering if this would be more than just a life stage.

Our sweet Josie Hart came to us unexpectedly in early 2019 - a secret we couldn’t keep to ourselves; our first pregnancy gone almost as soon as it was discovered. Knowing this was the miracle we waited and prayed for was achingly surreal. Wasn’t God’s plan to fulfill this longing of our hearts? Michael suggested a shortened version of the name Josiah, after my life-long fondness for it, and we later discovered it means “God supports and heals; Jehovah increases”. We felt it a hopeful and precious gift in the midst of such despair.

It was only 8 months later when we had to grieve our second - a little boy - at 20 weeks.

Medical ambiguity.

Neither loss had an explanation.

In my first introductions to grief that Spring, I felt “devastated, empty, brokenhearted”, and this second blow - a deep-Winter familiarizing of it - intensified as “crushing, guttural, utter darkness”. It was January of 2020, two months before the rest of the world caught up with me, grieving their losses of public gatherings, graduations and birthday parties.

Ironically, the mandatory covering of our faces in public was the only mask I was able to muster at that time. Loosing twice in less than a year, I began unraveling quickly and could barely function. Everything in me froze. Any natural ability to cover my frailty under the weight was gone.

I had no choice but to lean into my true self and God to try to make any sense of my reality. I wrestled hard. But He never let go. He kept giving me grace and revelations of His glory and faithfulness. As He brought me back to Truth, I soon rediscovered the voice He had given me in the form of writing and journaling. I drowned myself in His Word and presence and soaked up worship and other writer’s words via lyrics, devotions, laments, and psalms. In the hospital, God had whispered our son Teagan Paul’s name to my heart, meaning “little storyteller” - a definite nod to the story God would continue to write and prompt us to tell.

4 months later, through the finest of threads, Hope Mommies found me - and that changed everything! I wasn’t alone. I had found my people. I didn’t have to feel like an invisible mom anymore.

On our 11 year wedding anniversary in 2021, we brought our living daughter home with us and when she was 3, we desired and happily discovered another baby was coming. At 10 weeks gestation, baby was diagnosed with anencephaly, another unknown medical anomaly and a new awkward dance through the “valley of the shadow of death.” 

Ivy Noelle - named to celebrate her December 25th Christmas due date - had a heartbeat for 15 minutes after birth until she faded into eternity. She is so very loved and missed, and the very first of my 4 babies I have not been afraid to love deeply in-utero. She would be turning 10 months old this very month, on Sept 5th.

I’ve been with God in the deep places of healing He’s opened up to me after Teagan — like the deliverance from Envy and Anxiety, remaining even after Ivy’s diagnosis. And over this last year of new grief, in this new season, I’ve leaned hard into the HM community I established over the last 5 years — some days seeming like my only lifeline.

When I saw the name of the Hope Mommies Retreat 2025: “Abide”, I knew God had hand-picked it for me! Ivy’s life verse is John 15:4, her initials are IN (for abiding IN Christ), and as God had revealed 2024 to be the year that we step back and see Him being “constant” in our life, her name means “faithfulness of God with us”. A statement of eternal perspective though the days are hard. Truly, only Jesus’ Hope can anchor the soul.

Please consider a gift of any amount to help me continue spreading this same Hope to another mom who may need an introduction to Jesus or may be white-knuckle praying for a community to offer her a glimmer of eternal perspective.

Tell someone they matter - that every life matters - and are not forgotten. Someone did it for me.

Let’s be Jesus’ hands and feet together.

So often words fall short in these situations. $60 creates ONE Hope Box. 

🩵 Hope Boxes are a beautifully curated collection of Christ-centered resources and comfort items to meet a new loss mom in her greatest need. This “hug in a box” is delivered to hospitals, pregnancy centers, and churches throughout the DFW metroplex