The Infertility Companion for Catholics

One in every six United States couples experiences infertility but Catholic couples face additional confusion, worry, and frustration as they explore the medical options available to them. Filling a major void in Catholic resources,  is the first book to address not only the medical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of infertility, but also the particular needs of Catholic couples who desire to understand and follow Church teaching on the use of assisted reproductive technology.

I am honored to be a part of the blog book tour to support the The Infertility Companion for Catholics. I am also giving away a copy of the book. Click this link to be entered in the contest. I will take entries for one week, from April 28th to May 5th. I will draw and announce the winner on May 6th. Good Luck.

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The authors, Angelique Ruhi-López and Carmen Santamaría, are my guests today and they wrote the following post.

 If you’re following along on our virtual travels on this blog book tour, you may have caught a glimpse into why we wrote the book with answer #1 here: http://thiscrossiembrace.blogspot.com/2012/04/q-with-authors-of-infertility-companion.html

Simone asked us to write about both why we wrote this book and what our favorite chapter(s) were and the answer to these questions are actually kind of intertwined. When we both realized we had a strong calling to write this book, we met a bunch of times to start to flesh out what content we wanted in the book so that we could include a proposed table of contents with the book proposal that we were going to send out to Catholic publishers.

Generally, when book proposals are sent out, the first two chapters are sent as examples of the book’s content. In our case, however, we opted to write and submit two chapters in the middle first: The Cross of Infertility (Chapter 6, authored by Carmen) and Bearing the Cross: A Spirituality of Infertility (Chapter 7, authored by Angelique.) The reason why we did this is because we felt these two chapters really hit at the heart of the matter of infertility and if we had to choose, we could say they’re our favorite chapters. From the very beginning, we saw these two chapters as the crux of the book and a key part of the impetus for writing the book: to help people feel like they are not alone in the difficult emotions but also to help change our perspective on the journey and see the possible fruits that could come of it.

Chapter 6 details some of the emotions and experiences of couples who carry the cross of infertility:

“For me, the feeling of dashed hopes is one of the hardest parts of the process. No matter how many times I tell myself to not grow anxious, as those days when I am supposed to get my period approach, it happens each and every month without fail. There can even be times when I may feel like the journey will never end. I know it is in God’s power each and every month, but I struggle with his answer. I try to be hopeful in my waiting, though many times the best I can muster is cautious optimism. It’s been hard to undergo this for years, to be told that a certain treatment will solve the problem and get our hopes up only to find the result is the same.”

Chapter 7 tries to look at the difficult feelings and challenges detailed in Chapter 6 and view them through a spiritual lens: “Hearing that infertility is a gift is about as thrilling as being told to “relax and you’ll get pregnant” or “just adopt and you’ll be expecting in no time.” But the truth is, we have been entrusted with this journey. We have been entrusted by God to grow in patience and to remember that not all things happen when we want them but that all things do “work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).”

We hope that reading these two chapters can help you feel that you are not alone on your infertility journey. The Lord walks with you and we pray that through His grace, you may grow closer to Him in the process.

                                                                 Angelique & Carmen