infertility – Page 2 – Mama Needs Coffee

Catholics Do What?, Contraception, guest post, infertility, IVF, NFP, Sex

Can we all just agree that fertility is not small talk?

April 22, 2015

Today I’m grateful to invite Mandi Richards into this space to share a little about her personal experience with infertility. Mandi and her husband have one sweet daughter on earth, 4 babies in heaven, and are currently pregnant with number 6. Her new site, A Blog About Miscarriage, is full of beauty, wisdom, and yes, hard stuff. She has some advice for us all today, so pull up a chair

I’m sure you’re all with me on this one if you think I’m talking about menstrual cycles or the nitty gritty of Natural Family planning or sex. No one wants cervical mucus to be the topic of a casual conversation with acquaintances or any conversation that’s public. It’s just not appropriate.

But what about some of these common questions that seem to often come up in public, caual conversations and often between complete strangers?

“When are you going to start trying to have a baby?”

“Was this pregnancy planned?”

“When are you going to give (your child) a sibling?”

“Are you done (having children) yet?”

Are these questions appropriate? Unless they’re part of a (private) conversation with close friends or family, I would say these (and related questions) aren’t appropriate. Because these questions are about fertility. They are about sex. They are about cervical mucus and life and death.

And they aren’t small talk.

I totally get it. You’re curious. I’m curious too. When I see a young couple who has been married a few years and there aren’t any babies, I also wonder when they are going to have children. I used to also think some kind of judgy thoughts, like the couple must be too selfish to welcome children. Not any more folks.

Now I wonder if they are having fertility problems. Perhaps they have gotten pregnant and lost the baby. Maybe that’s happened many times. Maybe they are actively postponing pregnancy for valid reasons that I know nothing about. Employment or financial issues. Health problems. Or a million other things. And the truth is, as much as I want to know, I know it’s none of my business.

There might be a lot of hidden pain behind that couple and that question might be publicly opening a wound.

And also think about what you are conveying about fertility: That you think it’s easy. That it’s a commodity. That people can control it.

When a baby is desired, all they have to do is “try.” That, for some reason, it’s significant whether a baby was “tried for” or an “accident”. That the intention somehow makes a difference in the baby’s inherent goodness. But what’s the difference? Is a “planned” baby is more loved, more wanted, more important?

Even if you think your words are innocent, they have a deeper meaning. And even if you greatly value life, you might not realize that your “small talk” is not just a harmless repetition of the questions that you’ve heard others ask a million times, but a reflection of some deep societal ills.

So before you ask something about fertility, think not about your intention, but about the message you are actually conveying with your words.

And if it’s not consistent with your beliefs, take that out of your “small talk” repertoire.

You know what is terrible? That I had to experience these questions with my own hidden pain in order for me to understand what they can do. I couldn’t get outside of my own little box and into the lives of other people on my own, I couldn’t imagine their pain. I had to experience it.

So I’m saying this on the behalf of the ignorant, like I once was: I know you don’t want to hurt the people you encounter, but if you ask these questions, you just might.

I was especially blissfully unaware of secondary (in)fertility issues. I naively assumed that once a couple has a healthy pregnancy and baby, that’s it. They’re always going to have healthy pregnancies. But sometimes they can’t get pregnant again. Ever. Sometimes it’s a struggle or they have miscarriages. Or serious economic or health or other reasons crop up that put off another child, perhaps forever.

Unless you’re comfortable hearing the answers, don’t ask the questions.

“Actually, we’ve been trying to get pregnant for years, but can’t.”

“We did give our child a sibling, but then miscarried.”

“We are done because of a serious health issue (that’s none of your business).”

I know that anytime I’ve been asked an insensitive questions about giving Lucia a sibling and have responded about our miscarriage, it’s made the conversation mighty uncomfortable. Because the question was asked as small talk, a cute little question where the questioner doesn’t even care about the answer either way. It’s just what you ask when there is a lull in conversation, right?

but I’m asking, can we all just agree that issues of fertility are never small talk?

Evangelization, guest post, infertility

9 Ways to Support a Couple Experiencing Infertility

April 21, 2015

Today I’m thrilled to be playing hostess to the lovely and oh-so-talented Amanda Teixeira of True Good and Beautiful. Amanda and her husband Jonathan recently brought home sweet baby Josie, culminating an adoption story only God could have designed. Now she’s blogging and mothering her little lady while hubby Jonathan serves as the brains behind the great digital content you’ve seen FOCUS cranking out lately. Amanda, thanks for being here!

1 in 8 couples will battle the lonely road of infertility.

Chances are you know someone carrying this cross and since it’s National Infertility Awareness Week, I wanted to provide some ways you can lift up those closest to you walking this path.

Having experienced infertility for the past 3.5 years, each of these actions have lifted my spirits immensely. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but rather a starting point, speaking from personal experience, on loving couples in the trenches on infertility.

Prayer

I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard, “You’re in my prayers!” as we’ve battled infertility. It touches me that others would take the time to intercede with God on my behalf for strength, wisdom, courage, healing, and joy while I carry this cross. I would have fallen into despair long ago were it not for the prayers of others.

So when you say you will pray for your friends who are experiencing infertility – do it.

Don’t let it be a phrase you throw around when others are in pain or hurting…actually get on your knees and pray since prayer is powerful and will make a difference. When I would receive spiritual bouquets or cards saying we were enrolled in prayer at a religious community, it strengthened my spirit to keep going another day.

Resist the Urge to Fix

I know the temptation to try and recommend the treatment protocol that healed your mailman’s sister’s neighbor’s daughter of infertility but just don’t do it.

I can’t tell you how often someone will ask me “BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OF NAPROTECHNOLOGY?!?” with extreme eagerness as if it will be my cure-all. Then I have to burst their bubble that I’ve been a Napro patient for a decade now…and still am infertile.

This also goes for offering practices against Church teaching or even ones that haven’t been spoken on by the Church at this time. No, we aren’t doing in-vitro fertilization or any other form of Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART). It’s immoral and I really don’t want to have to get into a battle about that while I am just trying to stay emotionally sane dealing with infertility. Also, just because the Church hasn’t definitively spoken on some things like embryo adoption doesn’t mean I need to rush out and do it. I want to wait on the Church to continue making decisions about such weighty matters before I act.

Notes of Encouragement

This type of action is helpful for anyone carrying any cross. Just getting a note from someone cheering you on is incredibly uplifting. Many days when things have been bleary with various treatments or procedures, a sincere note encouraging me onwards toward heaven was just what I needed.

Ask How I’m Doing

Infertility is a super private matter…and because of that no one wants to touch the subject with a 10-foot pole. Soon the couple dealing with infertility begins to feel like lepers in Catholic communities since everyone seemingly only wants to talk about pregnancy and babies…not the inability to have them.

Bridge the gap. Jump in and just ask how it’s going. If I am not in a place to talk, I will tell you.

Cook a Meal

I know, you may think, “But they don’t have kids, why cook a meal?”

I’ve had 3 surgeries, dozens of ultrasounds, and about a gazillion blood draws. There are just some days where cooking is the absolute last thing I could have done. A meal or a gift card during an intense treatment time would be a god-send.

Invite Us Over

We don’t fit in the single crowd.

We don’t fit in the married-with-kids crowd.

The crowd of married without kids is a super narrow and small window of couples. If we make friends with a newlywed couple they are typically expecting a baby within weeks or months so they quickly move on to make friends with other pregnant couples or couples with kids.

The infertile couple gets forgotten about. Left out. Extend an invite to them for your next social gathering. If they are in a painful place where being around pregnancy or children would hurt, they will decline but will always be grateful for the invitation.

Minimize the Kid Chat

Some of the most painful experiences I have are of us sitting around in a group of couples and the only topic of conversation is their children or pregnancy. Now that I am a mom, I get how easy it can be to talk about the kiddos and to talk about how tiring raising them can be.

Just be emotionally intelligent! If there is someone present who can’t join in the conversation, no matter what it’s about, turn the topic towards something everyone can participate it. It’s just kind.

Remember Big Days

Maybe it’s the anniversary of a miscarriage. Or a wedding anniversary, marking one more year of childlessness. Or perhaps it’s Mother’s and Father’s Day.

Again, bridge the gap and step into those painful days with your friends so they know they aren’t alone.

Small Gifts

I can’t tell you how often it meant the world to me when friends or family would send small gifts to lift me up. Usually they would send them when I was undergoing a series of blood tests several days in a row or impatiently enduring yet another “two week wait” to see if I was hopefully pregnant.

Flowers. Gift cards to have a date night with. Sporting event tickets. Something to show your support while also providing a much needed distraction.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list but a few concrete ways others have showed their love for my husband and me as we’ve walked the road of infertility. Simply letting couples know they aren’t alone is what they need most and as long as you gear your actions towards that end, you really can’t go wrong.

Lastly, dive into the other articles out there on the interwebs during National Infertility Awareness Week, exploring the topic of infertility. Learn more about it and then find some concrete ways to show your support to the loved ones you know fighting this battle.

Bioethics, Catholics Do What?, Contraception, infertility, IVF, NFP

It’s Infertility Awareness Week: Did you know the Catholic Church Cares Deeply?

April 20, 2015

In honor of this year’s National Infertility Awareness week (April 19-25), I wanted to spend a few days recognizing the struggle and the heartache and the sometimes silent suffering of couples who are bearing the cross of infertility in their marriages.

And I wanted to highlight some of the hopeful, heartfelt efforts to help and to heal which the Catholic Church is making (yep, you read that right) and, in fact, has been making, for quite some time now.

I also wanted to bring a few new voices into the mix, stories that you won’t hear from my perspective, because so far I have nothing but empathy and a view from the sidelines on this issue, for which I’m incredibly grateful (yes, grateful, in spite of the craziness of raising tiny humans and the difficulties of pregnancy). So for the next couple days I’m delighted to have some women coming into this space to share their stories of infertility, and their journeys toward building the family God has called them to, in cooperation with His will, not in spite of it.

So much of what we hear about infertility has to do with economics and technological “advancements” and is far, far too often dismissive of the pain and the frustration couples who find themselves in this place are facing.

Just save up and get the materials collected to have some embryos created.

Have you thought about surrogacy?

Well at least you can adopt.

Relax, you’re not getting pregnant because you’re trying too hard!

Hey, you’ve already got your (one, two, insert number) perfect kid, be happy with what you have!

And other illuminating nuggets of cultural wisdom along those lines.

Rarely, if ever, are the underlying medical condition(s) of either spouse considered until well into the process. Most (not all, but most) fertility MDs are eager to proscribe pills and procedures with an eye towards conception, not stopping first to consider the related systems and potential deficiencies of a body – or bodies – that isn’t working properly to begin with.

That’s where the Catholic Church blows the rest of the reproductive medicine and technology field out of the water. Because not only does she champion NaPro technology and other reproductive medicines that respect the dignity of the lives (and potential lives) of all parties involved, but these methods are actually the most effective of all other Assisted Reproductive Technologies out there.

Yep, NaPro is more successful than IVF. And it has the primary benefit of being completely moral and completely in line with the profound dignity of sex and the human person. No disposable embryos, no illicit sperm collection, no chance at forgetting – or simply denying – the human dignity of the persons involved. Just good science and ongoing research that asks the why of a couple’s struggles with infertility instead of jumping right to the how can we fix this, at any cost?

Now, NaPro isn’t perfect, and it’s not a guaranteed catch all for couples who are struggling to get – or to stay – pregnant. But it still stands apart as the best option for infertility treatment in a sea of murky and immoral avenues and an immense amount of money.

(Important disclaimer: many people – even Christians – are woefully uneducated about the nature and the methods of traditional infertility treatments and ARTs. For them, the culpability of cooperating in evil is greatly reduced. And always, always, the dignity of the human person stands, no matter if they were conceived in rape, incest, or a million dollar laboratory.

All persons are created equal, but not all methods of creation are permissible – because they do not honor or recognize that innate human dignity, first, and second because they circumvent or bypass entirely the marital act, which is sacred in and of itself. End disclaimer.)

So I hope you’ll stick around this week because I have some wonderful stories to share with you. Not my own, but dear to me because they are my sisters’ stories, and because we are all members of the suffering body of Christ.

And if you know someone who is struggling with infertility right now? I’ll have some great advice from another mama in the trenches about how you can love them best. Even if it’s only (only!) through prayer and unwavering emotional support.

We’re all in this together, after all. And we’ll each of us be asked at some point to carry crosses whose weight would crush us, should we attempt to go it alone.

That’s what this week is hopefully about: dispelling the myth that any of us, no matter what we’re facing, is going it alone.

31 Days of Writing with the Nester, Catholics Do What?, Contraception, Family Life, infertility, Marriage, NFP

Let’s talk about “openness to life”

October 18, 2014

In a Catholic wedding, just before the exchange of vows, the priest or deacon receiving the couple’s promises to one another and to God asks a series of three questions. I thought they were part of the vows themselves, but they’re actually preliminary questions which allow the vows to proceed, if that makes sense.

They’re conditional, in a way. A sort of final litmus to test the sincerity of the couple entering into Holy Matrimony, making certain the conditions necessary for a valid marriage are in place.

“(Name) and (name), have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”

“Will you honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?”

“Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

That last line always gets me. I said those words with such sincerity, and without the faintest idea what I was actually getting myself into.

How hard can it be, right?

Dave and I were well prepared for marriage and kids, both by the examples we had in our own families and in our varies jobs. We were professional oldest siblings, bossy as hell (well, one of us) and super mature.

We were so set.

Then went and like, had a child of our own and we were all, oooooooohkay, this is a little different then what I was expecting.

With each additional kid we’ve added to our ranks, I’ve observed an odd mixture of increasing love and parental competence accompanied by stark, raving terror. Because more kids are more work, yes, but also because with each new baby bump my anxiety level ratchets up another thousand points because love invites loss.

There’s a very real point at which openness to life intersects with openness to loss.

There are the more obvious examples; infertility, miscarriage, still birth, infant death, loss of a child, major illness…and then there are the less apparent losses. Loss of autonomy. Loss of control. Loss of income. Loss of (perceived) ability to know the future.

I get why a culture such as ours, hell bent on control and predictability, has such a hard time accepting children. And actually, I don’t think it’s unique to our time. What is unique is the accessibility and widespread acceptance of contraception.

We still pledge to accept children lovingly from God, but we do so with fingers crossed behind our backs, knowing that at the end of the day, we don’t really have to rely on God in that arena in this day and age. I mean maybe we think He’ll send a couple our when we’re good and ready, hopefully healthy models that tick all the right boxes…but we don’t honestly plan on throwing caution to the wind and sailing bravely into the unknown, opening wide to the adventure of marriage and parenthood.

But what if we did?

What if agreeing to accept children lovingly from God was more than just an archaic line in an ancient religious ceremony? What if we actually lived that promise, (and I’m not talking about going quiver full or moving to Arkansas, though we do love a good Duggar episode in this house) giving our future over to God and asking for His plans, not our own, for our families. And what if His answer looked completely different from what we’d hoped?

What if there were no children at all, or only a precious one? What if there were 6, and we felt stretched past our breaking point and ready to drop dead? And what if, no matter what story He wanted to write with our fertility, we bowed our heads and whispered, not my while, but Yours, be done.

Maybe we’d be happier. Maybe our marriages would be richer. Maybe our houses would be destroyed and maybe our hearts would be broken open by disappointment and difficulty and sorrow … and maybe they would be so much larger for it.

I know this is a crazy thought, but what if God knows better than we do the plans He has for us … plans for our welfare and not for our woe? Plans to give us a future, and hope?

I struggle every single day with relinquishing control. From my first cup of coffee until my eyes close at night. I have three beautiful children. I’ve got it made. And I’m so lucky. Why rock the boat? Why be open to more difficulty? Why risk the chance that things might get messy(er)/painful/uncertain?

Well, this is why. Faith like this woman’s. That’s the kind of boldness I want to practice. That’s the stuff saints are made of. Radical openness, wild trust, and abandon to divine providence.

Now, to find the courage. Because quite frankly, it’s still a terrifying prospect.

Click here for the rest of the series

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