The (amazing) Grace over at Camp Patton has a great post about NFP and openness to life and what it looks like on the other side of the fence. It's so funny how different and yet how similar the struggle can be. Two sides of the same coin in many respects. I've written on the topic before so I'm reposting below but be sure to go over to her blog and read her experience and reflections on this topic.
From the 2009 file...
When we were married, we received the gift of a plaque with a quote from Pope John Paul II exhorting married couples to be open to life. (I don't remember the exact quote now.) I had it hanging in our dining room for the first year and a half of our marriage, but after a while, I had to remove the plaque from it's nail on the wall because it felt like that quote was just rubbing salt in the wound.
Open to life? pffft! My womb was open for business but I had no takers.
But it got me pondering this idea early on of how the IF couple can reconcile this notion of being open to life when our wombs have been closed against our will. What if adoption is not feasible for each infertile couple? What then?
DH and I are blessed to live in an area and each belong to families where large numbers of children are very much accepted and fertility is revered for the gift it truly is. But it's also, as you may have guessed, a bittersweet thing too. It's a bit of a double-edged sword to be surrounded by such incredible examples of family life, trust in Divine Providence and gratefulness & joy over fecundity. It seems to me, at least in Catholic circles--which is the only group I'm concerned with here as secular circles is a whole 'nother ball of wax--that large families are (rightly) seen as heroic and receive well-deserved praise and admiration from the community in which they live.
But it leaves those who are struggling with infertility and/or those who are childless or have "only" (I use this term very loosely) blessed with one or two to sit quietly in the corner. We offer our congratulations to the blessed couple, we smile and genuinely join them in thanking God for the gift of life they've been blessed with, but we are dying inside. We too are open to life but there is no laud for offering up to God yet another "failed" cycle, there is no praise for shouldering our cross, no shouts in the room in thanks to God for remaining obedient to His will (yet again...and again...and again) when it conflicts so strongly with our own, no congratulations for dying to ourselves over and over. Our tears are silent and only God sees our pain, our monthly sacrifice, our repeated disappointment, our act of love for Him.
I suspect that many equate "openness to life" to having a quiverful of kids, but this is painfully misleading. It is perhaps necessary here and now to correctly to define it as humbly allowing God to decide how many children we should have whether it's many, one or none. Certainly many couples do struggle with uber-fertility and closely-spaced children and the trials of meeting the needs of so many little persons. Their fertility can indeed be as much a cross to them as our infertility is to us. But isn't it interesting that God uses both ends of the same spectrum to teach all of us the same hard lessons of faith, patience, humility, perseverance, trust, etc.?
Perhaps this is what being open to life for all of us, fertile or infertile, is all about: trusting God and the life He has planned for us, even when (maybe especially when) that plan conflicts with our desires. And not just our personal desires to have a cute pregnant belly and a adorable baby on our hip, but desires that are at the core of our very human person: the natural desire to co-create...to participate in the natural order of the propagation of our species...to witness the embodiment of the love between a husband and wife.
Even if a couple has not been so blessed, they're not exempt from or failing at being open to life. Being open to life is chiefly about being open to all of the trials, joys and sorrows that God has in mind for us that will help sanctify us. Looked at in this way, we are perhaps more evidently laboring in the same vineyard as our uber-fertile friends. We're both asking God to do with us what He wills.
God is not blind to our efforts, however fruitless they may seem to our temporal senses. Being open to life can mean loving our husbands as best we can, while helping him to grow in his faith. It can mean giving more of our time and talents at church in ministries that might be more difficult for parents of lots of young children. It can mean suffering silently and discovering what Christian joy is all about. It can mean reaching out to others who may be struggling with IF too. (You never know who might be struggling with IF but afraid to admit it.) It can mean simply giving each new cycle to God and (like our uber-fertile comrades) letting God decide what to do with that particular cycle...not getting ahead of ourselves...trusting that God's grace is sufficient for just that day and for that cycle. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow. And let's not forget that it can mean turning our hearts towards adoption and building our family in a bit more non-traditional way.
It's more difficult for infertile couples to see how they are truly being open to life...and certainly it's more difficult to see any temporal benefit of doing so. Even for adoptive parents or those who are struggling with secondary IF, it can feel like we have nothing to contribute to "openness to life" conversation. But I think our witness, though a silent one, is a stronger one.
Open to life? pffft! My womb was open for business but I had no takers.
But it got me pondering this idea early on of how the IF couple can reconcile this notion of being open to life when our wombs have been closed against our will. What if adoption is not feasible for each infertile couple? What then?
DH and I are blessed to live in an area and each belong to families where large numbers of children are very much accepted and fertility is revered for the gift it truly is. But it's also, as you may have guessed, a bittersweet thing too. It's a bit of a double-edged sword to be surrounded by such incredible examples of family life, trust in Divine Providence and gratefulness & joy over fecundity. It seems to me, at least in Catholic circles--which is the only group I'm concerned with here as secular circles is a whole 'nother ball of wax--that large families are (rightly) seen as heroic and receive well-deserved praise and admiration from the community in which they live.
But it leaves those who are struggling with infertility and/or those who are childless or have "only" (I use this term very loosely) blessed with one or two to sit quietly in the corner. We offer our congratulations to the blessed couple, we smile and genuinely join them in thanking God for the gift of life they've been blessed with, but we are dying inside. We too are open to life but there is no laud for offering up to God yet another "failed" cycle, there is no praise for shouldering our cross, no shouts in the room in thanks to God for remaining obedient to His will (yet again...and again...and again) when it conflicts so strongly with our own, no congratulations for dying to ourselves over and over. Our tears are silent and only God sees our pain, our monthly sacrifice, our repeated disappointment, our act of love for Him.
I suspect that many equate "openness to life" to having a quiverful of kids, but this is painfully misleading. It is perhaps necessary here and now to correctly to define it as humbly allowing God to decide how many children we should have whether it's many, one or none. Certainly many couples do struggle with uber-fertility and closely-spaced children and the trials of meeting the needs of so many little persons. Their fertility can indeed be as much a cross to them as our infertility is to us. But isn't it interesting that God uses both ends of the same spectrum to teach all of us the same hard lessons of faith, patience, humility, perseverance, trust, etc.?
Perhaps this is what being open to life for all of us, fertile or infertile, is all about: trusting God and the life He has planned for us, even when (maybe especially when) that plan conflicts with our desires. And not just our personal desires to have a cute pregnant belly and a adorable baby on our hip, but desires that are at the core of our very human person: the natural desire to co-create...to participate in the natural order of the propagation of our species...to witness the embodiment of the love between a husband and wife.
Even if a couple has not been so blessed, they're not exempt from or failing at being open to life. Being open to life is chiefly about being open to all of the trials, joys and sorrows that God has in mind for us that will help sanctify us. Looked at in this way, we are perhaps more evidently laboring in the same vineyard as our uber-fertile friends. We're both asking God to do with us what He wills.
God is not blind to our efforts, however fruitless they may seem to our temporal senses. Being open to life can mean loving our husbands as best we can, while helping him to grow in his faith. It can mean giving more of our time and talents at church in ministries that might be more difficult for parents of lots of young children. It can mean suffering silently and discovering what Christian joy is all about. It can mean reaching out to others who may be struggling with IF too. (You never know who might be struggling with IF but afraid to admit it.) It can mean simply giving each new cycle to God and (like our uber-fertile comrades) letting God decide what to do with that particular cycle...not getting ahead of ourselves...trusting that God's grace is sufficient for just that day and for that cycle. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow. And let's not forget that it can mean turning our hearts towards adoption and building our family in a bit more non-traditional way.
It's more difficult for infertile couples to see how they are truly being open to life...and certainly it's more difficult to see any temporal benefit of doing so. Even for adoptive parents or those who are struggling with secondary IF, it can feel like we have nothing to contribute to "openness to life" conversation. But I think our witness, though a silent one, is a stronger one.
7 comments:
I have reread this post a few times over the past few years! I wish I could get all my fertile friends to read it. It is easy to think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
On another note, I would love your thoughts (because I really look up to your view on things) on my recent post about does sex = babies in your marriage?
This is a great post. In the community we live in, we fit into the "just" category and I have really had people say to us, "Oh, you just have 3 children?" To the rest of the world, we are pretty average, verging on the side of crazy, but in our Catholic community, we do not seem to fit in. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to live in a community like ours and to struggle with IF (we are told it is not adviseable to have anymore children).
I have struggled with this topic because, so often, others may think we are "not open to life." For the longest time, I felt the compulsion to explain to people why we did not have more than three. But, I think you are right, our witness doe not have to be broadcast. We can silently witness an openness to life.
This is so on the mark. IF is so hard, but is a different way then being fertile. The silence, the patience, the humiliation, the sorrow, and the pain are all felt in the different way.
The number of children a couple has does not determine their Catholicity.
The important part is being open to the life He wants for us.
Well written; kind and eloquent. As a Catholic convert, issues surrounding family/fertility can be profoundly frustrating. We judge our fellow parishioners wondering why they don't have more children and if they aren't bringing any kids to Mass, assuming they are using contraception.
I've even read infertiles writing about their worry that they might harbor a "contraceptive mentality" because they are not working harder at getting medical treatment.
Why do we beat ourselves up? While far from perfect, I miss aspects of Methodism. Sometimes, that faith felt more pure because it didn't get caught up in mind games that only hurt the people that are trying their hardest.
This is a great counterpoint to Grace's post. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to understand that "real" Catholic families come in all sizes.
Loved this post, A! I read Grace's post too and as a woman w/ infertility, you hit the nail on the head! Loved it...all the thoughts I had but so eloquently put. Thank you! :)
Tears in my eyes...this is so beautiful. What a true gift to read it. I read it over and over and can't tell you how precious this vulnerability is. I love you so much, Annie.
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