We all know the story of Noah and the rainbow. The people that God had created had fallen, and they had fallen hard. God saw His little image bearers acting out all manner of despicable things. So He destroyed them, save one family, Noah’s. And all the animals. Obviously.

After so many days of so much rain, Noah and his family exited the great ark, and Noah built an altar to worship the Lord. God then made a covenant with Noah that included the rest of mankind. He promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again. God said that His sign of this promise would be a rainbow.

In her kids’ storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones writes of God’s promise, “And like a warrior who puts away his bow and arrow at the end of a great battle, God said, ‘See, I have hung up my bow in the clouds’… God’s war bow was not pointing down at his people. It was pointing up, into the heart of heaven.”  She brilliantly portrays a foreshadowing of Jesus’ life being taken as a means of punishment.  Even in the horror that was Jesus’ death, good came from it.  Jesus’ death gave a way for us to have eternal life with Him!

Rainbows, in the same way, are meant to remind us of the good after the storm, that there is still hope during the floods of this life. This is the origin of the term “rainbow baby,” which is a term for a baby born after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. Zach and I have a rainbow baby, my little Zoe girl. She sure did give me life and hope after the storm of our first miscarriage. 

But what if there is no rainbow baby? 

What if there is a continual, never-ceasing torrent of a storm that threatens to steal your joy, your hope?

God never promised a continual rainbow. He never said, “Here is a rainbow, the sign that everything will be sunshiney days forever.” I wish. Right?

I had a hope for another rainbow baby. In fact, my hopes of another rainbow baby have recently been dashed. We lost a baby whom we named Hosea on December 2, 2021. It was devastating. We found out at a routine check-up when I was around 16 weeks along that he was no longer living. It took several more weeks for my body to realize that he had passed. Those months carried so much sorrow. I felt flooded with grief, completely consumed with the loss. 

We got pregnant about six months later, and I had about one week of blissful, joyous hope that hadn’t quite clung onto the fear of a pregnancy after a loss. I was looking at rainbow baby paraphernalia and had to convince myself not to buy anything yet. I was over the moon.

Until that first ultrasound. It showed no baby yet (I should have been six weeks, which is about the time a heartbeat is detectable in an ultrasound), but there was a gestational sac. The nurse said that I was possibly earlier than I thought. The next week showed a “fetal pole”, the very beginning of a baby, as well as growth in the sac. My midwife said that perhaps I ovulated much later than I expected. She warned that it could also indicate a problem with the growth.

The nurse scheduled another ultrasound and requested that my husband come.

She said we would either celebrate hearing a heartbeat, or we would be grieving a loss together. Unfortunately, it was the latter. My initial responses to these two losses couldn’t have been more different. In losing Hosea, I was so so sad.  With this baby, I was angry. I thought, “Haven’t I gone through this already? Haven’t I learned whatever lesson there is to learn?” I kept wondering why I was even given a baby that had been ripped away so soon. My heart hurt. 

It still hurts.

Here we are on Rainbow Baby day, and my heart is so heavy – for me and my losses, for my husband, for friends who have recently lost babies, and for my friends who have yet to get pregnant at all and are desperately yearning for a baby-filled womb. I see rainbows in the sky and think about God’s promise – not a promise for a happy and easy life – but the promise that points us to our Savior and His promise of abundant life, the promise of eternity without sorrow. 

Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, promised, “You will have suffering in this world.  Be courageous!  I have conquered the world.”  Some translations read, “Take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).  Jesus also promised, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).  I continually am drawn to these verses because they promise something that I am longing for – peace in this world.  And it cannot be a peace that the world gives.  This world is fallen and broken and does not often give what we want. 

Jesus doesn’t offer us an easy life or the assurance of a baby.  He offers us Himself.  He offers us His love and presence. And He offers us His peace, a peace that surpasses understanding.

So today, on Rainbow Baby Day, I will remember and miss my three little babes who never lived outside my womb. I will pray for the women around me longing for their own rainbow baby. But most importantly, I will praise my King, the Creator of the rainbows.

See my blog for the story of my first miscarriage.

About sarahhamilton

Sarah is simply a woman loved by Jesus. She heard the Gospel when she was young through both her mom and her youth pastor. She made Him her Lord in college after He relentlessly pursued her and brought her from darkness to light. Sarah married her best friend Zach in 2013. She has since had six kids. Three - Samuel, Hosea, and Florence - didn’t make it out of her womb and are now living with Jesus. The other three - Zoe, Sheridan, and Sundance - are her pride and joy. Sarah loves her book club and rock climbing, and she is a birth doula part-time. in every aspect of life, she desires to love Jesus and make Him known.