Carrie Underwood and husband Mike Fisher are back with another episode from their four-part I Am Second series, “Mike and Carrie: God & Country,” and the second installment is called “The Wrestle” — but the title doesn’t refer to a struggle between the duo.
Instead, as the “Love Wins” singer and Fisher explain in the candid conversational segment, after suffering multiple miscarriages, they found themselves wrestling with their faith and with God.
"It sounds wrong when you say it, but it's one of those 'bad things that happens to other people,' you know what I mean?" Underwood explained of how she viewed miscarriage before it was a reality for her and her husband. "It’s like so many things in the world; it's not something that you ever envision yourself having to deal with."
Everything changed after she and Fisher endured pregnancy loss — repeatedly — when they tried for a second child after the arrival of their now-5-year-old son, Isaiah.
But in the video, Underwood recalled the day when Fisher told her they would definitely have another child — a boy named Jacob.
“And you know this because?” she asked him at the time.
“I was frustrated,” Fisher explained. “We’d had two miscarriages. What's the future look like? We don't know. Are we going to adopt? Are we going to ... just going through things in your mind. I was just wrestling and probably the most honest I'd been with God. And I heard, not audibly, but I just sensed that God told me that we were going to have a son, and his name's Jacob."
But what followed was another miscarriage and more doubt, and then, when Underwood found herself pregnant once again, she felt certain another loss was headed their way or, perhaps, was already happening.
"I just had an honest conversation with God,” Underwood recalled through tears. “And I told him how I felt. I was hurt. I was a little angry and, of course, you feel guilty for being mad at your creator. And I told him I needed something. We needed to have a baby or not ever because I couldn't keep going down that road anymore."
Then, her doctors told her she wasn’t losing the baby this time. Her pregnancy was progressing perfectly, and she had proof of that when she and Fisher welcomed their son Jacob to the world in January 2019.
Looking back, the pair admit Jacob was a name they’d never considered before Fisher had his talk with God about how he was wrestling over everything they’d been through. But now it makes sense to them.
“The story of Jacob is he wrestled with God through the night, and he wouldn’t let him go until he got his blessing,” Fisher said, noting the parallels. Though he added, "We weren’t demanding that he give us his blessing. We were just being honest with him.”