Infertility … and Other Opportunities
2024 BYU Women’s Conference
Friday, May 3, 2024
Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus: “The Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it.” This is a wonderful truth our dear prophet recently taught us.
Have you asked yourself how much effort is enough?
Through my challenges, I have asked myself this question so many times! Here are some other questions for us to consider: How may our efforts look different even if we are struggling with the same challenge? What thoughts can change our perspective? What is the secret ingredient that could change our attitude? How can we grow our desire to be “all in”? What happens when our expectations are not met?
I’m going to explore these questions using one of my life challenges, which has taught me a lot. I hope it will also be useful for you in your own challenges, whatever they may be.
When I was 12 years old, I was diagnosed with a type of ovarian cancer. After surgery and in the middle of the treatments, the doctors told my parents that I had about three months to live. At that time, I also received a priesthood blessing in which Heavenly Father said to me that the doctors would be amazed at the outcome. And here I am.
After that, I sadly discovered I would never be able to get pregnant.
While preparing for this message, I thought about many of the unique challenges that we face as women, and my hope is that through the Spirit we can gain strength together no matter the trials we individually face.
In my experience, it was sometimes easy to add additional thoughts on top of the main challenge. Let’s see if you can relate to this:
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Thinking that I was not worthy of the blessing I was hoping for
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Thinking that I did something wrong
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Thinking that I was foolish in my desires
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Feeling alone, sad, angry, ashamed, or punished.
Have you felt like that? Sometimes we even ask ourselves, “Is Jesus Christ there for me?”
This reminds me of the conversation between the Savior and Peter after many of Jesus’s disciples decided not to follow Him anymore. “Will ye also go away?” asked Jesus. And Peter responded, “To whom shall we go? … [You are] the Son of the living God.”
When I met Alin, my future husband, and shared my situation with him, he was all in. So we got married, and during our first year of marriage, we started to file for adoption.
The process lasted four very long years, and because of our inexperience, it was more than we ever anticipated.
During those years, I had ups and downs—questions, doubts, illusions and disappointments, sadness, and, of course, a lot of expectations. Most of the time, things were not how we wanted or hoped. It was a learning experience—one of these “personal lessons” from heaven, tailored just for us.
Dear sisters, as I look back on my whole experience, I believe that Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost, was close all the time. But at that very moment, it was not so clear to me. I didn’t feel it. At moments, I didn’t feel like Jesus Christ was by my side.
Joseph Smith experienced the same thing when he was in Liberty Jail. His pleading was: “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?”
When we were about to adopt our first daughter, something went wrong at the last minute just as we were boarding the plane to go get her. My husband’s phone rang, and we were notified. We got out of the plane with our arms empty. As you can imagine, it was a very sad, painful, and heartbreaking car ride back home, filled with tears and profound disappointment. My own “where art Thou?” started at that very moment.
We waited almost three months until all the people involved agreed and all the papers were signed. Because of the uncertainty, those months were the longest, most painful, and hardest for me. My thought was, “I have a daughter, and I can’t be with her.” Because of this thought, I felt injustice, anger, sadness, and desperation.
One day, I was reading the visiting teaching message in the Ensign when I read a quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell that changed my whole experience: “Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less.”
That was a personal teaching moment for me—a heavenly lesson. These words hit my mind and my heart so powerfully that I started to change my thoughts and my feelings about the whole situation. My perspective also changed. I really wanted to learn more, see more, and feel more with this experience. I didn’t want to waste my suffering! As Luis Rosales, a Spanish poet, said, “Nadie regresa del dolor y permanece siendo el mismo. [No one comes back from pain and remains the same.]”
That baby that we waited for so long finally was ours. She was our baby girl.
Let’s now listen to my husband, Alin, sharing his thoughts about not having biological children before he proposed to me and then after meeting our first adopted daughter.
Brother Alin Spannaus: I remember one day driving my car, and this thought came to my head: “OK, you will not have biological children. The children will not look like you or [look] like your wife.” And these thoughts—I wouldn’t say dark thoughts but sad, somehow, thoughts—came to my mind. And then I decided while driving to talk to the Lord about it. This sadness disappeared, and I said, “OK, and then we will adopt, and it will be wonderful!” That was the only moment in my life that this was an issue, and it was solved through a simple and honest prayer.
With our first daughter, when we went to pick her up, she was sleeping super quiet. And I remember that night I grabbed her in my arms, in our home already. And then she opened her eyes, and that was when we connected. The love that you feel at that moment is unforgettable and eternal. That same thing happened with my youngest daughter. It happens to every father or mother that connects for the first time with their children. So, honestly, even though I don’t know what it is and how it is to have a biological child, I don’t think it is going to be very different than what we felt when we held them for the first time in our arms.
Sister Spannaus: It is very interesting to notice through the experience that the Lord’s lesson to my husband was slightly different from mine. For Alin, it was to trust in God’s designs. For me, it was patience.
Over the following years, as medicine improved, we were able to try some fertility treatments on three different occasions. However, they were not successful. We tried several times to adopt more children with no luck, and finally, three years later, we were able to adopt another girl, our second daughter.
In 2003 someone asked former General Young Women President Ardeth Kapp, “Can we find joy in this life while we wait upon the Lord for blessings delayed?” Sister Kapp had also struggled with infertility. In fact, she never adopted or had any children of her own.
Answering, Sister Kapp stated, “I don’t know how long it will be for you … for us it was years. But one day we did gain an eternal perspective, and we felt peace, not pain; hope, not despair. I would have liked so much to have received that insight years before, but I know I would have been deprived of the growth that comes from being comforted by the witness of the Spirit after the trial of my faith. If I have any comforting message for others, it is this: Peace of mind comes from keeping an eternal perspective.”
Dear sisters, this eternal perspective that Sister Kapp was talking about may sound familiar, as our dear prophet recently encouraged us to “think celestial.”
Now let’s watch a video from my dear friend Mindy Booth Baxter. We served together in President Jean B. Bingham’s Relief Society general advisory council. Let me tell you a little of her backstory. Mindy married at age 42, and after that she went through five years of infertility treatments. Let’s listen to Mindy as she holds her beautiful baby, Eliza, in her arms.
Sister Mindy Booth Baxter: In particular, I had one friend who I was actually assigned to be her ministering sister, and then she ministered to me. But she was dealing with a very similar situation as we were, and she actually knew some of the same doctors. So we were able to talk and share our experiences, and that ended up being one of the greatest blessings of the five years that we waited for our daughter, because she knew exactly what I was going through. She had had the same feelings, she’d had the same heartbreaks, she knew the same drugs we were taking to be able to have a child.
And it was such a blessing to have someone who would listen and to have someone who would follow up, knowing the dates and certain details of the process, who could check in and knew exactly what I needed to hear. And I just thank the Lord that He gave me that dear friend for that process.
Sister Spannaus: A wonderful story of friendship! All of us need someone who can understand and listen to us, and often our own hardships will give us the understanding we need to reach people in ways we never expected.
Scharman Grimmer is another dear friend. She currently serves on our Young Women general advisory council. Let’s learn about her experience.
Sister Scharman Grimmer: On the weekend I was experiencing my first miscarriage, it was in the middle of winter, and it was a dark, dreary day. My husband and I were seated in a dark chapel in Syracuse, New York, watching general conference. And as we watched, Elder Holland came up to the pulpit, and he began his talk talking about mothers. And he gave the talk “Because She Is a Mother,” and in that talk I took such great comfort, even though I was physically and emotionally hurting, and my heart felt like it was breaking into a million pieces at the loss of this baby that we were so excited for.
Elder Holland promised that ultimately every blessing and every promised good thing that the Lord has will be given to us, and if we keep trusting and holding fast to that faith that those blessings will come in time. He also counseled me—I felt like he counseled me personally—to lean into the gifts that I have been given to nurture and to love His children even if they were not my very own children through giving birth or adopting. That was so healing to my heart.
Sister Spannaus: Scharman is such a great example of listening to modern-day prophets and finding comfort in their words.
Our experiences prepare us for the future.
Among other things, I learned that we need acceptance to move forward.
As Jacob reasons with us, “The Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. … It speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be.” Some of the things that we are confronted with we cannot change. We do not always control the outcome, we cannot decide for others, and certainly we cannot decide for God. (What a relief!)
So what can we learn from our unique experiences? What is the Lord trying to teach us? As Lehi counsels his son Jacob, “Thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.” To consecrate is to make sacred. God has the power to make our suffering a sacred experience, and in our suffering, we come to know God and Jesus Christ better.
Dear sisters, faith always looks to the future. Alma asks, “Do you look forward with an eye of faith?”
My acceptance of this particular challenge came so many years later, when I was 40 years old. I’ll tell you more about that turning point in a minute.
What else can we do while processing these situations? Well, we can follow this excellent counsel from a friend: We need to treat ourselves as we treat our best friend. There are certain things we say to ourselves that we don’t usually say to our friends.
At times this is difficult for me! I need to pay attention to my internal dialogue! So as soon as I realize it, I try to correct my way, and I ask myself, “What do you need, Andrea? What do you need?” Usually, the answer is very doable: I need a moment to be quiet. I need to go for a walk. I need to eat. I need to sleep. I need to drink more water! I need to trust. I’m learning.
Now, as I reflect on my experience during those years and consider what helped me the most, my mind goes to Peter’s answer: “To whom shall we go?” Sisters, to whom shall we go? He is the Son of the living God.
One night, after learning that our third fertility treatment failed, I was feeling very sad and looking for some comfort from the Lord. As I opened my scriptures, I found what I felt was my answer: “As much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day.”
It was having faith in Jesus Christ, trust, and hope that made all the difference for me. And when I was feeling sad, Nephi’s words came to my mind: “I know in whom I [put my trust].”
This thought holds significant power —the power to inspire us to have hope for the future, feel loved, and find peace.
Because Jesus Christ is the solution for everything, our dear prophet said: “I plead with you to come unto Him so that He can heal you! He will heal you from sin as you repent. He will heal you from sadness and fear. He will heal you from the wounds of this world.”
To have peace or feel calm is also an answer.
Doctrine and Covenants 100:17 was an answer after another failed treatment: “All that call upon the name of the Lord, and keep his commandments, shall be saved.” On those days, I really needed that assurance from my Father.
Every trial that we overcome or faithfully endure makes us more beautiful inside—a better person, a better child of God, a better friend, a better human being. This is the intention of God’s plan. These experiences will shape us if we let them.
And with time, patience, love, and eternal perspective, once we really accept these challenges, we will also be able to help others—to be a useful instrument in the hands of the Lord, able to help relieve the pain in others, a loving way of ministering just as Jesus Christ showed us.
Dear sisters, as we trust God, I promise that our hearts will be transformed; we will better understand life, know God’s character better, and find more joy in our daily lives.
Like the beautiful tradition of reconstructing and painting with gold broken vases in Japan, let’s paint our challenges with gold. Christ is the gold. He makes everything possible and every challenge worth it. He has the power to make everything beautiful inside our souls. If we overcome our challenges by walking hand in hand with God, we will grow spiritually and develop our divine potential.
Today, after all those years, I can assure you that He was there. I found Him in my disappointments, my sadness, and my tears. I found Him in my honest prayers, in the house of the Lord, in the scriptures, in serving others, in long conversations with my husband, in priesthood blessings, in the love of my family, and in the understanding and hugs of my dear friends.
The turning point of my acceptance came when I realized that He was there because He is always there. He was there in Gethsemane and on the cross. He was and is always there, even though we don’t realize it. He is always there with His perfect understanding, His perfect love, His perfect timing, His perfect, personal lessons for each one of us.
As Elder Patrick Kearon taught in this last general conference:
“He did not cast away the woman with the issue of blood; He did not recoil from the leper; He did not reject the woman taken in adultery; He did not refuse the penitent—no matter their sin. And He will not refuse you or those you love when you bring to Him your broken hearts and contrite spirits. That is not His intent or His design, nor His plan, purpose, wish, or hope.
“No, He does not put up roadblocks and barriers; He removes them. He does not keep you out; He welcomes you in.”
Sisters, I invite you to find the Savior through your challenges and with Him, love and peace. That you may be able to say, “O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever.” How powerful it is to trust our God! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.