The final webinar of the USCCB’s infertility series focused on how church leaders can offer couples spiritual and emotional support beyond the standard medical and physical approaches to infertility. Featuring guest speaker Ann Koshute, co-founder and Executive Director of Springs in the Desert, a Catholic organization devoted to infertility ministry, the session offered valuable insights from Ann’s experience, including feedback from couples on how family life ministry can better tend to the unique challenges presented by infertility.
Foundational to her counseling work, Ann says, is to help couples realize that infertility is only a circumstance, not an identity or a mark; it’s not who they are, but something they are going through. Further, infertility is an invitation to follow Christ, as He is the way, even and especially when they are in the desert.
What is a fruitful marriage?
Being a representative of Christ on earth, a ministry must be willing to meet a couple wherever they are at on their journey (in the desert). One couple expressed a need to clarify the meaning of a fruitful marriage in the context of infertility. How could their marriage still be fruitful?
The ideal of the large Catholic family is the fruitfulness that is well known to us. Without taking away from that, we can expand the meaning of a fruitful marriage to include marriages before and without children as well.
A fruitful marriage is solidified by the understanding that God is the glue that holds a husband and wife together; there are not only two participants in their marriage, but three. With awareness that God’s will is active in their marriage, a couple can accept that His gift is children, or they can accept that He wills for their fruitfulness to take another form.
It may be that a couple is simply called to be a witness of marriage and the church in a world where both are no longer valued. For example, it’s common for people to complain about their spouse, and it may be especially tempting to do so in cases of infertility -- but it’s also unloving and counterproductive behavior that doesn’t promote unity in marriage or parenting.
Instead of complaining, spouses should make it a practice to only speak well of each other, and take any complaints directly to God in prayer. For deeper issues, including struggling with infertility, couples should consult their priest or Catholic marriage counselor, with respect for the sacrament of marriage and the need to preserve unity between husband, wife, and God.
Infertility is not solely a women’s issue
In line with preserving unity in marriage, spouses should be aware that infertility is not always due to the female body; approximately 30% of infertility cases are due to male biological factors. This means that a medical evaluation of both spouses is needed in order to ascertain whether the contributing factor is coming from the husband or wife (or both).
But regardless of which side infertility falls on, spouses must realize that spiritually, they are one, and refrain from finding fault, assigning blame or shifting the burden of responsibility to only one person, usually the woman.
Though it tends to happen this way, it is not solely a woman’s responsibility to address infertility issues, which also extends to charting and managing the couple’s practice of NFP (Natural Family Planning – see this article on how husbands can get involved).
Instead, couples should approach the restoration of fertility as a team, and actively meet each other’s needs – just as they will have to when and if they become parents.
Adoption is an option
It’s a bizarre paradox that many couples who desire and are prepared to have children become frustrated by infertility for years, while many unmarried women get pregnant without intending or having the means to raise children. Yet the complementary missing pieces between both parties are filled beautifully by adoption.
Springs of Love supports fostering and adoption as a sister ministry to Springs in the Desert and can help a couple discern if adoption is the answer to their calling to be fruitful.
Giving birth to creative work
Discernment of God’s will really is the key; rather than comparing to others or to an image or ideal, couples have to discern and do what God wants for their life uniquely. For some with infertility, it may be that they are being called to bring a needed project, business or ministry into the world instead.
Ann and her husband carried the cross of infertility for years, until Springs in the Desert was born out of it -- a spiritual calling that was also deeply personal. Ann was not given children, but she was given spiritual gifts to develop a mission to help others -- to either have children or to make peace with the fact that they can’t.
Springs in the Desert offers a free podcast, blog and newsletter, as well as small group session guides and retreat events. Their offerings are designed specifically for Catholic couples who struggle with infertility, as well as related issues of grief and loss. A pastoral toolkit is also available.
