Mary G Bruno

I was probably 8 years old and preparing for an upcoming dance recital when my mom announced that she was going to the grocery store. For some strange reason that I don’t understand now that I’m an adult, I wanted to go. So I asked, and for whatever reason, the answer was “no, not this time.” Then I asked again and got another “no.” But the denial of my request only fueled my desire to go. So I asked again. Then I begged and pleaded until I ended up in tears, throwing a tantrum on the floor.

Naturally, in a burst of frustration, my mother admitted that I couldn’t go because she was going to buy me a special bouquet of flowers to celebrate my performance on stage. It was supposed to be a surprise. My eyes widened, unable to hide my glaring guilt. Instant disappointment set in as I realized I had gotten in my own way of receiving a loving gift from my mother. 

How frequently does our own blind ambition eclipse our ability to be still and simply receive what God has for us?

Fast forward nearly 20 years to an older version of that little girl asking her Father to allow herself and her husband to do something very good, and that comes quite naturally to almost everyone around them – conceive and bear a child. And for whatever reason, over and over again, the answer was “no, not this time.” This is an all-too-familiar response ringing through the hearts of an astounding 1 in 8 men and women who suffer through infertility.

What Now?

This is, undoubtedly, a very difficult place to be. The desire, or call, to become a mother to a child is strong and speaks clearly into our hearts from a very young age. I remember speaking casually about my future children – not the ones that might be, but the ones that will be. When it doesn’t happen easily, we are left with a broken heart, and a resounding question of why?! And how can I fix this or make the pain stop?

At this point, we have a few options – seek restorative treatment, foster and/or adopt, and/or attempt artificial reproductive technologies like IUI and IVF. But as someone who has endured infertility and been resurrected from it without a pregnancy, I implore you to avoid the temptation to simply make the pain stop. That pain wants to transform you. It wants to be explored by you. Whether it be a baby or not, there is treasure on the other side of that pain.

If you’ve followed me long enough, you know that adoption has been life-changing for us. But it didn’t always feel that way. It took me about a year to even be open to it. Even then, I couldn’t grasp how I might love another woman’s child as my own. And what about those 3 bold letters: D-N-A? I always imagined being able to match certain physical characteristics to myself and Chris, but what was even more important to me was the ability to see how our athleticism would be passed down. As time went on, the pain of not being able to get pregnant ripped through me more deeply. The more I ran from it, the more it consumed me. 

Still, God said “no, not this time,” and so I had a choice to make – keep running or explore the pain. And it was purely because of God’s “no,” and the internal work that followed, that we had the ability to receive the gift of Bella – a child we did not plan for, who shares none of our DNA, and who may or may not be able to play a single sport. Yet, she has made our family whole, is the reason parenthood has exceeded our expectations, does (somehow) resemble us, and is a little girl whose gifts I cannot wait to discover, whatever they may be. She’s not second rate. She’s a human being. She is a part of us.

With time, my trust, and my permission, God melted away my apprehensions. He transformed my fears about adoption into eagerness well before we welcomed our new daughter into our home. Our experience with her birth mother transformed my understanding of love. It was sitting with and exploring the pain of infertility that transformed me as a person and opened my heart to so many of God’s gifts I wouldn’t have recognized otherwise. Bella is a gift, but she is not the only thing we received.

Thank God we never pursued IVF because I wouldn’t have discovered the goodness within myself without that struggle, and the idea that we would’ve missed out on adopting Bella is cringeworthy.

The Drive

The heart of the infertile woman is tough, and determined. We have a drive that is unrivaled, willing to endlessly pursue medical treatments, surgeries, diets, and dances of all kinds in order to achieve that end we so ardently desire: pregnancy. IVF is one route that many perceive to be a straight shot to that end. But It’s not only infertile couples who attempt this kind of artificial reproductive technology. There are various men and women who choose to take advantage of the ability to be precise and selective with their future children. 

Unwanted embryos, also known as unwanted humans, are discarded like leftover coffee or frozen. Specialized physicians can weed out the weaker ones, or the ones with certain genetic disorders. A third party is invited into the creation of new life, relocating conception to a sterile lab. Prospective parents, infertile or not, can pick their egg or sperm donor, and even their surrogate, to customize their own parenthood experience.

But these little babies are human beings, each with equal dignity, not commodities that should be made to order – no matter how strong the desire to parent is. At some point, we really have to question who this process is for – the baby or the parents? Is the inability to get pregnant itself reason to thwart God’s intentional and sacred design of the transmission of new life? 

We are so precious in the eyes of God that He designed our existence to be co-created with Him through an act of love-making, where husband and wife gift their entire selves to one another in reflection of the Holy Trinity. The exchange of love between God the Father and God the Son is so intense that it creates the Holy Spirit. In like form, the exchange of love between husband and wife creates incredible fruit, which sometimes comes in the form of a child.

Sex reverences the conception of a human who deserves the dignity of being conceived as the result of the loving sexual embrace of husband and wife. The desire to parent a child is very good! However, there is a point at which our drive to achieve a specific result can overcome the goodness of the innate desire that motivated us to become parents in the first place – to love. 

Void of Self

What does it mean to be a mother? When I think of motherhood, and even look back on the burning desire I grew to know more deeply, I think of a desire to give of myself; to donate my time, tenderness, and talents to a helpless little one waiting to soak it all in as God designed. If I’m going to love as God loves, then I’m going to love that child, or whatever gift God gives me, just as he, she, or it is. 

When I act out of love, I think about someone else and not myself. I make an act of self-donation. I think about Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. I think about His Blessed Mother who gave a resounding “yes” when faced with a terrifying predicament, and then I think about all she suffered through, even as a sinless woman, for the sake of her one biological son and all of her spiritual children. Both were sinless. Every decision made was void of self. We still reap the fruitful benefits of their love. 

As humans, raising a child will be imperfect, but the goal should always be void of self because parenthood is a commitment to love. It should always be oriented towards the good of the child and not exercised for the sake of the parents. That’s why discernment is so important. That’s why trust is so hard, but also so valuable. God knows the desires of our hearts better than we do, but we can’t be open to receiving them if we are determined to see our plans through at all costs. 

Anyone’s path to parenthood can be influenced by selfishness. Sex can be motivated by a lack of self control, rather than an act of love. Adoption can be motivated strictly by an infertile couple’s desire to use a child. But a well-oriented fertile couple conceives a child unselfishly in an exchange of love. A well-oriented adoption exists for the sake of the child, not the adoptive or birth parents, who, ideally, choose to make something good come from a crisis pregnancy – in an exchange of love.

Now I have an honest question for you to consider. Even when well-intentioned, can IVF exist solely for the child? IVF doesn’t repair and restore a design that isn’t functioning as it should. It manipulates it by adding great stress to the woman’s body to force pregnancy in hopes of escaping the pain of infertility. Unfortunately, efforts to escape that pain ultimately deny oneself the gift of transformation that only occurs through sitting with and exploring that pain. And at the cost of what other gifts? What strain is put onto the finances? The marriage? Other relationships? Health? 

These men and women are not bad by any stretch of the imagination. They are in pain. They have been sold an incomplete picture; written a check that can’t be cashed. They deserve our compassion just like anyone else, but they also deserve the whole truth and to be challenged to think more deeply about this important choice.

IVF may be an effort to escape pain, but it’s no easy way out, replacing one kind of pain with many others through this difficult process. Parenthood in any of its forms requires sacrifice. However, sacrifice is fruitful only when it is the result of making a gift of self. It is in giving ourselves that we receive the gifts God wants to give us, some of which were asked for, and some of which we never knew we desired so deeply. Our treasure is not discovered by going around the pain but walking straight through it. 

One of my all-time favorite podcast hosts, Adam Young, LCSW, MDiv, in episode 18 of The Place We Find Ourselves expresses this powerful statement – 

“Our hope is not merely in God. Our hope is God. The essence of rescue is not primarily receiving that which you’ve asked for, but rather experiencing the responsiveness of God to the hurt in your heart…[It is not obtaining the thing itself]…that satisfies us. It is the satisfaction, the rest, in knowing that I have a Father in heaven who is deeply involved in the desires of my heart.”

Adam Young

My friend, I know it does not always feel like it, but you have a Father who is madly in love with you and cares deeply about you and who you will become. He desires you as you are. He recognizes your motherhood whether or not that baby ever comes. He is there when we are crushed with grief and with every taste of hope. He is there when we are pissed off at Him and when begging for mercy. He waits with us patiently even as we curse His name. 

Will you walk with Him through this pain? Will you allow Him to parent you? Will you accept the incredible gifts your loving Father wants to give you?