Infertility

Should My Friend Get Help?

Question Submitted: I am a struggling supporter of my best friend who faces various levels of depression because of her barrenness. Do you think there is a time to suggest that my friend get medical advice about the depression?

We asked Pastor Todd Peperkorn, author of the book I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression and pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Rocklin, California, to help us with this question. Here is what he had to say:

The short answer to this question is that if you are concerned about her, talk to her about it. There is no magic “if this, this and this happens, then you talk to them about it.” My rule of thumb is that if someone’s low mood persists for weeks or months, then I would certainly encourage them to seek medical advice.

As her friend, what I would encourage you to do is 1) pray for her and perhaps even with her if you are close to one another, 2) encourage her to get a medical opinion on the matter which may involve either medication or counseling or both, and 3) ask her what you can actually, concretely do to help her. All too often as Christians we take prayer as a last step rather than a first step toward helping those in need.

Peace to you. There are many burdens which we all bear, and by bearing them together, they make a lighter load for us all.

Pastor Todd Peperkorn

Brave Warriors

There is empathy from all different walks of life.

Last summer, my husband and I travelled with a communications team for The Lutheran Witness down to San Antonio, Texas, to learn more about the U.S. Army’s chaplaincy program. We visited Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center, Camp Bullis, and other significant military establishments to talk with chaplains, medics, apache pilots, wounded warriors, purple heart awardees, and hero after hero after hero.

I learned that there are brave men and women who risk their lives every day to protect me and the freedoms I enjoy in this country; I learned that there are faithful chaplains and their assistants who rush towards the boom of every battle to give the gifts of Word and Sacrament to the wounded and dying; I learned that there are many things I can do to support the families of military personnel; I learned that thousands of our nation’s warriors suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and struggle transitioning back into civilian life; and I learned that those who struggle with post traumatic stress speak my language.

For example, in High Ground (2012), a recent documentary on recovering warriors training and attempting a therapeutic climb of a peak in the Himalayas, a master at arms canine handler in the U.S. Navy admits, “Injuries are a very personal experience. I don’t like to talk about what happened. One of my main obstacles when I came back and was in a wheelchair for 3 1/2 years is [that] everybody looked at me as broken, and, um, they missed who I was. And so that became my identity…it was always about the injury, not about me.”

Yes. I resound with that. My identity to most of the world is not “Katie, that baptized Christian who loves people, music, words, herbs, mountains, and running pants” but “Katie, that barren woman.”

Another soldier in the documentary admits before the camera, “I have more in common, I feel sometimes, with an old man on his deathbed than I do with people my own age, emotionally, you know…I just feel like…I’ve lived out my life…like the tank is empty.”

Yes. I feel the life-sucking tentacles of grief wrapped around my bloodline, and I tend to gravitate towards friendships with people who are several generations older than me. We have a lot in common.

The same soldier elaborates, “You just see people enjoying life and being alive and you’re like, why don’t I feel that? I’ve had so many near-death experiences, shouldn’t I be happy to be alive?…It’s really hard to, like, reestablish yourself, I guess, in society because it’s just so different…Everybody looks at us weird. ‘Thanks for your service…Stay away. Keep your distance from me.’”

Yes. My suffering and grief and pain often ostracize me from the party of life.

Another soldier suffering from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) discloses, “People still don’t get it that not all pain is physical.”

Yes. Coping with life-altering circumstances and chronic health problems brings with it an invisible but all-consuming pain that really, really hurts.

So, because there are only so many of you courageous warriors in uniform and veterans’ caps that I meet gassing up at my local Casey’s or walking down the fruit aisle at my Wal-Mart on Dirksen, please allow me to thank you on this little blog. Thank you, not just for your brave service to our country on the battlefield but also for your brave face-off with the enemy of post traumatic stress off of the battlefield. I cannot fully understand the traumas you have experienced in trying to protect me, but I relate to the internal battle you so eloquently describe. I find comfort in your empathy.

God bless you.

Helpful

At our recent pastors’ roundtable in St. Louis, an attending pastor drew our attention to the following quote from Martin Luther’s lectures on Genesis Chapters 21-25:

And it seems that God wanted to teach and attest that the begetting of children is wonderfully pleasing to Him, in order that we might realize that He upholds and defends His Word when He says: “Be fruitful.” He is not hostile to children, as we are. Many of us do not seek to have offspring. But God emphasizes His Word to such an extent that He sometimes gives offspring even to those who do not desire it, yes, even hate it. Occasionally, of course, He does not give it to some who earnestly desire it. It is His purpose to test them. And, what is more, He seems to emphasize procreation to such an extent that children are born even to adulterers and fornicators contrary to their wish. How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is! How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses, although procreation is the work of God! (Luther, 304)*

I don’t know why God tests us in our barrenness, but the mystery of God’s wisdom comforts me as much as it confounds me. We can rest in the knowledge that God loves the begetting of children enough to give the gift of them abundantly, even when He does not give them to us.

* Pelikan, Jaroslav, and Walter A. Hansen, eds. Luther’s Works. Vol. 4. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964.

A Good Reminder

I watched as my husband read his Father’s Day card. Silent tears of grief slid down his cheeks.

“I am sorry I have not given you any children,” I whispered. My own tears dripped down my chin.

My husband cocked his head to the side, slightly surprised. He smiled sweetly, knowingly at me.

“It is the Lord who gives children,” he said.

Oh, yes. That’s right.

Even I need a good reminder now and then.

“How Close Can We Get?”

Look who published an article in the most recent issue of LifeDate.

Yep. That’s right. Our very own Rebecca.

Well done, Mrs. Mayes!

Sometimes, You Just Gotta Laugh

Last night, I chatted on the phone with an eighty-plus-year-old friend of mine who lives in an assisted living home. She is an avid reader and recently read a copy of He Remembers the Barren.

“Katie, I think your book applies to more than just barrenness.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think so, too. You can replace the word barren with almost any type of suffering, and the same message of Christ’s comfort applies.”

“I just had no idea about all of this. I’m letting a friend of mine borrow the book. She had two miscarriages when she was younger.”

This is not the first time my book has made the rounds in an assisted living facility, and I love it.

“Now,” my friend stumbled a bit on the next words, “I do not mean to get too personal, but…”

“Go ahead. You can say anything to me.”

“Yes, okay. Well, have you heard of a procedure called ‘blowing out your tubes’?”

Oh, how I covered my mouth!

“A friend of mine had that done,” she continued, “and it worked.”

I was still holding my mouth to keep rude noises from escaping. After a deep, calming breath, I risked exposure and lifted my hand. “Yes, I have heard of that. My doctor said my tubes are all clear. No blowing out is required.”

“Oh, well, good.” She hesitated. I pictured her practicing saying certain words out loud in her head before attempting a launch. “Now, there is also a cough syrup you can take that will lubricate your sexual organs. You know when you go to the bathroom and…”

And I will spare you the rest of the sordid details, but, let me tell you, I had to hold the riotous giggles in my mouth with my hand for the rest of the conversation.

Acceptance

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

I know these four stages of grief very well. They have been my acerbic companions these past eleven years. They lace my morning cup of tea with salt; they lengthen my showers and slow my stride; they chap my cheeks and etch my crows’ feet deeper into my skin; they gag and loose and befoul my tongue; they terrorize my affections, blitzkrieg my hopes, and make a ground zero of my expectations; they tax my strongest relationships and spoil my family reunions; they even follow me to church and laugh at my Faith.

Yet, every few months, my grief cools its stinging heels in the fifth, epsom-salt of stages: acceptance.

Acceptance, that clairvoyant mirror which reflects my reality in 3-D.

I look in that mirror and see an empty quiver. A fruitless tree. A childless crib. An heirless family.

I see a barren woman.

I see the truth, and I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.

But, I don’t ignore it. I don’t fight it. I don’t haggle over it. I don’t wear it as a millstone around my neck.

I simply live with it.

That is, until a grief alumnus comes knocking on my door to pour me another one of those briny cups of tea.

O Lord, Father of all mercy and God of all comfort, You always go before and follow after us. Grant that we may rejoice in Your gracious presence and continually be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

(Collect of the Day for Proper 6C from Lutheran Service Book, copyright Concordia Publishing House)

So You Want to Be a Mother?

I don’t know why God in His wisdom has not yet given us the gift of children. I don’t know why the pregnancy tests keep coming back negative. I don’t know why the adoption referrals are falling through.

But, here’s what I do know. Our desire to be mothers is good and right and God-given, so we don’t need to be afraid to be mothers today even without children of our own.

Be a mother of mothers and pray for your friends and family with children. Invite them all over for dinner, make that decadent trifle for dessert, and set a bucket of water balloons out in your front yard for a little impromptu playtime. Give those hard-working moms a break and watch their children while you send them off to the spa for an afternoon. Stick some grocery cards in their purses, accompany them on school field trips, and listen to what they have to say about life and mothering and everything in between.

Be a mother to the fatherless. Donate your time and talents to your local crisis pregnancy center, advocate for the rights of frozen embryos, speak honestly and openly about the effects of abortion on children, women, men, and our communities, raise money for adoption grants and orphanages, and hold the hands of teen mothers during ultrasounds.

Be a mother to the children in your church. Teach Sunday school, lead the children’s choir, make punch for VBS, sew quiet books and baptismal banners for the youngest saints, serve as godparents, chaperone a youth trip, and sit with frazzled parents who would like help wrangling their children during the sermon.

Be a mother to the elderly. Pick up sticks in their yards after a storm, give them rides to Walgreens, check out books for them from the library, weed their flower beds, sit with them and listen to their stories about the past, play the piano for them at your local nursing facility, and help alert your pastor as to when they require pastoral care.

Be a mother to a soldier. Write letters to him, send him Twizzlers, crochet him scarves, and pray for him every day. Make sure his family has plenty of money to pay their bills. Take his children to Chuck E. Cheese’s. Offer childcare once a week so his wife can run necessary errands. Attend his children’s sporting events and school concerts.

Be a mother to your pastor. Pray for him, speak well of him, defend him, and encourage him at every opportunity. Bring him produce from your garden, fill his freezer with beef from your pasture, and bake him an apple pie. Volunteer in whatever way you can at church and make sure his shoes never have holes in them. Serve on the altar guild and set the table for the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. Water the flowers on the altar and care for the vestments and paraments in the sacristy. Go to church and receive from him the gifts of Christ.

Be a mother to the dying and sit at their bedsides. Read to them the Psalms, confess to them the Apostles Creed, and sing into their ears those precious words of light and life which can be found in your hymnal.

I know you want to be a mother. Go ahead. Be a mother wherever you are, just as you are, to the children and people God has put in your life today.

Get Ready to GETAWAY!

The Great Getaway is approaching fast, and registration for on-sight attendees is now filled and closed. However, we do have room left for commuting attendees.

Do you crave fellowship with other women who understand what it’s like to be childless or to lose a child? Do you have ethical questions about infertility medicine you’d like to ask a pro-life doctor? Would you enjoy eating decadent desserts prepared by a loving pastor and his wife who just want to spoil you rotten? Do you need a retreat in a beautiful house near a scenic park in historic St. Louis?

Then, you might want to join us this summer for the The Great Getaway on Friday, July 26th through Sunday, July 28th. Retreat details and registration information can be found here.