Finding God’s Love in Infertility
We tried for 19 months. During this time we were a part of a thriving Christian community, but our friends were too young, and our other relationships in the church were too shallow for someone to tell us that we are indeed dealing with infertility. So we never saw a doctor. Instead, we just buried the fear that something was wrong and entrenched ourselves in what I call “the monthly hope-devastation-lament-cycle.” While struggling through this, we suffered silently and alone.
After more than a year and a half, the Lord graciously wiped away the memory of the pain we had experienced when the hope-devastation-lament-cycle was broken. Christina took our last pregnancy test, the one buried deep in the cabinet under our bathroom sink because we couldn’t bring ourselves to buy any more. It came back positive! We were filled with so much joy. Days later, we heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. We’d go on to name him Lennox Christopher. He’s a huge 4 year old now, and he is everything we could have asked for.
Lennox was 8 months old when we decided we were ready to conceive again. We were convinced that a second pregnancy would come easier than the first. It did not. We fell again into the hope-devastation-lament-cycle. We’d see our friends - the ones who had children the same age as Lennox - move on to child number two. Then three. Meanwhile, the months we had been waiting to conceive had turned to years. Then the questions would arise, impacting our relationship with God. What is wrong with me? Am I not mature enough? Did I do something to upset you? Am I praying the wrong words? Can you even hear me? Why is it so easy for everyone else? These struggles also manifested relationally with each other. There were times, and whole seasons, where Christina felt unseen, unheard, uncared for by me. There were times and seasons where I felt angry, unwanted, and unloved.
It would take three and a half years to get answers from the doctor. We are still waiting on answers from the Lord. We learned that I am subfertile, which means that technically I can have children naturally, but it takes longer than the average couple. After 50 months of trying and two perplexed doctors, I know that for me, subfertility is simply infertility with an unexplained miracle son. Through all of this, I have learned a few things. Hopefully, by sharing these with you, our struggle can be a blessing to someone, even as it continues to be hard for us as we continue on in the hope-devastation-lament-cycle.
5 Things I’ve learned in infertility
Pregnancy isn’t promised. In our culture, particularly Christian culture, we map out a specific timeline for our adult Christian lives. For us, it was: “Married by 25. Pregnant at 27. Three kids by 32, so they can be out of the house before we’re 50.” I have learned through difficulty that none of those—the marriage, the pregnancy, the multiple children, or the house—is promised to us. A subtle, half-prosperity gospel, half-American dream, mentality had been at work in me. In practice, I proved to believe that all of these earthly gifts were given as a byproduct of believing the gospel. I could not imagine a world where I wouldn’t have these things. This mentality—knowing that God will fulfill your plan because your plan is good—set us up for a rude awakening. Instead, we ought to have said, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.(James 4:15).” Once we were stripped of our plan, we believed that God was sovereign. It took longer for us to remember that God was more than sovereign, he was good. We had to learn to reframe our struggles within the Fall, to reorient our hope to the consummation, and continue to look up and to rest in God’s love along the way.
Fantasy isn’t fruitful, but lamentation is life-giving. We would often fantasize about having children. We would think about names, or how we’d raise a girl. Over time, those thoughts have become increasingly painful. Now, the temptation is to fantasize about what we should have done differently: “we shouldn’t have started birth control; we should have started trying at the beginning of our marriage; we should have gone to the doctor sooner.” These thoughts, we’ve learned, are not helpful.
On the other hand, we can express our sadness to each other and others within our community. Over the first few years of secondary infertility, we did not seek to hear each other’s hearts. We didn’t share our struggles with anyone in our current community. It was too painful to talk about. It still is. However, God has given us the gift of lamentation, which is grief expressed. Instead of lamenting inwardly in isolation, we can lament in community. We are able to face our realities through sharing this slice of our stories. As we have talked about it more (and as I have written poems, and this blog), God has used these mediums to free us from some of the mental warfare that we face. Through hearing one another’s hearts, we have grown closer as husband and wife. God has brought redemption to the hope-devastation-lament-cycle.
Glory is the goal. We exist to glorify God. God’s glory is our ultimate purpose. A question that I’ve asked myself, “what if us having one child gives God the most glory from our lives?” This question has both exposed my sinful thoughts and given me great comfort. God still loves me. He still has a plan for me. Infertility is not a stamp of God’s disapproval, it is an opportunity to reflect his glory. It is still really hard, but such is the fruit of a fallen world.
Faith is refined in affliction. We may not be at the point where we “consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2), but we have seen that we have grown in steadfastness (James 1:3). We know that suffering is necessary for sanctification and we’ve learned that perseverance in the face of suffering is necessary to receive the crown of life (James 1:12). One of God’s purposes for this particular affliction is to refine our faith. I can painfully and joyfully believe that God’s withholding of another beautiful gift is still an act of love towards us. We wrestle with the reality that this struggle may never end on earth, but God also never stops refining our faith and preparing us for an eternity in his presence. That is good news.
Abiding is the avenue to being alright. On bad days, Christina would say to me, “I just want to be ok.” What she meant was that she just wants to be content with God’s plan; She wants to trust him; She wants a balm of peace for her wounds of longing. The question becomes, not just “How do we become ok?” but “How do we get through each day?” “What carries us on from day to day without spiraling out of control or wallowing in despair?” The answer is abiding in Christ. Communion with God is the way by which we experience and rest in God’s love, and are enabled to love God and love others while dealing with the impacts of the Fall.
What now?
We persevere, by the grace of God. We acknowledge that the Lord can both love us and not give us any more children. We accept the life-long struggle, the hope-devastation-lament-cycle. Now, though, we invite God into our reality as we abide in Christ and remember the truths from his Word, so that the hope in the hope-devastation-lament-cycle is rooted in the return of Jesus and the future perfect communion with Christ.
- Jason M. Stephens
Learning to abide in Christ takes time—but it’s our only security in times of hope and hardship. If you’d like to learn more about abiding in Christ, reach out about this summer’s ABIDE Cohort today.
