(OSV News) — Leigh Fitzpatrick Snead wanted to write the book she wished she had as a young woman struggling with infertility.
“Most infertility books ended in pregnancy that I was reading,” Snead, the author of “Infertile but Fruitful: Finding Fulfillment When You Can’t Conceive,” told OSV News. “That’s not always the story you need to hear.”
Now, she said, she wants women to know “it’s okay when the end of the story isn’t a pregnancy.” She wants them to know that they are not alone — and that they are still called to fruitfulness.
“Infertile but Fruitful” accompanies those struggling with infertility
Snead, a writer, speaker and Catholic mother of four through adoption, is sending this message by sharing her own struggle with infertility in “Infertile but Fruitful.” In her new book from Sophia Institute Press, Snead greets readers with an approachable, sincere tone as she details the sorrows and the joys experienced by her and her husband, O. Carter Snead, a professor of law and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.
Along the way, she draws from her story to discuss fertility treatment options, Church teaching on sexuality and marriage, emotional and spiritual challenges, and adoption as a vocation. Each chapter in the nearly 150-page book concludes with a section listing practical advice and encouragement.
The book by Snead, a fellow for The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show Conversations with Consequences, comes at a time when infertility is common. Around one in five U.S. married women ages 15 to 49 with no prior births struggle with infertility or are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“You’re enough. God loves you so much,” Snead said she wants women struggling with infertility to know. “The day you said, ‘I do,’ you became a family with your husband.”
“Turn your eyes towards Christ, ask the saints for interventions, allow people to pray for you,” she added. “Understand that you’re made for love and for fruitfulness — and that’s not limited to your ability to conceive biological children.”
Book sparked by article, conversations
Snead saw a need for her book after writing an open letter to couples struggling with infertility published by the National Catholic Register in 2023. She remembered being surprised by the response: The widely-shared piece sparked a flurry of messages and conversations.
When her mentor encouraged her to write a book and someone offered to publish it, Snead realized the timing was right.
“I was ready personally … being able to say, ‘I’m never going to be pregnant,'” she said, adding that she was approaching 50 when she began her book.
In addition to writing for younger women, Snead said she wrote for women her age who have lived through the struggle of infertility. Going beyond that, she wanted it to serve as a resource for the loved ones of women struggling with infertility and the priests who minister to them.
While her book focuses on her own story, Snead stressed that there is more than one way to live through infertility.
“There’s a real need to talk about couples who get married and they’re Catholic and they’re infertile, but they don’t adopt,” said Snead, who also serves on the board of Springs in the Desert, a Catholic infertility ministry. “They’re not called to it for whatever reason.”
Embracing fruitfulness in marriage
In her book, Snead tells the stories of different couples who struggle or have struggled with infertility and how each couple embraced fruitfulness in their own way.
“This is about infertility and that you’re not less than or less whole because of this one thing,” Snead said of her book. “Your marriage is able to be fruitful. Your life, you dedicate it to God, you pick up your cross, you carry it. There’s lots of fruits that are born out of that.”
Snead begins her book by dedicating it to her four sons and her husband. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” she writes.
“There was this whole world of people, and I found my husband and then my four kids,” she told OSV News. “None of that was guaranteed.”
She wants her children never to think that she settled or they are a second choice, she said. “No, I just want them.”
Author hopes to facilitate dialogue about infertility, suffering
In her book, Leigh Snead writes that her goal is to encourage dialogue. Women, she said, should be able to talk about their infertility the way other women talk about their pregnancies and births.
“Because we’re not used to talking about it, because there’s so much secrecy and shame that women feel around it, it’s a lot of suffering in silence,” she said.
For her part, Snead revealed what she learned about Jesus Christ’s cross through her own cross of infertility.
“The tests, maybe the injections, the constant self-monitoring for signs that new life may be growing inside you all serve to remind you that you are an embodied being,” Snead said in a follow-up email to OSV News. “When God became man, He suffered as a man. And we know that in that suffering is the good news of our salvation.”
“When I sought comfort from Christ and brought my suffering to his feet, he drew me closer and I felt his love,” she added. “It humbled me, and led me to forget about any ideas I might have of control and give it all over to Him.”
Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.
