A Journey of Infertility and Faith, Part 3 of 4

In parts 1 and 2 of this series, I wrote about Eli and Hannah Abrahams’ (not their real names) thirteen-year wait for a child, followed by the physical and emotional trauma of ectopic pregnancy and therapeutic abortion. When I asked them how others help or hinder their infertility journey, Eli and Hannah offered some insightful answers. They know it’s hard and awkward for others to navigate this road with them, but they are helped by and thankful for friends and acquaintances willing to sit in that awkwardness and who let them share their story.

“We don’t know how to navigate it any better than anyone else does,” Hannah says. “But having so many people in our community willing to allow us to figure this out openly and not require us to hide this pain away so they can be more comfortable demonstrates what support looks like. There are no magical words that could possibly fix things, but the friends that can be present in this pain have been a healing balm to our spirits.”

I was surprised when Eli and Hannah didn’t offer a long list of ways people have done or said hurtful things. I half expected a catalog of “things not to say.” Instead, they shared the following.

“There are few things people have done that have been unhelpful, but if we needed to put a finger on one that has been the most baffling or draining, it’s those who find our story too painful to engage with, yet still expect to stay close friends. They want access to our hearts without letting us share our full lives.”

I asked Eli and Hannah what happens in their hearts when others receive the gift they long for. I love their honest answers. Hannah admits that baby showers and pregnancy announcements have been difficult to navigate with grace and with socially acceptable facial expressions. For a while, she even had a hard time celebrating Christmas because it represented the birth of Jesus.

“I have a hard time going to baby showers. Partly because it’s awkward to be the infertile one at a celebration of fertility. Some aunty always asks how many kids I have or when we’re planning on having kids. That bruise is deep and can still zing. The joy in hearing the announcement of new life coming is real, though.”

“We’ve both found a place inside ourselves that can be purely joyful at the prospect of new life coming, even if it isn’t our announcement. There are still things that are hard.”

I love how, even in the middle of all their questions, Eli and Hannah have learned to rejoice. When I asked what “rejoicing” looks like for them, I wasn’t surprised when Eli’s answer came from the heart of someone who has studied scripture in its original language.

“The word rejoice means to be ‘favorably disposed to God’s grace.’ That’s a funny way to picture this, considering our circumstances, but it sure takes the pressure off. Hannah and I have been favorably disposed to God’s ability to do what He says. Wow! That makes me happy right now. But the playful part for me is to be reminded that my wife’s name means grace. So it’s this double whammy of God being extra favorably willing and inclined to do what He does.

“I can picture God paving a road, putting us on it, then taking our hands as we walk into joy with Him (and even a few little ones I can see now and then with us). This can happen daily. This can happen when I need it to. That doesn’t mean we don’t face trials or troubles on this road. But, in all this, there is a hand firmly gripping ours attached to the words, I am willing.”

Next week, we’ll wrap up the Abrahams’ story with Part 4.

A Journey of Infertility and Faith, Part 1 of 4

As we look ahead to Father’s Day, I’m honored to introduce you to a couple who have courageously shared their powerful story with me so that I might pass it along to my readers. To protect their privacy, I’ve changed their names, but I know you’ll be blessed by their story. May you find hope and encouragement, whatever your unanswered prayers might be.

Like most young couples engaged to be married, Eli and Hannah Abrahams discussed the idea of having children. Neither felt a huge push to have kids right away, and there was some talk about whether becoming parents was something they truly wanted. They agreed they didn’t want to have kids simply because everyone else was. Though they loved children, they wanted to become parents at a time when they could be intentionally present in their lives, attend their events, and participate in their interests. Hannah wanted to build a career before having kids. As a child, Eli had parents in the restaurant industry with its crazy hours and constant hold on Mom and Dad’s time. Now he, too, found himself in the restaurant industry.

The timing of their decision to start trying for kids was triggered by Eli’s exit from the restaurant and his transition into ministry. When he was invited to join the staff at their church, Eli and Hannah sensed it was a call from God. They were in their early thirties and the timing felt right to start having children as well.

“When we hadn’t gotten pregnant after a few months,” Hannah says, “We started talking with our doctors. We did all the tests. Everything looked good. No reason for us not to become pregnant. Probably just the stress of changing careers. Keep trying. It’ll come.

“We tried hard to be chill about it. That worked sometimes but mostly it didn’t. We found that we needed to grieve the easy fertility that our family and friends had that we had assumed would be our story too. I remember breaking down in heartbroken sobs at our church’s Thanksgiving Banquet as I dealt with the fear, grief, and anger of this transition from not-a-mom-yet to possibly-never-a-mom. The grief was real.”

For both Eli and Hannah, the grief still is real. They are just less surprised when it comes around now. They’ve never received an answer for their infertility, only possible guesses. The closest any doctor has come to explaining was the one gynecologist who admitted that approximately thirty percent of people who seek help with infertility are a mystery with no apparent cause. For thirteen years, Eli and Hannah have sought help, found a little, and kept going, without children in their home. Although a fibroid appeared to block one of Hannah’s fallopian tubes, her doctor assured her it wouldn’t affect a pregnancy.

Finally, in July of 2020, they received a positive pregnancy test.

Five days after the positive test, their doctor told them they must abort the pregnancy. The fibroid had indeed affected things, by causing the embryo to implant outside Hannah’s uterus. She could either have the abortion or risk losing her entire reproductive system or even her life. Either way, the embryo would not survive.

We’ll continue the Abrahams’ story with Part 2 next week.

Good Things Happening at PPSC

Grandparents Day seems to come and go each year without fanfare, have you noticed? According to my calendar, it fell on September 8 this year. The special day didn’t exist when I was a little girl learning the grandmotherly art of crochet from my grandmother. Now she is long gone, and I am the grandmother. Still crocheting.

In honor of Grandparents Day, I decided to finish my nearly completed baby afghan in variegated shades of purple and pink. I enjoyed shopping for a few baby-girl items to go with it and carried the whole package to our local Prairie Pregnancy Support Center.

When she greeted me, Executive Director Mary Loewen gratefully accepted my gift and offered me a tour of the facility. Although I’d attended their fundraiser banquet last spring, I’d never seen the inside of their Tupper Street premises. I was impressed!

What first captured my eye was a warm, inviting reception area with plenty of space to relax, talk, read resource materials, or just hang out. I also caught a glimpse of their modern office, where Mary and the center’s only other paid staff member, Dawn, accomplish their administrative work.

Next came a large, beautifully appointed room used for various purposes such as guest speakers, volunteer training, and educational or social opportunities. One wall displays photos of all their volunteers, including board members and client advocates. Off this room await two small, cozy rooms used for counselling and prayer sessions.

Perhaps most impressive is the larger room used to store and display items like the ones I brought with me—including maternity clothes, baby and children’s clothing neatly organized into sizes, and all manner of supplies needed for outfitting a little one.

PPSC provides services to our Central Plains area. Its primary mission is to offer compassion, hope, resources, and support for anyone facing pregnancy-related decisions. This non-profit volunteer agency is affiliated with the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services. Its volunteers receive rich training from leaders in the field and bring their compassionate, caring hearts to our community with professional candor. They provide pregnancy testing, options education, and ongoing support in the form of peer counselling, maternity/baby clothes and supplies, peer support groups, infant loss support, post-abortion recovery, referrals to community agencies, sexual education, and sexual integrity discussions.

With 5 grandsons, it was fun to shop for a baby girl!

The organization receives no government funding but relies on donor support to be able to offer all their services free of charge. Their desire is to answer questions, present options, and provide support through the decision-making process and beyond. PPSC is not a medical clinic and does not refer clients for abortion. These volunteers work and pray hard to offer hope and to empower lives in our community, behind the scenes and with strictest confidence. They serve clients regardless of age, gender, sexual identity or orientation, race, or religion.

For those experiencing post-abortion stress, whether their symptoms are emotional, physical, behavioral, or spiritual—and no matter how long ago the abortion occurred—help and healing are available through one-on-one counseling or a post-abortion support group. Both are a safe place to talk about your thoughts and feelings with others who understand because they’ve been there. This service extends beyond women who’ve chosen abortion, including anyone who may be affected but often overlooked, such as fathers and grandparents.

If you need to talk, or if you’re interested in donating or getting involved in the Prairie Pregnancy Support Center, you can do so by calling or texting 204-240-4357 or emailing info@prairiepregnancy.ca . For more information or to read some inspiring stories, visit their website HERE.

Happy belated Grandparents Day!

No Such Thing as Unplanned

If ever a pregnancy were inconvenient, surely this would have been it. At twenty-six, the woman already had four children—two girls, two boys—ranging from age three through eight. She thought she’d hung her last diaper on the clothesline.

Their little three-bedroom home had been fashioned from two former granaries, with no running water and no basement. Her husband had recently incurred a life-altering physical disability. His reduced earning capacity had prompted her to launch a long-dreamed-of career of her own in order to help provide for their growing family. This meant first finishing three years of high school via correspondence, followed by a year of university to gain a teaching certificate. It would require great courage and determination, but they would make it work.

Not a great time to discover you’re pregnant. One could certainly understand and empathize if this surprise interruption brought with it something less than instantaneous joy.

By the time that child arrived, however, these parents had come to terms with the idea. They’d involved the other children in preparing for the new baby. The mother had charged ahead with her education, taking her textbooks with her to the hospital when it came time to deliver so she could study for exams between feedings while she recovered. Two years later, she found herself the only student living in the dorm during the week and returning to her family of five children on weekends.

That fifth baby, that unforeseen little interruption, was me.

Me in 1959

I tease my mother that all her studying while she carried me made me smart. But for all my so-called smarts, it took me over fifty years to piece together the notion that my parents may not have had every reason to feel completely delighted when they learned I was on the way. It wasn’t until an older relative shared with me a story that started me thinking. Maybe I was not exactly “planned.”

This speaks volumes about my parents. That I never felt unwanted or unloved tells me I am one of the truly blessed. One of the “lucky ones,” if you believe in luck.

Now, I can look back over sixty years of life and name eight other people who would not exist today if I had never been born—my children and theirs. On my shelf I see three books that never would have been written, not including those still waiting to be published. More stories, articles, plays, and columns than I can count. No one else would have put those exact words together in that exact way.

I am left with the conviction that I was, indeed, planned. Perhaps not by my parents, but by someone. Someone who knew more than they did.

Do you ever feel unplanned, unwanted? I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it’s safe to assume that a great many of us were not necessarily “planned.” Maybe you were not as blessed as I. Maybe your parents made it painfully evident by calling you “the accident” or the “oopsie baby.” I don’t know who needs to read these words today, but if this describes you, can I make one thing perfectly clear? You are not here by accident. You may be unsure, unworthy, unfaithful, unwise, uneasy, unqualified, unemotional, unavailable, or unfit. But you can never be unloved, unwanted, or unplanned by the God who made you.

In the words of musician Matthew West: I don’t believe in accidents. Miracles, they don’t just happen by chance. As long as my God holds the world in his hands, I know that there is no such thing as unplanned.