Secondary Infertility and the God of Abundance
Editor’s Note: Each person’s experience of infertility and grief is unique. This article represents one woman’s story and some truths that have encouraged her on this journey. We hope it encourages you as well, but wanted to note that this article could be sensitive for some hearts or stages of the grief process. For more resources, please visit our Suffering & Loss page.
We were blessed with what many people would call the “baby jackpot” when we welcomed our boy/girl twins into the world. Even complete strangers love to point this out. And while I’m indescribably grateful to be their mama, there’s a grief I carry that is unseen. Most people don’t know that we lost one baby to miscarriage before we had the twins. Or that the twins’ pregnancy was incredibly difficult and we almost lost them as well. Or that we have been trying for more babies for two years now. They don’t know the journey we’ve walked or the moments of great loss we’ve experienced as people look at our precious twins.
This journey is not only filled with carrying the weight of others’ opinions, but also the guilt I carry in my own heart. There is a joy-stealing voice in my head that tells me the cure is simply to “be thankful for what you have” and ignore the hurt that’s there. I have friends who long for just one baby, so why can’t I be thankful that I have two?
It’s absolutely true that we need to be grateful for what we have and that God works all things for our good. There’s also a sense in which self-talk that simply says “be more thankful” can too easily gloss over the grief of living in a fallen world and minimize the full redemptive hope of the gospel.
God’s desire from the very beginning was for his children to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). He wanted Adam and Eve to have babies. He wanted his people to raise up the next generation to know him and love him.[1] Scripture also tells us that children are a gift and that it’s a blessing to have many of them.[2] Raising children is a privilege we can be grateful for, whether we have one or ten.
But learning gratitude doesn’t mean we ignore our grief. Infertility and miscarriage—no matter how many children we have—are painful realities that come with living in our sin-cursed world. But held by a sovereign and wise God, there are some truths that have anchored my soul.
1. Lament is healthy.
You only need a quick read-through of the Psalms to realize that God doesn’t just want us to bring our joy to him. He wants to walk with us through the messy and hard.[3] God invites us to share our full range of emotion and struggle with him. Jesus even wrapped himself in human flesh and bore our grief and pain,[4] crying out to God the Father in anguish on the cross,[5] all so we could come boldly to the Father in our time of need.[6]
Lament has been done individually and corporately throughout the history of God’s people. It’s good and right to grieve what is wrong. As John Piper says, “Occasionally weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Feel the pain. Then wash your face, trust God, and embrace the life he’s given you.”[7] While it is good and godly to grieve the brokenness of our world—including infertility, infant loss, and miscarriage—we must not stay there.
2. God is still good.
When the twelve tribes of Israel were each receiving a portion of the Promised Land, the tribe of Joseph simply didn’t like their portion. They looked around at what other tribes were inheriting and said, “The hills are not enough for us” (Josh. 17:14–16). When I look at friends who get pregnant easily or who have textbook pregnancies, deliveries, and breastfeeding journeys, an ugly thing happens in my heart. I begin to say, “What God has given is not enough.” But, the issue is not what I am given, it’s how much I trust the One who gives it.
My story doesn’t look like yours, just as the portion of land allotted to Joseph didn’t look like what was allotted to Benjamin. God’s goodness to me is rooted in his perfect wisdom, and he gives each of us unique circumstances for our good and his glory.
3. We can teach our kids to trust the Lord.
Each time our kids ask for a baby sibling, we have the opportunity to enter into a deeper conversation with them about who God is. We pray with them, showing them we believe he hears us and loves giving us good gifts. But we remind them that sometimes the good gift he wants to give us is wrapped in a hard thing that helps us trust him more deeply.
Not being able to grow our family in the way we want or envisioned is an opportunity for us as a family to lift our eyes to the One greater and wiser than we could ever dream. What a beautiful gift we are entrusting to the next generation when we choose to trust God in our disappointment—because they will have many of those on their journeys in this broken world.
We all face a unique set of struggles and joys, challenges and triumphs in this life on earth. When we walk through different types of pain and disappointment, let’s not minimize our own pain or the pain of other sisters in Christ by way of comparison. Let’s not stifle our grief or struggle and smile our way through it, neglecting to press into God’s goodness even when life is hard. Let’s acknowledge the brokenness around us and within us, letting it deepen our longing for the day when “everything sad has come untrue” and God restores all things.[9] Let’s not miss the opportunity to let our kids walk with us through hard things, pointing them to eternal truths about God that they will carry with them forever.
Let’s be women who grieve well, who trust God fully, and who commend the works of the Lord to the next generation—the hard and the good—all so we might love God and others more fully as we wait for the day when he wipes away every tear and we rest in his abundant goodness forever.
[1] Psalm 145:4, Deuteronomy 6:1–9
[2] Psalm 127:3–5
[3] Psalm 13, 44, 80, etc.
[4] Isaiah 53:4–6
[5] Matthew 27:46
[6] Hebrews 4:14–16
[7] John Piper, “Embrace the Life God Has Given You,” Desiring God, March 10, 2017,
https://www.desiringgod.org/embrace-the-life-god-has-given-you.
[8] Romans 8:32, Psalm 84:11
[9] Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zonderkidz, 2007), 347.
