“The test of infertility has strengthened us”

How is the reality of infertility imposed?

ENGERRAN: We both had the strong desire to start a family. During our preparation for marriage, we had not projected at all in the situation we are currently experiencing. We had discussed the subject of disability, not that of infertility. But the time, the child did not happen. The questions have jostled and the misunderstanding with.

Mathilde: I lived this reality in my flesh: every month it was the roller coaster. As soon as a cycle lasted longer than the others, he resulted in the hope of a pregnancy, ultimately disappointed.

E.: For my part, witness to Mathilde’s suffering, I also lived mine. But in a very different way, less embodied.

You have taken almost a year to talk to yourself about what you are going through. For what ?

E.: Talking about infertility would have meant admitting that there was a problem, suffering, and we were not ready for that. When you get married, it is in order to welcome children shortly after.

M.: I alone thought I was a fall every month. This silence tends to couple relationships, also affecting our sexuality. From the moment we managed to talk about it, we realized that we suffered with the same intensity, expressed differently.

What allowed you to have this discussion?

E. : Time. After a while, we can no longer be alone in the face of this suffering which ends up overflowing. With Mathilde, we pray together in the evening. It is because we shared this distress that we were able to cry out to the Lord. We were also able to talk about all the small and great consequences that infertility generated for each of us and our couple, and see the places where it degraded our relationship. Again, named what was going on allowed us not to let our couple relationship be polluted.

M.: It was liberating. From the moment we realized that this pain was common to us, we were able to think about how we were going to live it with the outside world.

That’s to say ?

M.: We had to protect ourselves at first. Even shared to each other, the injury was lively. Every day, I felt assaulted by my colleagues, by our friends who announced pregnancies, by the invitations to baptisms … See a pregnant woman, a dad playing with her little boy, was unbearable. We supported ourselves a lot.

E. : It was a wound, on which we didn’t want to add salt. It was necessary to heal it. The healing time has been long.

What did you do?

M.: We first set back from our loved ones who had children. A few years ago, my sister, who had married at the same time as us, announced her second pregnancy to us. It was above my strength to hear it, I had to slip away in the kitchen. We have sometimes refused to go to baptisms. But we got closer to our single friends, with whom we lived a form of common suffering and a similar pace of life.

The subject was very taboo with our loved ones. No one told us about it, which affected me a lot, but we were talking to anyone either. Systematically, during reunion, everyone was waiting for an ad, looked if I was drinking alcohol or not …

You finally chose to announce it by email to your loved ones …

E. : I needed to share this suffering. One day, Mathilde told me that she was ready. We had to go through writing, which allows everyone to step back and does not impose an immediate reaction.

M.: This has given rise to very beautiful exchanges with some. Once the subject is shared with this nearby circle, it was easier for us to reopen towards the outside.

E. : We also asked our friends that pregnancies be announced to us in writing. Although the arrival of a child was a joy, this news provoked deep sadness, and jealousy. It was easier for us to welcome an SMS, to let a few hours spend, then respond to sincerely share the happiness of parents.

What did you say to God in your prayers?

E.: First “why?” ». We were looking for a reason for this ordeal. In the sacrament of marriage, God blesses couples and their fertility. In the Bible too. So why were we confronted with it?

M.: It was also injunctions: “Lord, give us children”, “Why don’t you respond to our request? However, we have never doubted the goodness of God, nor of his presence. Despite this suffering, we lived great things in our work, our friendships …

E.: A swing was made when we went from “why?” “To:” How to live it? We have chosen to accept this ordeal, asking God to help us every day to make a step of confidence and abandonment. The question then became: “Lord, what is the path you have in store for us?” What will be our fertility? »»

Have you found the answer?

M.: What we went through has deeply reinforced our couple and continues to do so. In the test, we touched the graces of marriage. And then we chose not to stay in a waiting room, to continue to have projects, without helping, for example, to travel in advance of a possible pregnancy, which was the case a few years ago. We do not allow ourselves to be tackled by suffering, we have taken over our pilgrim’s stick to move forward and choose life.

E.: Today, we are responsible for the Esperanza movement, which is organizing weekends for the child’s hope couples. We accompany the bride and groom and the catechumens of our parish. We are very available for our single friends, our families, our godchildren. But our first place of fertility remains our marriage: the growth of our love allows us each to make our relationship to God grow. Until then, holiness, for me, was something quite vaporous. The test made it more embodied. It makes you visible for lack of love, injuries. And despite everything, the presence of the Lord in our lives.

For today, what is your hope? A miracle?

E. : We did our best possible to restore our fertility. Biologically, according to doctors, a pregnancy remains possible. Welcoming children naturally remains a hope. We have put everything back into the hands of God. Will happen what will happen. Regularly, we take a time of rereading life to discern the way God was present in the past month or year. This allows us to build up a gratitude “library”. Two years ago, on the occasion of one of these rereading times, we decided to turn to adoption. We hit the end until then, so as not to make it a palliative.

M.: We learn to consent to the project that God has for us, who is not the one we had planned. With adoption, we take a path that seems to us to be good, without knowing where it will take us. You have to welcome today, without aiming too far, remaining some that God is continuously present. He showed us a lot. I wanted to get married at 28 years old with a funny, intelligent and engineer man, and have four children. I got married at 28 years old with a funny, intelligent man and engineer. The rest was different. We do not master everything.