Hannah's Hope

I finished reading Hannah's Hope last night.......It was an excellent book and I highly recommend it to everyone. Not just people dealing with the pain of infertility, miscarriage, or adoption loss. There are excellent sections in this book called Burden Bearers which gives wonderful advice to people who interact with others who may be facing this issue. And considering that 1 in 6 American couples will face this problem, well you do the math, pretty easy to figure out that there is more than likely one or more couples in your life right now dealing with this. Some may not be as vocal about it as I am, but they are still there. The book follows along the story of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. The author takes the passages from the bible and infuses a story along with it to expand upon it based one her own experiences dealing with infertility. It was really my favorite part of the book because I so understood the feelings/thoughts that she had placed upon Hannah. Of course we will never know exactly what Hannah felt/thought through that time but given the importance of children in ancient Israel it is not hard to believe.
As I said at the end of each chapter there is the section called Burden Bearers, I think that was my second favorite part because it helped me to understand what I feel, and maybe how to help me verbalize that to 'normal' people. It also helped me to keep in perspective that people don't generally say or do things to be intentionally cruel, and I recognize the fact that I may take things a little to personally....no the woman at wal-mart is not intentionally pregnant just to hurt my feelings, no the cashier is not being cruel when she asks about how many kids I have when I'm purchasing stuff for the other children in my life, and no Mother's Day and Father's Day were not created to remind me we have no children! Being able to read Jennifer's personal journey with those same issues was something I was able to connect with, her stories of not being able to sit through a Mother's Day service at church, or the child dedications was eerie in the similarity to the struggle's Mark and I feel at those same occasions.
My only complaint about this book is that is came from a woman on the other side. Jennifer and her husband have successfully had two children and while I don't think it discredits her book, I would like to read something on fertility by someone who has never seen the otherside. I just started ready Baby Hunger and its the same thing the author dealt with years of struggle and now has two kids, where is the book by someone who dealt with years of infertility and never got to the otherside? I dunno. But Hannah's Hope is a wonderful book that everyone should read and I highly recommend it!