This article was published anonymously to protect the authors’ privacy.
My husband and I were in the same freshman ward at BYU and got married the summer before our senior years, after we each served missions. I was on birth control for about a year so we could juggle our school and internships and student teaching, but I counted down the days to when I could get off the pill and start the journey to motherhood. After I stopped using birth control, we tried to conceive for two years, without success.
At first, I thought it was my fault we couldn’t conceive, because my menstrual cycle ranged from two weeks to three months (never pregnant, I checked), and I had such heavy bleed some days that I bled through a menstrual cup, a pad, and my garments and jeans within three hours.
So, I went to my OBGYN, and she suggested looking at my husband’s reproductive system simultaneous with mine, because men’s systems are as often the problem as women’s systems, but the men are much easier and cheaper to diagnose. So off we went to our clinics. He ejaculated into a cup, I got blood taken and dye injected into my uterus and an ultrasound and peed on sticks for a month.
The results? They told me by hormones were a little off, but that I had a *textbook* uterus. (Forget about a waistline, I have a gorgeous uterus.) My husband, on the other hand, was informed that his semen sample was almost too little to analyze. The lab they could only find “one weak and deformed sperm” in the entire sample of semen. They said this was not normal, and that when men have low sperm count, they usually have hundreds instead of thousands of sperm. So, his next step was to get a testicular biopsy (ouch!).
The biopsy was tough. It knocked the wind out of my husband—he couldn’t breathe. They said, “don’t worry, we’ll see so many sperm because we took a large biopsy sample.” We sat and waited for the results while my husband got his breath back, and when they returned, they were perplexed and said they found zero sperm. No sperm at all, when there should have been millions.
My husband remembers the nurse looked at him and with a strained, worried expression, a stranger witnessing the live reaction of informing a couple they were infertile. We looked at each other—the journey had been so emotional already. We had talked through so many other possibilities, but not this one. We both burst out laughing. I think the doctors and nurses thought we were delirious or a little hysterical. But it just was so absurd. And shortly we realized for us, so final.
We asked the doctor if there were any treatments. He said there are treatments for azoospermia (which is what they diagnosed my husband with) but usually that only worked with low sperm count, not zero sperm count. In addition to my own irregular reproductive cycle, the doctors said we had less than a 5 percent chance of conceiving (even less of carrying to term) if we used all the treatments they knew of. The sheer expense of the vague phrase “all the fertility treatments” was impossible to really fathom.
Anyway, being poor students pursuing two graduate degrees and two careers, we didn’t take any major steps in fertility or adoption for the next six years besides trying to get into the financial position to be able to afford whatever path we ended up choosing. Whatever we chose—fertility, adoption, or supporting ourselves until we die with no support of posterity—it would take money. During that time, the grief and hope ebbed and flowed at different rhythms for both of us. I can’t count the number of times we were told not to lose faith or to remember Hannah. We enjoyed faithfully trying to keep the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, just in case. We read books on adoption together, I took classes on reproduction and the status of women and children across the world and wrote and thought about what it means to be a mother, and we talked and talked and talked some more about the paths to parenthood. Recently, we bought a house with room for a couple kids at least partially as a sign to God that we want to have a family. We pray and fast and pray and fast.
Infertility is tough emotionally and physically and spiritually and relationally, but is also tough socially. It seems like everyone and their mother-in-law has given us their opinion on why we could be infertile. “Do you let him stay in you for long enough?” “Have you squeezed all the semen out before you remove the penis from the vagina?” “Don’t pee after you have sex!” “Put your feet up so the sperm travel to your uterus.” “Oh, a lot of people think they’re infertile but then they adopt and then they get pregnant because the pressure is off.” I can’t count how many women at church put their hand on my abdomen to bless my womb to open (if you think laying on of hands by women in this church is dead, then you obviously haven’t been infertile for a long period of time, although laying on of hands ambushes haven’t seemed to do anything for our fertility). One new bishop asked if some children running around were mine. I said no, and, to cut off comments of “when are you going to have kids?” I said, “We can’t have kids.” He said, “Oh my wife thought she was infertile too, but she wasn’t. Have you tried…” and started listing all the things she had done to help fix her infertility. I tried to politely dismiss each suggestion, embarrassed that we were having this very personal conversation in the church foyer. Finally, I interrupted him and blurted, “my husband doesn’t produce sperm!” He paused and said, “well, that will do it.” And then he walked away. Apparently, my husband’s infertility was enough at face value, while mine was negotiable. His wife texted me the next week to confess that he had told her, and that she had told the whole Relief Society.
The Ethics of Modern Parentage
Children deserve to be added to families in a way that causes the least complication or burden to the child’s life. Ideally, therefore, as “The Family” affirms, children are entitled to being born to and raised by their biological parents. The benefits for children of growing up with two biological parents are clear, although increasingly unpopular. [1] Realistically, of course, complications come up in life that prevent the ideal from becoming reality. For children, this might include the death of, abuse by, or incapacitation of a parent. [2] Children experiencing less than ideal circumstances deserve the best possible care, and I believe those children can still have positives lives. In those situations, single or extended family parenting, adoption, foster care, etc. should be centered squarely on the benefit to the child, not the convenience or comfort of adults. However, loving a child that is not our biological offspring does not erase the reality that we are not “the ones who are supposed to be there.” [3]
Without the privilege of conceiving naturally, the ethics of becoming a parent seems more fraught. How can we, should we, bring children into our life? For the sake of the kids, adults should avoid creating unnecessarily complicated relationships for children before they are even born. Even the most righteous desires to have children are not more important than the security and well-being of children, and affection cannot completely make up for traumatic and less than ideal circumstances. Family is supposed to be centered around children. The desires we have as adults to reproduce are divinely given, and should be used only within the bounds the Lord has set. So, we must consider our responsibilities and the consequences of our actions. Bluntly, just because we have access to fertility options, does not mean we should use them. Here are some of my thoughts for why we have not chosen various popular fertility routes:
- Sperm donation and egg donation (or reproductive tissue donation) [4] are used for a number of reasons, including permitting heterosexual couples with fertility issues, single adults, and same-sex couples the illusion of having a baby the “normal” way. I have read articles that talk about wanting a child that looks like at least one of the parents. Biological parentage is real and important—we cannot dismiss that fact, even in the face of loving non-biological parents. However, donating eggs and sperm is wrong. Using donated eggs and sperm is wrong because that child is conceived and born intentionally splitting them from their biological parents. When adults do this, it births the child into unnecessary trauma.
- Surrogate motherhood [5] is even worse, because we’re denying the power and reality of physical motherhood. Most people won’t call it anything besides “surrogacy” which removes the existence of a woman or motherhood from the name. Because of court cases around legal guardianship of the babies that surrogate mothers carried, most surrogacy contracts require an even more horcrux-y split of motherhood by taking a donated egg from one woman and exploiting the body of another. Babies and mothers share cells for the rest of their lives that they exchange during gestation. A baby born of surrogacy and egg donation always have two more mothers than the world wants them to have. Born into complexity and gaslit to believe it is simple and normal. Let’s not forget that most surrogates in this world are the poorest of the poor. Surrogacy is exploitation.
- Embryo adoption or “snowflake adoption” [6] is the most recent option I considered because I still believe in the power of carrying a child, would want to protect my child from before birth from illicit or harmful substances, and so deeply desire the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. However, I am concerned that children born of embryo adoption will not understand where they come from, who they belong to, and that they will be unnecessarily separated from their siblings. How do I tell a child that I carried and birthed them, but I am not their biological mother, and my husband is not their biological father? And that their biological parents made them, but didn’t want them? And how in the world could I create demand for an industry to make more embryos for anyone to adopt and thereby muddle more families for children in the future? I know the motivation behind this process is to save the children and souls in limbo. However, in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, we don’t know when for certain spirits occupy the body permanently. As we are taught in the temple, Adam became alive only with the breath of life. I firmly believe that our loving God would not permanently tie one of his spirit children to an embryo to live for decades in limbo and be prevented to come to earth because of these human errors. Nevertheless, embryos are sacred and should not be created nor disposed of flippantly.
Because of these things, without a miracle or other medical advances to help my husband produce sperm, I will not be carrying or birthing a child in this lifetime. It is a source of deep grief for me. I have seen near visions of the little hobbit-folk children my husband and I would have created, with curly hair and green eyes and short legs, squinty eyes and upturned noses, gap teeth and a penchant for music and stories and art. The life we imagined exploring the wilds and reading to and singing with and loving the babies I birthed is, at this point, not ethically possible, which is an incredibly painful realization. But our grief does not change the fact that if we were to use donor reproductive cells, a woman as a surrogate mother, or embryo adoption, we would be putting our emotions and selfish desires over the well-being of a child, over eternal principles and responsibility to the vulnerable. The supreme act of love, to us, is to not deliberately create a confusing and chaotic situation for a child. Love has much less to do with feelings of affection and more to do with self-sacrifice and action.
My opinions will probably be unpopular, especially among my generation, which has an ever-expanding perspective of what is included as a human right, including sex and, increasingly often, children. Poppy Sowerby in her recent article on the negative effect of pornography on relationships called our society an ‘id-ocracy’, saying, “In an id-ocracy, the id wins out: the pleasure principle is [the] untouchable red line.” [7] This needs to change. We are adults. That means we must sacrifice our own pleasure and desires for the well-being of children. None of us has a right to have a child, especially a biological child at any cost.
NOTES:
[1] https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/catherine-ruth-pakaluk/why-children-became-useless-faith-and-the-future-of-the-family/ and https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/marriage-institution-value-comeback/683564/ This is NOT to say that a parent should stay in an abusive marriage—that is clearly wrong and detrimental to the health of children and spouse. However, single parenthood, even for reasons focused on the health and well-being of children, brings complicated consequences for children we must face.
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[2] We cannot give up on the ideal, even as we face messy and painful reality head on. In a recent BYU devotional, Elder Uchdorf said “So what do we do when the beautiful, universal, eternal ideals of the gospel clash with the painful, individual, mortal realities of life? There are at least two things you should remember: Never give up on the ideal. Don’t disregard the real. Accept both. It’s not easy for our mortal minds and hearts to hold onto two concepts that seem to contradict one another.” “Joyfully Receive the Unexpected Messiah” by Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young University Devotional, April 15, 2025 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dieter-f-uchtdorf/joyfully-receive-the-unexpected-messiah/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[3] Ausburn, Debbie, Raising Other People's Children: What Foster Parenting Taught Me About Bringing Together A Blended Family, Penguin Random House (2021).
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[4] Men and women can sell and/or donate eggs and sperm to individuals or agencies who may be experiencing infertility or simply want other eggs and sperm to reproduce with. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/what-you-should-know-reproductive-tissue-donation
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[5] Surrogacy is when a woman is impregnated with an embryo, possibly using one of her eggs, but more frequently using a donor egg, and carries it to term and delivers it for pay (although my institute teacher’s mother was a surrogate for her infertile daughter for free), and then turns over the baby to be legally adopted by the people who paid her to form the baby through pregnancy. https://www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/explore-all-treatments/surrogacy/
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[6] When couples go through IVF, most IVF clinics require the creation of multiple embryos to increase the chance of pregnancy and a viable fetus. This means that many couples have many more embryos created than they use, leaving embryos frozen. These couples may donate those viable embryos to other couples so they can get pregnant and have a child, albeit not their biological child. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36450328 --- [Back to manuscript].
[7] Sowerby, Poppy, “Porn guys repel women: Addicts are destroying relationships.” UnHerd. November 6, 2025. https://unherd.com/2025/11/porn-guys-repel-women/?edition=us --- [Back to manuscript].
Full Citation for this Article: Anonymous (2025) "Wrestling with Fertility: One Couple’s Journey," SquareTwo, Vol. 18 No. 3 (Fall 2025), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleAnonymousFertility.html, accessed <give access date>.
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