Passion births ministry
03-01-2023
Feeling alone in her struggle with infertility, Rev. Dr. Stacey Edwards-Dunn, director of McCormick’s Center for African American Ministries and Black Church Studies, founded Fertility for Colored Girls. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, this ministry birthed by passion provides support, resources, and financial assistance to African American women and couples who want to be parents.
What do you do when life offers you a challenge? Give up? Deny your desire? Or do you start an organization to help others in the same situation? That final choice is the one Rev. Dr. Stacey Edwards-Dunn made. Having no success with building her family, finding nowhere to go to receive support for her journey through infertility, and discovering that there are few places that offer comprehensive information on family-building options, she founded Fertility for Colored Girls, FFCG.
“Infertility is such a taboo topic in the Black community,” says Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn, director of McCormick’s Center for African American Ministries and Black Church Studies. “I found that when I was dealing with infertility, there were few places for me to turn for answers. It was even harder to find support from people who looked like me. It was all trial and error. I started Fertility for Colored Girls so that other people wouldn’t have to go through what I did.”
Ten years old this month, FFCG has 16 chapters across the country that have helped more than 200 women and couples become parents. Infertility affects at least 12 percent of all women up to age 44, states Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn, and research suggests Black women are twice as likely to experience infertility as white women. Yet only 8 percent of Black women between the ages of 25-44 seek medical help to get pregnant, compared to 15 percent of white women.
Being open to options
There are many ways to build a family, notes Rev. Dr. Edward-Dunn; options can include adoption, foster-to-adoption, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization, among others. “I believe that any woman or couple who wants to be parents can,” she says. “It just might not be the way that they had planned.”
When Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn counsels individuals about infertility, she encourages them to grieve. “The process of grieving can get us to a place of surrender and acceptance…it can open us up to the options available to us,” says Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn. During her service to others dealing with infertility, Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn, and her husband, Earl, became parents through in vitro fertilization. They are now parenting three girls, which includes a set of twins. “No path to parenting is deficient, it’s just different,” she says. “You will not love the gift you receive any less because of the way it was delivered.”
Responding to a greater need
At the start, Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn envisioned FFCG as a program she’d offer exclusively in the Chicago area, but that plan changed quickly. “As soon as we launched in 2013, people began coming out of the woodwork from all over the country, asking ‘can you help us,’” she remembers.
Chapters started to form in the D.C. area, Atlanta, and Detroit. The educational programs offered through FFCG chapters include voices from experts on reproductive health, family law, adoption and donor procedures. Health coaches who can help people make informed decisions about reproductive health, infertility, and family planning are part of the program as well. “We also try to pair women and couples in our program with people who have gone through a similar parenting journey,” says Rev. Dr. Edward-Dunn, “it’s good to have someone to talk to in more specific ways, in addition to the support groups.”
From its beginning, FFCG has built relationships with many organizations in the reproductive health field, including pharmaceutical companies, fertility clinics, and nutritionists. Many have provided their products and services for free or at reduced rates for people referred by FFCG. Annually, FFCG’s Gift of Hope Award, supported by various reproductive health companies and organizations, provides funds for infertile families to assist them with the costs of infertility treatment or domestic adoption.
To celebrate its tenth year, FFCG will host Black Fertility Matters, a series of presentations in Chicago on March 11, that will cover all aspects of reproductive health. “Everything from cryopreservation to male infertility will be addressed,” says Rev. Dr. Edwards-Dunn, “all the sessions will be recorded, and made available on our website. Our desire is to give people access to information wherever they are. We’ve been blessed. We’ve been called by God and favored by many organizations so that we can offer such needed support.
Rev. Dr. Stacey Edwards-Dunn