For those of you who have subfertility or infertility issues, you know it can be a real downer. So many people take the gift of fertility for granted, despite the fact that the numbers of infertile women is much higher than it used to be, or at least it’s more documented and spoken about these days. As if the physical and emotional suffering isn’t enough, you get the added bonus of people’s insensitive comments, inept doctors and persistently grandbaby-hungry parents.

While the journey of infertility is also filled with blessings and personal growth, one still needs companions who understand on this journey. You’re blessed if you have these friends in person, but you may also know that there’s a slew of SF/IF blogs out there, some of which I featured previously.

A friend forwarded me this latest gem, the super and humorous, “Scrambled Eggs: an Infertility Scrapbook.” It’s less lengthy, woe-is-me soliloquies, and more of a potpourri of thoughts, quotes, stories, anecdotes–many of which are submitted by readers and friends. Hence, scrapbook: paste your snapshot here. There are still longer reflections, but they’re broken up by videos, clips, photos, pictures and more.

G’head…grieve, laugh and love.

If NFP is the natural and supernatural in family planning, then IVF is the opposite of that, the bastard child of modern science and the avaricious attitude that one is owed a child. But, sadly enough, not enough people know about it–scientifically or morally–and most people who struggle with infertility have no idea that there are IVF alternatives out there.

I know two out of the four presenters for this years Catholic United for Life Conference in Cody (from my work in the Diocese of Madison), but trust me–all four are all stars of the Catholic speaking and Pro Life activist circuit.

For many people the term “Pro Life” means simply the fight to end abortion, but this year’s conference theme, “Making Sense of In Vitro Fertilization & Embryonic Stem Cell Research” drives home the point that Pro Life fights for human dignity on all fronts from conception to natural death, regardless of disability or ability.

Did you know that currently there are 800, 000+ conceived children, “unwanted” byproducts of IVF procedures, simply frozen and waiting to be destroyed? What happens to them? Why were they “made” in the first place? If you’ve wondered what the big deal about IVF or Stem Cell Research is all about, come hear this nationally and internationally renowned line up make the case. Plus, you’ll get to connect with fellow lovers of life as well!

If you’ve not seen the poster/ brochure locally, here it is. Admittedly, I should have done this blog post sooner, but if you really want to come to this conference, they can still make room (although you might have to brown bag it for lunch). Bottom Line: RSVP to Symona ASAP: 307-754-1026. You’ll thank yourself. See you there.

After discovering Nicole’s My Endometriosis Story, I found more blogs about women and families suffering through infertility. Then I found more blogs by checking out their blogroll, then I found more. You get it: Infertility Blog hopscotch. After several click-read-click-read jumps, I discovered something that shouldn’t surprise me: there is a huge community of IF sufferers on the blogosphere, and many of them are FertilityCare users.

In a conversation with a friend, I mentioned my discovery, and she asked me to send her a list. Now, keep in mind there are SO many out there, so I’ve not included all I found, but rather included a short list of some of my favorites.

The Children I Cannot Hold–A Catholic Physician Reflects on Her Experience with Recurrent Miscarriage

All You Who Hope-A 30-something mom’s journey through infertility to adoption (they’re still working through her infertility, but a single birth mom need a family all of a sudden, and they adopted)

The Apostolate of Hannah’s Tears–Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend’s awesome blog reaching out to infertile couples

Sew Infertile-One passionately opinionated Catholic girl’s journey through miscarriage, infertility & foster-care (30 yo, still trying)

In all things, good–trusting God on the journey of (in)fertility

Waiting for Baby Blondie–A journey through infertility and Catholicism. A search for answers, hope and faith. “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

This Cross I Embrace--A Journey through Infertility…Catholic style

What are some of your favorites?

Angie Baker, 33,  suffered eighteen miscarriages in thirteen years. Then came her little miracle, Raiya, born this past December.

This BBC article is sparing with details, and I want to know more of the story. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, my first reaction is, “Wow. That is amazing. What a miracle. She must be so happy.”

Then I think she must have suffered so much, physically, emotionally, and relationally. How did she cope, and what drove her to keep trying? I, with my husband, suffer the painful waiting game of infertility, but we have yet to conceive, and I’ve never miscarried, so I can’t put myself precisely in her place. Does she have a husband or partner to support her? Why isn’t he mentioned in the BBC’s story?

Further, how did she not hear of FertilityCare and NaProTechnology? I mean, thirteen years! Perhaps she tried charting and working with a Creighton Medical Consultant. After all, Creighton and NaPro bring much healing and happiness to women and families, particularly those hoping to conceive, but it’s not a silver bullet. Then again, perhaps she was not able to come up with the money since the England has socialized health care? But there are FertilityCare Practitioners and medical consultants in the UK and Ireland, and many, many people without immense financial means find a way to make it work.

In the end, she found a specialist, Dr. Hassan Shehata, who was able to diagnose and treat her condition, having an unusually high amount of Natural Killer Cells.

Interesting closing note: Her little girl’s name is Raiya, which is a form of Regina, a name for the Blessed Mother. Also, she was born on December 9, the feast of Old Testament Hannah, who suffered from infertility, and who’s prayer for a child was answered.

(H/T to Hannah’s Tears Apostolate blog for the article.)

Angie’s story elsewhere:

• Epsom & St. Helier Hospital Site
• UK’s Daily Mail
• Metro.co.uk Online Magazine

For all those in the Midwest, this looks like a great array of speakers. Check it out!

Diocesean Marriage & Family Conference

Notre Dame Conference Center • Saturday, March 20, 2010

Conference Description

It’s easy to lose sight of the “big picture” in the day-to-day business of raising a family and making a marriage work. This inaugural diocesan conference aims to deepen the understanding of marriage and family life as a vocation from God and encourage an appreciation of its many dimensions. Through a combination of plenary sessions and workshops, this conference will explore the Church’s rich vision of marriage and family life as it relates to topics such as the theology of the body, communication and intimacy, financial stewardship, responsible parenthood, dealing with infertility, and raising teens. A series of workshops also will be presented in Spanish. This conference is for adults of all ages and circumstances; married couples, couples preparing for marriage, single parents, college students, clergy, pastoral ministers and anyone else interested in enriching their understanding of the vocation of marriage and family life.

Schedule

9:00 AM Registration and Continental Breakfast

10:00 AM Welcome Fred & Lisa Everett

Plenary Session One: The Vocation of Marriage Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades

10:50 AM Break

11:15 AM Workshop Session One

• Introduction to the Theology of the Body Lisa Marino
• Dealing with Infertility in Marriage Dave & Suzy Younger
• Marriage & Finances: Setting a Solid Foundation Harry Verhiley
• Parenting Teenagers in the Virtues Cindy Black
• La Vocación al Matrimonio

12:05 PM Lunch

12:55 PM Plenary Session Two: Life-Giving Love Prof. Janet E. Smith

2:00 PM Break

2:25 PM Workshop Session Two

• Building a Culture of Life through the Theology of the Body Tom & Mary Akre
• NaProTechnology: New Hope for Couples with Infertility Brad Ferrari, MD & Mary Ramsey, PA
• Communication & Intimacy in Marriage Lisa Everett
• Challenges in the First Years of Marriage John & Monica Sikorski
• La Teología del Cuerpo Margarita Rodriguez

3:15 PM Break

3:40 PM Workshop Session Three

• Theology of the Body: What the Pope Couldn’t Say Fr. Bob Lengerich
• Spiritual Parenthood Bill & Elizabeth Kirk
• Communication & Intimacy in Marriage Lisa Everett
• Pearls of Wisdom: What 46 Years of Marriage Have Taught Us Dan & Annette Stobierski
• Comunicación en el Matrimonio Fred Everett

4:30 PM Day Conference Concludes

5:00 PM Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart Bishop John M. D’Arcy

6:15 PM Social with cash bar opens

7:00 PM Banquet & Talk by Prof. Smith: Seeking Holiness in Marriage & Family Life

Registration

You may register online here or by mail or FAX. The registration fee of $35 per person for the day conference includes conference materials, continental breakfast, a boxed lunch and afternoon snacks. The evening banquet is an additional $25 per person. Please indicate your workshop preferences in order to assist in guaranteeing proper room space. College or graduate students are welcome to attend any of the plenary or workshop sessions at no cost.

About the Main Speakers

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades was appointed the Ninth Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend on November 14, 2009, by Pope Benedict XVI, and installed on January 13, 2010, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne. Bishop Rhoades serves as Chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Task Force on Health Care, and is the Chair-elect of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. He is a member of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Catechism, the Board of Trustees of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Board of Trustees of Mount Saint Mary’ s University, and the Episcopal Advisory Board of the Theology of the Body Institute.

Prof. Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  She is the author ofHumanae Vitae: A Generation Later and editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader. She has two new books; Life Issues, Medical Choices, Questions and Answers for Catholics and The Right to Privacy. She speaks internationally on the Catholic teachings on sexuality and bioethics. She is serving a second term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family. Over a million copies of her talk, Contraception: Why Not have been distributed on tape or CD.

The struggle with infertility is a very heavy cross for a couple to carry. Come and join other couples for a day to focus on coping with infertility, communicating with your spouse in times of trial, and discovering the good coming from God. The retreat will be held at the St. Francis retreat house in Easton, PA on April 17, 2010. The cost for couples is $75 for the day or $200 for the weekend. Please email Elisabeth Laskowski  creightonmodel@gmail.com for more information or for a registration form.

I found a sermon on infertility on an NFP forum, and decided to take a listen, though I knew it might not be as thorough in the morality department as I prefer. I really enjoyed it, with a big exception. My comments from the forum (no replies yet…huh): The pastor who gave the sermon is certainly a lover of the Lord, in the Sacred Scriptures, and has been touched deeply by his family struggle with infertility. I was really touched by his sharing of his story and sufferings, and found his sermon gave a lot of food for thought and meditation. I especially appreciated his admonition against the “prosperity gospel” which might lead some IF sufferers to think they’ve done something wrong to deserve it.

One perspective on the suffering element is that we are allowed to suffer to enter into the suffering of the Lord, and that we can be allowed to suffer for many reasons, including to purify us from sin and attachments, grow closer to our Lord (the only road to the Resurrection is the Cross), and suffer as a way of prayer/ intercession in action on behalf of some intention or person. Catholics call this “Redemptive Suffering.” More on this here.

Also, there’s a beautiful letter on the meaning of suffering here

Anyway, my big issue with this sermon is that he really skips over the morality bit, without even a cursory explanation of what is correct and what isn’t. I do love that he does mention that not all fertility treatments are licit, but he really leaves the congregation hanging. Is it because he doesn’t have enough time in the sermon, or perhaps he doesn’t wish to discuss it in mixed company, or is it because he lacks a certain courage to condemn certain practices (IVF, “selective reduction”,therapeutic cloning, etc.)? It’s not clear to me, and I wish it was addressed even in a general way.

Non-Catholic Christians, what are your thoughts on this? Have you had an guidance in the morality department, especially from spiritual leaders? What’s the response? Have you struggled with this? What’s been the most helpful to you.

Have you seen the movie UP? It looked cute, and my Dad recommended it, so we thought we’d give it a go.

“Cute” is no longer an adequate word to describe this film for me because what could have been a schmaltzy animated film ended up being a dramatic commentary on life, love and fatherhood. Of course, it’s very funny in parts, and quite action-packed, but it for me was a sort of animated “Last Lecture,” complete with adventure, dreams, joy, loss, suffering and triumph. Thinking I’m reading too much into a computer cartoon movie?

Check out the above pictures, two separate  but back-to-back scenes in the first fifteen minutes of the film. The story of Ellie & Carl Frederickson begins with their meeting as children, both in love with fantastic adventures. They grow up, fall in love, marry, renovate their first home together, and do what married couples do: they decide to fill it with children. [Spoiler alert: don't read the rest if you don't want to know about the plot!] They begin the journey to parenthood, only to have it cut short. This part of the film is done very succinctly and tastefully, but the pictures communicated the cascade of feelings of what couples go through when they lose a child or can’t conceive. It was tremendously powerful for me watching this because my husband and I have been married for three years, and haven’t been able to conceive.  Though we know we have much hope, and look forward to starting the NaProtechnology process through the Creighton Model of FertilityCare, it’s still difficult.

I have so much sympathy for my friends and non-friends alike who go through this struggle, which often results in a successful pregnancy after years of suffering, or perhaps sometimes ends with disappointment and irreversible infertility. I think people forget the grief that can come with this struggle, especially if one has previously contracepted, aborted, or engaged in a lifestyle that has negatively impacted their fertility.

So my first thought and recommendation is to pray for those who are struggling with sub-fertility or infertility. They need your prayers, and they need your support. If someone you know suffers a miscarriage, still born, or sudden infant death, the best thing you can do is to suffer with them, and to listen. Bring dinner, help babysit or run errands for them, too, because pregnancy or child loss is overwhelming. Whatever you do, do NOT try to “help” by saying things like, “Oh you already have [number] children; it’s okay,” or “You’re still young,” or something ridiculous like that. According to my several friends who’ve miscarried, these types of comments are all too common, and completely ignore the fact that after conception, it’s a human person just like you and I, and there’s a similar grief as when an adult dies.

Also, don’t judge a person by the size of their family. Uggh. This seems to be common Christian sense, but it’s sadly ubiquitous among pious people to judgmentally implement this uncaring silent algorithm that “If they’ve been married X years, they only have X kids, she still works (etcetera), they must be contracepting.” AHHH! PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT OTHERS HAVE SUFFERED THROUGH. Yes, it’s true that many families have their requisite two children, and contracept or sterilize themselves through the rest of their marriage. We all make mistakes, and if you haven’t in this area, give thanks. However, you still shouldn’t judge, and you definitely should give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps we’ll even learn something that way.

Lastly, the movie which provided my introduction and reflection on infertility, is also a movie about taking chances, moving forward through suffering, and ultimately, about spiritual parenthood. It turns out you can still be a mother or father to someone without giving birth or even without adopting. Adoption is a beautiful and heroic thing, but if for whatever reason a couple can’t achieve it, they still are parents. This isn’t the desolate consolation for the infertile, but a great gift with which all people have been given: the gift of spiritual parenthood. In the end, the elder Carl Frederickson gives the gift of parenthood to little Russell, his accidental companion on the adventure that is UP.

So, next Mother’s Day or Father’s day, please remember couples without children, or who are struggling to have children. Wish them sincerely a happy Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. This goes for childless pastors, priests and elderly as well. They are sexual beings with the gift of masculinity/ femininity and parenthood as well. And let us all give thanks for the gift of children in an age where the child is denigrated is so many ways.

Here’s a couple articles on the Gift of Infertility that I found very informative from a health perspective and a moral perspective:

• The Gift of Infertility (part 1)
• The Gift of Infertility (part 2)
• The Gift of Infertility (part 3)
• The Gift of Infertility (part 4)

Gianna Healthcare, Manhattan’ only Catholic Health Center for Women, opened Monday, November 23rd, and had its open house this past Tuesday, December 8th, to a waiting list of patients eager to receive authentically Catholic and woman-centered health care. Gianna Healthcare is offered at the John Paul II Center for Women, located on East 40th Street in Manhattan, but is owned by St. Vincent’s Hospital. According to the Sisters of Charity, the order that founded the hospital, the felt strongly drawn to the project because cooperative procreative healthcare and IVF alternatives are a rarity and something greatly needed by women in New York.

Read more about the Gianna Healthcare opening at Zenit.

About Gianna Healthcare.

Part two of the FertilityCare piece on Infertilty and alternatives to IVF.

A great new video from the new web site of FertilityCare Centers of America. News Flash: There are alternatives to IVF!

I met a firebrand New Yorker at last year’s ENDOW Conference in Denver. Joan is the co-foundress of the John Paul II Center for Women in Manhattan. [It's now called Gianna Care with St. Peter's Hospital.] The John Paul II Center,

is an organization dedicated to advocating a deep understanding of the dignity of women, the meaning of human sexuality, and the nature of human relationships as expressed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. As part of this mission, it is committed to promoting natural family planning, pro-life reproductive health care, and pro-life medical ethics.

They recently reported on their blog [no longer in use--contact the Gianna Center for more info] their starting an online Infertility Discussion Group:

Finally, we have also started an outreach for pro-life and Catholic women struggling with infertility. This is an email listserv (a “Google Group”) called “Prolife Catholic Infertility.”

We created this in response to requests from Catholic and pro-life women from around the country for a common place to discuss those issues which pro-life women uniquely struggle with as they seek treatment for infertility.

What treatments are available? Which destroy embryos? What does the Catholic Church say about the various alternatives? Where can I turn for help?

Few have been the resources available to you – and many of you have expressed a sense of feeling abandoned by medicine if you do not want to go through with IVF or other artificial reproductive technologies.
At the JPII Center, we hope to eventually create an online resource where you can go to find answers to the common questions about infertility treatment, pro-life alternatives, ethical decision-making, and where you can go for help and support.

This will take some time. In the meantime, we have created this online email discussion group to allow you to network and dialogue with each other about the issues you are dealing with – many of you have already sought and found answers to these common questions and this group allows you to share these answers with others. It is a “closed” group, so only those people I add to the list will have access to the discussions in order to create a “safe space” for you to share your real concerns and questions.We are a Catholic organization, but any woman struggling with infertility who is looking for pro-life alternatives in infertility treatment is welcome to join, regardless of her faith tradition or beliefs.To be added to the list, please email me directly at amielnik@jpiicenterforwomen.org. I need only your name and email address and a brief description of why you are interested in the listserv.

I’m so glad they’ve jumped on the new media/ online discussion train. While one always needs to be prudent about online memberships and discussions, they can also be of enormous help, as it seems with the NFP Facebook group, which is quite active. It’s commonplace for women to travel from Europe, Australia and all over the North America to travel to Omaha just to get their NaProTechnology consultation and treatment, so until we can have NaPro consultants in every parish and surgeons in every metropolitan area, online discussion forums must serve as a place for research and connection.

I only pray that more and more people will train as FertilityCare practitioners, medical consultants and especially as NaProTechnology surgeons. Could you be called to teach NFP or be an NFP-only health professional? Consider it, for the need is great.

Pray for the JP II Center for Women and their mission!