The news today reports that Michelle Duggar, star of the reality show "19 Kids and Counting" has miscarried her 20th child. A miscarriage. A lost baby. A broken-hearted mother.

On September 28, 2011, I received a phone call at work, from one of my favorite young mothers. She told me that she had gone to the doctor that morning for a routine prenatal check-up and the doctor could not find her baby’s heartbeat. Last April, she lost a baby at 20 weeks. And now, she told me, she had apparently also lost this baby, again at 20 weeks. My heart sank.

How clearly I remember September 27, 1986. 25 years earlier, the day we suffered a miscarriage. I was 3 1/2 months along in my pregnancy - 15 weeks. I had felt the baby move. Had been talking to her. Had been praying over her. Had been daily thanking God for my new precious little one.

She would have been 22 months or so younger than Benjamin, our fourth child.

[caption id="attachment_745" align="aligncenter" width="282" caption="Benjamin at age 2. He is now 26 and finishing his doctorate in Greek and Latin."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Benjat2.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-745 " title="Benjat2" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Benjat2.jpg" alt="" width="282" height="357" /></a>[/caption]

But I got up that Saturday morning, feeling strange, lethargic. Andrew, then 7 years old, had a soccer game. I was too sick to go to the game. I NEVER missed any of our children’s sporting events, so Gregg knew that something was seriously wrong. Gregg took Andrew, and the other children, to the soccer game and left me at home to rest. <a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Andrewsoccer.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-746 alignleft" title="Andrewsoccer" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Andrewsoccer-269x300.jpg" alt="" width="223" height="249" /></a>

I went back to bed and tried to sleep. Then the bleeding started. I called my friend Judy, who is a nurse. She sent her husband Harold to the ballpark to tell Gregg. Judy talked to me, prayed over me and over the baby.

Then I called my doctor, who asked if I was having cramps. I started to tell him, “No.” But before the word came out of my mouth, I felt a spasm grip my abdomen. The next few hours were consumed with cramps and bleeding.

At some point Gregg laid his hands on my belly and prayed for the baby we were, by that point, obviously losing.

In one conversation with the doctor, he asked if I’d been sick. “I had a small cold last week,” I told him. “Not much more than a runny nose and a headache.” That virus that had been such a small discomfort to me, had probably been devastating to our baby.

In between conversations with Judy and Gregg and the doctor, I carried on a long conversaton with God. At first I pleaded for the life of my baby. My Heavenly Father held me close and comforted me. And gently let me know that my little one would soon be with Him.

On the advice our doctor, we named our baby Kaitlyn Marie. Not because we could be sure that she was a girl - at 15 weeks, we didn’t know the gender - but because we’d already decided on a girl’s name. We hadn’t decided on a boy’s name yet, having run out of boy’s names that we both liked.

[caption id="attachment_747" align="aligncenter" width="791" caption="Benjamin with Jonathan on the day of Jonathan&#39;s birth."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/BenjJonfeatured.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-747" title="BenjJonfeatured" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/BenjJonfeatured.jpg" alt="" width="791" height="426" /></a>[/caption]

Then, two years later, on September 24, 1988, our son Jonathan was born. No child can EVER take the place of another child. Kaitlyn was her own person and has her own place in our family. Jonathan is unique and precious in his own way. But we know that if I had carried Kaitlyn to fullterm, we would almost certainly not have gotten pregnant with Jonathan, so soon afterward.

And, now in September, we celebrate his birthday. And three days later, I quietly remember Katie, my child I never got to see, but will one day meet and get to know in heaven.

My heart goes out to Michelle Duggar. It hurts to lose a baby, even when you have 19 - or four - other children. And my heart aches for my friend who has lost two baby girls in the last year. I'm glad she has her precious (and I do mean <em>precious</em>!) three year old son to ease that loss.