Lord Jesus, before we ever hoped to become someone’s mother and father, You called us to become husband and wife.
Before the pregnancy tests, appointments, diagnoses, treatments, paperwork, profiles, waiting lists, and unanswered telephone calls, there was us.
There was a promise.
There was a covenant.
There was the day we stood before You and gave ourselves to one another for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death.
We did not know then exactly what those promises would require.
We imagined our future. We assumed children would come. Perhaps we talked about names, pictured holidays around a crowded table, imagined little feet running through the house, or wondered which one of us our children would resemble.
We did not imagine this.
Lord, infertility can enter a marriage so quietly.
At first there is hope: “Maybe next month.”
Then there are calendars and tests.
Appointments.
Procedures.
Medications.
Questions.
Disappointments.
And eventually something that began as our shared desire for a child can begin occupying every corner of our marriage.
Protect us from losing each other while trying to find our child.
When one of us needs to talk and the other cannot bear another conversation about infertility, give us patience.
When one of us is hopeful and the other is exhausted, keep us from judging.
When one of us cries and the other becomes quiet, help us understand that grief does not always speak the same language.
Do not let us compare who hurts more.
The wife may carry grief in her body in ways her husband cannot completely experience.
The husband may carry helplessness and sorrow he does not know how to express.
Neither pain is less real because it looks different.
Teach us to ask one another, “What do you need from me today?”
Sometimes the answer may be prayer.
Sometimes conversation.
Sometimes silence.
Sometimes an embrace.
Sometimes laughter.
Sometimes an evening when we deliberately do not talk about infertility or adoption at all.
Lord, protect the tenderness between us.
Do not let intimacy become merely another medical task on a calendar.
Guard the sacred language of our bodies from becoming reduced to timing, measurements, tests, procedures, or disappointment.
Help us remember that our marital embrace is first an expression of the covenant we made to one another—a total gift of husband and wife—never merely a means to accomplish conception.
When infertility makes either of us feel that our body has failed the other, replace shame with tenderness.
Let a husband look at his wife and see the woman he chose, not a diagnosis.
Let a wife look at her husband and see the man she loves, not a medical result.
We are more than our fertility.
Our marriage is more than our ability to conceive.
And if adoption has become part of our journey, protect our marriage there too.
The paperwork can become exhausting.
The waiting can become consuming.
Every possible match can awaken hope.
Every “no” can feel personal.
Every silent month can make us wonder whether anything is happening.
Do not let us turn against one another when we are both hurting.
If one of us begins losing hope, let the other carry hope gently for a while.
If one of us needs to step away from adoption conversations for a day, let that be okay.
If we disagree about a decision, give us patience to discern together rather than trying to win.
Lord, make our home a place of peace even before a child enters it.
Let us continue dating one another.
Let us laugh.
Let us travel when we can.
Let us celebrate anniversaries.
Let us cook dinner, watch movies, take walks, tease each other, pray together, serve others, and continue building the life You have already given us.
Do not let us postpone our marriage until parenthood begins.
Because this life is happening now.
And Lord, protect us from the subtle fear that if we never have children, our marriage somehow failed to become what it was supposed to be.
Our marriage is already real.
Our covenant is already fruitful whenever our love generates goodness, hospitality, service, generosity, sacrifice, faith, and holiness.
That does not erase our longing for a child.
We still ask.
Lord, please bless our marriage with children if it is Your will.
If conception is possible, bring healing and new life.
If adoption is the path through which our family will grow, guide us toward the child and family whose story may someday join ours.
But whatever happens, do not let the longing for someone who is not yet here cause us to neglect the person You have already placed beside us.
Mary and Joseph, remain close to our marriage.
Teach us the quiet love of the Holy Family—the love expressed through ordinary meals, work, sacrifice, patience, prayer, protection, forgiveness, and thousands of hidden acts no one else sees.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, intercede for our marriage and teach us to keep Christ at its center, especially before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
And Jesus, when infertility or adoption waiting becomes too heavy, bring us back to the beginning.
Back to the promise.
Back to the covenant.
Back to the two people who looked at one another and said:
I choose you.
Help us keep choosing one another.
On hopeful days.
On disappointing days.
On appointment days.
On negative-test days.
On days when the telephone does not ring.
On days when everyone else seems to be moving forward while we remain in place.
And someday, if a child finally enters our home, let that little one enter a marriage that this waiting did not destroy, but purified and strengthened.
Let our child see a mother and father who love one another deeply.
And if parenthood never comes in the way we have prayed for, let us still grow old beside one another knowing that our marriage was never merely the waiting room for a family.
We were already a family.
Jesus, guard our covenant.
Mary, keep us close to your Son.
Joseph, protect our home.
And Holy Family, teach us your little, hidden way of faithful love.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.