For many counselors, reproductive loss shows up once or twice a year — a miscarriage, an infertility struggle, maybe a previous abortion that finally surfaces in a session. But for Tanya Flores, it’s a daily reality. Tanya is an ACBC-certified biblical counselor, co-founder of the Reproductive Loss Network, a founding member of the Biblical Counselors Society, and Director of Client Services and Education at a pregnancy medical clinic, where she leads a team of grief care advocates. She brought years of frontline experience to our latest Members Only Live Q&A, and the conversation went far beyond “how do I comfort someone after a miscarriage.”
Here are the key insights from that conversation.
Reproductive Loss Is a Broad Category — On Purpose
Tanya intentionally uses a broad definition of reproductive loss, because the people she counsels rarely struggle with just one type of loss. The category includes:
- Miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death
- Infertility and struggles with assisted reproductive technology
- Abortion
- Hysterectomy, even in someone’s childbearing years
- The simple loss of “any normal reproductive experience” — including a newly married couple grieving that pregnancy hasn’t happened in the first few months
Why keep the definition wide? Because grief compounds. Tanya described counselees who experienced a miscarriage or committed the sin of abortion decades earlier, and then, in their fifties, lose a parent — and the old grief reactivates alongside the new. Keeping the category broad helps counselors avoid lumping every loss into one undifferentiated grief and instead address each layer with care.
The Desire for Children Is Good — Until It Becomes the Thing We’re Living For
Scripture commands us to be fruitful and multiply, so the desire for children is not a disordered one. But Tanya was direct about how easily a good desire becomes an idol:
“We have to be careful and recognize that even good things become idols… how easy it is to make good things, even longing for a husband or a child, an idol.”
She spoke from personal experience, describing a season where pursuing pregnancy consumed her to the point that she stopped hearing her husband and began treating him as a means to an end rather than a spouse.
Her counsel to others walking this road? Your purpose was not assigned to you at the altar, and it doesn’t begin when a child arrives. You are already a child of God, living for His glory — that purpose has been unfolding all along and will continue no matter what your reproductive story looks like.
IVF Deserves Careful, Biblical Conversation
Several questions centered on IVF, and Tanya was clear that pastors and counselors need to be willing to have these conversations rather than defer entirely to the fertility clinic. Her own posture toward IVF, though, was far more cautionary than permissive. A few of her key points:
- Scripture’s pattern is a warning, not a green light. Tanya pointed to the many biblical stories of people taking matters of childbearing into their own hands — and, as she put it, “it doesn’t go well.”
- This is fertile ground for idolatry. Speaking from her own history with infertility, Tanya described a season where the pursuit of a child became a project and an idol so consuming that she stopped hearing her husband as anything but a means to that end — and it nearly cost her marriage.
- The physical and emotional toll is significant. Hormonal treatment can bring fatigue, nervousness, sleep disruption, and other changes counselors should ask about directly — and Tanya noted the process of sample collection has led some husbands into pornography use.
- The odds are lower, and the costs higher, than the marketing suggests. Success rates don’t match the promises fertility clinics make, and Tanya pointed to a growing body of research on effects for children conceived through IVF — including possible impacts on their own future fertility.
- Going outside the union of husband and wife is a hard no. Tanya was unequivocal that egg donors, sperm donors, and surrogates are off the table biblically.
- Even “careful” IVF still carries real risk. Some try to make it more acceptable by fertilizing or implanting only a limited number of embryos. Tanya’s response: pray it through carefully anyway — “everything comes at a risk” — rather than treating that as a settled, safe middle path.
- Embryo storage is one of the most painful, common dilemmas couples now bring to counseling — often tangled up with grief over a previous miscarriage and genuine uncertainty about what to do next. Her counsel here was to give ample time for prayer, keep the door open, and not rush a couple toward a resolution.
Her overall posture: couples considering IVF need full, sober information about the medical, financial, and spiritual risks involved — not the sales pitch — because so many are moving forward without ever having weighed those costs at all.
Husbands Need a Role
Asked how men can walk alongside wives who are struggling with infertility without either enabling an idol or withdrawing in confusion, Tanya offered concrete counsel:
- Set a regular, unpressured rhythm for talking about the journey — not just when things boil over.
- Get medically informed about what your wife’s body and hormones are actually going through.
- Say plainly, “I love you, and I don’t want to risk this” when a treatment path feels unwise — these are decisions a couple makes together, not decisions one spouse outsources to a doctor alone.
- Stay present rather than absent: go to the store together, keep attending small group and marriage classes, be the one who says “I’ll hold your hand” instead of letting her isolate.
- Remember this warning for marriage: a spouse can become either an obstacle to what we want or a vehicle to get it — and neither is what marriage was meant to be.
Past Abortion Doesn’t Have to Live Rent-Free in Someone’s Head
When a counselee comes in for something else entirely — a stillbirth, a marriage conflict, depression — and abortion surfaces in the background, Tanya encouraged counselors to gently connect the dots rather than let it stay buried:
“It’s living rent-free in your head, and it doesn’t need to. You can be free with the Lord’s forgiveness of this.”
A few important distinctions she drew out:
- Don’t let a counselee adopt “post-abortive” as an identity. She is not her abortion.
- Infertility or miscarriage is not automatically God’s punishment for a past abortion. There may be a physical consequence — scar tissue, for instance — but that is different from divine condemnation. Where there is repentance, there is forgiveness.
- Freedom doesn’t require an elaborate process. Sometimes confession, biblical teaching on forgiveness, and a simple written response is sufficient.
Grief Sends Ripples
One of the most striking moments came when a longtime member of the group shared how her mother had carried silent grief for years over never becoming a grandmother — grief the daughter had never even recognized until she went through Tanya’s training.
Tanya spoke to this “ripple effect” from her own experience, including the tension of protecting her relationship with her own parents while walking through years of infertility.
Her counsel: keep your parents informed enough to stay connected, ask them to keep praying, and don’t assume the loss is contained to the person most visibly suffering. Pastors and church members were encouraged to broaden their view — the grandparents, and even the wider church, may be grieving quietly alongside the couple everyone is already praying for.
Begin with Lament
Toward the end of the conversation, Tanya was asked, “How crucial it is to get someone to honestly bring their sorrow to the Lord rather than just talking about it with everyone else?” Her answer: it’s everything.
“If you are not lamenting, then you can’t get to surrender.”
She noted that many counselees think they are lamenting when they are actually grumbling — angry that God hasn’t “made it right.” The counselor’s task is to listen closely to how someone prays, even inviting them to pray out loud in session, and gently show them that Scripture gives full permission to lament honestly before moving toward surrender.
Tanya’s Closing Word
Asked what truth she returns to again and again, Tanya didn’t offer a formula. She offered presence:
“Just being honest, and when you don’t have the words, just say, I don’t have the words. I grieve with you… let’s open up the Bible. Those have been the best sessions in my counseling — when the Lord has shut my mouth, and I say to people, and I cry… I don’t know even what to say to this, but let’s read Psalm 88.”
No technique replaces sitting with someone, Bible in hand, and listening well.
Join Us for the Next Live Q&A
Conversations like this one happen every month inside our community — real questions, real cases, and direct access to experienced counselors and ministry leaders like Tanya Flores.
If you counsel or care for people walking through reproductive loss — or want to be better equipped before that conversation lands in your lap — we’d love to have you join us.
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