Too Soon: A Mother’s Journey through Miscarriage: A 30-Day Devotional

By Jane Clamp

One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, a traumatic experience for any woman, but one in which she typically feels alone. This 30-day devotional helps mothers who have lost children start to come to terms with what has happened. The purpose of this book is to inform, encourage and support all women who have experienced pregnancy loss, enabling them to find the strength they need to move forward.

Here are 30 reflections on the topic of losing a baby. The author herself suffered four miscarriages, and writes compassionately and personally. Each piece is followed by a meditation and space for personal reflection. The book ends with a liturgy for a lost child, and is attractively designed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SPCK
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780281080281

Jane Clamp

Jane Clamp is an interior designer with a heart for restoration which is also reflected in her writing and speaking ministry. Having experienced four successive miscarriages between 1993 and 1995, Jane knows only too well the issues facing the woman who has had a pregnancy loss. Over the years, she has drawn alongside women going through its trauma and they have found her support invaluable. Research led her to realize that there was very little by way of printed resources, and she believes Too Soon will fill an important gap in the market. Her background as a writer has been mostly in the realm of radio broadcast. She is Creative Writer in Residence on the Sunday Breakfast Show of BBC Radio Norfolk, and on the Thought for the Day team at Premier Radio. She has had several years of presenting Thought of the Day for a local community radio station. For five years she was a regular contributor to an online daily Bible commentary. She is on the committee of the Association of Christian Writers and produces a monthly blog for them. She also blogs personally. www.janeclamp.com

Book preview

Day 1

My baby was real

If you had just arrived at my door, I would invite you in, give you a hug before you’d had time to wrestle yourself out of your coat, then go through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. As it is, we won’t be meeting up in the flesh, but welcome to the equivalent of the comfy chair in my lounge where we’ll think about things and probably – actually, certainly – cry together.

I’m sorry you’re here, of course, because that means you’ve lost a baby – maybe more than one baby – and you’re desperate to feel better. There will be things we can share, experiences that parallel your own, and there is great comfort to be found in knowing that someone else understands what you’re going through. Some of these pages will give information I hope you’ll find helpful in going forward; although some questions may never be answered . . .

None of us wanted to join the 1-in-4 club. We are reluctant members, but it is my deepest hope that at least by being together it won’t feel quite so terrible. Although we have to go through a lot of this on our own, we don’t have to be alone, if you understand the difference. This time is for you, to come away from everything else for a while so that you can feel a bit stronger to face ‘normal life’ again.

Except that nothing feels quite normal any more.

For the rest of the planet it seems it’s ‘business as usual’ but your world has been turned upside down by your miscarriage. You walk down the street and notice that everyone else is getting on with their lives – catching their usual bus, doing the supermarket run, drinking coffee at their favourite place – and wonder how they could, at a time like this. All this happened to me. I went through the motions, watching it in a kind of daze, as if I was peering through glass at a world that had suddenly become closed to me.

Nobody could tell I was screaming inside. From the outside I must have looked the same, although my reflection told me the light had gone from my eyes. My loss had been a private one. Hardly anyone knew that I had been pregnant. My unborn child, whose presence could have changed the world, had slipped away unknown. For most other people, she wasn’t even real.

It was my first miscarriage. I didn’t know how I was supposed to react. I didn’t know how other people would respond when I told them. In church, the Sunday after it had happened, I whispered to the elderly friend next to me, ‘I had a miscarriage, Betty.’ She simply slipped a bony arm around my shoulders, her eyes glistening. She had lost several of her own, I knew; and no words were necessary. Others were cross with me for not telling them I’d been pregnant. Still others shrugged it away as if it didn’t matter; after all, I could always try again.

I’ve been a Christian most of my life, but not much had happened that had been too difficult to deal with. So, miscarriage was a test of a lot of things, including my relationship with God. Reading the Bible really helped. I found again and again that its words adjusted my thinking as its truths spoke into my deepest recesses. This verse was one that really struck me at the time: ‘Why would you ever complain . . . saying God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me? Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts’ (Isaiah 40.27–28, The Message).

Our precious babies were not overlooked by God. We will never know why they ‘didn’t make it’, and deep down we know that no answer would completely satisfy our hearts anyway. One thing is for sure: our babies were real! We may not have met them, but we loved them from the moment we knew about them. Sometimes, that knowledge arrives too late and we find ourselves loving them in hindsight; but they truly