Small bouquets of delicate silk flowers hang from the front door. I press the buzzer and enter Sharon Lobaton’s airy apartment. It is decorated with lacy pillows, embroidered floral motifs, and no fewer than three bright light fixtures. There is no room for darkness in the Lobaton home.
Sharon Lobaton of Beitar Illit is the author of Deeper Than Tears, a riveting first-person account of 25 years of infertility treatments, segulos, prayers, and faith. Sharon, who penned the book under the byline Sharon O.L., was certain that the 573-page journal of her quest for motherhood was not over. She was so certain, in fact, that she promised a sequel, writing Part 1 on the inside cover.
“Several tzaddikim promised us that we would have a child,” Sharon explains, “including HaRav Ben Zion Abba Shaul ztz”l, HaRav Moshe Shapiro ybl’’c, and HaRav Yoram Abergel. In fact, as early as one or two years after we married, HaRav Avraham Yechiel Fish ztz”l told us we would be blessed with a son.”
The rabbinical authorities and the medical authorities did not see eye to eye. “The doctors couldn’t say it was impossible. They could only say ‘We can’t know,’ yet they led me to understand that if I had a chance to have a baby, it was a very slim chance. In my mind though, I was a person who had children, it was just that the right time hadn’t come yet.”
Despite her determination to steer clear of discouraging fears, Sharon was worried about a possible chillul Hashem. “I had been so excited when I received those blessings that I told my family, who are not as religious as we are, and I also told friends,” she relates. “Because of that, my tefillah eventually became, ‘Hashem, even if You have decided not to give me children, there are people who are asking, “But your rabbis promised you. What happened to their promises?” Please give us a child for the sake of Your Name, so there will not be any chillul Hashem.’” Sharon is quick to deflect credit for this compelling argument. “I didn’t come to it through lomdus. I just really meant it. I didn’t want a chillul Hashem.”
The Journey
Eager to get to the root of whatever spiritual issues were blocking the blessing they sought, Sharon and her husband did intensive middos work and took on many kabbalos. “Every test we go through in This World is for the sake of a spiritual tikkun,” Sharon reflects. “I knew it wasn’t the mechanical problems the doctors discovered that were keeping me from becoming pregnant. The first few years I felt lost and despairing. That was when the test was new. Grappling with a new test is much harder than handling an old one. Also, in the beginning we didn’t do any treatments. While doing treatments, at least a person can feel that they are taking some action that may bring a yeshuah. Although of course it’s not true; it’s Hashem Who brings the yeshuah.”
Although the rounds of treatments and sincere spiritual work claimed the lion’s share of her spare time (when she wasn’t working to support her husband in kollel), Sharon made sure to schedule in downtime. She fortified herself with shiurim, visits with friends, and vacations once or twice a year. Social by nature, Sharon didn’t want to be isolated, even if her markedly different situation made it impossible to be a part of some activities and discussions. “I’m friendly with my neighbors, and I go out on walks all the time. I don’t stay in my house, but I also wouldn’t go and sit down on the benches in the park during the afternoon since the discussions on the benches mostly revolve around children and I couldn’t participate in them.”
One communal activity Sharon found torturous was brissim. How many times can a person tolerate the zchus of being kvatter? “Personally I didn’t have any problem attending brissim,” Sharon counters. “If I could have gone without being seen it would have been fine. It was very hard because people looked at me and reminded me of where I was holding. Sometimes it was unspoken looks that broadcast the message in the air and other times it was the ‘Iy”H by you’ blessings that said it outright. I have three brothers and one of them had a child nearly every year. I used to say ‘Oh, Hashem, please let it be a girl this time.’”
Perhaps one of the ugliest aspects of her journey was Sharon’s encounters with opportunists: charlatan healers who offered her the world when she was at her most vulnerable. Beyond the standard fertility treatments, she also subjected herself to a huge number of alternative remedies and segulos that backfired, causing painful rashes and scarring. If she could do things over, would she still sit on hot boiled herbs or let herself be “massaged” with a jagged rock by a charlatan “healer”? “I was ready to pay any price,” she states. But was the price too high? “Before I had a child, I did think it was a shame I went through all that. But today, if you told tell me I’d have another child on condition I go through it all again, I think I would do it.”
The Faith
During this seemingly interminable journey, Sharon recorded her experiences. These notes ultimately formed the basis of her highly personal and popular book, which was first self-published and later brought to a wider reading audience by Tfutzah Publications. “My main intention was to remember everything that happened. You could say it was like a diary. At first I used notebooks, and eventually large binders. I thought, What’s happening to me is not ordinary. These are tests given to people with specific life missions. I wrote because I didn’t want to forget or lose these experiences.”
On a personal level, journaling was therapeutic. Sharon felt like she was speaking with a close friend, particularly important as she did not share the details of her challenge with anyone else. “In principle I’m very in favor of infertility support groups, but they don’t happen to suit my personality,” she says frankly. “I didn’t want to associate with a group that announces, ‘I don’t have kids.’ I knew that doing so would weaken me, despite the fact that it strengthens many women.”
Over the course of 18 years, Sharon accrued hundreds of pages of both heart-wrenching and inspiring prose. How did this become a book? “During these last few years, when I saw I had a lot of material that could help the public and that it was well-written, I gave all my notes to three women whose yiras Shamayim and good judgment I trusted, one of whom was an author, and asked them if it was fit to be published. I wanted to offer people strength to stand up to their tests.”
Sharon’s book has been praised for its overflowing faith, but this wasn’t her original intention. “I didn’t actually intend to publish a book to strengthen emunah; I had a number of messages to share. We can pass all our tests. We need to increase our tefillos. We need to value what we have.” This last point lies close to Sharon’s heart. “After one of the fertility operations I underwent, I couldn’t breathe and for a while I had to be put on a respirator. That was when I understood that even the ‘simple things’ people don’t think of, like being able to breathe, can’t be taken for granted. When couples get married and have children right away, it’s a neis. It’s also a neis when a person gets married to begin with.”
The Consolation
Flashing back to the moment she heard she was pregnant, Sharon waxes philosophical. “It was like the feeling we have on Rosh HaShanah, ‘Gilu bir’adah.’ Joy and fear together. I was thrilled but I also wondered what would come of it. It wasn’t as if I could plan ahead and say, ‘Okay, so in nine months I’ll have a baby.’ Due to my age and the fertility treatments and the fact that I’d had several miscarriages, it was a high-risk pregnancy and I was on almost full bed rest for the entire nine months. Nurses came to my house to give me checkups and medication. I had to give myself daily injections. I could only take showers in lukewarm water and even then, only every few days.”
On Erev Yom Kippur, just under a year ago, Natan Yehudah was born. His bris was the first day of Chol HaMoed Succos, and although, due to the timing, the Lobatons only managed to call a few people, 800 people attended the bris.
After dreaming of motherhood for decades, the new reality has far exceeded her former hopes. “The simchah and love are deeper than I imagined,” Sharon notes. “And physically it’s been much easier than I thought it would be. I wasn’t worried. I knew I’d get through it like everyone else. But over the years I’d overheard ladies complaining about how tired they were and how hard it was, so I thought it would be more difficult than it is.”
While a friend only two years her senior is marrying off a grandson, Sharon is a new mom, but no one thinks she’s pushing a grandson in that stroller. “Everyone here in Beitar knows us and knows I’m his mother. They call him the prince,” she says with a chuckle. Not that she plans to spoil her long-awaited prince. “I intend to give him everything he needs and if it’s spoiling that he needs, then he’ll get that too,” she declares warmly. “Today he’s receiving all at once, a 27-year reservoir of love and giving that we saved for him.”
Sharon’s head turns to the white crib that sits next to her. Bearing the names of both Rebbe Natan of Breslov ztz”l, and of his paternal grandfather Yehudah z”l, her son is a gurgling, cooing miracle, a blessing fulfilled. Oblivious to his own celestial significance, he waves his arms in delight as he stares at a blue elephant on his musical mobile. His mood only sours when his Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear gets accidentally pushed out of reach.
Sharon calls her husband Shalom, who makes the baby a bottle and takes him to the bedroom. Soon I hear Shalom serenading his son. First with a royal rendition of Tefillah L’Ani and then with impressive pieces of chazzanus. “We both sing to him often. Natan Yehudah loves music. It’s the only thing that calms him down.”
These days Sharon is busy with diapers, bottles, and occasional visits to the pediatrician. “Im yirtzeh Hashem I’ll write again. Not in the near future. Maybe when Natan Yehudah is older and doesn’t need me so much. I planted with tears and I have already harvested in joy. But for the sake of the women who want to know what happened, I will, one day, write Part II of my story.”
(Originally featured in Family First Issue 353)
