The love of a child is something that blesses many homes. So many couples automatically assume the birth of a child — and watching that child grow up into adulthood — is pretty much a given result of a marriage for couples who want children. But, for many families, often more times than people realize, having a child is a lot more difficult then one would imagine.

According to different medical groups, miscarriages end pregnancies between 20 to 40 percent of the time. Infant mortality claims the lives of babies, many times without a known reason. Then, there are the couples who can’t have a child, even with the expense of in vitro procedures.

Emily Key and Melissa Williamson, along with their husbands, each faced different struggles of having children. Meeting about four years ago, they each faced years of infertility and tried different medical procedures. Key was unable to become pregnant while Williamson experienced the loss of unborn children, including a set of triplets. Finally, Key and her husband decided to adopt and are now parents of two children, one from Russia and one from Guatemala. Williamson and her husband were able to have biological children.

“We started talking about how there was no support group in this area or even South Mississippi to handle infertility or the loss of a child,” Williamson said during a visit to Key’s father’s Ellisville home Friday. “We took it to our church and they were very supportive to the group.”

“When you’re going through a loss or infertility you feel like you’re completely alone,” Key said. Williams added, “Nobody talks about it. It happens and you move on.”

Moving on isn’t so easy for the couples experiencing loss of an unborn or newborn child, though. Nor is it easy when a couple can’t conceive, they said. Seeing other people — even family members — being pregnant or with young children often creates negative feelings or even jealousy.

Key’s father, Jack Wansley, said he and his wife could see the pain Key and her husband were facing. But, he said, every piece of advice or encouragement they offered seemed to drive them further from the family.

“I can tell you from experience family can’t help,” Wansley said. “Nothing we could do could help. She almost got to the point she was almost resentful of that (other children in the family). We desperately wanted to do something, but what we did seemed to worsen the situation.”

“Day, you’re going to make me cry,” Key said as her father described the situation. But, the family seems complete as the grandfather held his granddaughter Erin, a child who the family adopted from Guatemala. “Stop!” Erin kept telling her grandfather’s horse when he tried to get close.

Key and Williamson said the support group known as SAIL is a way for them and their church, Heritage United Methodist Church of Hattiesburg, to help other people cope with these same issues. SAIL was formed as Surviving After Infertility or Loss, but has now been redirected to Support for Adoption, Infertility, and Loss. Group meetings held the first and third Tuesdays each month are small, and Key and Williamson said they also maintain contact with people through e-mail who don’t want to attend a public meeting.

“We laugh a lot and we’re friends,” Key said. “It’s friends who are in the same boat.”

They also ask about each other’s updates and surround their circle in prayer.

“There are tears and laughter. It’s amazing,” Williamson said.

There is also advice for people as they decide whether to try in vitro, adoption, or other methods of reaching the goals of a family.

However, even as these people work to help each other cope with struggles of having children, they also help couples honor the lives of babies who miscarried or died just after birth. They have a book of names at their church and offer memory boxes to mothers who lose a child at the hospital or other location. There is also an annual balloon release and memorial service.