It was a cold-ish February afternoon. I was sick and feeling bad enough to stay in bed, but not quite bad enough to stick my face in a pillow all day. The surgery I most feared for many years was approaching and had been on my mind, yet I was filled with an unexplainable peace. I had to walk down an extremely painful road to get there, but I had discovered such purpose!
I asked my husband to bring me my laptop so I could use this down time to begin a blog series describing this unexpected journey to true joy – and over the next seven months, it blossomed into a book I am very proud of and which you can hold in your hands this week because it is available NOW! Emily Frase @TotalWhine wrote a beautiful foreword!
As one of my valued blog subscribers, I am delivering the Introduction to Twelve Stripes Deep: How Infertility & Other Sufferings Delivered My Greatest Joys exclusively into your inbox. I am grateful you are here and truly hope this book brings you and/or someone you love solace, solidarity, and hope.
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Introduction
This is not your typical infertility journey. It is a love story painted by three dramatic characters – God, suffering, and the joy that is only produced by willingly accepting both of them. “Willingly accept suffering? Excuse me, what?” you might be wondering. This may initially sound like a tall task, and it is, but it is also a transformative one. And I’m not referring to the suffering you can control. Any kind of pain that can be alleviated absolutely should be. I’m talking about stepping into and getting curious about life’s perplexing grievances that we cannot seem to escape despite great efforts. Unfortunately, we all get plenty of opportunities to practice. It takes no effort at all to imagine several examples of situations that can facilitate pain and grief in the human person. Look into the very heart of the one who reads these words. What has inspired you? What has saddened you? What has made you come alive? What has brought you to your knees? For me, it was infertility that crushed me in multiple different ways before I was rebuilt, eventually making great use of what ails me.
I hardly understood what it meant to suffer until I experienced the pain of infertility—an unexpected reality that hit me physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Nothing has been more intense, more unpredictable, and more enduring than my emotions—and I’m not the only one. According to The psychological impact of infertility: a comparison with patients with other medical conditions¹, a comparative study performed by Harvard Medical School, “The infertile women had global symptom scores equivalent to the cancer, cardiac rehabilitation and hypertension patients…” Reading the results of this study really put my pain into perspective and assured me that I wasn’t crazy for feeling so low.
What has added to my perplexing emotions are the internal and external pressures of growing up in a beautiful Catholic culture which I love dearly, but whose church on earth has made it feel impossible for some to live up to the high expectations of “being fruitful and multiplying.” Without the balance of reverencing all forms of new life and appreciating the gift of spiritual motherhood, it is easy for Catholic infertile women to feel broken and undervalued despite great efforts to be faithful. Catholic women are far from the only ones in pain. Infertility doesn’t discriminate between different faith practices.
It’s not uncommon to be greeted by the most adorable round bellies weekly in church, which serves as an abrasive reminder of this unexpected life situation. Being unable to get pregnant blindsided me, especially as I had few places to turn, whether due to lack of resources or friends who couldn’t understand what I was going through. One in eight couples walk around carrying this often invisible weight, but few feel comfortable talking about it or have any idea how to carry the heavy load. Friends and family have a sincere desire to help, but often don’t know how, and have their own heavy burdens to carry. Infertility is only one source of many that causes suffering. We live in a world that is full of it. No one is immune.
It is the natural human inclination to turn from suffering and attempt frantically to break free from it, but that’s not what Christ did. Think about how incredibly powerful and life-giving His suffering was, considering the joy that it delivered with the Resurrection, and how it paved the way for the Holy Spirit to set the world on fire as the Apostles spread the good news throughout the world.
Christ could not have risen had He not died first.
Likewise, we rise with Him as we engage in the hard work of dying to our own desires. This has been my experience as I navigate the pain of infertility in all of its forms. Although it is countercultural, I have found that the healing response to suffering is more wholly realized when stepping into it with Him, rather than trying to escape it. This is hard for most of us to wrap our heads around.
I stumbled and fell on my face frequently as I tried to understand why a loving God would allow me to experience such deep pain as my husband and I simply desired to respond to the call to “…accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church” as expressed in our wedding vows. I didn’t immediately appreciate his methods, but His plan would unfold into something beautiful. Our adopted daughter is one of the many fruits of His genius plan.
There have been several life-giving revelations, lessons, and life-changing events that have taken place over the course of my seven plus years of experience. I begin Chapter One with one of the most significant, which presented me with my most difficult test in an advanced course of “learning how to love.” When I wasn’t feeling it, God handed me an important choice on a silver platter, and the decision I made that day would change the way I experience suffering. It changed the way I lived infertility, even at the varying depths I would get to know over the next several years. My prognosis and physical pain would increase in severity, but my joy and peace remain non-negotiable because I gave God my trust and He cannot be outdone in generosity.
I will probably always experience some pain coupled with the loss of that dream of feeling our baby kick in my belly. And that’s okay. Grieving is a natural part of life, but it does not mean that I am wasted or doomed to unhappiness. It does not mean that I am stuck or alone. It doesn’t even mean that I am not a mother. The fullness of motherhood is not defined by one’s ability to bear children, but the extent to which we respond to our individual call to nurture new life in any of its forms. This is a profoundly healing realization for women with and without children.
The sources of suffering vary, but the response that restores hope is always the same and will unfold throughout the pages of this book. That healing response is painful, but voluntary; an act of the will that is within the reach of all of us. If it feels impossible for us as individuals, that’s because it is––but God always accepts our invitation to move mountains. Infertility started out as an experience that would consistently rob my husband and I of peace and hope with each passing month, but it ended up delivering me some of my greatest joys. My despair has transformed into gratitude and my plans into great purpose. These are some of the possibilities that have been born from putting my Nikes back into the box, because eventually, running from suffering will become more exhausting than the suffering itself.
I may be biologically infertile, but my fruitfulness is bursting at the seams! I want to tell you about how I got here in this honest and hopeful account––twelve stripes deep into my experiences of infertility, suffering, and incredible joy.
“In Twelve Stripes Deep Mary brings a unique and needed voice to a rarely discussed topic. It is clear that she has sought the face of Christ in all of her sufferings. If you are feeling the nudge to read this book, do it!”
–Christopher West, Th.D. President, Theology of the Body Institute and Author, Good News about Sex & Marriage
“This book is so needed by so many people. Mary Bruno shares the intimate details of her struggles, yet writes with a light, accessible tone that makes you feel like you’re at brunch with a friend. I have no doubt that many women — both those who have struggled with infertility and those who haven’t — will feel less alone thanks to her words.”
– Jen Fulwiler, standup comic and bestselling author of Your Blue Flame
Click here to purchase Twelve Stripes Deep: How Infertility & Other Suffering Delivered My Greatest Joys on Amazon and here for Barnes & Noble
Mary G Bruno 
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