Submitted by Angie Mon 03/08/2010
Tweet We all respond to fertility struggles differently. If you are a person of faith, your faith can be affected as well. To share from a Christian perspective, I have invited Susan Radulovacki to share with us today. I was a honeymoon baby, born nine months and eight days after my parents eloped. Anticipating the same ultra-fertility, I was extremely cautious about birth control until my husband and I decided to start a family… and couldn’t. The discovery that I wasn’t even ovulating signaled the beginning of our incredibly long and profoundly lonely journey through infertility. We knew no one else going through the same experience – except the strangers we saw, month after month, in the doctors’ waiting rooms. Despite many losses, we did ultimately become parents – and I promised myself I would do anything I could to help other couples struggling through the same difficult journey. Several years ago, I started leading a one-of-a-kind, nondenominational Bible study for infertile couples. It is designed to confront infertility head-on, seek God in the midst of it, and ask hard questions about whether the Bible has anything remotely relevant to say. I’m convinced that one of the hardest things about infertility is grappling with unanswered questions and sensing that there is nowhere to go, and no one to talk to, to get answers to questions like “Why us? Why not them? Will this ever end? When, and how? What do we do with our grief? Our anger? Our fear? And, where is God in all this?” The group draws couples from across the city – some of whom have strong spiritual lives, some of whom have no spiritual life at all. Many of them have left churches that are silent in response to their suffering, in search of compassionate community and sustenance. All of them arrive actively seeking answers to urgent, painful, deeply important questions. And we dig in. The couples who participate in the class consistently describe it as transformational. By the end of the course, infertility no longer represents only suffering and loss to them. Through our discussions, couples come to see the journey as a time of profound spiritual growth and preparation for a future as parents. I believe God has that same transformation in mind for many couples. In response to multiple requests, I wrote Pregnant with Hope: Good News for Infertile Couples, which incorporates the ten lessons shared in the class, along with interviews with ten of the couples who went through the class and conceived or adopted soon after. The goal is to enable all infertile couples to experience the benefits of our group – the candid questions, the deep discussions, the helpful insights, the inspiring stories, and most of all, the renewed hope. I invite you to join in – to bring your need for community, for compassionate understanding, for answers, and especially for lasting hope – and to invite God to transform your infertility journey from a heartbreaking quest into life-changing good news. It is not only possible, it is His deep desire. Pregnant with Hope is available on Amazon and all major online booksellers. There is also an e-store on the website, PregnantWithHope.com. And, I invite you to subscribe to the PregnantWithHope blog. It delivers insights and inspiration several times a week.
