This time I would like to draw your attention to a very important topic which is about those couples who cannot have children. I would like to talk about some of these wounds caused when couples, even though desiring or wanting to have a child cannot actually succeed in having one.
These couples unfortunately do not find a substantial space in the society going through the problem, neither are they always understood. It is essential to explain and understand beforehand, when talking about this topicthat sterility and infertility in a couple are two different subjects. Sterility means the incapacity to conceive whereas infertility means the impossibility of proceeding with the pregnancy once there has been a conception.
In both cases couples usually feel ashamed, inadequate and punished. The number of cases is not comforting; in Italy it is about 15-20% cases of couples who live the drama of infertility. The reasons are many and in some cases they are usually due to biological factors meaning life style, late pregnancy, drugs, alcohol and sometimes psychological factors. In both cases the incapacity of having a child naturally causes a lot of pain andsufferance.
Once a student of mineconfided to me and said “my wife and I learnt about the painful experience of our limit realizing that we were not able to succeed in having a child naturally which is always a great pain. The wounds that made us suffer a lot as a couple.We used to feel invaded by a sense of defeat and we ended up accusing the reality”. In actual fact finding out about being biologically sterile sometimes makes couple believe they areincomplete, as though an important piece is missing.
Often the couple goes through this state of being incomplete as something of unfair and inexplicable and often not understood. The couple usually learns about being diagnosed infertile or sterile very slowlyand during this long period of waiting the amount of pain, hopes and being afraid rises and of course then eventually comes the time when the couple looks for answers to this problem. It is unbelievable how the first answers which are looked for are biological types such as assisted insemination and other invasive answers. Such ways, either for their nature or for the way they are done, often add more pain to the couple’s sufferance and also the self-perception of the couple themselvesconducts them to thinking that they are different, not normal or even ill.
Who helps these couples?
Who looks into their sufferance and pain, obviously not for judging nor feeling pity for them but sustaining and donating them the capacity of looking beyond pain and sufferance which could be a new way of looking at how did their love for one another started? May be at this point it is essential to remember that a child is not a right that cannot be given up but a natural gift.
By just remembering who is the creator the couple will then accept that fertility is not a reason to be proud about, a child is not a private property just as sterility should not be a tormented humiliation but it should open other prospects for the couple. The big question is how can we give our moral support to the people whom we come across or know of that cannot have any children? The first attitude would be for these couples to not loose respect and love for one anotherespecially if they cannot have children. Being sterile or infertile must not be the reason for a couple to despair or fall apart.
How can we be the right friend next to those who are going through this type of a drama? How can we have the right answers other than those technical and medical ones resulting to be the only answers available? Personally I think that faith together with delicate, comforting and sensible words given can definitively have a positive impact on those who are in this sort of a situation or any other desperate case for that matter.
I also believe being sterile biologically could be a different way of looking at the problem because we could be fertile in loving each other as a couple and then eventually generate and spread love around, achieving the benefits of productiveness. There are so many ways through which we can open to fertility. We can adopt, help handicap children, open our hearts to people or couples in need or may be do some volunteer jobs helping children in hospitals and their parents, assisting children in prisons, parents who have lost their children in a tragic accident or an illness.
There are so many things that can be done which would allow us to be positive for ourselves and for others. It is always wise to advice couples not to close themselves to sterility but to open their heart to fertility. Where there is love and generosity, a marriage cannot risk getting killed or just vanish in the air. A couple needs oneanother especially in difficult moments when no answer is the right answer. Sometimes it is just important to get up and react. No situation must be looked atas a low tide or a reason to be upset or get anxious about.
Going back to adoption for example, which it would not be a secondary road; actually it would a real challenge and a huge privilege. These days unfortunately adopting is not an easy procedure for it has become very complicated and it involves a long waiting list and lots of bureaucratic work and documentation but at the end of all of this you will be rewarded. It is a conquest for the couple when they freely choose to love another human being who would be totally new to them.
I know a couple who started the adoption process 5 years ago when they were really devastated by the fact that they could not have a child. They felt incomplete inadequate isolated from the rest of the society and badly judged. She faced depression and he felt helpless for he could not help his wife in becoming interested in life again in spite of being sterile. They felt praying to God every day meant they should have been gifted with a child and felt God refused their prayers or even did not love them enough to grace them with a natural birth, their mind was concentrated only on how unfortunate and useless they were.
Then one day they found lots of comfort and understanding at their local church learning that they were not the only ones facing that sort of a problem and that they had to stop allowing the rest of the world choosing what had to become of them and their lives. Eventually they learntthat before anyone else they came first, their union, their responsibilities for each other, their love for one another and their inner peace which was the key to any problem they came across in their marriage. They stopped waiting for something that they could not make happen and started living their life as a couple enjoying what they had and cultivated their passion for children in another way. That is adoption.
Sometimes belonging to a group helps the positive energy to rise and your motivations. We should not limit ourselves in front of the word church or a place where it physically represents a wholly place, just because we decided to be judgmental about what it could represent or who may represent it.
The same couple today has succeeded in adoption and is meeting a one year old baby every day, working on an educational program where they get the chance to be with their baby, to nurture her, play games with her and for the baby to learn to trust them all under the institute’s qualified observation. They are happier and a lot stronger today realizing that there are other ways of becoming parents, other ways of feeling positive about themselves but always keeping in mind that becoming a parent is a gift.
I only know from my personal experience if it was not for my faith in God and my prayers I would not have been here today. I would not have been strong enough to recover from 3 different types of cancers and tumors, during when I was faced death each time. I believe in saints and miracles. I believe in everything positive if by sticking to the rules I can receive benefits from them and feel good then why not. It is all for a good cause.
A THOUGHT
Whichever pattern life offers, you should take the high tide and not the low tide and live life at its highest peak.
