Infertility

Singlehood

Bride and Groom Statuettes KissingQuestion Submitted: How can I best love and support my sister who is barren currently because she is not/has never been married?  She is going through a very difficult time right now and I know that she feels a lot of anger, frustration, depression, and a multitude of other difficult emotions.  She has told me several times how aware she is that she is the only one in my family who is not married and doesn’t have children.  I have tried to be sensitive of that, but I was wondering if there was anything else I can do to love and support her (besides lifting her up in prayer and listening to her).  

I thought your sister might appreciate your question being answered by a fellow, single sister in Christ rather than by an old, married lady such as me, so I asked Adriane A. Dorr, managing editor of The Lutheran Witness and one of my favorite people in the whole world, to take the helm on this one. Ms. Dorr just wrote a book called Hello. My Name Is Single. It’ll be out spring of 2014. It includes interviews from single people—young adults to widows—and touches on all manner of topics from “Why You Should Never Date Guys with ‘J’ Names and Other Little Known Facts” to “Love > Sex” to “Awkward First Dates and Other Things Singles Could Definitely, Totally Do Without,” all with the purpose of helping single people realize that the Lord really does love them, that being single is not the end of the world, that you can pray fervently for a pious spouse even before you think you’re ready to get married, what it means to be a Christian man or woman, and that dating, marriage, and life in general require God’s grace and forgiveness and a little dash of humor on the side.

Two years ago, I sat in a stiff-backed hospital chair, watching my sister and her husband coo over their newborn daughter, who was still pink and a little wrinkly and definitely very sleepy. In a moment, I was jealous. I wanted a husband who loved me and a child to rock in my arms too, and while I knew of wives who struggled with barrenness, I consoled myself with the fact that I was suffering more, since they, at least, had husbands to love them while I had no one.

Yeesh.

Your sister might feel the same way. But instead of waiting for her to talk to you about her pain, ask her. She’ll likely tell you that she wants to be loved and cherished, that thoughts of fulfilling the pious vocations of wife and mother fill her head multiple times a day. She’ll probably tell you how hard it is to watch her friends get married and then have babies, and how it seems like, no matter which restaurant she goes to on the weekend, she runs into a bachelorette party or a toddler’s birthday, two of the most painful reminders of her alone-ness.

She wants to have a husband to come home to, a man to fix dinner for, a baby’s tiny Disney diapers to change, and a swaddled infant to rock to sleep at night. And while you can’t change how she feels, you can acknowledge that she feels something at all. You can tell her that it’s okay to long for those things that our Lord tells us are holy and good—spouses and children and families and life together. You can tell her that you’re sorry that she is hurting, that her pain is real and that she’s not crazy for feeling it. You can write a Sticky Note and slap it to her forehead that reads: “You may be lonely, but you are not alone.” You can tell her she has you and that she has her pastor, and that a loving sibling and a faithful pastor can be a fairly unstoppable duo.

You don’t have to fix her or give her advice. You simply have to agree that life—and all the suffering that comes with it—is difficult and that it is hard. That, some days, will be enough.

But you also point her again and again to Christ. You remind her that her value and her worth come from—not a husband or children—but from Christ on the cross. Tell her, in the midst of her sobbing and bitter words spoken in anger, that she is whole and perfect in Christ, broken no more. Pray with her, asking the Lord that His heart would be moved to grant your sister the desires of hers. And encourage her to go often to the Lord’s Supper, to private Confession and Absolution, to the place where Christ’s gives her Himself, the One who makes all things new.

Not talking about her pain doesn’t help. But neither does wallowing in it. Let her hurt. Let her cry. Let her throw a pan of brownies across a kitchen. (Not, you know, saying that I’ve done that or anything.) But remind her that the Lord’s plan for her is perfect and that it is best, despite how it feels, despite how it looks, despite how it seems. She may be barren, but she is whole in Christ. And that, even when she lays her head down on her pillow alone in bed at night, is the only thing that matters.

Best,

Adriane

How Should I Grieve?

MP900382859Question Submitted: Thank you for your blog. I usually read several entries at once every few months when my barrenness comes to the forefront again. Thank you especially for the Bible verses, prayers, and hymns. Recently I’ve seen a lot of miscarriage awareness Facebook posts. I’ve never gone through a miscarriage and its grief. My husband and I are just infertile. I’m pretty sure it’s ok for us to grieve, but obviously not with the same grief of those who lose a child. So how should/can an infertile couple grieve?

I asked my friend Diane Lamberson, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Texas who does psychotherapy from a Christian perspective with people struggling with complicated grief and loss, to help us with this post. Not only is Diane one of the wisest and most compassionate sisters in Christ I have ever met, but she has the education to properly address this question for all of us:

As a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and loss, I am often asked this question in one form or another. Actually, it is two questions:

1. Is the grief I feel legitimate?
2. Am I grieving correctly?

The simple answer to both questions is YES.

Bearing the cross of infertility, even in the comforting shadow of Christ’s cross, is a difficult road that is full of uncertainty, frustration, and most certainly grief. Is it the same grief a couple who experiences a miscarriage has? No. Does that make the grief of not conceiving (and possibly never conceiving) any less intense or legitimate? No. One is not less than the other. Instead, they are different, yet overlapping, experiences.

In fact, one parent feels her grief after six miscarriages and one full-term birth of a child (after the third miscarriage) is less painful than the grief suffered by those who have never conceived. “I am aware that the pain of other women who never carry a child must be greater than mine,” she writes. She calls miscarriage the “loneliest grief of all.” I think barrenness and miscarriage are both lonely kinds of grief, and I am grateful to the hosts of this forum for giving it a voice and providing a much needed source of Christ-centered comfort to all who are grieving as they carry this cross and follow Christ.

While having experienced neither infertility nor miscarriage personally, I have been called upon in both my clinical work and personal life to bear witness to and assist with the grief that comes with both. For the couple who has never conceived a child, news from a medical professional that it will not be possible can feel as if a person has died because their dream of a person has died. Indeed, in some ways, this news is a more complicated kind of grief. When we lose people we love to death, we have memories of our interactions and can share them with others. Society acknowledges it. There is a specific date of death and mourning (a public expression of grief).

When grieving the loss of a person for which we hope and dream but who does not yet exist, there are no memories in which to share or take comfort. There may not be a specific date when the dream died, only ongoing uncertainty. Society doesn’t acknowledge it in any public or formal way. There is no funeral. There are no flowers or casseroles in the refrigerator. There is no gravesite to visit. Many who suffer miscarriages don’t have all of these outward signs either, depending on when the pregnancy ended. Instead, what couples bearing the cross of barrenness largely get instead of compassion is suggestions about IVF, surrogacy, sperm banks, adoption, or other ways to “fix the problem” that don’t in any way acknowledge the very real grief and loss that the barren are feeling.

Some feel they are grieving too much and others worry they don’t feel enough and wonder what is wrong. The truth is neither is wrong. It just happens to be your feelings about what you’ve been through.  They are colored by your personality, how you view being barren, and your faith/theology, among many other factors. Your grief may be more intense at one time than another. Many think grief is a linear process when it is more like a spiral lying on its side. While you may be moving forward, there are many emotions you may revisit along the way. This is not a sign of regression but a revisiting of feelings that have come around again in your movement through the spiral.

The truth is, God is present to comfort us through all our times of grief, whether it is the loss of a specific child, the loss of one’s womb/reproductive organs, or the loss felt every time an unwanted menstrual cycle comes along with the knowledge that once again a child is not growing within the womb. All are painful and difficult to endure, but in Christ we are never alone. With the support we provide each other God works through us. We may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future.

Diane Lamberson, LCSW

Marriage: One Mom, One Dad

“I like it,” I said to my husband yesterday at the Defend Marriage Lobby Day at the Illinois state capitol building. I was referring to the yellow button we had each been handed at the registration table.

IMG_2368 copy

“Yes,” he agreed as he pinned his on his jacket. “It’s a clearer confession of what marriage is, rather than just ‘one woman, one man.'”

Still, I found myself fighting back tears as we stood in line waiting to talk to our state representative. Here we were, a barren couple, wearing buttons which publicly exposed our shame. My husband and I are one man and one woman brought together in marriage, but we are not one dad and one mom; and the truth stings.

But, it is still the truth.

That’s what marriage is, really. It’s God’s good ordering of His creation. It’s not passion and attraction and preference and romance, though – don’t get me wrong – it is a delight when marriage includes such things. Marriage is God’s blessed institution of the family unit in life. It is one man and one woman joined together that they might be one dad and one mom. We know this to be true, because it is the one flesh union of husband and wife over which God spoke the blessing of children in His words “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:26-31); it is the distinct parental unit of dad and mom which God commands children to obey in His words “Honor thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12). It is the unique joining together of husband and wife which Paul uses as a picture of Christ’s relationship with His bride, the Church, when he writes, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:22–6:4).

That’s why even the barren can confidently confess to the world that marriage is one dad, one mom. Though the cross of childlessness weighs our shoulders with grief and pain (and sometimes, on days like yesterday, shame), it does not make our marriages null and void. We are still fruitful in marriage as man and wife, even though God in His wisdom has not blessed us insofar as to multiply. Soli deo gloria.

Melissa

Melissa walked up to me at the book signing table.

I had noticed her sitting next to her mother during my presentation, and a quick, physical assessment – faint crow’s feet, visible smile lines with or without any smiles – placed her somewhere in the same decade of life as me.

I wasn’t sure what she had thought of my talk on barrenness. She hadn’t given me very much eye contact when I was speaking, but neither had her face shown any immediate signs of pent-up anger or sadness.

At the table, though, she looked me directly in the eye and smiled with a joy unbounded.

“I am an auntie!” she exclaimed.

She had been listening!

“Me, too,” I said. I jumped up and gave Melissa a hug, reveling in our shared connection. “What are their names?”

Melissa listed each of her nieces and nephews, her hands gesturing proudly with each name. I noticed she had no wedding band on her left ring finger, and her mother stood quietly behind her, eyes misty.

“…and Braden is walking, now!” Melissa finished, her slightly slanted eyes large with wonder, but there was something else there, too. A knowledge of pain.

And that’s when the truth washed over me like a warm wave.

Women with Down syndrome rejoice in the gift of children just like everyone else and grieve their childlessness just like everyone else. And so do their families.

little boy learning to walk

Oh!

MP900341742I’ve said it. Most likely, you’ve said it, too, at some time or another.

It seems harmless enough, but I now cringe deep down into my pinky toes every time I hear the following phrase said to a woman about to get married:

“When you have children…”

Oh, how easily we assume and make light of God’s gifts!  Oh, how effortlessly such words of expectation and law slip past our lips! Oh, how quickly we in the church fail to confess the truth about children to one another!

Children are not a given in marriage. They are God’s blessing spoken over marriage, His heritage to bestow, His gift to give according to His wise will.

“If God blesses you and your husband with the gift of children…”

Yes, that’s better.

You Are Not Alone

candleSome of you are miscarrying, right now.

Some of you are grieving the anniversary of the death of a precious child in your life.

Some of you are struggling with undiagnosed physical pain that is baffling your doctors.

Some of you are coping with your husband’s recent death.

Some of you are depressed and afraid of what tomorrow might (or might not) bring.

So many of you are suffering, right now, and have asked for our prayers. Well, you’ve got them. Pastor Schuermann wrote this prayer for all of us to pray together today.

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
– Psalm 25:6-7

Let us pray…

O God, from before the foundation of the world You knew me, loved me, and showed me mercy. As I struggle, Lord, give me strength. Remind me daily of Your everlasting love for me. Remind me that I am Your child, adopted into Your heavenly family by grace, for the sake of Jesus. Do not let this cross which You have laid on me overwhelm me. Because You know all things, I will trust You. Lord, have mercy. Amen.

What If One Spouse is Causing the Barrenness?

coupleQuestion Submitted: A large part of my “story” is what I refer to as spousally-inflicted barrenness. Long story short: my husband’s desire to postpone pregnancy for a year so we would be out of the debt-incurring stage of grad school when a child was born (which I was in agreement with) turned into a season of nearly FIVE YEARS where he was utterly unable to tell me when he would feel “ready” to have a baby. It was a mess. To compound this difficulty, because NFP [Natural Family Planning] only really works for a fertile couple when both people want it to, I became pregnant at least twice anyway and lost the babies in the first trimester. So much heartache in that season. Do you know of resources for women in the situation I was in? Do you have any helpful advice?

This is a tough one. When a husband and wife are not on the same page about something as important as having children, this is a serious division that calls for professional advice. Because of this, I spoke with two pastors and asked for their responses. Here was what the first one had to say:

The question about being ready for children is the same question about being ready for marriage.  God does not differentiate the two.   (For those who are considering marriage, these are the right questions to be asking: Do you both understand that marriage is about the raising of children?  Are you both on the same page concerning children?  What do you think about adoption?  What do you think about IVF and other fertility procedures?  It is imperative to be on the same page on these questions.)  But now what does a couple do that has become married and one of them doesn’t want children?  They can’t just get a divorce and walk away.  This is a profound – even crisis – moment in the life of a married couple.  I would suggest marriage counseling from a good Christian counselor (not just any counselor) and also time with their pastor.  The Lord’s desire is that the man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and that the two become one flesh… being fruitful and filling the earth.  That desire of the Lord hasn’t changed even with our personal desires about what we want to do with our lives.  

These are great comments that a woman experiencing what you did would love to print out and hand to her husband so she can say, “See, I told you so!” However, there are better approaches to winning over one’s spouse. In speaking with the second pastor, I discovered that we wives can certainly make matters worse by the way we approach the topic. Before he’ll be willing to talk to a pastor or counselor, he needs to know that he has our respect and that we’re trying to understand his point of view. Here are some insightful comments from pastor #2:

My wife and I were in an almost identical situation. I was intent on getting my PhD before kids came into the picture. My father had always had dreams of getting his doctorate, but he waited until later in life when he had five children and his responsibilities prevented him from being able to complete the work. I was determined not to let that happen. After seminary, my wife was ready to start a family and I wasn’t. There was a lot of conflict because of our seemingly opposing goals. She was adamant that I didn’t need to continue my studies and that having a family was more important. This was hurtful because she obviously didn’t support my goals. We both dug in our heels and refused to see the other’s point of view. As the Lord would have it, we weren’t able to have children anyway. I look back now and realize that I was wrong to put my personal aspirations above God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply”, and I’ve often thought that if we’d been open to children from the start, perhaps in our “youth” our bodies would have indeed been fruitful. So what could my wife have done differently to convince me not to put off having children? At the time I didn’t see how I could both be a father and a student, and neither did she. And so her goal of having children NOW seemed to be taking away my goal forever. But we were both wrong. Schooling and family are not mutually exclusive. People have done it (though that’s not to say it’s easy). If either she or I had taken this “both-and” approach, it would have been easier for me at that time to listen to what God says about being open to children. 

I cannot help but think of 1 Peter 3:1 in light of these comments: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” Wives in any marriage crisis are called on to be patient and to love, respect, and pray for their man. The more he knows that his wife is his friend and not his enemy, the more willing he may be to rethink what it means to be the head of a family. And even if he still refuses to see a pastor or counselor, the wife should see one by herself . She’ll need someone else to share this burden with her. She’ll need encouragement and the Word of God to help her have a joyful heart as she continues carrying out her vocation as a wife, until such a time as they – like you and your husband – can finally see eye-to-eye on the matter.

Well Pleased

It’s so tempting to believe that all of this suffering is a sign of God’s disfavor. It’s hard not to think that God must be angry or displeased with us in some way. Why else would He allow our wombs to stay closed when He, with His very own Word, can call light into existence, heal the blind, raise Lazarus from the dead, and speak Christ into Mary’s virgin womb?

But we know that suffering in this life is not a sign of God’s displeasure with us, His beloved children.

How do we know this to be true?

Because Jesus suffered more than any of us, and God said of Him, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

We are baptized into that beloved Son, and God is now well-pleased with us, too. God loves us in His Son, and there is nothing – not even barrenness – that can separate us from God’s love and blessed favor.

We simply suffer along with Jesus, as our mortified flesh awaits its raising.

Let us suffer here with Jesus
And with patience bear our cross.
Joy will follow all our sadness;
Where He is, there is no loss.
Though today we sow no laughter,
We shall reap celestial joy;
All discomforts that annoy
Shall give way to mirth hereafter.
Jesus, here I share Your woe;
Help me there Your joy to know.*

MC900444830

* “Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus” (Lutheran Service Book 685, stanza 2)

The Ongoing Battle

battleGreat and grievous, indeed, are these dangers and temptations, which every Christian must bear. We bear them even though each one were alone by himself. So every hour that we are in this vile life, we are attacked on all sides [2 Corinthians 4:8], chased and hunted down. We are moved to cry out and to pray that God would not allow us to become weary and faint [Isaiah 40:31; Hebrews 12:3] and to fall again into sin, shame, and unbelief. For otherwise it is impossible to overcome even the least temptation.

We Christians must be armed [Ephesians 6:10-18] and daily expect to be constantly attacked. No one may go on in security and carelessly, as though the devil were far from us. At all times we must expect and block his blows. Though I am now chaste, patient, kind, and in firm faith, the devil will this very hour send such an arrow into my heart that I can scarcely stand. For he is an enemy that never stops or becomes tired. So when one temptation stops, there always arise others and fresh ones.

So there is no help or comfort except to run here, take hold of the Lord’s Prayer, and speak to God from the heart like this: “Dear Father, You have asked me to pray. Don’t let me fall because of temptations.” Then you will see that the temptations must stop and finally confess themselves conquered. If you try to help yourself by your own thoughts and counsel, you will only make the matter worse and give the devil more space. For he has a serpent’s head [Revelation 12:9]. If it finds an opening into which it can slip, the whole body will follow without stopping. But prayer can prevent him and drive him back.   (Luther’s Large Catechism III 105, 109-11)

How did Luther know what tempts me? How did he know that I would blame God, myself, and others for my barrenness? Each and every day brings temptations to “cure” my barren womb and to covet the children that are not mine. How did Luther know that once I was content within my barrenness, then the devil would send another temptation for me to try to “fix” my barren sisters?

Luther was right in saying that the enemy never becomes tired. We are constantly battling sin, this world, and our sinful flesh. There truly is no place for comfort other than in the safe and secure arms of Jesus. He fights the battles for us. He wraps the Word of God, along with His own Body and Blood, around our weak souls and protects us. He gives us His own words in the Lord’s Prayer to battle the evil foe.

Take comfort, dear friends. While you may be weary from fighting off temptation, Christ fights for you!

I want to memorize this prayer: Dear Father, You have asked me to pray. Don’t let me fall because of temptations. Amen.