Myth: Infertility is God's way of saying you shouldn't have children

Myth: Infertility is God's way of saying you shouldn't have children.

My Truth: For as long as I can remember my faith has been strong and steadfast. Then in early 2008 my husband and I received a devastating diagnosis of azoospermia, a diagnosis which left us with no chance of ever having biological children together, and it forever changed our outlook on the world. 

To make matters worth with the diagnosis of infertility comes a myriad of reasons why we couldn't and shouldn't have children. Comments like, 

"Oh it's just God's way of saying you shouldn't have children." 

"It just isn't meant to be and you shouldn't mess with what nature and God are telling you."

"God must have a plan for you that doesn't involve children."

"This is God's way of stamping out some 'bad' genes."

These are things we've actually heard and I suppose unless one has battled infertility it is hard to really describe the range of emotions that go along with it. After all as Laura Bush describes in her memoir, “The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence... Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?”[i] Indeed who can fully explain the grief, anguish, anger, pain and mourning if one has not experienced it. These feelings are further compounded when someone suggests that we should just, "accept it, leave it alone, and get over because it's God's will." 

However, I know that God does not cause our suffering and God did not intend for us to remain childless. Instead God mourned and cried with us as we faced our infertility.  Serene Jones in her book Trauma and Grace Theology in a Ruptured World, discusses reproduction loss and writes, “ I imagine [God] holding [these men and women], curling her own ruptured body around them and rocking with them. “I know” she says “I know”. 

For those who have faced infertility or any kind of reproductive loss Jones points out that, “…there’s a solidarity with this God who has born such loss…” Jones finally goes on to note that what so many miss, myself included, “…is a rather ironic fact: the image that most effectively captures the nature of God’s redeeming grace is not an image of mothering, but an image of maternal loss.”[ii]

God understood my pain, God was with me and my husband during this time and despite my anger, God stood strong and whispered through it all, “I know, I know.”  


God was with us through our entire process. The diagnosis, making the decision to use a donor, choosing the donor, the IUI cycles. We are so grateful for the technology that made parenthood a continued possibility. 

We know that God cried tears of sorrow and grief with us when we received our diagnosis, and God cried tears of joy and thanksgiving when we welcomed these two beautiful babies into our lives. 

Photo by Kelli Dease Photography

I know that I was meant to be a mother and beyond that I know that my husband was called to be a father. A childless future was not God's will or plan for us, and thankfully reproductive medicine exists to help create our beautiful miracles.  

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[i] Bush, Laura. Spoken From the Heart. Scribner: New York, NY 2010.

[ii] Jones, Serene. Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Westminster Press: Louisville, KY 2009. Pg, 150. 

For more information about infertility visit http://www.resolve.org/infertility101

For information about National Infertility Awareness Week visit http://www.resolve.org/takecharge