What does the Bible say about infertility? with Sandra Glahn. - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 41

Podcast, Your Questions, Biblical Answers. On today's episode, I have with me a returning guest. I'm Dr. Sandra Glahn of Dallas Theological Seminary, and she is the author of When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden, Encouragement for Couples Facing Infertility, and that is our topic today.

Dr. Glahn, welcome to the show. Thank you, great to be back. So, Sandra, this is something that we've discussed briefly in the past, but both of us have dealt with our spouses, of course, with infertility and struggled for a long time.

And so before we dive into some of the more direct questions, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to share your story a little bit of how you and your husband struggled with infertility and kind of what you learned in that process.

Okay, thank you.

So it spanned a decade for us, our journey of infertility. We had three years of no success, followed by being thrilled to have a positive pregnancy test after a little bit of medical treatment, only to quickly lose that pregnancy, and then another and another and another.

We ended up having seven early pregnancy losses. So we moved on to adoption, particularly because a lot of people had said, you can always adopt, and like it was some easy thing. And then we had three adoptions fall through.

We were paired with a birth mother, and they either, well, yeah, decided to keep the baby. In one case, someone decided to terminate the pregnancy, all of which was a whole new form of grief for us. And then we finally had a successful pregnancy, I'm sorry, a successful adoption.

But not too long into the adoption, I had a positive pregnancy test, which everybody says, you know, just adopt and you'll get pregnant, like, like you just need to relax. But that turned out to be ectopic, which is where, you know, the the embryo is growing in the tube, it had ruptured, I would have probably bled to death if I hadn't been rushed into emergency surgery to take the tube.

So while we were in there, I just said, tie them both. I am, I'm done dealing with my body being a tomb. And the constant turmoil of Am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant? You know, all of that. And so that my daughter, our daughter is now 25.

So it's, we have some perspective, which has been helpful. But it's infertility, like an old companion, that comes back at the strangest times, you get the all the Christmas letters with everybody's family photos in them, and the people you went to college with have 17 people because their kids have gotten married, and they've had kids and, and that's just not been our story.

And we are truly happy for other people. It's not that we resent their pain. It's just, I mean, their their joy, it's just their joy is often a grief trigger for us, because that's the dream that we had for ourselves.

We wanted four children. And that dream didn't materialize. And we've come to terms with it. But it still comes back at times. Yeah. How about you?

Wrestling with Infertility, Miscarriage, and Adoption Delays

Not that dissimilar. Melissa and I have now been married for 24 years. Um, we started trying, I'd say after a couple years, we're still pretty young at the time. And then probably after, I think it was about five years and like, huh, we haven't gotten pregnant yet.

Maybe we should figure out why. So when saw the doctors, they test they ran us through every test you can imagine. Imagine you guys probably did all the same tests and like, well, you guys are maybe fighting the odds a little bit more than a typical couple, but there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't be getting pregnant.

So we just kind of like, well, must not be God's timing. Surely later, God will enable us to get pregnant. Well, in another five or so years past, we're still not pregnant. Of course, the our parents are starting to ask.

So when are you guys having kids like not in the mean disruptive way, but just they really wanted to be grandparents in 10 years. Yeah. Like, okay. So then we went through tests, tried artificial insemination, other fertility treatments, and it just wasn't happening.

So, um, it kind of came to a point where it's like, so are we going to be okay with our lives if we, if we never have kids? And that was definitely a process. And I think we reached a point that if God were to ever bless us with kids, it would be icing on the cake of an already blessed life rather than something we needed in order to feel fulfilled in life.

So that was a huge step for us. Um, and then similar to you guys, um, we is out of the blue, a young couple in our church got pregnant out of wedlock and asked if we wanted to adopt the baby. Like we weren't even like actively seeking it, but like, we think you guys would be great parents.

We want you to adopt our baby. So we're like, prayed about it, talked to our parents about it and like, yeah, we're just absolutely convinced that this is, this is how God is going to turn us into parents, so to speak.

Well, about six weeks before the baby was born, they changed their minds, decided to keep the baby. And that was probably the worst part of the, our entire infertility journey.

Like this came to me, I wasn't looking for it. I was okay, but now boom, I'm so.

Sorry. Then a year after that, um, similar story, um, young lady that my wife had in Awana back in the day, um, came to us and she was also pregnant out of wedlock and asked us to adopt and said yes again.

But that one, at least the, um, the father was never on board with giving up for adoption. So we always viewed it as a closed door. We kept hoping he might change his mind, but he never did. And in all in total, I think we've been presented with opportunities to adopt five times and each time to varying degree, the door was closed and we're just kind of like, okay, again, we're okay with our lives, with each other, our marriage, our relationship with God and our family without kids.

But why does this keep happening to us if it's not, it's not ever going to result in an adoption? Um, so we're still not, I mean, I, I'm in my mid forties. So is Melissa. So it's not like we're opposed to the idea of becoming parents, but I'm like, okay, if we were to get a baby now, I would be 64 when he or she has graduated from high school.

That's getting up there. So, um, uh, never say.

Never, but mental space, right? Like when you're thinking we were going to build a life without children, this is what God has for us. You have to hit a different mental space to then respond to, okay, we'll open our lives to a child.

That means rearranging a lot of stuff. You get there emotionally and then boom, nevermind. It's like, well, that was a lot of wasted emotion.

For sure. For sure. And so we've really transitioned into let's be the cool aunt and uncle to other people's kids. So we've had a lot of opportunities for that. We've had a lot of opportunities where other parents, um, go out of town without their kids and leave their kids at our house for a long weekend or even a week, a few times.

And that's a lot of fun because then once you get sick of the kids, it's about time to hand them back to the real. So it's kind of like grandparenting, I guess. Um, so we, but definitely there were times where, especially with the first failed adoption, it's like, okay, God, that was a really, really cruel joke.

Um, and so if there was ever a time of like bitterness of, ah, God, I'm really trying to trust you, but let's not do that again, please. Um, so in your experience, Sandra, like I know you've had many, many opportunities to counsel people who are struggling with infertility.

Um, how do you encourage people to trust God when something is difficult and painful as infertility, especially when like there's no explanation for it. And for some couples getting to the, I'm okay with my life without kids is super, super hard because for most of their lives, all they wanted to ever do is to become parents and raise children.

So what in your experience, what are some of the, the pointers, what are some of the successes that you've had in trying to encourage people to continue to trust God in the midst of a really, for lack of a better term, sucky situation?

Lament, the Psalms, and Trusting God’s Goodness

Yeah, it needs.

Harder language because it's so raw and so deep. Um, I think, um, one thing is that I had a great mentor teach me to pray the Psalms of lament. I had sort of come up in a tradition that said, don't ever ask God questions.

And the Psalms are loaded with people asking God questions. It's the demanding of answers. That's the problem. It's not the asking of questions. It's the problem. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Like Jesus goes out asking God questions and he, you know, he's a member of the Trinity and he's asking God questions. So I think just to learn that there were times when I was in so much emotional pain, I did not have my own words.

And again, I was part of a tradition that said, you don't pre-craft prayers. You pray spontaneously, but that's what the Psalms are. They're pre-written prayers that, that if you get through all 150 of them, you hit every emotion possible.

And so to camp in the Psalms and to know it's okay to feel whatever I'm feeling. It's okay to ask God questions. And even beyond people going through infertility, I think everyone in this world at some point suffers to the point where they're asking, is God good?

Will I trust him? I mean, it seems like everything boils down to those two questions. What's the character God? Is he good? Does, is there love in this hurt? And can I trust him even if I don't understand the plan?

And so trying to focus on those two questions. How do we know God is good? You know, that keeps taking us back to the cross. I'd have to preach the gospel to myself every day. How do I know God's good if this hurts so much?

Well, did he spare his son for me? His only son? I wouldn't give up my only daughter for anybody, certainly not an enemy. So has God shown the ultimate love to me? Yes. So will I trust him? You know, I think of the disciples saying, where else are we going to go?

You have the words of life. Everybody's leaving, but where else am I going to go? I mean, it's a pretty low standard, actually. It's, it's amazing that Jesus wasn't hurt by that, or maybe he was, but he accepted that God's ways are really hard.

And so I think rather than minimizing the pain, which so often people do, um, invalidating the pain, um, both as people are doing that to them saying, oh, just trust God. Oh, it'll get better. Oh, you'll have a child.

I mean, you know, all the things people say, um, that hurt, um, not only refusing to believe that as an infertility patient, but also, um, telling myself the truth, which, and one truth I really had to learn was that parenting wasn't the ultimate, uh, particularly for women, I think in Christendom, we get this idea that being a mother is the ultimate role for a woman.

It is a beautiful and important role, but it's not the only pattern in God's book. Uh, it's not the ideal for every woman. So just had to, to bury myself in some good theology and try to share that with other people that are going through infertility, that you are not a loser.

If you don't become a mother father, you are not on plan B. God has his, a game going for you. Is he good? Will I trust him?

God’s Timing, Providence, and an Abundant Life Without Children

Yeah. Yeah. For, for Melissa and I, it was, um, like both the theological and very personal, like both aspects of the struggle and the theologically I know that God's plan is perfect. And so I just have to trust that, that there is a reason for this.

I may not understand the reason. I may not agree with the reason, but I mean, his ways are higher than our ways. Um, so trusting him that, you know, would, um, similar to you, would we have experienced multiple miscarriages if we had been able to get pregnant?

And to us, I think that would have been even far more devastating than being able to get, not being able to get pregnant to begin with. I mean, we had a, some good friends of ours who struggled with, um, miscarriages before they were able to, thankfully, praise God, have three kids of their own.

And they were like, oh, we think it'd be way worse to not be getting pregnant at all. And we're just like, no, I think your journey is way worse. So who knows what God was protecting us from or how our lives would be different.

Could we, I mean, I'm not saying kids are a distraction, but we've both been able to dedicate our lives to focusing on full-time ministry work and having a great impact. And would that have not been possible at least to the same degree if we'd had kids?

So who knows? I don't know what God's reason is, but it's coming to the point that I'm trusting God, even when I don't understand his plan was huge. And then again, the personally, as I mentioned earlier, it's like, you know what?

I mean, our marriage is great. We love our lives. Um, reaching the point where instead of like moping around that we can't have kids, let's, let's do some things that people with kids can't do. So we've been able to have some great vacations, traveling, enjoying things.

Hey, we're dual income, no kids. So we can do a lot of things that our friends with kids can. And it's kind of fun. Sometimes I occasionally see a little, little hint of jealousy in them that like, wow, wish, wish we could go to Hawaii or whatever.

It's like, some of those things is finding joy in some of the things that, you know, as wonderful as it would have been to have kids. If you're not finding your joy in Christ, if you're not fulfilled in your life without kids, having kids is not going to fill that gap.

The only God can truly give us the abundant life that he promises and looking to anything in this world to fill that void is, is ultimately going to be empty. So true. So what are some.

Unhelpful Comments, Word-Faith Pressure, and How to Respond

Of the things that people have said to you that you found unhelpful and how did you answer?

I mean, thankfully, by and large, we were, it's very rare where someone actually told us something hurtful. And even then we know they were, it was well-intentioned. So we kind of give them a pass. Some of the funny things were like, just, oh, here's what you need to do.

And you'll get pregnant. Like one of the first ones was like, oh, get a dog. Cause once you get a dog that will kick in your parenting biology, I'm like, I don't think that's how that works. Or even like similar to what you said, start the adoption process.

And then that will activate Melissa's ability to have children. It's like, well, I don't think Melissa's ability to have children medically has ever been identified as a problem. So. And what an insult to the child you're adopting, right?

You're the sort of placebo baby. Yeah. Or, okay. I will refrain from getting graphic here, but just some of the suggestions on how to have sex, right. In order to, oh, try this position. I'm like, I'm not comfortable with this conversation we're having right here.

So thank you for your, your suggestion there. Yes. We know more about FSH and LH and luteal phases.

Than you're ever going to. Yeah. Thank you. But I think we have that figured out. Yeah.

But what about for you? I mean, did you and your husband have some.

Shame, Faith, and the Need for Compassionate Speech

I think that the one that stood out to me the most was when it was a sort of prosperity gospel thinking of if you would just trust God and go buy a maternity top to prove your faith. And I was like, the problem here is not that I lack faith that God is able.

It's that I'm not sure he's willing for my good. And I don't think buying a maternity top to convince God that I'm, that I believe him, you know, that it kind of put back on me that it was my lack of faith.

And that's done because here I am trying to trust God and they're suggesting that if only I had a better faith life, this would be happening. And the, you know, those who said you'll get pregnant, don't worry.

Or then when I got pregnant, so you got pregnant. So it's just a matter of time. It's like after the third loss, you're like, what? And people say, well, you know, I know somebody had eight losses and they finally had some.

I was like, no, no, no. So all of that, I think, had a common thread, kind of, as you suggested, of being well intentioned. They wanted us to have a child and they wanted us to cheer up and they wanted us to be happy.

But I was reminded that Paul said, the apostle Paul says, weep with those who weep, not cheer up those who weep, not those who promise a happy ending to those who weep, but those who actually sit in the grief.

There were many Sundays and I'm not, I mean, I'm a fairly analytical woman. I never thought of myself as super emotional, but there were many Sundays when Sunday after Sunday I'm weeping in church. I mean, this was a deep grief for us, not to mention hormones going crazy when you're losing pregnancies and on meds and all that.

And I remember somebody also saying to me, every time I see you, you're crying, like as a criticism. And do you think that made me want to go to church? I thought it was a sign of mental health that I was trying to express my emotions to God.

But when I found that that was something that somebody saw as overly emotional, or maybe she thought I was trying to draw attention to myself, it just made me want to crawl in a hole and pull away from community because I didn't want to, in addition to the pain of infertility, be feeling the pain.

Of criticism over how I was handling it. Yeah. So it's similar to you. There were a couple like word faith type people who like asked if they could pray over us and are never going to turn down prayers.

I suppose there might be a few instances where we would, but every single time the person went straight to Melissa and laid hands on her. And again, we've been through all the medical tests and they can't identify anything significantly wrong with either of us.

So and to her, again, always interpreting what people were doing. Yeah. It's her fault. And we have no idea whose fault it was because we never got a concrete medical explanation for it. So that was strange.

And then of course, one time the person kind of blamed us for not having enough faith. And I was kind of like, okay, thank you. But yeah, but it's again, the key for us was and not, not receiving the actual word, but trying to again, interpret everything as being well-intentioned and that, look, I know these people, they're not trying to hurt us.

Maybe someday we can have the conversation saying, you know, if you ever run across someone struggling with infertility again, please, please don't say that. Something like that, rather than making them feel guilty about it right then and there.

It's a big struggle.

You're a good man. There were many times I quoted to myself, return evil with good. Those words feel to me like evil. The mature response here is to return evil with good, but I am allowed to go home and hit my pillow a little bit.

I mean, no, trust me. I do have a, usually have a pretty good filter on my mouth. Some of the things I wanted to say would not have been kind. So exactly. So Sandra, just kind of in closing here. So if a couple or individual struggling with infertility is listening to this, like what are your words of encouragement?

What's your advice, both as a Christian woman who's, who's dealt with this personally, but also as an expert in the, in the field? What would be your, obviously not knowing the specific situation, generally speaking, give some words of encouragement to someone who's struggling with it.

Encouragement for Couples and Individuals Facing Infertility

Yeah. The encouragement that you are not alone, that it can be a very isolating situation, even in a marriage, even in a good marriage, you can, it's usually for couples the first time that they realize how differently they deal with grief and, you know, a couple that's been moving along pretty well in their relationship.

And all of a sudden, maybe she wants to talk about it constantly. He doesn't want to talk about it at all. Maybe she's an external process or he's an internal process, you know, whatever difference it is and how they deal with it.

That it doesn't mean that your marriage stinks. It, you're not alone and you're probably normal. And yeah, but what I said earlier, basically find God in the Psalms. The emotions are all there and he is big enough to.

Receive all that pain. What about you? For me, again, just like you just said, similar to what I said earlier, it's one like reaching a point that you realize and fully understand and embrace that God is the one who gives us the abundant life, that nothing else can fill that void.

So if you're looking for children or even a spouse to fill that void in your heart, well, ultimately you're going to find it empty. So reach the point that your relationship with God is what gives you joy, what gets you up in the morning and causes you to attack the day with vigor and energy.

But then trust God that his timing is perfect and his will is perfect. Even if that means ultimately not having kids or not having biological kids or adoption, or if all that falls through, trusting God, even when you don't understand why he's taking on the particular path he is, because scriptures continually teach us that God is good and that all things work together for good.

So many scriptures that God loves us and cares for us. I know that God has a wonderful plan for your life can be a trite statement, but it's true ultimately in that the life that God has planned for us is the best life we could possibly hope for.

So I'm focusing on that as hard as it is. Sometimes it can just be intellectual at first and eventually that'll impact your emotions as well, but there's no easy way to deal with this. I mean, it's like you said earlier, there's still times where it hurts even now.

Find out if a couple decides to get an abortion or hear about babies being born into abusive households. It's like, God, why are you allowing them to have children when they're abusing their kids and not us?

Not that we have any delusions we'd be perfect parents, but we wouldn't be like that. So it's stuff like that that still kind of reopens the wounds a little bit, but still coming back to God, I love you, I trust you, and I don't understand your decision on this issue, but.

I'm going to trust you even though. Amen. I recommend a good playlist, just put together a good playlist to have in your head reminding you of the truth because the emotions are going to, it's going to be a big grief.

It is a big grief and it's normal to grieve, but also to tell yourself the truth in the middle of the grief. God is good. He has a plan. His ways are not our ways. His ways.

Are above our ways. We're not necessarily going to see it in this life. Well, Sandra, thank you again for being on the show. Sure. Thank you. And we will include links to Dr. Glahn's book on infertility and some other resources she recommends in the YouTube description at podcast .questions .org and also in the show notes for this episode.

So you can check that out. I actually haven't read the book. I didn't even know for sure she had a book until we were discussing before the show, but I'm sure it's great and I look forward to purchasing it and reading it.

So again, those links to those resources will be available. So I hope this conversation has been encouraging to you, both to those who are struggling with infertility and to those who are maybe trying to figure out what to say and what not to say to a loved one who is struggling with infertility.

So again, that's our goal today. I hope you found it beneficial. This is the Got Questions Podcast. Got questions? The Bible has answers. You'll be fine.