Marriage Builders
Exploring Intimate Issues of Fertility Challenges
Last updated 12/29/98.
By the very nature of infertility, pregnancy loss, or infant death and the close ties to sexuality and marital relationships, fertility challenges have a tendency to create struggles in even the strongest marriages. This page is not going to attempt to solve all of the potential problems that arise in infertile or bereaved marriages, but we do pray that it will help us each in following the Biblical command to build one another up in the Lord. This page is not written by any professional counselors, but simply a collection of hints and observations by those who have spent enough years living the pain of fertility challenges to gather insights from the "school of hard knocks." If a few sensitive questions and situations can be addressed here and God can use this page to bring healing, comfort, insight, or peace to marriages, we will feel that God has used this page to His glory.
We pray that this page will be helpful to you in your search for answers in the painful situations you are now facing. You should find a few ideas to assist you medically, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually. We realize that even within the body of Christ, there may be some treatments or procedures that are considered acceptable to some and are offensive to others, so we ask you to keep this in mind while exploring these thoughts. You may or may not agree with each idea expressed here, but we pray that you are able to find information that is helpful to you.
Hannah's Prayer is not a medical organization nor a professional counseling service. We offer peer support only. Any advice, links, ideas, or suggestions presented on our pages should not be used in place of the advice of a qualified professional.
Differences: Men & Women Facing
Infertility or Bereavement
Marriage Help, Keeping Love
Alive
Issues, Tips & Resources
Marriage Organizations & Publications
Differences: Men & Women Facing Infertility or
Bereavement
Hurting Wives and Insensitive Husbands, by John Van Regenmorter of Stepping Stones, deals with communication in infertility.
"Men's and Women's Grief Patterns" and "His Grief, Her Grief" on the SHARE Atlanta web site help show the differences in ways husbands and wives deal with grief after the death of a baby.
Miscarriage: One Man, One Woman
A Father's Grief / A Mother's Grief: Maintaining Communication and Respect
Marriage Survival After Losing a Baby
Losing a
child affects parents in many ways. Survival skills are needed to keep your
marriage strong after losing your baby. We'll look first at the differences
between husbands and wives, then discuss some of the dangers to be aware of and
include suggestions for successfully surviving the natural differences between a
husband's and wife's grief and the dangers which arise after loss. In marriage,
two become one by turning to each other. In grief, two often turn away from
each other becoming isolated and lonely. The deep pain of grief seems to wrap
its victim in a cocoon as you focus on your agony. Bereavement makes us very
self-centered at the exact time our spouse needs us for support.
Pregnancy
loss and infant loss sadly are not recognized as major losses to those who were
not intimately associated with the child or pregnancy so you'll find yourself
looking to each other for help in coping more than if it were a loss more
readily recognized by society. Your loss may represent a different meaning for
each of you. Men and women both may be plagued with feelings of failure -- men
especially because they're protectors. Women because they're nurturers.
Marriage
can be strengthened deeply by shared sorrow, but it requires work to
bring about the strengthening. First we need to recognize some differences
between men and women: Men and women tend to often fall into general differences
simply due to our hormonal makeup. Of course there are always exceptions to
every rule and you may find in your marriage the roles seem reversed on some of
these, but since we generally marry someone with a personality quite different
from our own, we find during grief the differences often make it hard for us to
understand why our spouse grieves so differently than we do.
Men usually
talk for practical reasons whereas women tend to talk for recreation. Men talk
about something, come to a solution, then go on. Women just want to talk about
what has happened. Finding a solution is not always as important as just
knowing someone is listening (preferably her husband).
Men tend to approach
situations with their heads -- thinking on facts and taking responsibility, and
may feel a need to DO something after a loss; whereas women approach
situations with their hearts and are more concerned with relationships,
feelings, other people and rather than feel a need to be doing something, a
woman likes to ponder the situation. Men often think more about the overall
picture while women are concerned with the event's details.
Men usually are
more caught up in work outside the home but women are intricately intertwined
with their homes and families to the extent that they perceive them as part of
their personality or worth. This probably is one reason grief generally lasts
longer for women. Men need to know they've succeeded which is vital for their
self esteem. Women also have a real need for success but their need for
security, especially after loss, often outweighs other needs. A bereaved mom
needs to be reminded she was a good mother and did all she could have done for
the child's sake. To satisfy her deep need for security she looks to her
husband and family. She measures her security by her perception of her value to
others.
Men tend to be more reserved in expressing emotions, whereas women
are more encapsulated by their emotions, feeling a real need to express what
they're feeling by talking. Friction arises when a wife feels her husband is
insensitive or uncaring about their loss because he doesn't cry, talk about the
child or seems to re-adjust to work soon after loss. Husbands are often
frustrated by their wife's emotional outpouring, inability to handle social
situations, depression, and lack of desire to resume normalcy of life. Remember
too, some people are unable to cry in front of others, even their own spouse.
To survive requires you become as a third person to each other. Listen to
your spouse -- accept their form of grief as you accept their normal personality
differs from yours. When you interject your grief timetable on your partner you
are creating a prisoner which will hinder you from sharing your grief with each
other. Survival of your marriage requires a calculated strategy to fight the
dangers.
Danger #1: My way is the ONLY way to grieve! Because one
parent finds something very comforting and healing, it's tempting to think the
other one needs this too. What is comforting to one, may be sheer torment to
their spouse. Recognize that everyone grieves differently. It's often difficult
for bereaved parents not to express verbally how they wish their spouse would
change. Acceptance of your spouse's different mode of grief can be a tough
assignment.
Danger #2: Change. Death always brings change, even when
it's early in a child's life. Priorities and commitments involved with the
child come to a screeching halt. Suddenly your stability is gone. Even the most
simple of life's daily chores become memory-filled challenges. Change pulls our
life-preserver from our grasp in the turbulent waters of grief. When a spouse
criticizes their partner's grief or lack of grief, the ability to stay afloat is
lost. Your home needs to be a safe harbor in the turbulent waters of grief.
There's a real need to plan ways to support each other during this time.
Danger
#3: Placing Blame. Feuding begins with placing blame, resentment or venting
hostility on your spouse. Seek to be a support and harbor for your spouse rather
than becoming a storm they need to seek shelter from. Never use silence as a
tool for communication with your spouse after loss -- your partner can only
interpret it as a negative response. Express your feelings, for your spouse has
no extra energy to guess at what you might be feeling. Seek to phrase your
statements to your spouse so they reflect what you feel rather than placing
blame. Learn to say "I'm having trouble keeping from being upset when
you..." instead of blurting "You make me angry when you...."
Danger #4: Not meeting your spouse's need for love. Everyone needs
love but men and women interpret love differently. Generally speaking men feel
loved when they know they are respected and their sexual needs are met. Women
feel loved through tenderness and understanding. Tragedy causes a woman to need
extra outward expressions of understanding and tenderness from her husband along
with feeling his "protective care." Touching, holding, cuddling are
important even though she may have little desire for sex. Fear of repeating the
same excruciating pain of loss often makes a woman want to refrain from sex
while in grief. Many women feel sex is wrong when their precious child has just
died, whereas sex reassures men that they are loved, needed, and that their wife
really cares about them. Men usually relate first sexually, then verbally.
Sexual intimacy nurtures the husband's emotional needs. Both parents are very
insecure, fragile and vulnerable after loss. Meeting your partner's need for
love will bind you more closely together. Knowing someone loves you is a needed
security blanket at such a time. It is a MUST that you reach out to each other
to keep your marriage from falling shipwreck in the turbulence of loss. What
needless added tragedy occurs when a marriage is shattered by loss.
Danger
#5: Surviving Alone. Beware you don't use isolation from your spouse as a
tool of survival. Caution needs to be exerted when work, hobbies, social
circles or other commitments keep you from spending very much time with your
spouse. Be aware too, that spending binges may occur as a sort of diversion from
the pain. Excess spending only adds to your pain for it usually creates
friction with your spouse and puts a squeeze on your finances, thus creating
further stress. Marriages which survive the death of a child take work.
Your marriage has to be your "Number 1" priority.
Suggestions for helping your marriage survive:
*Determine your marriage will come out stronger.
*Accept the fact that you and your spouse will sorrow differently.
*Don't place bigger-than-life-sized expectations on your spouse.
*Seek
to rebuild your relationship with God's help.
Remember: forgiveness
is the key to healing. Some general guidelines include:
1) Pray -- God
will give you guidance how best to proceed.
2) Seek to identify the most
painful problems to work on first.
a) What is the most
difficult part of the grief experience for yourself? for your spouse?
b)
What part of your grief is hard for your partner to endure?
c) What does
your spouse do that you find painful?
3) Think of all the possible
responses to these problems. Seek to rob the problems of their "crippling
power" over you. Write down solutions. Ask God to give you understanding
and insight -- He will.
4) After implementing your plan to deal with the most crucial differences,
occasionally re-evaluate things -- are we helping the situation or making it
worse? Should we do it differently?
No matter how estranged you and your
spouse may be feeling, try to think of something your spouse especially enjoys
and do it. Maybe it's a special food or form of recreation. Maybe it's
something as greatly appreciated as simply giving them a few minutes to unwind
upon arriving home before they start chores or you begin talking non-stop.
Recording efforts made daily may help you remember to put forth effort for
helping your spouse and enable you to see progress is being made, but never use
the record as evidence for planning battle if progress is slower at restoring
your relationship than you'd hoped. Above all, pray for your spouse daily. Pray
they'll have a good day, safe travel, that something encouraging will help that
day, and so forth.
Don't forget to think about the high points in your marriage before loss.
Marriage requires commitment. Relationships based on feeling don't have
stability. Commitment is the glue that cements your marriage. If you need
outside help with your marriage and your pastor doesn't seem to understand how
loss affects your marriage, seek help from a support group for bereaved parents
or Christian family counselors who are acquainted with the effects of child loss
on a marriage. Try another source if you're not getting the help you need; your
marriage is worth it. My prayer is that your marriage will emerge strengthened
by shared sorrow.
© Carol Ruth Blackman, Editor, Bereaved
Parents Share, [Revised from November 1991 Bereaved Parents
Share...II].
BPS publications are a "support group
that arrives in your mailbox which one can turn to when time permits or in the
dark hours when you need to know someone cares." Bereaved Parents
Share covers all types of child losses from toddlers through adult-aged
children - published monthly as finances permit. Bereaved Parents
Share...II is a special pregnancy/infant loss publication mailed on a
quarterly basis. Newsletters are sent free of charge and dependant on donations
for their ongoing publication. PO Box 460, Colton, OR 97017-0460
Marriage
Help, Keeping Love Alive
Perspective
I recently received an alumni
newsletter from my college. On flipping through the pages, I noticed a picture
of one of the guys I attended school with, so I stopped to read the article. It
turned out to be his memorial! He was only 26 - my age right now - when he
died.
I vividly remember the day he became engaged to a girl in my dorm who
lived just a few rooms away from me. They both loved the Lord and were so
looking forward to a lifetime of serving Him together. They were married about
a year before Rick and I wed. After Rick graduated and we moved away from
southern California, we lost track of this couple, but the memories came
flooding back upon seeing his picture in the newsletter.
The article said he had become the senior pastor of a church and that they
had 4 children! I stopped and thought for a minute - if I had read that news in
any other context than a death announcement, I would have been jealous that God
had blessed them 4x over while our only attempts at parenthood have ended in a
miscarriage and 4 failed adoption attempts. But in light of his sudden and
unexpected death, I realized that I would much rather have a lifetime with Rick
even without children than to loose my husband!
This situation has also given me a new perspective on time - I often think "we
have been trying to have a baby for six long years" and yet, if I
were to loose Rick, I would cry, "Lord, why did you only give us six short
years together?" I guess my point is, there truly are some things worse
than infertility. I am thankful for every day the Lord has given me with the
man I love, and I pray that we will enjoy many more decades together! I still
pray that God's perfect plan for us includes parenthood, but I must be careful
not to be so caught up in what I do not have that I take the incredible gifts
God has given for granted!
- Jennifer Saake, Director, Hannah's Prayer, ©
October, 1998
The Waterfall, by April Whiddon Matthews as published in Spring 1997 issue of Hannah to Hannah, shows the importance of grieving together in the loss of a child.
Avoid a Double Tragedy "Those of us who have lost a child know a deep grief indeed, but what a terrible shame, when we compound that grief with the disaster of divorce. The experts report that 80% of marriages where a child has died end in divorce..."
Christian Marriage features articles such as "Encouragement For Christian Marriage," "Hope & Help for Troubled Marriage," "The Role of the Husband in Marriage," and "The Role of the Wife in Marriage."
Keeping Love Alive, written by Conceiving Concepts, gives some practical advice for couples enduring prolonged medical treatment for infertility.
In Sickness and in Health...and Infertility?
Go to the Infertility portion of the Hannah's Prayer web site and click on "Treatment and Multiples" for a special note sharing our concerns about the medical risks of fertility treatments resulting in multiple-birth pregnancies. These are issues that you need to resolve within your marriage before you are far enough into infertility treatments that decisions are demanded of you under time pressure.
It is possible to obtain special sterile condoms that allow semen collection (for analysis or insemination) to be collected through intercourse rather than masturbation. Such condoms are available only by prescription. If your doctor does not have them in stock (many fertility clinics now carry these if you request them), one source where your doctor can order them is: SCD, silicone rubber condom, manufactured by HCD Corp. 2109 O'Toole Ave., San Jose, CA 95131. (800) 227-8162 (In California: (800) 752-3999) Fax: (408) 954-0340
The
Marriage Bed: Sex and Intimacy for Married Christians strives "to provide
married and engaged Christian couples with information and ministry from a
Biblical perspective. Among the motivating factors for creating this site
are our own personal history, the frustration we've seen others go through, and
a growing awareness of a lack of non-offensive information on marital intimacy.
We strive to present information in a form more acceptable to Christians
and to offer links or direction to other ministries and resources. We
welcome you to our site and pray it will bless and enrich your marriage."
"REAL SEX" - from Christianity Today, Inc./Marriage Partnership magazine, Fall 1997. Topics include masturbation, regret over premarital sex, and infertility.
This portion is under construction. Do you have a tip, resource, or suggestion that might fit here? What has helped your marriage grow in the midst of infertility and/or bereavement? Are there issues that have caused you concern and answers you have found helpful? Let us know!
Stepping Stones is a donation-supported Christian newsletter "to offer hope, encouragement & support to infertile couples." This wonderful publication is celebrating 18 years of ministry this Summer. The new address is: Stepping Stones, c/o Bethany Christian Services, PO Box 294, 901 Eastern Ave. NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49501-0294.
Ladies in Waiting "is a group of married Christian women dealing with infertility. Ladies in this group have been trying to conceive a child for as little as 6 months and as many as 17 years. Some have never been pregnant---some have one, two, or even three children. Some have had one or more miscarriages and/or tubal pregnancies. Some have adopted, some are pursing adoption." Jenni's note: This is a great group! It is primarily a listserve (e-mail list) and also has lots of great small support groups via e-mail for geographical regions or specific needs (miscarriage, adoption, specific medical conditions, overweight, etc.).
Marriage Partnership "Do you celebrate Christian marriage and care about nurturing your relationship? - a magazine that will offer humor, insight and information to strengthen and enrich both your marriage and the marriages around you."
Infertility Discussion: AboutWomen.com, provided by Dynamic Living, is a bulletin board allowing Christian women to post thoughts and questions about infertility.
The HomeBuilders Couples Series® from FamilyLife is a Bible study series designed to provide you with Biblical help for your marriage in a setting of fellowship and encouragement among a small home-based study group. "Grow closer to your mate than you ever thought possible!" While not specifically fertility related, studies include topics to strengthen any marriage such as "Building Your Mate's Self-Esteem," "Building Teamwork in Your Marriage," "Expressing Love in Your Marriage," "Managing Pressure in Your Marriage," and "Resolving Conflict in Your Marriage."
Other Helpful Christian Web Sites
(including special sections for men
Women and marriage)
Count started Jan. 5, 2002
Hannah's Prayer is a California based, non-profit 501(c)(3)
organization, established Jan 1, 1995. All staff members are unpaid volunteers who are proclaiming
Christians (from a range of denominational backgrounds) and have personal
experience with the heartache of fertility challenges. 
was
designed exclusively for Hannah's Prayer by