“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird….” How many women have longed to sing lullabies to their own little babies! From Hannah and other Bible women to someone right in your own neighborhood, would-be parents are seeking answers to infertility. My colleague, Kay Stroud, writing for the September 30, 2015 edition of The Northern Star, tells of her own sweet experience in overcoming the limiting label of infertility through prayer. Here’s Kay:
“The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day,” the Queen tells Alice in Through the Looking Glass. The rule hints at what is too widely accepted: good always belongs to some other time.
That might be how one in six Australian couples of reproductive age feel. That is the percentage affected by infertility, which is still an unthinkable prospect for many.
Various treatments are available these days, including medication, surgery, sperm/egg/embryo donors and IVF treatment.
Apart from the cost and undergoing rigorous physical regimens, some treatments come with uncomfortable physical side effects, health risks, invasive methods and monthly emotional trauma when success is not readily apparent.
In all these ways, “good” does indeed seem to belong to some other time for many young couples.
I can empathise with that feeling. That was the case for me, too. I felt I’d never enjoy what everyone else seemed to be enjoying “today.”
I had several nieces and nephews and many of my friends were starting to have babies. Yet it just didn’t seem to be happening for my husband and me over several years…..