When Your Motherhood Journey is Not as You Planned

Hope during Infertility

By Tollie Ediger

After the worship service, my husband and I introduced ourselves to the couple seated in front of us who were visitors at our church. As we chatted, the dreaded question was asked, “How many children do you have?” My heart clenched and my stomach tightened as I struggled to answer such a seemingly safe question. “We don’t have any children,” I softly replied. There was an awkward silence as no one knew what to say next. Just as our conversation was setting sail, an anchor dropped, stalling the conversation in the marina of our infertility, and I was left wondering about the truthfulness of my statement.

Yes, it is true that we do not have children in our home. I have never given birth to children or adopted children, but I have carried babies in my womb that have never seen the light of day. The “days that were numbered for them before one of them came to be” ended in miscarriage and barrenness. Explaining those details to a stranger would not lessen the awkwardness, but it led me to reflect.

Searching for Hope

Swimming in the waters of barrenness forced me to cling to hope wherever I could find it. One of those buoys for me was examining the life of Hannah-- a woman in the Bible who experienced similar suffering. For a long time, though, I struggled to find any hope in her story. After all, despite years of longing for a child, she eventually gave birth to five children. How could her story help me when I was stuck in a childless state? What could I glean from her experience of suffering?  

Hannah is not the only woman in the Bible who experienced struggles with infertility, but she is one of the most well-known. Giving birth, while an occasion for rejoicing, did not end her struggles. Challenges were still ahead for Hannah. Isn’t that true for all mothers? Becoming a mother is not the end of the struggle but the beginning of entrusting your dreams and most precious possession in the hands of the Lord. Eventually, Hannah understood, as would I, that her greatest blessing was not in having a desire of her heart realized but in delighting herself in the Lord as she entrusted her motherhood journey to him.

Hannah’s Struggle

Hannah is an Old Testament woman for whom motherhood did not unfold as she expected. She eventually gave birth to Samuel, the last judge of Israel, but it was a long and painful road. Hannah’s motherhood journey included years of infertility, which resulted in her husband, Elkanah, taking advantage of the common “treatment” of the day, which was to take another wife and try to have children through her.

Peniniah, the second wife, joined the household and intensified Hannah’s pain with her provocations. She was fertile and took great delight in reminding Hannah that she had succeeded where Hannah had failed. Elkanah may have loved Hannah more (I Samuel 1:5), but as mother to his children, Peniniah enjoyed an elevated status in the home. Peniniah provoked Hannah relentlessly to irritate her. (I Samuel 1:6)

During one of the family’s yearly pilgrimages to Shiloh to worship, Hannah had a tough time with her barrenness, leading her to pour her heart to the Lord silently. (I Samuel 1:10-13) Eli, the priest, observed her distress and concluded that Hannah was drunk, so he rebuked her. She explained that rather than being intoxicated, she was crying out to the Lord in distress, so Eli dismissed her in peace. Unknown to Eli, Hannah pleaded for a son and promised to give the son to the Lord all the days of his life.

Hannah’s Motherhood Journey

Hannah and Elkanah returned home, and she soon became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Samuel. Her days of infertility were over. She kept Samuel at home until she weaned him. Then, while he was still very young, as she had promised the Lord, she took him to Shiloh to be raised by the priest, Eli, who comforted her in her distress.

Was this the picture of motherhood that Hannah envisioned during all the years of praying and longing for a child —entrusting her only child to be raised by a man who could not control his sons? Eli’s sons were notoriously wicked, corrupt, immoral, and depraved, yet they would have more daily influence on Samuel’s life than his mother. She would have a yearly visit to look forward to when the family traveled to Shiloh, but that would be her only contact.

It is unthinkable that a godly mother would have the capacity to make this decision, but Hannah trusted the Lord. She knew it would not be too difficult for him to protect her son from the ungodly influence that Samuel would be around. In Hannah’s case, this was not a lack of discernment but a display of faith in the God who had allowed her to conceive in the first place. Hannah was giving up her only child in obedience to her Heavenly Father. Her desire to be a mother did not surpass her desire to serve and love her Lord. 

In God’s providence, Hannah eventually gave birth to five more children. However, when she left Samuel at the temple, she had no guarantee that there would be more children for her. She chose to “fix her eyes on what was unseen rather than what was seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). She knew God was the author of her motherhood journey.

Your Struggle

Where are you in your motherhood journey? Have you just begun to try to conceive a child? Have you been trying for months and are beginning to feel a flicker of concern? Have you been trying for years and are running out of hope? Are you like me—you conceived a child, but you never got to see or hold your precious baby because of a miscarriage? Have you invested more money than you want to calculate trying to have a child and still have empty arms? 

If you can answer yes to these questions, I want you to know that you are not alone in your pain. When you find it hard to trust that God has good plans for you, know that Hannah struggled to believe that, too. Grief and longing consumed her.

Your Hope

Yes, Hannah eventually became a mother, and you wonder if that will ever happen to you. If motherhood is not your future, you may question how her story can help you. While it is true that a “desire realized is sweet to the soul,” (Proverbs 13:19). It is also true that “I know that plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Hannah walked through dark years of despair where her only hope was clinging to the Lord and his promises. It is the same for you and me. “Man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). The Lord determines our steps through motherhood.  

Even when Hannah received the child she prayed for, that was not the end of her struggle. She still faced fear and anxiety for Samuel’s future as he was surrounded by the depravity of the so-called spiritual leaders with whom he rubbed shoulders daily during his formative years.

Realizing a dream does not necessarily mean the end of difficulty. There are mothers whose journeys include parenting solo, caring for a child with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, nursing a child with a chronic or life-threatening illness, outliving a child, or coping with their illness, which prevents them from mothering as they desire.

If you know the pain and awkwardness when someone innocently inquires if you have children, then do not despair. Every detail of your motherhood journey is known to the Lord. The way forward may seem murky and confusing, but remind yourself of what you know to be true. God steadfastly loves us and planned all our days before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16) He will never leave you or forsake you, and he promises to one day wipe every tear from your eyes. (Revelation 21:4) Cling to him, dear sister.

Tollie Ediger is a middle school teacher in a Christian school in Georgia. You can contact her @tollieediger@gmail.com (Scripture references are from the English Standard Version translation.)