Nate often told the story of a client who asked him, “Do you have a family?”

“Seven kids,” he said.

The man’s eyes grew wide. “And how many wives?”

This line cued Nate’s hearty laugh. He was proud of his brood, evidenced by the abundance of photos filling his office, including the gallery taped to his door. But every family goes through periods of stress and strain, even the families where love abounds.

It was during one of those difficult periods that I learned, by way of a home pregnancy test, we’d be having another baby. Nate’s thriving real estate investment firm had completely unraveled due to a governmental rule change, and we were at the lowest point of our marriage, our family life and our bank account.

I hesitated to tell Nate our numbers would be expanding during a time when everything else was contracting, so I kept the secret until I was two months along. But I knew “my” news needed to become “our” news, despite life’s pressure. So we were just climbing into bed one night after closing the nursery door on our 11 month old baby when I told him. Wondering what his unfiltered response would be, I hoped it wouldn’t encircle our blessed event with a negative mindset.

“Hey, Dear. What would you say … uh … if I told you … uh we were going to have another baby?”

I had to hand it to Nate. He filtered his response with lightning speed. Before even changing expression he said, “Let’s pray.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Relief washed over me while concern probably flooded him, but he didn’t let on. He prayed a short prayer over the little one and me, no doubt borrowing time to get his thoughts organized, and then said, “I think I’m going to take a bath and read a little.” Never mind that he’d just taken one. The bathtub was his think tank, and it was the right place to go.

When I was nearing my second trimester, the bleeding started, and after six routine pregnancies, I knew something was amiss. Nate was an hour away in his Loop office but urged me to “Call the doctor!”

After folding a thick bath towel over the driver’s seat, I drove myself to the doctor’s office. By the time I arrived, blood was everywhere. The receptionist saw my emergency and hurried me into a room, shaking her head with a frown, which confirmed what I already knew.

The miscarriage occurred right in the office, and the doctor “caught” our baby in a pan. I wept as a nurse patted my hand, doing her best to console me. Because we’d already announced the news to family and friends, we had to announce the miscarriage, too.

The day after our loss, I remember kneeling over the edge of the bathtub washing my hair. Water rushed over my head as I tried to use Nate’s think tank to think. “Lord,” I wailed, “Who was that person? I want to know!”

Nate was buried by problems and losses all his own and could have reacted to the miscarriage like someone who’d ducked a burden, but his response was one of genuine compassion.

As the due date for the miscarried baby drew closer, I steeled myself for an emotional day. It was poignant indeed, because on that very afternoon, I learned I was pregnant with another baby.

This time I couldn’t wait to tell Nate. Because of the miscarriage, both of us responded with joy, and Birgitta Mary soon joined our family, an easy baby who delighted us all. God works in ways we can’t usually understand, but once in a while he reveals one of his secrets. He has shared two of them with me, and I treasure them both:

First, if we hadn’t miscarried our baby back then, we wouldn’t have our precious Birgitta today.

Second, Nate now knows who Baby Eight is, and since November 3rd has been enjoying a genuine relationship with him or her. What an incredible meeting that must have been!

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave —what can you know?” (Job 11:7-8)