Small group, nonprofit help women struggling with pregnancy issues

In January 2016,  Ann Adams had a vision to start a small group to help women who, like her, had problems with pregnancy, whether infertility or miscarriages or other issues.

“It’s been such an amazing journey,” Adams said. “... It became a passion project for me.”

For seven years, Adams went through a cycle of miscarriages and successful pregnancies. She has three children with her here, and five more children in heaven, she said.

With one in five pregnancies likely to end in miscarriage, it’s easy to tell women, “it’ll be OK, this happens all the time,” Adams said, but that belittles the pain and weightiness of what those women are going through.

In order to help those women, Adams started the small group and had 13 women come to the first meeting. Three years later, the group has tripled in size and is looking to expand and add more ministry opportunities soon. Adams began Blessed Brokenness as a nonprofit to oversee the ministries.

“I look back now and I’m just in awe of what the Lord has done,” Adams said.

The group teaches women to refocus or reset while dealing with their grief, Adams said. At the end of the 12-week curriculum, 90 percent of the women’s circumstances haven’t changed, but their outlook has, Adams said.

“Instead of asking ‘Why am I in this place?’ we help them see what God’s trying to do in this place,” Adams said.

The group is based on the Bible verse found in Romans 8:28, which states that “All things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

“What we are doing is focusing on the ‘all things,’” Adams said.

While losing a child to miscarriage is hard, Adams said she’s learned more and is more grateful for the blessings that have come from brokenness than from other times in her life.

Through the group, women learn to find purpose in their pain. At the end of the group, women write what they’re surrendering to God on a balloon, and then release the balloon as an act of surrender.

Mallory Wear was in the first group for A Blessed Womb, joining after struggling with infertility.

“I kind of knew the first night I was in the right place,” Wear said.

The curriculum, Wear said, opened her eyes and helped her draw on her faith.

“I learned to be active in my time of waiting,” Wear said.

Now, Wear has one child, born in April 2018, and has led a group of her own since fall 2016. She said it’s amazing to see the women in the group grow in faith and benefit from the teaching.

Valuing and relying on that faith, Adams said, can be a critical part of facing infertility issues.

“They’ve built this house on all these worldly things, and the house just crumbles,” Adams said. “... It’s like this big pit in the ground. … They begin to plant a foundation in the Lord and in their faith.”

Even if their circumstances remain unchanged, the women grow stronger in their relationship with the Lord, Adams said.

The nonprofit is also able to help financially sponsor couples who are in need of financial assistance to undergo infertility treatments.

In the future, Adams said the group hopes to offer help to men whose wives are struggling with infertility, as well as curriculum designed to bring married couples together and help them through pregnancy problems.

The new semester of A Blessed Womb begins in February. For more information, visit the group’s Facebook page or find them online at ablessedwomb.com.