National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) is observed each year to call attention to the prevalence of infertility and all that comes with it. Springs in the Desert has been observing and creating content around NIAW since 2020, but our goal is focused on more than just creating awareness. We try to use this national observance to specifically help family and friends support their loved ones, clergy provide pastorally sensitive care and accompaniment, and help those in the pews with us every week to better understand both the emotional and spiritual challenges of this cross, as well as the unique and wonderful opportunities for fruitfulness that can flow from it.

This year’s NIAW commemoration (April 20-26) is particularly significant for two reasons. First, it takes place during Bright/Easter Week, the continued celebration of Christ’s Resurrection and the joy of the salvation that opens for us the possibility for a new life in Him. Second, it’s a great opportunity for us to share our ministry’s theme for 2025 – Your Marriage has a Mission – with a wider audience, including in the Church at large. Every marriage is a communion of persons, one that is formed by and reflects the communion of life and love in the Trinity. The mission of every marriage begins there: in the daily task of the spouses to conform themselves to the Trinitarian image of love, pouring out and receiving each other in a total gift of self. If they do it right – grounding their marriage in Christ to guard against falling into self centeredness – the love they cultivate in their marriage will expand beyond them as they share their time, resources, and gifts to serve, be present to, and love others. 

Friends and family are on the frontline when it comes to supporting those on the path of infertility. Their accompaniment, encouragement, and community can make all the difference for women and couples carrying the cross of infertility and/or loss. Perhaps the most impactful way the friends and family members can support their loved ones on this path is by being a “Simon” for them – walking with them in the pain and helping to carry the cross.

  • Our instinct is often to alleviate the suffering of others by helping “solve the problem”  – which is natural –  but sometimes what is truly needed is a friend who is willing to listen and be present without rushing to offer advice or suggestions.
  • Couples experiencing infertility can feel tempted to think their marriage is “less than” or unfruitful. If the witness of their marriage has been an inspiration to you, or you see the fruits of their love in your community or family, don’t hesitate to share that with them!
  • Friendships can be difficult to maintain when friends are in different seasons. A willingness to acknowledge those differences and make time for one-on-one visits (or double dates!) without children can show your friends experiencing infertility that you value their company and are willing to participate in the give and take.

Loving friends and family can often try to “fix” their loved ones’ experience of infertility, but what is often the most meaningful is simply listening, encouraging, and creating space for quality time together. 

Those who have been called to build up the Body of Christ as their full-time or life-long call are so important and needed! Clergy, diocesan leaders, and those in parish ministry are answering a call that allows the Holy Spirit to continue breathing life into those needing and desiring sacramental preparation, continued formation, and faith-filled community. Because it is not a question of whether or not couples experiencing infertility or loss are in the pews, here are a few simple ways that those in Church leadership can begin to accompany their parishioners who are carrying this cross:

  • A quick review of your pre-marriage preparation curriculum can reveal if you are focusing too heavily on avoiding pregnancy rather than achieving pregnancy and if the possibility of infertility or loss is mentioned at all!
  • When scheduling faith formation programs, consider how you could incorporate activities for couples without children, or when naming programs, you could have men’s and women’s groups instead of mother’s and father’s groups.
  • In your efforts to build community in your diocese or parish, ensure that you have resources for those needing assistance with funeral and burial arrangements, that your diocese is committed to ongoing support of marriage by offering retreats or other ongoing marriage formation, and that pastors are aware of the realities of infertility and loss when giving a blessing to mothers and fathers. 

With just a touch of intentionality, the culture of your diocese or parish could reap fruits beyond your expectations!

Since infertility is a symptom of an underlying physical condition of one or both spouses, couples carrying this cross often seek out medical help. Healthcare providers – whether they be primary care physicians, nurses, gynecologists, NaPro practitioners, and more – therefore play a significant role in the life of the couple as they walk the path of infertility. Here are some ways that healthcare providers can live out the fullness of their own calling to heal the human person in ways that will resonate with patients beyond the exam room:

  • Be ready to direct patients toward additional support. Infertility is more than just a medical issue; beyond the physical effects of medical conditions and the side effects of treatment, infertility also affects couples emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and in their relationships with others. Building and maintaining professional connections with therapists, spiritual directors, and ministries such as Springs in the Desert that are grounded in the teachings of the Catholic Church will allow you to direct patients in need toward these resources. In that way, the couple is cared for not just in their bodies, but in their whole person.
  • Since infertility is such a sensitive issue that touches the most intimate life of the couple, it is all the more important that healthcare providers respect the couple’s boundaries. Religious objections to particular techniques and treatments, especially to Artificial Reproductive Technologies, must be honored without guilting or shaming the patient. Furthermore, couples may discern the need to take a break even from Restorative Reproductive Medicine and the charting, treatments, and surgeries that cooperate with our God-given biology. A couple should never be made to feel that choosing to honor their marriage, mental and emotional health, and personal lives beyond dealing with infertility is equal to giving up. This is especially important when the treatment plan involves trauma or tough decisions.
  • At the end of the day, know that God is “the Lord, the giver of life.” While it is good that you work with the couple to bring them to physical health – thereby increasing their chances of conceiving – the power over the generation of a new life is too much of a burden for us humans to bear. This is not a burden that should be placed on the shoulders of a couple walking with infertility, when the spouses are already weighed down with pain, confusion, and grief. Importantly however, it is also not a burden to take onto your own shoulders. It is good that the couple regains health, and wonderful when this causes them to be able to conceive and carry a child to term. But just as you, their healthcare provider, are called to exercise your spiritual parenthood over the couple, so is the couple and their marriage called to bring life to the world, even if they are not able to have children.

Couples on the path of infertility are used to hearing advice from all quarters, but it is your words, as their healthcare provider, that rank among the most important. This great responsibility can be accepted in a way that lifts up the marital life of the couple beyond their physical reality and helps them to live their life in the world with a renewed perspective and hope.

To those in our Springs community, wherever you are on your path of infertility, we want you to know that your marriage has a mission given to you by God for your good, and the good of the Church and the world. To those not on this path who love, serve, or otherwise encounter couples navigating infertility in their marriages, you can join in the mission of building up the Body of Christ by walking with and affirming these couples as they discover how God is calling them to be fruitful.