Singer Carrie Underwood overcame multiple miscarriages, controversial stand on gay marriage

By Zach Catalano —

After her third miscarriage, Carrie Underwood got mad at God.

“I had always been afraid to be angry because we are so blessed,” Carrie told CBS. But “I got mad.”

It was 2018 and one night when her husband wasn’t home, she thought she had miscarried for the fourth time in a row.

“I was just sobbing,” she says. “I was like, ‘Why on earth do I keep getting pregnant if I can’t have a kid? Like, what is this? Like, do something. Either shut the door or let me have a kid.’ For the first time, I feel like I actually told God how I felt.”

It turns out the country music sensation hadn’t lost her child that night. Today, the singer of “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and her husband, NHL player Mike Fisher, have two children.

Carrie grew up in the single-traffic-light town of Checotah, Oklahoma, with a population of about 3,000. The youngest of three girls, she grew up loving animals and singing in the church. Her love for animals was so strong that she helped build an animal shelter named “Happy Paws” and became a vegan.

A local fan of her singing hooked her up with an audition at Capital Records when she was 14, but the deal evaporated in the midst of management change-ups. She majored in journalism at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma, worked at a pizzeria, a zoo and a veterinary clinic. She participated in beauty pageants and singing contests. She had decided she didn’t stand a chance to make it in singing, but that all changed in 2004.

She auditioned for American Idol and was quickly included in the contests and advanced to the #1 spot. Her subsequent release in 2005 of “Inside your Heaven,” which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. That same year, her Some Hearts album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Country Music. She has sold 65 million records, earning the moniker “country music’s reigning queen” from Billboard.

At one of her concerts, she met Canadian hockey star Mike Fisher, and the two married in 2010. She launched a line of clothing in the exercise space called Calia, and she had a little boy, Isaiah. It was a precipitous rise to fame and fortune and she enjoyed a picture perfect marriage and family. It was almost as if Satan asked God, as he did with Job, if he could deprive her of her joy to see if she would still serve Him.

In 2017, she and her husband tried for a second child early in the year, and she miscarried. She got pregnant again in the fall and again lost the pregnancy. When she lost a third pregnancy in 2018, she began to question her faith.

“What’s the deal? What is all of this?” she asked God. “What are You doing to me? What have I done wrong?

She got pregnant a fourth time and had a miscarriage scare.

She sobbed uncontrollably as she cried out to God in desperation.

“I felt like I actually told God how I felt,” she recalls. “I had always been afraid to be angry because we are so blessed. And my son, Isaiah, is the sweetest thing. And he’s the best thing in the world. And I’m like, ‘If we can never have any other kids, that’s okay, because he’s amazing.’ And I have this amazing life. Like, really, what can I complain about? I can’t. I have an incredible husband, incredible friends, an incredible job, an incredible kid. Can I be mad? No.”

But she did get mad. Somehow, she felt her prayers that night were heard by God more than any other prayers.

“That was like a Saturday – and the Monday I went to the doctor to, like, confirm, another miscarriage,” she remembers. “And they told me everything was great!”

Little Jacob was born in January of 2019.

Carrie ran afoul of conservative Christians in 2010 when she endorsed homosexual marriage in an interview with The Independent.

“As a married person myself, I don’t know what it’s like to be told I can’t marry somebody I love, and want to marry,” she said. “I can’t imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love. Our church is gay friendly,” she said. “Above all, God wanted us to love others. It’s not about setting rules, or [saying] ‘everyone has to be like me’. No. We’re all different. That’s what makes us special. We have to love each other and get on with each other. It’s not up to me to judge anybody.”

Protesting her invitation to the Passion 2017 youth conference in Atlanta, the American Family Association complained that “Carrie Underwood encourages and supports homosexual marriage which the Word of God does not.”

The AFA’s Louie Giglio, wrote the event founder an open letter saying he was “very frustrated that you would allow her to help lead thousands of people in worship. My frustration quickly turned to disappointment and then to sadness. God is right about marriage and Carrie Underwood is wrong.”

Carrie weathered the storm and remains a darling of evangelicals because she stands firm on other non-negotiables of Christianity.

She was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grand Ole Opry, Oklahoma Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. She has received numerous awards and accolades, including seven Grammy Awards, 11 Billboard Music Awards, 14 ACM Awards, 13 American Music Awards and nine CMA Awards. One estimates pegs her net worth at $85 million.

“If I can convince others that there is a God and that they need to know Him, then I have done my job,” she said on Inspiring Quotes.

Zach Catalano studied at the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.