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I watch my youth slipping away. I watch my child-bearing years evaporate empty and silent. I wonder if I’m supposed to have kids to carry on the banner of Christ. I wonder if I want kids with the polarities they bring—incredible joy and inexplicable pain, hope and devastation, potential and disappointment. The risks are high; the outcome is unknown with each child. Such unpredictable results. Yesterday, I admitted to myself that I didn’t want kids…at least at that moment. I just can’t decide, and I don’t think Eddie can either. I asked him point-blank last night, and he fumbled around until he finally said, “I guess so.” Why are we so stupidly indecisive on this? Others seem to know one way or the other. We just vacillate. (From my journal, June 15, 1995)

I wore the paint off the spot on the proverbial fence where I sat for several years. I’d look to one side and see the fields of parenthood, colorful, busy, full of families. Then there was the other side, the rolling hills where couples chose to live without children of their own, filling their lives with meaning and purpose in a variety of ways. Couples who just find themselves pregnant can’t understand the struggle because the decision is taken out of their hands when she turns up pregnant. No one, in fact, understands unless they’ve sat on that fence themselves. But infertile couples can spend a lot of time trying to determine if parenthood is God’s plan for our lives. Some of you already know parenthood is what you want, no question about it. But for a great many of us, the fact that we’re working so hard to get pregnant gives us time to question just how far we should push our efforts, just how long should we beat our heads against the wall before we stop trying to bear a child or adopt one.

Choosing to remain childless is an option for any couple. But it’s important to make the distinction: Childlessness as a lifestyle is different from childlessness as a predicament. Having no children is as much a lifestyle choice as is the decision to become parents. On the flip side, childlessness as a predicament is what we spend effort and money trying to change.

In thinking about childlessness as a lifestyle, a better term is needed, one that’s not weighted down with so much need for interpretation: Childfree living is a more affirming way to describe couples with no children. Some couples choose childfree living before they even know they’re infertile. They just never want to have children. But what about couples who have engaged the Big-I monster and then opt for a childfree life? How do they come to that decision, since their first intent was to be parents? How do they make the emotional transition from childlessness to a childfree mentality? Still others find themselves relegated to childlessness after years of not getting pregnant, never making the crossover from the remorse of childlessness to the sense of peace that can come from choosing to be childfree.

It’s a big fence and a lot of people have sat on it through the years. Here are a few of their stories.

Roy and Dirce: Finding their self-worth from God alone
In another part of the world, a couple from America lives with the realization that they tried to have children, but later made the choice to be childfree. Roy and Dirce have been missionaries since 1990, serving first in Costa Rica and now in Mexico. Roy works in theological education, and Dirce ministers through outreach evangelism.

Roy and Dirce intended to have children, wanted children, expected children. “We made it a matter of prayer together,” Roy said, “And we both were very excited about the prospect of having children together.”

During their first furlough in 1995, they went to several specialists to try to assess why they weren’t getting pregnant. They even attempted one IVF, but it wasn’t successful. “We’re still not sure of all the reasons why we haven’t been able to have children,” he said.

Roy and Dirce have some remarkable things to say about how they found peace with a lifestyle that hasn’t included children of their own:

We’ve gone through sad times because of not being able to have
children, but we’ve learned that our ultimate worth doesn’t come from how many children we have; that comes from God alone.

We remember that God is worthy of our trust. We believe that God is love—He would never withhold anything from us that would be for the good of the Kingdom. God is wise—He knows what is best for us and the ministry He has entrusted to us. God is all-powerful—He chose to perform a miracle to give Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age, so we have no doubt that He can do it. Therefore we trust Him.

Everyone wants to feel that their presence on this planet has made a difference. The most frequent way to fulfill that internal longing is through raising children. But it’s not the only way. Roy and Dirce find their fulfillment through the ministry God has given them: “We know that God has given us the opportunity to have many ‘spiritual children,’ and that has been a great blessing to us.” Helping people come to a personal relationship with Christ, children or otherwise, is an investment not just in the quality of life on earth, but an eternal investment in heaven. Bearing spiritual children takes love, nurture, commitment, discipline, and unconditional love, just as the role of biological/adoptive parent does.

Children, as incredible as they can be, definitely change your life and affect the choices you make about the future. Neither good nor bad, it’s just a fact of life. Roy and Dirce have chosen to see the good in the situation God has given them. “We’ve been able to minister, travel, and grow together in ways that would have been more difficult had we had children.”

Additional stories you’ll find in this chapter:

Karen and Peter: A change of plans
Before she’d even met Peter, Karen had mapped out her life: “I had a life plan, and marriage and children were not an accessory I’d considered. My career was my priority. And my life plan was going accord to schedule, but things changed when I met Peter in the Air Force.” It was one of those rare, love-at-first-sight romances, and when they started dating, Karen watched her life plan change. They married in 1988, and “that’s when we first started discussing the family issue. We decided that yes, we were interested in having a family….”

Cheryl and David: Infertility confirmed their decision
While they were dating, Cheryl and David discovered neither one felt particularly drawn to having children. “We talked about the fact that we didn’t want to have children,” Cheryl said. “We both devoted so much time to our careers, which we enjoyed. We put it in God’s hands and realized He brought us together, preparing us both for a life that didn’t include children of our own.”

They had only been married a year when Cheryl was diagnosed with endometriosis. Several surgeries followed, but a hysterectomy at age 28 finally gave her relief from the painful condition….

Helen: A late-blooming great-grandmother
Helen is in her 80s, so her years of infertility are far behind her, but her story is characteristic of the infertile women in her era. She didn’t have many options open to her when pregnancy didn’t “just happen” in the 1940s as she and her husband, Robert, began trying to have a family….

Ethel and Haskell: Content with family and friends
Like Helen and Robert, Ethel and Haskell were married in the 1940s, a time noted for its limited help for infertile couples. “A short while after we married, I realized there was a problem, so I went to the doctor,” Ethel said. “I knew very little about infertility….”

A little advice
As with any long-lasting, life-altering decision, you have to think about your motives in choosing to have children or not. Roy and Dirce gave serious thought to whether or not they should choose childfree living or pursue non-birth options like adoption or foster parenting.

“I would encourage anyone who is thinking about not having children to consider and evaluate your motives,” Roy said. “Some couples don’t have children for selfish reasons: they don’t want the bother or ‘danger’ of children, or they don’t want children to get in the way of their career.” On the flip side, some people have children for selfish reasons: to feel wanted, to feel loved, to live out their dreams through their kids, or to fit in with society.

All couples should work through the three topics below as they assess their decision to be parents or their decision to remain childfree.

1. Consider this time without children as a unique part of your life. From my perspective on the just-shy side of 40, those 20-something years brought life phases tumbling one after another. College, job, marriage, and children were prescribed rites of passage, and it seemed we couldn’t really consider ourselves complete until we’d accomplished them all. Everyone gets in such a rush to settle down and accumulate all the trappings of what makes life acceptable in our culture….

2. Explore your sense of call (i.e., your dream, your goal) to parenthood or to being childfree. The doctor looked me straight in the eye and said, “Are you pursuing parenthood because you really feel you should raise children, or is it because you feel pressured to?” He explained how family members can push a couple into feeling obligated to have children, or even how our culture has unspoken expectations that every couple will eventually have or acquire offspring. He gave me a glimpse into his own life when he said he “probably shouldn’t have been a father.” He thoroughly enjoyed his career, his practice, and interacting with patients, so much so that his family life suffered.

People who fall into parenthood without a sense of calling can become frustrated, resentful, and impatient with the never-ending demands that children make on their life and lifestyle. In all honesty, even those who entered parenthood intentionally and with a sense of divine calling have times when they feel the same way. Raising children is rarely the cozy home-and-hearth images that we think we’ll have….

3. Don’t be saddled by the fear that you need children to care for you in your old age. Children can do that, but you have no guarantee that they will. No one knows if their children will be emotionally or physically able to support an elderly parent. A newspaper ad in a major city carried this sad message to an adult who had severed family ties years before: “To (name omitted). Your mother has died and her funeral will be next Tuesday. Please make contact with your family at (phone number).” Children are not an “old-age insurance policy.”

No one knows for sure their children will outlive them. Bill and Diane had a daughter and two sons. They always did everything as a family, except for one unusual weekend trip for the two of them. The children stayed home and were babysat by Diane’s sister, Mary. But during the first night, the children and Mary all died from a freak gas leak in the house. Bill and Diane lost their children, their dreams for the future, and their hopes.(1) In some people’s eyes, they lost the security of their old age….

4. If you decide to remain childless, embrace the wholeness of being childfree. Once you determined you’ve had all the fertility treatments you can afford (or endure), and if you’ve decided adoption and fostering aren’t for you, then make the decision to see yourself not as a childless couple, but a childfree couple. Choose to see yourself as fulfilled exactly as you are….

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