Accompanying infertile couples with love and understanding

Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah. Anna and Elizabeth. The stories of these women and their anguished cries to God for the gift of children are deeply ingrained in the Tradition. Each experienced sadness, shame, and ridicule — sometimes even within their closest relationships. Childlessness cast a shadow over their marriages — recall Elkinah’s pained question to Hannah, “Am I not better for you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:8) — and stirred up spiritual conflict in their hearts. Yet each of their stories ended similarly: with God’s miraculous intervention, and the children they bore assuming pivotal roles in salvation history.

For some couples, the hoped-for “miracle” of a child comes only after many years of painful disappointment. For others, this miracle never manifests. Some suffer the pain of pregnancy loss, while others never conceive. These couples grieve their lost hopes and dreams and may wonder if God has deemed them unworthy.
 
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in five couples experience infertility. Whether or not you carry this burden, it is likely endured by a family member, friend, or co-worker. As Christians, we should be concerned about these couples who are struggling to conceive or who experience pregnancy loss: they are in our pews on Sundays. Do we notice them? And if so, how can we walk with them?

Seek to understand their experience. The emotional, spiritual, and physical suffering associated with infertility cannot be overstated, though it is mostly carried in silence and isolation. This isolation sometimes even penetrates the marital relationship as spouses struggle to understand each other’s experience of grief. Infertility is accompanied by such complex emotions as sadness, anger, jealousy, and self-doubt. Added to this is the burden of well-meaning but often insensitive questions and proposed “solutions” from family, friends, and even strangers. Thus, infertility tends to be a silent suffering, but one that requires great compassion and understanding from others, especially within the Body of Christ.
 
Acknowledge their cross as faithful Catholics. The Catholic Church holds a consistent pro-life ethic and fights for the dignity and right to life of all human persons. The Church’s teaching on marriage and the giftedness of children, along with its advocacy for the unborn, are truly signs of contradiction in our world. Yet when the hopes of married couples desiring a “big Catholic family” are not realized, these couples may endure shame on top of their grief, fearing judgement for their small family size or lack of children, and may even be falsely assumed to be contracepting.
 
Instead of solutions, offer presence, love, and prayers. No one knows the shape or weight of another’s cross, and the greatest gift we can give to someone who is suffering is simply to love and be present to them. As difficult as it may be, when we learn of a couple’s infertility, we must resist the temptation toward idle curiosity or to offer solutions based on our own experience. This way, we are more available to offer support, including through our prayers. In our response to the couple experiencing infertility, we have the opportunity to be compassionate and to affirm the goodness of their marriage and their contribution to the Church and the world.

Couples carrying the cross of infertility walk a difficult path, but it is one that offers many graces and gifts. Their radical availability to serve others and the Church makes them uniquely fruitful. Through their love for one another and willingness to seek God’s will as spouses, they are invaluable witnesses to the good of marriage and the gift of fidelity amid adversity. Couples experiencing infertility truly belong in the Church.

ANN M. KOSHUTE, M.T.S., is co-founder and executive director of Springs in the Desert, a Catholic apostolate dedicated to spiritually and emotionally accompanying couples struggling with infertility and loss. Its sister organization, Springs of Love, encourages, educates, and equips Catholics to discern and live out the call to foster and adopt.