If you’ve followed my personal story via my book, my blog, or my Facebook page, then you have likely picked up on my perspective on infertility: for me it comes down to putting my hope in God, trusting Him to provide us children in a miraculous way. My faith in God’s ability to do the miraculous completely shapes how I am dealing with 5 ½ years of infertility.

As this journey continues, I’ve connected with others who take a similar stance, yet I deeply appreciate others who approach infertility from a different perspective than my own. Last spring, Resolve (the National Infertility Association) chose a theme for Infertility Awareness Week – “We Are Not Alone.” Even if my point of view and choices are quite different from another woman’s, if she also struggles to become a mama, I immediately feel a connection.

image found on Pinterest

This week I want to share about two books that impacted me although the authors perspectives and methods are different than mine. Here is the first:

Several months ago I won a copy of the book In Due Time: A Journey Through Infertility, Loss, and Embracing the Unknown by Jen Noonan from the Amateur Nester Blog. (Edit: Initially I wrote that I won the In Due Time book from Caroline’s In Due Time blog. Easy slip-up! Some of my favorite infertility blogs are mentioned in this post – and both In Due Time and Amateur Nester hold a lot of wonderful giveaways!)

When I began reading Jen’s well-written book, I couldn’t put it down, and I finished it in a couple of days. She described her story so well that I felt as if I knew her personally.

In many ways our perspectives are different: we see things differently when it comes to spiritual things and in the choices we each have made in the process of trying to have children. Her story was written after infertility, mine was written in the middle. She tried in-vitro fertilization, I haven’t. I’m still waiting; she’s a mom.

Regardless of our personal differences, we are unified in the fact that we both strongly desire motherhood. I thought it was fun that we both used the word “embracing” in our book titles. Jen and I are close in age, and our husbands are about the same age as well, which I found interesting.

In our pursuit of parenthood, my husband and I have decided to not pursue in-vitro fertilization (IVF) at this time. However, one reason I loved reading Jen’s story is because she shared the facts and the details of her IVF journey in such detail that I felt like I was experiencing it with her!

I recommend this book if you enjoy infertility memoirs, and I also recommend it to anyone considering IVF, because the author paints a clear picture of her experience.

Hi, I’m Betsy, and I live in the Washington, D.C. area with my husband, Mike. We have been married since 2008. We enjoy exploring new cities together on foot, eating at our favorite Italian restaurants, and doing life as a team.

I published my first book Embracing Hope During Infertility in January 2015. You can learn more about me here. I would love for you to connect with me by following my Hope During Infertility Facebook page or my Betsy Herman, Writer Facebook page.

Thanks so much for reading my posts!