Birthed ─ Finding Grace Through Infertility

When infertility painfully interrupted Elizabeth Hagan's plan to start a family, the path of grace offered her another way. Instead of giving birth to a child, she birthed herself instead. Along the way, she learned you can't control how fast your dreams come true, if they come true at all, but you can find grace for embracing your life in the present tense, grief and all.Through her new book Birthed, Elizabeth Hagan offers her story as a companion and guide for living through your own pain and loss. For the one in eight couples who face infertility, you will know you are not alone and a long season of grief does not have to destroy your marriage or your friendships with childbearing friends. For those friends and family members of infertile couples, there are no "one size fits all" answers to a fertility journey-medically, emotionally, or spiritually-and the worst thing you can say is nothing at all. Adoption is never the complete solution to infertility, and through it all, pain can never be fixed, only lived through. So allow grace to help you begin to live today in the present moment.

Elizabeth Hagan is an ordained American Baptist minister who lives outside of the normal vocational boxes. Sometimes she serves churches through short-term interim pastorates. She often travels to support her husband, Kevin, in his work with the American Diabetes Association and on behalf of Our Courageous Kids, a foundation she created in 2015 to provide educational opportunities for children living in international orphanages. And she always writes. You can find her words about soul care and advocacy over at her blog, Preacher on the Plaza,and on the web at Christian Century, Patheos, and the Young Clergy Women's Journal, Fidelia's Sisters. Elizabeth has contributed to three books: This is What a Preacher Looks Like, The Modern Magnificat and There's a Woman in the Pulpit.