Regardless of its underlying medical cause, infertility is perhaps one of the most painful examples of human suffering. Our present inability to conceive a child with our spouse, to maintain a pregnancy, and to deliver a healthy baby cuts to the core of our being. We are created to "be fruitful and multiply." We are built to desire children. We are hard-wired to cooperate with God in the creation of new life. This is simply how God made us. When this does not happen, even if only for a time, it causes us to question our masculinity and femininity, which is at the very center of who we are as human beings. Infertility shakes the foundation of our vocation to marriage and family life. It causes us to question our own identity. If I am not a mother, then who am I? If I am not a father, then who am I?
As a couple moves into the painful experience of being unable to conceive, it can be helpful to identify the sources of their suffering. Infertility takes away many things that other couples take for granted: the sense of control over one's own body; the ability to plan for the future; the capacity to conceive a child with one's spouse; for a woman, the physical, emotional, and social experience of a healthy pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the ability to nurse her child; for a man, the experience of fathering a child with his wife and journeying with her through pregnancy and labor and delivery; the continuity of family heredity; the opportunity to look into a child's face and see a resemblance to one's own; the cultural trappings of entering parenthood the way most other couples do.
Spouses experience these emotional difficulties differently.
Excerpted from Facing Infertility. Get Facing Infertility to read more about surviving the struggle with infertility and its effect on one's marriage.
If you are experiencing difficulty conceiving, you deserve a sound diagnosis from a doctor who will work to provide a cure.
Without an accurate and complete diagnosis, an infertility doctor cannot even begin to treat and ultimately cure the underlying causes of infertility. But instead of healing a woman's reproductive system, infertility treatments often override it or shut it down and restart it by using a concoction of tremendously powerful drugs, the long-term side effects of which have not been adequately studied.(1) ...
Most fertility doctors use these powerful drugs and extraordinary measures because they want to help their patients conceive a child. Like their patients, they want this to happen in the quickest and surest way. ...
If you decide to call a doctor, I recommend that you avoid consulting one who would urge you to try ARTs. Instead, consider contacting one who will first diagnose and treat the underlying causes of infertility.
Read more about options in fertility treatment in Facing Infertility.
1. L. Lerner-Geva, J. Rabinovici, B. Lunenfeld, "Ovarian stimulation: Is there a long-term risk for ovarian, breast and endometrial cancer?" Women's Health 6, no. 6 (Nov. 2010): 831-9.
The first step in trying to conceive a child after months of no success is to become aware of the natural signs of fertility in a woman's cycle using Natural Family Planning (NFP). NFP is a way for couples to track the naturally occurring signs and symptoms that accompany a woman's cycle to clearly identify her most fertile time. This information can then be used to time intercourse to either avoid or try to achieve a pregnancy. NFP is a morally acceptable and highly effective alternative to contraception used by many Catholic and non-Catholic couples to postpone pregnancy. And for many couples who have had difficulty in conceiving a child, NFP has helped them. It also gives a woman valuable information about what is going on hormonally in her body throughout her cycle. Charting fertility signs using NFP can save months of testing and can reveal some of the ovulatory and hormonal irregularities that may be responsible for infertility. Charting these signs of fertility gives information far beyond the ovulation predictor kit that you can buy at a pharmacy and it will prove very helpful if you need to consult a doctor.
At least three main methods of NFP are commonly used: the Sympto-thermal method, the Billings method, and the Creighton method. These methods have revolutionized family planning and eliminated the guesswork and inaccuracies of the calendar rhythm method.
Read more about options in fertility treatment in Facing Infertility.
NaProTECHNOLOGY stands for Natural Procreative Technology. It represents a major scientific breakthrough "in monitoring and maintaining a woman's reproductive and gynecological health."(1) In addition to being useful for treating other gynecological disorders, NaProTECHNOLOGY works cooperatively with a woman's body, using, among other things, low doses of fertility medication and highly advanced reparative surgery to restore and maintain reproductive health in an entirely holistic way.(2)
Doctors who use this method will support your faith commitments and have been specially trained in highly effective infertility treatments that the average gynecologist or reproductive endocrinologist may not be aware of. The success rates of their methods match, and in some cases exceed, the widely acclaimed success rates of IVF without the moral, medical, and financial difficulties. In 2009, 47.4 percent of ART cycles in the United States in women under thirty-five resulted in pregnancy.(3) In comparison, recent data has shown that doctors trained in NaProTECHNOLOGY helped up to 70 percent of couples struggling with infertility to conceive a child.(4) Their revolutionary methods are highly successful and in line with our belief that all human life is sacred.
Finding a DoctorTo find a doctor in your area who is trained in NaProTECHNOLOGY, visit the website of FertilityCareTM Centers of America at www.fertilitycare.org and click on your state or region under "Find a Medical Consultant."
Read more NaProTECHNOLOGY in Facing Infertility.
God never punishes anyone with infertility.
God does not desire infertility for any of us.
God made us and all of creation flawless, and sin has disfigured us. All forms of human suffering-including infertility-are the result of original sin. If we feel we must blame someone or something for our infertility, we can blame human sinfulness. We cannot, however, blame God. God loves us unconditionally and he has intervened throughout human history to heal and redeem us.
Infertility indeed raises profound questions, but it is certainly not a punishment from a remote, heartless deity. It is not supposed to happen at all. It is solely the result of one or more things going wrong with the human reproductive system. This system is delicate and intricate, and even in cases of unexplained infertility, something has physically gone wrong in some way. Why does this happen? There is no satisfying explanation. Like other physical diseases and disabilities, infertility occurs because we live in an imperfect world.
Excerpted from Facing Infertility. Get the book to read more about surviving the struggle with infertility and its effect on one's marriage.
The National Center for Women's Health, associated with the Pope Paul VI Institute, is aligned with the Catholic Church's teachings on human reproduction and is one of the most successful infertility programs in the United States. The following websites are dedicated to different aspects of the mission of the Pope Paul VI Institute and are very helpful resources for couples struggling with infertility.