Below is a book review by one of our longtime SHE members, Gabrielle. Enjoy!
A Catholic Perspective on Infertility in My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir
Colleen Carroll Campbell
2012: Image Catholic Books
Several years ago, I would have
loved to come across the book My Sisters
the Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell.
The author finds inspiration from six female saints as she goes through important
life changes: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Mother
Teresa of Calcutta , Edith Stein of Germany , and Mary
of Nazareth. They become to Campbell as accessible
and fortifying in her moments of doubt and anxiety as real life sisters. As I
was reading about Campbell ’s
attempts to find spirituality and keep her morality intact through her college
years, balance marriage and a career, and care
for a sick parent, I found myself relating to her and her quest to find
guidance with life decisions. But when she began describing her experience with
infertility, it was like reading my own diary.
Being a Catholic woman facing
infertility has its own unique challenges. If you find yourself in a fertility
specialist’s office, you will most likely be told that IVF is your only option.
Finding a physician and treatment that conforms to Church teaching is a
full-time job. And even though you and your spouse are on the same team, you
deal with the struggle differently by nature. My husband seemed to roll with
the punches much better than me. I knew we were both waiting and praying for
the same reason, but as a woman I needed to find a way to cope with all the
emotions that seemed to knock me to the ground month after month. I looked for
books, scoured the internet, but nothing was quite in line with my beliefs. I
also needed to learn how to wait well.
It seemed like all I had was time, but I knew that time spent wallowing
in my own unhappiness would not help me. I was in the spiritual fight of my
life up until that point and I needed reinforcements.
In a visit to a chapel, Campbell finds stained
glass windows depicting three of the saints written about in her book, Teresa
of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and Edith Stein:
Here were my heroines, my
patronesses, my friends. Aside from Mary, the mother of Jesus, I could hardly
think of three women I admired more. And the realization hit me with sudden
force: Not one of them had borne biological children. Yet there they were,
radiantly holy and beloved by countless spiritual children throughout the
world, including me. Each had fulfilled, in her own way, what Edith described
as the highest call of every mother: to nurture the spark of divine life in another’s
soul.
[…]I knew in that moment that God
wanted to do the same with me—that he could do the same, if I let him. He could
make me a mother. He could even make me a saint. And he could do both without
making me pregnant. He needed only my cooperation, my willingness to trade my
own dreams and plans of motherhood for his (127-128).
In the
midst of my own struggle to find the meaning and purpose of suffering through
infertility, I found an online advertisement for the first meeting of a local support
group for Catholic women experiencing primary and secondary infertility. The group would become the S.H.E. ministry,
with Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth as the saints that we look to as our role
models. We have prayed over and touched relics of Saint Gianna and gained
inspiration from her life and sought her intercession. Through the years, we
have cried with each other over miscarriages, failed adoptions, painful and
invasive medical tests and procedures, but also the illness and death of a
parent. By being there for one another
through times of sadness as well as joy, we have been practicing the use of our
motherly hearts. I consider these women my sisters now. I hope that others
struggling through the pain of infertility find the resources that they need—the
strength and help from the communion of saints, and the support of faithful
women who are there to let you know you are not alone!
