Unexplained Infertility and Father's Day

Plus, the one word prayer that has changed everything for me.

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My name is Tanner Olson and I am an author, poet, and speaker. Here I share whatever comes to mind. Often I’ll post a prayer or poem or reflection or story. Before you move onto the next thing hit the subscribe button!

Thanks for being here.

I do not know how to write what I am about to write, but here it goes.

Today is Father’s Day.

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be a dad. 

When I was in 7th grade my English teacher told us we could receive extra credit if we wrote an essay. She said we could write as many essays as we wanted, which was wonderful news because I needed as much extra credit as she could give. This is how I fell in love with writing and how I passed her class. Day after day I would write essays. Some were about aliens, others were about basketball, and some were about aliens playing basketball. But most of the essays I wrote were about the life I would one day live. I pictured my future and scribbled down my dreams for my teacher to read. What should have been saved for a diary I turned in for extra credit. I wrote about the woman I would marry, the house we would live in, the car I would drive, the dog we would own, and the father I would be to the children we would have. I wrote about coaching their sports teams, helping them with their homework, and reading them stories before bed. I wrote and wrote and wrote about being a dad, because all I wanted to be was a dad.

My teacher would read these essays and return them to me with a note in red ink at the top, “What a wonderful life you’re going to have. It might be a good idea to keep a diary.”

In 2021 a doctor diagnosed my wife and I with “Unexplained Infertility.” We were shocked. This wasn’t part of the essays I had written in middle school. This wasn’t supposed to be part of my story, but it was. 

For years we walked the long, painful, complicated road of this diagnosis. I dreaded Father’s Day. I made sure to stay off social media the day before and the day after to avoid any extra grief. I wondered if I would ever get to be part of this day. I wondered if the essays I wrote would ever become true. I wondered if I should start a diary. 

It is a hard and painful thing to let go of what you thought your life would become. To say goodbye to something you never got to say hello to. 

I watched as my friends became fathers and prayed I would one day join them. They told me how wonderful it was to be a dad. They showed me endless photos of their babies doing miraculous things like sitting and sleeping. They told me about the highs and lows of being a dad, how little sleep they got, and how on more than one occasion they accidentally touched their child’s poop while changing their diapers. It sounded wonderful to me. I have never wanted to touch poop in my life, but here I was praying to God that one day I might accidentally touch my child’s poop.

I spent years begging God to let me become a father.

My prayers were met with silence and negative pregnancy tests and waiting and wondering.

Yet, something in me continued to believe what I know to be true: God is a good father.

He knows what He is doing, but we don’t, and that is the frustrating part. Sometimes I wish God would just give me a nod or a note or both. Instead, He stays by my side and invites me to trust and hope. The nerve. 

After a year or so my legs grew tired and God Himself pulled me down the road of infertility. I waited with God. I wrestled with Him. I yelled at Him. I cried with Him. He took it and remained by my side. The nerve. 

Throughout the day I would ask God, “Why?” and He would not answer. God is good at keeping secrets and yet his love is not one of them. I would ask again and He would just sit there with me. Years passed and my questions stacked up to the size of a mountain. A mountain He would one day move.

Eventually and thankfully, God led my wife and I to adoption. I cannot explain how, but not everything's meant to be explained. This is one lesson infertility taught me. After months of waiting and praying, we received a phone call that an incredible woman chose my wife and I to be parents to the child she had carried for 9 months.

His name is Judah and I get to be his dad.

I exhale. 
I look into Judah’s eyes. 
I thank God. 

His hand wraps around my finger.
I am speechless. 
I thank God. 

I accidentally touch his poop. 
I make a face. 
I thank God. 

He squirms in my arms. 
I did this for years with my Father. 
I thank God. 

I look back. 
I see why. 
I thank God.

It is my first Father’s Day as a father and I don’t know how to feel about it. I mean, I know how to feel about it. I am beyond thankful. Yet, there are no words, which is unfortunate because I am a writer and we are supposed to have words for every moment, especially moments like this. 

Moments that make you want to burst because there is so much love in you and it has nowhere else to go. Moments that end your old life and welcome you into the one you’ve been praying for. Moments that make you want to build an altar because that’s what they did in the Old Testament when God did something amazing and huge, and this feels like the only appropriate response to God’s kindness. Moments that change every bit of you forever. Your heart. Your mind. Your soul. Your prayers. Your bank account. Your joints. Your everything.

But still there aren’t any words for how I feel.

You’ll have to sit down across from me, look me in the eyes, and ask me how I feel to see what I mean.

This morning I woke up thinking about my friends who long to be fathers. The pain they carry. The questions they have to answer. The questions they pray. The thoughts they wrestle. The posts they see on social media. The conversations they must endure. The waiting they go through. The grief they hold.

I know the ones waiting to become fathers aren’t the only ones who have a complicated relationship with Father’s day.

There are those whose fathers have passed away. There are those who no longer speak to their father. There are those who despise their father. There are those who don’t know their father. There are those whose children have passed away. There are those who don’t get to see their children. There are those who didn’t open this post because it had to do with Father’s Day. There are those who long for healing or an apology or for the past and future to be different. 

I’m not sure how this day finds you.

Perhaps it is one of pain or grief or joy or mixed emotions.

Perhaps you have been asking why for years.

I cannot tell you what is to come, but I can tell you what I have learned from what I lived through:

God has not forgotten you. 

I can tell you He hears your prayers. I can tell you He is doing something we cannot see. I can tell you He is kind and gracious and not out to get you. I can tell you His silence isn't a punishment. I can tell you He loves you, because that’s what He does: He loves. He loves His children and you are His child. 

Perhaps one day Judah will read this post. 

Maybe we will be blessed to give him a brother or sister and they will read this, too. 

If they are reading this I want them to know what they already know: their father loves them and their Father loves them.

And I have washed my hands many, many times.

With love,

Tanner

PS
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A page from my book, As You Go: Words for the Unknown.

The most powerful prayer
I've ever been encouraged
to pray was not long or poetic.
It was short.
But full.
It was quiet.
But quite loud.
Simple.
But deep.
It was one word.

Father.

One word.

A prayer of hope.
A prayer of desperation.
A prayer of surrender.
A prayer reaching with an extended and open and honest hand.
A prayer overshadowing doubt with grace.
A prayer shining like a light in the fog.
A prayer bringing peace to the silence.
A prayer of power and honesty.
A prayer that says it all.

Father.

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