RITA JANE writes:

My husband and I have struggled to have children and we’ve lost three pregnancies in succession, even though I am young and healthy. I’m a fertility treatment baby myself, but even I have been astounded by how people react when I say we won’t be pursuing fertility treatment. Would I like children? Yes, absolutely, preferably a small army of them. Am I willing to go to the ends of the earth and the bleeding edges of modern science in an effort to have them? No. We’ll make a happy life without children, and accept that sometimes infertility happens to good people. Historical records show that, even among cultures that marry young and never contracept, a small percentage of couples never have children.

It seems increasingly that the infertile are supposed to reject the idea that sometimes human life is tragic and beyond our control. Instead, we are to open their homes to social workers inspections and go on a mad quest to adopt an infant or toddler that may-or-may-not actually be an orphan, accept a seriously troubled child into the family or undergo years of costly, painful and often degrading medical treatments in an effort to conceive. I’ve had people splutter in bafflement when I say we have no interest in IVF or in hiring some poor woman to act as our personal brood mare. I don’t want children not otherwise specified, I want children that are half me and half my husband, carried in my own body. While IVF may be tempting and adoption can be noble, it isn’t the same, and it never will be.

— Comments —

Jenny in Idaho writes:

I would like to assure Rita Jane that she is not alone. My husband and I, married 23 years, are also infertile due to some medical issues and have chosen not to seek invasive medical procedures or adoption for myriad reasons. I say this not to criticize those who have pursued these options, which can have joyful and satisfying outcomes, but simply to say that we have chosen to accept our situation without struggling to change it, which is an equally valid option.

While it appears that the infertile couple of yore was allowed to quietly move on with their lives with grace and dignity, some people have tried to make us feel doubly inadequate not only for being barren, but for shirking our alleged duty to undergo expensive surgeries and/or pursue adoption. While marital infertility is a tragedy that I would not wish on anyone, I feel we have coped well and have “come out the other side” with good and full lives. We enjoy strong relationships with people of all ages, including children and teens, in our extended family, church, and community. God has blessed us abundantly; how can we ignore all of that that while railing at Him about the one blessing He has withheld?

Thankfully, now that we are reaching grandparent age, the comments about pursuing medical intervention have slacked off. It still stings that we were not able to have children of our own, and I am very aware that years from now, when I am an aged widow, no one will be duty-bound to visit me in the nursing home. So be it. My job is to take care of the responsibilities God has given me in the here and now. I’ll never know why those responsibilities don’t include parenthood, but frankly it’s nobody’s business but mine and my husband’s and God’s.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing.

While adoption can be an acceptable alternative, procedures such as IVF are not. So in rejecting such options, you and Rita Jane did the right thing.

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