Our place is with singles, married couples, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, children, and all God’s Church.
It is only necessary that you are open to God’s will, not that you procreate. God loves the childless, too.
There are so many responses, I didn’t read them all, but I want to share my story.
When I first heard that I couldn’t have children, I didn’t really care since at that point I planned to stay single. God had other plans… extraordinary plans for such an ordinary woman. Later, after my then-future husband and I became fairly close, I realized I had to tell him, even though we weren’t at a point in our relationship to start making big plans for the future. Still, it was only fair so that neither of us would be hurt any worse if he couldn’t accept my condition. So at the risk of losing this guy that I was growing to love very much, I said it. I told him that I knew we hadn’t talked about anything like marriage and I wasn’t trying to bring it up, but there was something he needed to know before we ever got to that point.
“I can’t give you children,” I told him. If being a father was very important to him he could break it off before we grew any closer. It wasn’t easy, especially since just bringing up the “M” word might have scared him away. He really surprised me, though, and said, “It’s okay. When the time comes we can adopt.” It took over three years for that time to come, but we never adopted.
A year into the marriage, while I was working as a waitress, I caught a light stomach bug I couldn’t get rid of. I didn’t feel sick except for the nausea that lasted most of the afternoon and night. It took a while for me to figure out it was morning sickness, especially considering how unlikely it would be for my body to be tricked into thinking it was pregnant. But it was no trick–I was pregnant. Not only that, but he made it full-term and is one of my two living children. (I also have several tiny saints waiting in heaven.)
After a particularly disheartening miscarriage, I went for tests and learned
why I am medically barren (and discovered that my case is very severe). My OB/GYN admitted that there should be no way for me to ever have gotten pregnant, much less to have carried a child to term. He has a word for my having two children that survived to be born. It’s his professional opinion but not exactly a medical term: “miracle!” (If “impossible” is a medical term, that’s probably what’s on the record.)
If God created you infertile, there is a reason. I believe part of the reason he created me this way is so I could share my story.
Obviously, I can’t promise women that they will overcome infertility or anything like that, but I can suggest that you remain open to God’s will and trust Him. His plans might not be the same as yours, but He always,
always knows what’s best.
