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Statistics show that one in four women have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term. Here is some help for offering meaningful emotional, spiritual and practical support for a loved one experiencing this.

Loving well:

1. Be willing to give your time and support in sacrificial ways – this can be a commitment to heavy, hard, long-term burden bearing (Galatians 6:2)
2. Think carefully about your first approach, particularly if this struggle has not been spoken about before. If God has put it on your heart, definitely move towards your friend, as isolation is horrible. However, a written note or message can give them time to prepare for conversation and respond when they are ready.
3. Ride the rollercoaster of highs and lows with them by rejoicing together in moments of hope, and crying with them when they mourn (Romans 12:15)
4. Train yourself to listen far more than you speak! (James 1:19). Don’t try to fix them (because you can’t) but listen for what’s hurting, worrying, upsetting, embarrassing and matters of regret or desire, so that you ‘get them’ and what they are experiencing.
5. Don’t always talk about the struggle. It can be all consuming. Be a friend who enjoys everyday activities and conversation but be there to talk when needed.
6. Don’t press for updates – follow their lead because you don’t know their immediate circumstances or emotional state. They’ll update you when they’re in a place to do so.
7. Don’t minimise their pain or compare their suffering with others. Everyone’s journey is unique and their suffering is real. It actually makes people feel worse. It will close down the conversation because they will not feel heard or understood.
8. Be aware that miscarriages often go hand in hand with fertility struggles. This clearly can be particularly painful and times to cry together. Miscarriages produce significant dates and anniversaries. Be aware of these and how your friend marks them.
9. Be aware that childlessness can place a relational strain on marriages. Be willing to talk about this and ensure someone is walking alongside both spouses.

Speaking well:

1. Be aware that church can be a hard place to be. Often there are lots of ‘happy families’ with many kid-focused conversations and activities. It’s a place where family values are often promoted with a misplaced emphasis on marriage and having children being the norm and ideal. There can also be a subtle pressure for all women to help out in children’s ministry, without consideration that this may be emotionally painful.
2. Use the Bible well. Many assume that stories about childless women like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah and Elizabeth will automatically give hope. But all of these eventually have babies, which you can not promise your friend. Thoughtfully consider instead passages that give hope and comfort amidst grief, fear, sorrow, shame, regrets – whatever your friend is struggling with. Examples might include: Psalm 56 (verses 3&8 especially); Isaiah 43:2; Isaiah 54; Jeremiah 29:11 and John 11:25-26.
3. Focus on identity in Christ. Your friend, like many childless women, may well be struggling with who they are if they don’t have the identity and role of mother. (Ephesians 1)
4. Consider reading a book together that has a good, practical theology of suffering (recommendations at end). This will help with wrestling through the ‘whys and wherefores’, and reaching the point ‘…and if not, God is still good’.
5. Pray with and for your friend. Ask ‘how can I pray for you?’ Focus on them as a person and how they are doing emotionally and in their walk with the Lord, as well as praying for the desired baby and practical needs. The categories of ‘healing, help and hope’ may be a useful framework.
6. Learn to lament with your friend. Be comfortable with the outpouring of grief. Encourage this to be done before the Lord. Read lament psalms to help your friend find words that capture their experience. Encourage them to write their own lament poems.
7. Be aware that Mother’s Day and Christmas may well be particularly hard times for your friend, including in church. Their birthday may also be ‘bitter sweet’ as it marks their biological clock ticking. So pray for them particularly at these times and offer sensitive support.
8. Your friend may face ethical dilemmas over medical treatments, such as whether to have IVF or use a donor egg or sperm. You can support and help them think these issues through biblically. They may, of course, come to a different conclusion to you. This will no doubt be hard for you but you should honour and respect the fact that these are matters of conscience that ultimately your friend must reach a decision on before the Lord.
9. Get a prayer support team behind you as you seek to support your friend. Recognise you have limits. Widen the circle of support as you are able, so that different people share out the burden bearing.

Serving well:

1. Offer to go with your friend to difficult medical appointments.
2. Recognise when your friend is emotionally and physically exhausted as a result of their infertility struggles. In all likelihood they won’t always have the capacity to do the everyday things, like cleaning, cooking, gardening. Arrange for a support team to help with these tasks, as necessary. It could be done as a work party for say a coffee and some cleaning, although this will depend on your friend’s capacity and character.
3. Enrich your friends perhaps strained marriage by treating them and their spouse to a date-night – tickets to show, a meal out etc.
4. If you have children, thoughtfully seek to include your friend in some of your family activities (or someone else’s family). Pick activities that people of all ages will enjoy, not those focused on the kids. This might include a family walk, a day at the beach, a trip to a theme park etc. Don’t be offended if they say no or back out. Keep being thoughtful and sensitive in inviting them to be involved in your family life.
5. As relationships develop with your family (or another), your friend may wish to take the kids out for a treat. Don’t have the attitude that because they don’t have children, they wouldn’t know what to do with them. Share your children with your friend, as is appropriate.
6. A few comments to avoid making:
   – Any phrase starting with ‘at least’, like at least you can go on nice holidays; at least you know you can get pregnant (after a miscarriage); at least it’s not cancer etc
   – Any phrase that starts with ‘you can always’, like ‘you can always adopt’; ‘you can always have IVF’ etc.
   – Any statements that imply you’re fortunate not to have kids, like ‘you can have mine; ‘you wouldn’t want your brother’s kids’ etc.
   – And statements that start with ‘just’, like ‘just relax; just go on holiday and it will happen’ etc.
   Listen to the language your friend uses and adopt it. Words like ‘baby’ or ‘child’ can be hard to say without crying, so they may say ‘little people’ instead.
   – Be aware that in social gatherings one of the first questions everyone asks is: Do you have any children? This can be hard to handle and awkward when you mumble something like ‘no, its just us’. In some situations, a friend may be able to provide that information in advance, saving these awkward encounters. Consider whether there are different ways to frame these ‘get to know you’ questions around family make-up, such as ‘who is in your household?’ or ‘who do you live with?’

Further Resources:

When God weeps, why our suffering matters to the Almighty by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes

Held: 31 Biblical Reflections on God’s Comfort and Care in the Sorrow of Miscarriage By Abbey Wedgeworth