Infertility

A Father’s Grief for His Barren Daughter

Barrenness affects everyone in our families, possibly no one more than our parents. In our barrenness, they, too, are barren. My father lovingly penned this, and he gave me permission to post it for all the other dads out there who may be grieving for their barren daughters. He wants you to know that you are not alone.

“Father of the Tried” by Bob Roley

I have just been sitting here looking at the picture on the cover of the book He Remembers the Barren. Such a haunting picture that seems to cut clean to your soul. How much pain must be associated with barrenness and the loneliness that follows? How can you console someone with such grief as depicted in that picture?

Since I am a man of 60+ years with married children and grandchildren, you would think that I would not find this such a haunting subject. I come from a large family with many brothers and sisters, and my mom comes from a large family. As a result, I have several aunts, uncles, and cousins. I remember growing up and realizing that several of my cousins were adopted, but, being young and living in an era when no one really talked about that kind of stuff, I had no idea why. I am now much more knowledgeable about problems of infertility and what kind of an impact they have had on my aunts, sisters, nieces, and, yes, my daughters. I am also very aware that those medical issues may have been passed down through my mother’s side of the family.

So, why am I haunted by my daughter’s book and the picture on the front of it? My daughters, who have been the pride of my life and for whom I would gladly die, are now faced with this pain. Even those with children suffer along with the ones who can’t have children. We have had so many years of fun times, family outings, adventures, and just the joy of being together, and we still do. So, why must such near-perfect times be strained by such pain? Is this all my fault?

I am no theologian, no great Lutheran thinker, not even a good Christian, but I do know this: Sin is the problem, and God has taken care of that for me. I keep remembering the part in C.S. Lewis’s book, Till We Have Faces, where the main character wants to ask God all these questions, and, when she finally gets to stand before God, all she can do is look at His face and realize that before Him there are no questions.

I look forward to the day I get to stand before God as one of His children and realize there are no more questions.

Mother of Eight

I prayed to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to make me a mother, and, in His mercy, He has granted my request.

Just last week, in preparation for parenthood, my husband and I turned in our zippy Honda Fit for a twelve-passenger van. We stocked up on Juicy Juice boxes, cereal bars, and Cheese-Its. We gathered blue, pink, and polka-dotted fleece blankets to keep our kids warm at night and tended to all of the health insurance forms and waivers required of every family.

Then, on the morning of July 9th (before the sun had even cleared the Eastern horizon) we became the happy parents of eight sleepy, groggy youth from our congregation. We loaded them into the van, waved at all of the people gathered in the church parking lot to celebrate the occasion, and turned north towards the Coram Deo Higher Things Youth Conference in Bloomington, IL.

Throughout the next seven days, my husband and I experienced parenting adventures to our hearts’ content: managing frequent potty breaks, setting curfews, making sure everyone ate enough fruits and veggies, teaching how to respect each others’ personal boundaries, encouraging the shy and taming the bold, removing splinters, running last-minute errands, talking about God’s faithfulness to all of us in Jesus, taking the Body and Blood of the Lord together, sharing in each others’ dreams and desires, and seeing the world. We were a proper “Pastor and Kate Plus Eight” (or, “Pastor and Katie Plus Eightie,” as the youth preferred to call us).

The best part? Our nightly devotions. As we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together and recited the Apostles’ Creed as one, I marveled at the faith of my children. What a delight to confess the same faith in the Triune God! What a comfort to be one in the body of Christ!

On the night of the last devotion of our trip, I found myself looking around through tears of joy at each precious soul. I am a mother in the Church. I get to participate in the upbringing of the young people in my congregation. I get to pray for them, encourage them, admonish them, teach them, commune with them, sing with them, and remind them of the grace they have been given in their baptism. I even get to take them on youth trips and be their “mom” for a week.

Thank you, God, for answering my prayer.

In the Courts of the Lord’s House

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Ps. 84:1-2

There is no better place to go when you are at the breaking point, no place more suited to address your emotional wounds and your breaking heart, than the House of the Lord. I don’t just mean the building itself, of course, but the Divine Service that is held there weekly by the man who is in the stead of Christ and commanded by Him to administer to you the medicine you need. The cleansing, healing, and nourishing effects of what happens each Sunday to those gathered in the Lord’s House are supernatural and, though invisible to the naked eye, completely transforming to the soul.

In They Will See His Face (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002), Richard C. Eyer highlights seven parts of the liturgy that speak to the frailty of our human existence and are particularly meaningful for the barren woman. The consistent and dependable flow of liturgical worship weaves Scripture throughout and includes all the promises that seem to be forgotten throughout the week. Our souls, so weak and weary from the crosses we carry and so easily distracted by worldly pursuits, have the opportunity to refocus on Him who is the true source of all help, comfort and joy—Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of the service we have the opportunity to confess those sins that always accompany the soul that feels deprived of something. There’s discontent, jealousy, impatience, even idolatry at times. Guided by the words written in our hymnals we admit that, “We have not loved You with our whole heart,” and we plead with the Lord to, “Forgive us, renew us and lead us, so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your holy name.” That’s right, the sinner remembers, through Christ’s renewal and His guidance, I can find delight in His will, whatever that may turn out to be.

Having confessed our sins and then receiving absolution from our pastor, we seek to enter into God’s presence with what Eyer refers to as the “password,” the Invocation, where we speak the name that was spoken to us on the day of our baptisms, when we were brought into God’s family: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Holy Spirit. “It is there,” says Eyer, “in the presence of God and lifted out of ourselves by God, that we find healing for all our anxieties, worries, and fears. And if we are willing, they can all be left behind so that we may return to our homes in peace” (p. 35). In God’s presence, under the shadow of His name, there is no need for those anxieties, worries, or fears. They are washed away once again.

The experience of barrenness can be so isolating and can cause one to feel separated from others who might not understand the depths of your pain. A harmful gap can occur between you and those around you who have experienced such effortless fertility. It is in the fellowship of our brothers and sisters in Christ, coming into the presence of God and joining together throughout the service in prayer and song that this gap is bridged and our focus becomes united. “Loneliness cries out for the solitude that comes from a maturing faith. Solitude is found in fellowship with God and the worshiping community, where we are fed the Gospel in Word and Sacraments by God Himself” (p. 46).

Depression is also one of many responses to barrenness, and Eyer helps us see how vital it is that those dealing with depression listen carefully to the Word that is read during the service. “The Old Testament, the Epistle, and the Gospel assure us that in the midst of our difficulties, disappointments, and depression, God is there to do what we cannot. … The importance of hearing the Word of God in times of depression, as well as any other, is that it provides a vision of what is objectively true regardless of how we feel at the moment. We need to hear the Word of hope even if we don’t feel it at the moment. God’s Word to the believer is always a Word of hope” (pg. 70). As opposed to what some well-meaning matron of the congregation might tell you, this “hope” that we trust in is not the hope of conceiving—it’s so much bigger than that. It is the hope that the One already conceived long ago by the Holy Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ, will make all things new for us after we breathe our last breath on this earth. No more tears, no more longing, no more wishing for something that is not ours—only the acquisition of that heavenly reward which we do not deserve.

I encourage you to read Eyer’s book and learn more about “The Peace of the Lord and the Healing of Grief,” “The Prayers of the Church and Healing of our Sickness,” and “The Creed and the Healing of our Intellect.” So much more comfort and encouragement awaits the barren woman in these pages. She who understands what is truly offered in the Divine Service will cherish the relief that it brings and will be better able to acknowledge Christ as the only One who fully satisfies our wounded hearts and makes us whole again.

I come, oh Savior, to Thy table

For weak and weary is my soul.

Thou Bread of Life alone art able

To satisfy and make me whole.

Lord, may Thy body and Thy blood

Be for my soul the highest good.

                Lutheran Service Book #618

A Baby in My Tummy

“Do you have a baby in your tummy?”

Almost every child in my life has asked me this question at some time or another. Most recently, my four-year-old niece turned around on my lap one afternoon, wrinkled her nose up at me, and asked, “Where are your children?”

It never offends me when children ask me this. Honestly, it kind of comforts me. They get it. They understand that something is askew. They can sense that I, a grown-up, married woman, should have kids. It is almost as if their inquisitive eyes (or, my niece’s nose for that matter) are saying, “What’s up with that?”

I believe an honest question deserves an honest answer.

I shrugged at my niece. “God has not given me any children. I pray that He will, but He knows what is best for me and Uncle Michael.”

My niece thought about it for a moment, nodded her head, and turned back to her previous activity. Of course. No drama. No pity. It is what it is.

I think we can learn a lot from children.

The IVF Question

Well, it’s time. You knew this would come up sooner or later. It’s just something that can’t be avoided when discussing infertility in the 21st century. Maybe you’re considering the procedure yourself with the encouragement of your physician, family and friends. Maybe you’re tired of hearing about other couples who have successfully conceived by means of IVF while you and your spouse have decided that it’s not an option. Either way, this post is for you.

It wouldn’t be appropriate to dive into this sticky subject without making sure that we define what we’re talking about (courtesy of the Word English Dictionary):

IVF=A technique enabling some women who are unable to conceive to bear children. Egg cells removed from a woman’s ovary are fertilized by sperm in vitro; some of the resulting fertilized egg cells are incubated until the blastocyst stage, which are then implanted into her uterus.

 Merriam-Webster defines it similarly. These definitions are medical definitions using medical terminology. What would it look like if we used non-medical English and a biblical understanding of the life process?

IVF=A technique enabling some women who are unable to conceive to bear children. Egg cells surgically removed from a woman’s ovary are fertilized by sperm in a glass dish; some of the tiny human beings who are conceived are kept [in a laboratory] under the proper conditions for development until these children have grown a bit stronger, and they are then implanted into her uterus.

 After reading this through again, there is one word that should be jumping out at you as the most important word of all. Did you catch it? Some. It’s so small you almost don’t realize it’s of any significance and yet it changes everything. Some of the tiny humans have a chance at life and therefore some do not. What is implied but not explained is the fact that some of the tiny humans are not needed. They are of no value to the new parents and are therefore destroyed or frozen. If we believe that human life begins at conception, then it’s clear that IVF, as defined here, makes some tiny human lives and then destroys or freezes many of those human beings. That is the main problem.

We know the Bible speaks to this point. The Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder,” applies to life at all ages and stages. Martin Luther’s explanation to this commandment makes it clear that we have broken this law whenever we employ any procedure that hurts or harms our neighbor in his body and fails to help and support him in every physical need.  Christians believe, and now science has acknowledged, that life begins at conception, whether in the womb or in a dish. And all life is precious and worthy of our compassion and protection.

Though difficult to admit, the couple who emerges from a “successful” IVF procedure does so as the parents of both living and dead (or frozen) children. There’s much rejoicing and congratulations exchanged, but no acknowledgement of what’s been lost. Is it ignorance? Or is it apathy? In both cases we have to admit that it is sin. There’s no getting around it.

At this point, let me remind you of the life-changing words from the apostle John: “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrightousness” (1 John 1:8-9). Yes, that means you, too, who are sitting there perhaps without the burden of IVF in your past but plenty of self-rightousness, jealousy, and distrust in your heart to even out the scales. The call to repentance and the promise of forgiveness is yours as well. Christ’s payment for sin was necessary not just for some, but for all. Humility before God and the desire to live and walk under His law in all things prepares the heart to receive the cleansing blood of Christ and the joyous proclamation of forgiveness in the Gospel, both preached and applied individually. Repent, confess, receive, and then put the past behind you. Believe our Lord when He says, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25).

So then, how are we to view the children who survive the IVF procedure and come to full-term, knowing that they were conceived in sin? My friend Katie has the answer: “We can know with certainty that all children are exactly what God tells us they are in His Word: a heritage from Him.  Whatever controversies surround in vitro fertilization, the children that are conceived and born to us through such procedures are still a heritage from the Lord.  God’s love is what makes any and every child valuable in this life, not the means of parentage.”

Here’s a similar example: Many children adopted into Christian families were conceived outside of marriage. This behavior is not part of God’s plan for procreation. And yet the result of that act is a precious child of God, baptized into His name and living a life under His care and protection, graciously placed within a Christian family. God takes an evil situation and turns it into good, as He has done repeatedly throughout history.

Despite the fact that I desperately want more children, I still could never condone or encourage anyone to engage in immoral behavior that would result in conception, birth, and a potential adoption for me or any other woman. Likewise, we can treasure and be thankful for those children who came to us through IVF, even though the process was not at all how God intended to create families, and even though we hope and pray that others will avoid IVF.

Does Jesus love the children conceived through IVF? He most certainly does. In fact, He’s on their side. He says, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40). But Jesus says this not only about the IVF children who survive, but also about those who are intentionally allowed to die or are frozen. “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to Me.” Since life begins at conception, let us never think that IVF, as defined above, is a permissible option for Christians.

For more information on this topic, please check out the following resources:

http://issuesetc.org/archives/nov08/nov19.html (Dr. Kevin Voss of the Concordia Bioethics Institute on Issues, Etc.)

In Vitro Fertilization: Moral or Immoral?

What Are We to Do with the Embryos?

A Review of Reproductive Technologies

Hymns to Chase Away the Harmful Spirit

One night was worse than all of the others. I honestly can’t even remember very much of it anymore. It is as if the pain and darkness of my own grief was so pungent that my brain has blocked all sensory memory of the experience.

I do remember that my cries felt different. No, they were moans, not cries.  I had lost control of them. They rose unbidden from the center of my gut, and they came without ceasing, one perfect messa di voce after another.

I was staring my barrenness in the face, and my stomach vomited moans.

I thought to myself, “This is despair.”

I remember that my husband looked at me differently that night. He recognized the harmful spirit. No tender touches would chase it away. No platitudes of earthly comfort would suffice. He simply reached for the hymnal and began to sing:

“Why should cross and trial grieve me?
Christ is near
With His cheer;
Never will He leave me.
Who can rob me of the heaven
That God’s Son
For me won
When His life was given?

When life’s troubles rise to meet me,
Though their weight
May be great,
They will not defeat me.
God, my loving Savior, sends them;
He who knows
All my woes
Knows how best to end them.

God gives me my days of gladness,
And I will
Trust Him still
When He sends me sadness.
God is good; His love attends me
Day by day,
Come what may,
Guides me and defends me.” *

My husband had no lyre that night, but his singing was a David to my Saul. Hymn after hymn he sang, boldly proclaiming the Word of God in our home and swinging that powerful sword of Spirit to chase the Devil from our door.

And, as my husband – my warrior! – sang those Gospel Words of light and life into my own ears, my shield of faith was strengthened. The flaming darts of the devil were extinguished. My moans ceased.

* Lutheran Service Book 756 “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?” (Text: Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76; tr. Christian Worship, 1993, sts. 1-3)

Room for More

Eight years ago Jerome and I were blessed with the birth of our daughter Joanna. What a time of joy that was! We had already waited several years for her to arrive, so we were bursting at the seams with smiles.  This was the first grandchild on my side of the family, and I was filled with joy to begin the next generation.  We watched our daughter grow and change on a daily basis, as well as nurtured her faith with hymns and prayers.  I relished (and still do) being a parent, despite the lows that mixed with the highs.

Fast-forward a couple of years.  We were ready to expand our family once again.  After several unsuccessful months without conception, we talked with our doctor.  He ordered tests and determined nothing out of the ordinary.  We used some medications but to no avail.  Finally, we were faced with the prospect of IVF or many tests and dollars towards other methods.  At the time, this seemed the end of the road.  My heart and home were ready for more children!

We went home and prayed.  What would the Lord have us do?  IVF was not an option for us, and we didn’t want to endure tests and needle-pokes and the like.  It didn’t seem that we would conceive naturally. I can still clearly recall my doctor telling me that all of the infertility tests and such would be a thing of the past once my house was full of children.  Really?  How could he make that claim?  Yet I believed him.

There are some things that I KNOW for certain…  I am a sinner.  I am by no means perfect.  My body is not perfect.  I know that I believe in the Triune God, who loves me DESPITE all of my imperfections.  I know that God has only good planned for me.  I know that He grants me only good things.  I know that my heart has a great capacity to love, especially to love children.

Yes, my heart has room for more children.  I so dearly desire more children in my family.  I want the big table with family gathered around for holidays.  I want to see my yard full of children playing games together.  I want to take family vacations with my children and make memories.  I want to have children sit on my lap while I read stories to them.  I want more children.

But it hasn’t happened.  I have been blessed instead with nieces and nephews to love.  I am godparent to eleven beautiful children.  I am privileged to teach Sunday School and to direct the children’s choir in my church.  I get the opportunity to read stories on a monthly basis to children at our local library.  My heart has so much room to love these children.  No, they’re not biological or adopted.  That doesn’t matter.  God has placed these children in my life.  My heart has room to love them, and so I do.  The Lord has given my heart room for so many children, and so I love them.

My husband and I pray for more children to be part of our immediate family.  We pray that God answers our prayer favorably.  No matter how He answers, though, I know that I am dearly loved by God.  He has made me part of His family, and He loves me dearly.

Words of Comfort?

Question Submitted: I don’t know what to say to my friend who recently miscarried.  It seems like what one person finds comforting, another person finds offensive.

I do not have the perfect answer to this question, nor do I know what words will fully comfort every woman who has ever endured such a crisis, but I can offer you a few practical suggestions:

1. Make sure her pastor knows what is going on, so that he can go to her and minister to her.

2. Pray for her.

3. Be there. Share in her loss as faithfully as you would in her joy. If she wants to be alone, respect her privacy and seek her out the next day. And the next. And the next.

4. Listen to her. Acknowledge her miscarriage (barrenness) for exactly what it is – a heinous, horrible reality – and be careful not to try to “explain it away.” Her grief and pain are too present to be put in a box. Let her freely lament, for lamentation has always been a part of the Christian life.

5.  Tend to the immediate, physical needs of her family. Do they have food to eat? Do they need daycare? Does anyone need a ride to doctors’ appointments? Etc.

6. If given the opportunity to speak words of comfort to her, remember this: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16) Speak the Word of God to her, remind her of God’s promises to her in Jesus, and sing words of hope and comfort. I personally find Psalms 6, 30, 40, 123, 130, and 138 comforting, and my husband often sings the following hymns to me in my grief: LSB 760 “What God Ordains Is Always Good,” LSB 754 “Entrust Your Days and Burdens,” and LSB 756 “Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me.”

(A note of warning: Whenever we are given the opportunity to say something to someone else who is suffering, most of us tend to say the thing that would most comfort ourselves. It is almost as if we can’t help but project our own sense of order onto another person’s chaos – and barrenness and miscarriage are definitely situations of chaos and crisis. I strongly advise you to carefully guard your friend from your own sense of order and let her faith, instead, respond to the Word of God. In other words, carefully guard your friend from yourself.)

7. And, finally, should you say something that angers her in her grief, apologize to her and let it go. Forgive yourself and forgive her, and keep coming back to her, seventy times seven times.

The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

“We don’t see justice, but we know that it is coming.”

That is what Pastor McGuire said to us yesterday in our Wednesday morning Bible class. We have been studying the minor prophets, and yesterday was our turn to read Habakkuk. “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?  Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” Habakkuk complains to the Lord for himself and for the people of Israel who, conquered years before by the Assyrians, are suffering under the hand of their oppressors.

The Lord’s response? “I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation.”

What?! I can just imagine Habakkuk’s self-righteous feelings of injustice at the Lord’s answer to his prayer for deliverance. Really, Lord? That’s your answer? You are going to send the Babylonians to conquer the Assyrians? No doubt, Habakkuk’s idea of true justice would have been for the Lord to raise up the Israelites to conquer their oppressors themselves, not to replace the violent Assyrians with an even more dreaded and fearsome nation.

Habakkuk complains a second time to the Lord. “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” Preach it, Brother! I confess, I have often felt similar feelings of injustice when unwed mothers and promiscuous teens get pregnant time and time again while my husband and I have still not been able to conceive in our marriage of nine years.

And, then, in one fell swoop, the Lord knocks all of us off our self-justice-seeking soapboxes with His answer to Habakkuk: “The righteous shall live by faith.”

When we read these words in class yesterday morning, I had a hard time fighting back the tears. Those words punched me and hugged me all at the same time. “The righteous (that’s me, a baptized child of God, beloved daughter made right by Christ) shall live by faith.” My response to life – to the injustices, the crosses, the unwed mothers, the failed pregnancies – is faith in God’s justice for me, not in what I think is best. Like Habakkuk and all of Israel suffering under the hand of the Assyrians, I hear the Lord’s words and know that I am to trust in God’s plan, even if it includes some Babylonians.

For, God is trustworthy. We know how it works out for the Israelites. God sends a Messiah, Jesus Christ His own Son, to suffer and die on the cross to save all of us from that greatest of oppressors, Sin. I know, in Christ, that God loves me and deals with me graciously. I get to trust in and be comforted by God’s promises, knowing that He works all things, even an empty womb, for my eternal good. Faith is God’s precious gift to me, and I get to live by it.