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Awaiting Adoption
When the Fruitful Hollow team was planning for this Advent season, one word kept coming to mind: “awaiting”. Merriam-Webster has a captivating definition listed: “to remain in abeyance until”. Abeyance: “a state of temporary inactivity: suspension ”. Each week in Advent we will dive deep into the abeyance. Perhaps many of us are intimately familiar with waiting. I’d like you to embrace the suspension in the upcoming weeks and experience the joy that Christmas brings when the

Lauren Allen
4 days ago5 min read


Sacred Thorns: finding God in the wounds that won't heal
Year seven looks nothing like I was told it would. By now, according to the theology I grew up with, this should be over. God should have answered. His timing should have been perfect. The story should have reached its redemptive conclusion: the testimony with the happy ending where I stand up in church and declare how faithful God was through our infertility journey, baby in my arms. Instead, I'm staring down the reality that I'm aging out. That the door to adoption has slam

Rachel Walters
Nov 195 min read


Saints Joachim and Anne: the power of prayer
I have learned from Joachim and Anne that persistent prayer changes us more than it changes our circumstances. After seven years of praying for a child, I’ve discovered that some of my most profound moments with God have come when I’ve run out of words. Like old friends who can sit together without speaking, I’m learning to simply be in God’s presence with my longing. Joachim and Anne must have experienced this too.

Rachel Walters
Jul 235 min read


Lingering on Holy Thursday
There's a beautiful juxtaposition on this night between anticipation and dread, the not yet and the soon-to-be; the long-awaited and much-feared, a holy tension.

Shelby Gambino
Apr 163 min read


Notes of Love
Seasons greetings! It’s tradition in many parts of the world during Advent to send Christmas cards to friends and family members with wishes

thefruitfulhollow
Dec 18, 20249 min read


Waiting with St. Anne: trusting God’s timing in infertility
When I learned that St. Anne and her husband experienced infertility before the birth of our Blessed Mother, it made me realize that God's..

Rachel Walters
Jul 23, 20245 min read


My infertility creed, part 3: Before all ages
Before I ever knew that we were infertile, God knew. Yet my husband and I never had any doubt that we were meant for each other. I truly...

Kristin D.
May 28, 20245 min read


Seasons of infertility: infertility with children
My infertility did not go away when we started growing our family. My children did not cure my infertility. That is not their job.

thefruitfulhollow
May 21, 20245 min read


The gift-giver’s guide to care packages
We are Frances and Clare, two sisters and best friends, and care packages are our love language! Frances carries the cross of infertility an

thefruitfulhollow
Feb 7, 20246 min read


Is suffering a blessing from God?
It is a precarious concept to open your mind and heart enough to ponder if suffering is a blessing from God. When I first began to write...

Brittany Wahhab
Nov 8, 20234 min read


Letters of encouragement: TTC and the 8 year wait
We were in front of the cathedral. It was nearing midnight. The air was crisp, I could see my breath. I was in need of physical healing...

Danielle Thompson
Sep 5, 20235 min read


When your child experiences infertility: your story
On July 26 the Church celebrates the feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim, parents of Our Lady, and the fourth Sunday of July is therefore known..

thefruitfulhollow
Jul 25, 20238 min read


Holy Saturdays of our lives
A wise and holy priest once told me that we don’t get to Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Simply put, we must go through suffering to...

Mary Thissen
Apr 8, 20233 min read


Letters of encouragement: going through fertility treatment
The side effects from medications and then feeling like an experiment at times would just become too much. I remember crying when an...

Marie Justin
Mar 28, 20234 min read


Letters of Encouragement: Daughter of the Most High
God is our fortress
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth...

Lauren Allen
Dec 28, 20222 min read


4th week of Advent: Where are you, God?
“Where are you, God?”
It’s a question I imagine Joseph might have prayed in the interior of His heart as He learnt the news of Mary...

Faith Downing
Dec 21, 20224 min read


When suffering and trust co-exist
So, fear not sister. In those places of littleness and longing and emptiness, press into TRUST. And please know that in the remaining days..

Faith Downing
Oct 25, 20224 min read


Ask the team: how do you deal with pregnancy announcements?
If receiving the news that a friend or family member is pregnant has been a particularly difficult part of your infertility journey, then...

thefruitfulhollow
Sep 20, 20227 min read


I don't know where else to go but Calvary
I don’t know where else to go but Calvary. The place where redemptive suffering consumes every broken heart that God has ever and will ...

Jana Zuniga Pingel
Sep 13, 20223 min read


My week in Omaha: surgery at the Pope Paul VI Institute
If you deal with infertility, you live in the US and you use the Creighton method of NFP, there is a chance you may eventually pass...

Chelsea Voboril
Jul 19, 202210 min read
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