Many engaged and married couples are familiar with The Knot, a well put together wedding planning ezine site. Sometime in the last couple years, The Knot developed two spin-off sites, The Nest and the Bump, ezines on home and pregnancy/family, respectively.

Last year I found a forum post promoting NFP on the Nest, which was a little secular miracle. Now, just to make up for it, I found a recent post and discussion on sister site The Bump that contains the usual doubts, prejudice and skepticism about NFP.

The ensuing conversation has the usual, “You have to have regular cycles,” “It doesn’t work,” and other NFP misinformation.  There are a few NFP Muskateers in the convo bringing a little sense to the replies, but they’re a little outnumbered.Would you help join the conversation? (The catch is that if you’re not already a registered user of the Bump, there’s a two day waiting period after you register. If you want a little reminder from me in a couples days, shoot me an email.)

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)

John Paul II Center for Women

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. 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 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!