Infertility

What’s Your Job?

“What is your job, anyway?” one of my best friends asked me this week. “You know, this thing you do. The driving around everywhere to listen to peoples’ problems.”

Huh. I knew what she was asking, but I didn’t know how to answer. Because I’m not exactly sure myself. “Facilitator, I guess.”

I thought for one more moment before nodding my head. Yes, that’s the best word I could think of for it. I’m not a trained social worker; I don’t have an official call as a deaconess in the church; I’m not employed by any organization to do this traveling-speaking-listening-thing. But still. People want, even need, the chance to get together to talk about all kinds of things – suffering, barrenness, secondary infertility, chronic pain, infertility ethics, miscarriages, estranged children, dead family members, you name it – and it’s my privilege to facilitate that getting together.

My friend nodded and did that thing she does so well. She waited for me to say more, for she wasn’t being sassy in her questioning. She was being helpful, encouraging me to process and talk about my strange vocation.

“Actually,” I confided, leaning against her kitchen counter for support, “this may sound silly, but I kind of think of myself as a mother of women whose own mothers live far away or are already asleep in Jesus. They need a woman to hold their hand, listen to them, hug them, comfort them, and remind them of God’s faithfulness to them in Christ Jesus. They need a mother. I get to be that for them, sometimes.”

I felt my face warm at this very personal admission. I’m barren, but I had just called myself a mother. I hastily explained, “I just don’t blog about it very much, because I feel weird admitting it to others.”

But it’s true.

So I just blogged about it.

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The Wisdom of Kristi

More than a few times along this HRTB blogging journey, I have been broken in such a way that required someone else putting me back together. That someone was almost always Kristi.

“I don’t think God’s going to give us any children,” I remember sobbing into the phone to her one afternoon. I felt so worthless to the world as a childless, married woman, and the guilt and shame of barrenness and failed adoptions and empty arms threatened to overwhelm me.

“I love you just the way you are,” Kristi spoke evenly into my ear. “I wouldn’t change one thing about you. God has given you what you have today, and He works all things for your good. You are blessed even without children.”

When scathing correspondence began pouring in from IVF advocates around the world, Kristi kept me on task.

“People need to be educated in a gentle yet honest way,” she cheered, “one that points them back to Christ, Who keeps them.”

There were even times when Kristi seemed almost telepathic, as if she could sense what particular burdens and doubts I was struggling against that day.

“Your marriage has been blessed by God,” she pointed out, “despite not being blessed with children either biologically or adopted. Your marriage is a gift from the Lord, and that is something to be cherished.”

But there is one little bit of correspondence from Kristi that, still to this day, moves me more than anything else. It’s just so selfless and generous. For, from across an ocean and in the middle of a sleepless night just after her adopted baby girl had finally been put into her arms for the first time, Kristi emailed me – insignificant, childless me:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!”

Even now, the fact that Kristi put her own joy on hold to sit with me in my grief, stings my eyes with liquid salt.

Kristi is that person who tells me the truth – the unpolluted Truth which comforts and restores – when I need to hear it the most, and I am better for it.

That’s why, whenever I sit down to write a post on this website, I try so hard to be like her.

Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, and Embryo Testing

Thank you to Rev. Todd Wilken for talking with me about infertility, IVF, and embryo testing this afternoon on Issues, Etc.

You can listen to the interview here.

Infertility Ethics Symposium

Thank you to Andy Bates and KFUO’s His Time show for interviewing Dr. Jeff Gibbs and me this morning on the upcoming Infertility Ethics Symposium at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.

You can listen to the interview here.

Reporter Online also recently published a helpful article which explains why the LCMS Life Ministry and the Concordia Seminary Life Team are co-sponsoring this important and timely event.

You can read the article here.

Cow Choir

I stood next to the electric fence, its current of energy clicking like a castanet around the perimeter of the rolling pasture. I had just finished my morning run, and my senses were feasting on the lush humidity of green grass, mud puddles, and cow pies. I couldn’t help but sing.

I am Jesus’ little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am;

A nearby heifer lifted her head and swung my way.

For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need and well provides me,

Another spotted girl on the southern slope abandoned her to-go breakfast and ambled towards the music. Then, another. And another. The heifers were peeling off one by one, now, defying the herd mentality for music. Perhaps cows and musicians are kindred spirits?

Loves me ev’ry day the same,
Even calls me by my name.

At this point, six black-and-white heifers stood silently before me in a line, their shoulders hunched together like shy teenagers at a party. I was singing about the wrong animal, but they didn’t seem to mind. At least the Hero was correct. I started in on stanza two.

From somewhere behind me, a screen door opened and slammed shut, and soon two boyish pairs of bare feet were braving the gravel driveway to come stand at my side. Apparently, cows are not the only creatures willing to leave breakfast for a good hymn-sing.

“Let’s sing the Offertory,” I suggested to my short companions. They didn’t hesitate, their sweet voices floating over the sun-streaked countryside like birds on a breeze.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not a way from Thy presence,
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.

I looked over my shoulder to see the thirteen-year-old in braids who had quietly emerged from the farmhouse to join our choir.

Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation,
And uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Amen.

The cows stared at us, quiet and motionless. They didn’t applaud, but they also didn’t leave.

“I think they like our music,” I said.

The older boy leaned over and whispered, “They must be Lutheran.”

The cows didn’t protest.

“But which one is the pastor?” he asked.

“I know,” the younger boy piped up. “The bull is the pastor.”

I contained my smile. “I bet you’re right. God calls men to be pastors, so it must be the bull.”

“But that one’s the organist,” the older boy confirmed, pointing to the first heifer to join our songfest. One strand of grass hung awkwardly from the corner of her mouth. The thirteen-year-old giggled with delight.

“Yes, I think she is.”

We sang a few more hits from Lutheran Service Book before waving goodbye to our cow kin. As I headed into the house to claim my own spot at my hostess’s table, I couldn’t help but thank God for dairy farms, Missouri breezes, the hospitality of dear friends in Christ, the faith of little Lutherans, and the gift that is the Church’s song.

Some days, in the fellowship of Christ, I almost feel like a mother.

Cross-Bearing

We are Simon of Cyrene.

We are called out of our comfortable existences – away from our well-laid plans and trips and vacations – to pick up the cross and turn towards Golgotha.

We are called to step alongside our bloody Savior.

We are called to messy good works which our Lord has prepared in advance for us to do.

We are called to witness the Suffering Servant pour out His blood for our atonement.

We are inconvenienced – yes, even annoyed – to have to bear the weight of something so filthy, but we are blessed beyond reason to be plucked from the crowd of goats. For we, in our cross-carrying, see the Savior’s power to bear more than just the weight of splintery wood. We see Him bear the crushing weight of Sin so that nothing – not our sin, not death, not the devil – can separate us from the love of God.

We who have been baptized into Jesus’ death will carry the cross and die with Him, but – Good News! – our Savior did not stay dead. He is risen, and we will rise again, too! Alleluia!

So put a shoulder under it, Simon.

“May we both be like Anna”

There are times when God in His wisdom and mercy grants one of us our request for a child. So He has seen fit to do for our sister in Christ, Abby, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a more beautiful “sharing and bearing” epistle in my entire correspondence with women who struggle under the cross of barrenness:

We had the marvelous, bittersweet gift of, for once, hitting a “due date” [from one of our miscarried babies] with another baby on the way, and now that we are rounding the corner of the third trimester, it’s maybe sinking in? I am so happy and so scared, still, for her. I am praying all the more for the Lord’s return for us all and many baby blessings in the meantime.

We are naming her Anne in honor of Hannah’s prayers and God’s marvelous favor to Anna, which came in the revelation of the Messiah and NOT in the form of a baby of her own. Because we have been so open with friends and family about our miscarriages, it has proven more natural to reply graciously to those who say things about how much the baby will “help us heal” from the miscarriages. I’m sorry, the only baby who does that is Jesus. I refuse to believe that this girl is the answer or solution. That would not be fair to expect of her. And we have all heard those awful stories about umbilical cords that wrap too tight, little lungs that just won’t expand, or chests that stop beating one night…. if one of those things were to happen to a baby that’s supposed to heal me, where would I be then? (Devastated, of course, but preferably not bereft of all hope in the Gospel.)

The Bible does not say, “For God so loved the barren/miscarrying woman that He gave each one the promise of her own child, that whosoever believes in Him will not remain barren but will have a procreative life.” Because of His love for the whole world, He gave His Son so we could have eternal life. What good, good news.

Much love to you, and I’m praying this news comes to you in God’s timing. May you see manifold witness of His love and care for you in every bit of your day, and may we both be like Anna, who found her satisfaction in God’s faithfulness to provide salvation.

Thank you, Abby, and amen.

Trust in the Lord

jacob-wrestling copy I was sitting in the hot seat at KFUO, listening to my husband respond to the radio show host’s question of what it means to deal with barrenness as a man, when I heard him say this:

“This cross [of barrenness] is one of the ways the Lord is teaching us to trust more fully in Him and in His will. He wants us to trust Him on this even when we have not received this particular gift that He gives.”

The wrestling angel released his death grip on my conscience, my hip went back into its socket, and I saw again the Lord’s blessing on my childless marriage. We get to trust in the Lord. Our barrenness is a gift, an opportunity to trust in God further, to trust in Him still, to trust in Him regardless, for He promises to work all things for our good. A wave of comfort washed over me like an anointing, its soothing rivulets of warm, sweet-smelling oil streaming down my neck and my spine.

It is not a new concept, this trusting in the Lord, but I still need to hear it over and over again that my baptized heart might believe and be comforted.

Luther writes about it this way in his Large Catechism (I:2-3):

“A god means that from which we are to expect all good and in which we are to take refuge in all distress. So, to have a God is nothing other than trusting and believing Him with the heart. I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust is right, then your god is also true. On the other hand, if your trust is false and wrong, then you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Now, I say that whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god.”

Lord, help me ever to set my heart on and put my trust in You, not in motherhood. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

What He Said

“Our experiences are not promises from God.” Rev. Michael Schuermann

You’ve Still Got a Good Thing

It happened again. And sadly, it will most likely happen many more times. Somebody, with good intentions, was trying to fix your family situation, one which we both know, is a marriage union that has been blessed by God, despite not being blessed with children, either biologically or adopted. I hope you are never made to feel guilty or ashamed for not being given the gift of children. Your marriage is a gift from the Lord, and that is something to be cherished. Whether or not He adds children to your family is not something you can dictate. Rather, I encourage you to pray for the Lord’s will to always be done in your life, with or without children. Your husband is one of God’s many gifts to you, and that’s a good thing.