When the Wait Feels Longest: Finding Hope in the In-Between

The holiday season has a way of magnifying what's missing.

While others post ultrasound announcements with tiny Santa hats or share photos of growing families gathered around the tree, you may find yourself navigating a different reality: one marked by empty arms, negative tests, another failed cycle, or the anniversary of a loss that others have long forgotten.

If this is you, I want you to know: your grief is valid, your longing is seen, and you are not alone in the waiting.

The holidays weren't designed with your pain in mind. The cultural narrative of this season centers on abundance, family, and new beginnings, which are beautiful themes that can feel like salt in an open wound when your family looks different than you dreamed, when beginnings keep ending before they start, or when you're still waiting for a story that everyone else assumes has already been written.

The Sacred Space Between Grief and Hope

Here's what I've learned walking alongside individuals and couples in this season: hope and grief are not opposites. They are companions. You don't have to choose between acknowledging your pain and believing God is still good. You don't have to paste on a smile to prove your faith is strong enough.

The Bible is filled with people who knew the weight of waiting:

• Hannah wept bitterly in the temple, so consumed by her longing that the priest thought she was drunk (1 Samuel 1)

• Abraham and Sarah waited years for the promise of a child

• Elizabeth lived with the stigma of barrenness until she was "well along in years"

• The Israelites cried out from exile, asking "How long, O Lord?"

  
  

In fact, it is possible for current challenges to make your time at places that are supposed to be good (like church) feel miserable. And just like God didn't rebuke the above mentioned for their honest grief, He won't do that for yours either. He met them in it. And He will meet you in it.

Proverbs 13:12 tells us, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." This verse doesn't minimize the sickness of heart: it names it. It validates what you already know: this waiting hurts. Your heart is allowed to be sick. Your arms are allowed to ache. Your tears are not a failure of faith.

What This Season Doesn't Mean

Before we move toward hope, let's clear away some lies you may be carrying:

This is not punishment. Your infertility or loss is not God's judgment on your worthiness to be a parent. Suffering is part of living in a broken world, not evidence of a broken relationship with God.

Your faith is not deficient. The depth of your pain doesn't reflect the shallowness of your trust. Some of the most faithful people in Scripture experienced the longest waits and deepest losses.

You don't owe anyone your presence. If attending the family gathering with all the children feels unbearable this year, you have permission to say no. If the baby shower invitation brings more pain than joy, you can decline. Protecting your heart is not selfishness, it's wisdom. And this is a season.

Practical Tools for Navigating the Season

Hope isn't just a feeling we wait for it's also a practice we engage. Here are tangible ways to care for yourself while holding space for both grief and hope:

1. Create a Grief Ritual

Don't let your loss or longing go unacknowledged. Consider:

• Lighting a candle on particularly difficult days to honor what you're carrying

• Writing a letter to the baby you lost or the child you're waiting for

• Creating a small ornament or memorial that gives your grief a place

• Setting aside time with your partner (if applicable) to share what you're each feeling without trying to fix it

  
  

2. Set Protective Boundaries

Practice these phrases:

• "We're taking a quieter approach to the holidays this year."

• "That's a tender topic for us right now. I'll let you know if we're ready to talk about it."

• "We won't be able to make it, but thank you for thinking of us."

• To well-meaning questions: "We're trusting God's timing" (then redirect the conversation)

  
  

3. Build Your Support Network

• Identify 2-3 people who can handle your honest feelings without trying to fix or minimize them

• Consider joining a support group for pregnancy loss or infertility (many churches and counseling centers offer these)

• Follow social media accounts that validate your experience rather than those that trigger comparison

• If you're part of a couple, discuss in advance how you'll support each other through triggering moments

  
  

4. Redefine Your Traditions

You don't have to do holidays the way you always have. Consider:

• Starting new traditions that honor where you are now

• Volunteering together in a way that gives meaning to your waiting season

• Taking a trip or planning something entirely different if traditional celebrations feel too heavy

• Creating space for both remembrance and new experiences

  
  

5. Practice Embodied Hope

When hope feels abstract, make it concrete:

• Take a walk and notice one beautiful thing: train your brain to see good even in hard seasons

• Keep a "small joys" list: warm coffee, a text from a friend, a moment of peace

• Move your body gently: grief lives in our bodies, and movement can help release what words cannot

• Pray with your hands open (literally), a physical reminder that you're releasing control while remaining receptive

  
  

The Advent of Already-and-Not-Yet

There's something profound about Advent, the four weeks before Christmas when the Church practices waiting. We light candles in the darkness. We acknowledge that the Messiah hasn't come yet, even as we remember that He already has.

This is the tension you live in: the already-and-not-yet.

Already loved by God. Not yet holding your child. Already seen in your pain. Not yet at the end of the story. Already accompanied by Emmanuel: God with us. Not yet understanding why.

Jesus entered into a world of waiting. He was born to a young woman whose pregnancy could have cost her everything. He grew up in occupied territory, among people longing for deliverance. He wept at the grave of His friend. He knows what it means to wait, to grieve, to long for redemption.

And this is our hope: not that God will necessarily give us the outcome we desperately want on our timeline, but that He is with us in the waiting. That our tears matter. That our story is held even when it's still being written.

A Gentle Invitation

As you navigate this season, I want to offer you this:

You don't have to have it all together. You don't have to manufacture joy you don't feel. You don't have to pretend your arms don't ache or your heart isn't heavy.

But you also don't have to do this alone.

Reach out. To a counselor who specializes in reproductive grief. To a friend who can sit with you without offering platitudes. To a support group where others understand. To God, with all your honest questions and protests and longings.

Your grief has a place. And so does your hope, even as fragile it feels right now.

This season may be hard. But you are not forgotten. Your waiting is not wasted. And even in the darkest night, small lights still shine.

If you're struggling:

• The National Pregnancy Loss Support Hotline: 1-800-672-4673

• Resolve: The National Infertility Association (www.resolve.org)

• Find a counselor or mental health professional in your area that specializes in reproductive challenges

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

May you find moments of peace in the waiting, community in the grief, and hope that holds you even when everything else feels uncertain.

With love and light,

Dr. Caitlin Overfelt