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#707 Infertile But Fruitful: Finding Fulfillment When You Can’t Conceive · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are podcast, a production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jack Riggers, your host.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in my writing and presentations, sharing theology of body across the country, I'm often confronted with couples that are having problems with infertility.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they ask, you know, what how's this God's plan for us?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not easy discussions because I sense when I'm speaking to them, whether it's in a in in a crowd or off to the side, the pain, the pain that they're, you know, is this ache that they that they feel wanting to have it and conceive a child.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they're seeking answers and they're looking for hope and wondering, is there a path for me to fruitfulness in our marriage even when we can't conceive a child?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Often we they they talk about the strain in their marriage.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my guest today struggled with these questions herself, wrote a great book, Infertile but Fruitful, finding fulfillment when you can't conceive.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Lee Fitzpatrick Sneed, thank you so much for being here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure, Jack.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you just a little background.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a long bio there, but I'll put some more in the show notes, uh Lee.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: But uh you you're addressing these same questions as a fellow for the Catholic Association, co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show Conversations with Consequences.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're also a writer, editor, speaker, wife, mother of four, so you st you you keep busy, but but yet you sat down and and wrote a book.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why did you decide to write this book, which is which is for us and our work is coming at at just a beautiful time?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's um yeah, I I definitely am busy, and it definitely took a lot of sacrifice, especially on the part of my family, for me to be able to set aside that time and write.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I bet you um but um you know I wrote a couple pieces for the National Catholic Register on infertility, and one of them was an open letter to those suffering from infertility, and it really got a big response.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I heard from, you know, strangers, um, priests saying, like, finally, like this is a good thing.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can have this on file to help me talk to these couples, I can point them in this direction.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I heard from people I that I actually were friends, was friends with, but I didn't know they were suffering, and somehow they felt like they felt seen, you know.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I got such a big response from it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And a mentor of mine just said to me, I think this is your book.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is your book.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you're gonna help people.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is gonna be your thing.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was lucky.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I put a proposal together.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sophia wanted to publish it, and the rest is history, I guess.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is this your first book?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're doing a lot of writing, a lot of editing, a lot of, you know, speaking, but is this the first time you sat down to write a book?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So so who were you thinking about when you know you when you wrote this?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, you say, hey, you know, because because there is fruitfulness in the in sharing our stories, and you say this so well in the book.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we you know, being humans, not easy.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to share, we need to be with each other.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is all part of this fruitfulness that you speak of in this book, and that's why it it it really hit me, it struck me in such a beautiful way, that this fruitfulness that we think about marriage in the family it that continues to go on, doesn't it?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, to to people that we meet.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this love story is it isn't supposed to be just our tiny love story, but as we flow out into the into the world, right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think I was at a point in my life getting to my late 40s where I was sort of getting, you know, comfortable with saying in my head at first and then sort of out loud, I'm never going to be pregnant, you know, because no one had ever told me that I wasn't going to, but you know, obviously in your late 40s it's never happened, you know, statistically speaking.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you still, I think this is probably true for a lot of other women, um, you know, you still hope in a small way, and maybe not all the time, but just little things.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it's a weird, it's a weird thing, especially when, you know, you haven't had any sort of cutoff, but you realize this is it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna be one of those crazy stories that people pass around, you know, like she tried for 20 years and then she finally got pregnant.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's not that's not happening here.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just realizing how how good my life was, in spite of what this this cross I was asked to carry.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I felt there are times when it feels like it's going to kill you.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that reflecting on that, that part of my life, the responses I was getting, and then looking back to how where I was in my twenties as a young Catholic bride.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it was supposed to be impossible not to get pregnant.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you And you say in the book that was your dream, right?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that you know, you you had this image in your mind, I'm gonna get married, we're gonna have this beautiful family, and you ended up with a beautiful family, but but not the way you you were imagining.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's backtrack just a little bit so our our audience knows.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned you have four children, so let's let's talk about that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So those those were adoptions, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when we had struck out um with, you know, trying on our own to get pregnant for a year, and then I did a couple, you know, like I, you know, the internet was just sort of no early 2000s.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was more like chat rooms and things.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and of course, the infertile women had one, but it was mostly people who were using IBF.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but still you get little tips and things about like how to change your diet, drink green tea, pay attention to your laundry detergent, get some acupuncture.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't know.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of stuff going on, you know.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of stuff.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And because it there wasn't anything as far as I mean, obviously my unexpert just laywoman eye could pick out, like saying, like, oh, you know, there's a big problem here.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: It looked on my charts and stuff like this should be working.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I tried some of those sort of things for a while.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: We saw a conventional doctor who it became very, very unpleasant.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't very open to doing things by the Catholic, you know, playbook.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we live, I I'll just give you this little caveat Lee that, you know, I'm I'm from Illinois and outside the Chicago area, uh, Western suburbs, and this is the IVF capital of the world, you know, so so people just uh gravitate right away to IVF.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's one of the reasons that your book's so important, because what it's one of the first things that'll come up.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're trying to get pregnant.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: The the church says you can't use IVF, so you've got to go through all of that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't just leave people in despair, you know.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you bring up in the book uh who we know very well, we've had on the show a number of times, are the the Hilgers, uh Dr.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tom Hilgers with the Napro uh technology, Napro, I guess, is really the the way you say it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I've been to his conventions and and and we had Teresa his his daughter on.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you went that route too, where you have to chart through using the Creighton model.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had to learn it over the phone.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so talk a little bit about that because you know your journey was not an easy one and and so and it wasn't it wasn't straightforward.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't think infertility is always gonna be bumpy, but we actually, after we had the bad experience with the conventional doctor, we just decided, again, still in our 20s, and we just knew we really wanted to be parents.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't discerning if adoption was right for us just wasn't a big thing.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: We just always knew we were open to it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't like, I think some people were like, oh, I always wanted to grow up and adopt, or maybe have both biological in this.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: It just we knew that if we weren't getting pregnant, we were totally open to that way of building a family, which wasn't a big deal for us.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we decided let's, and people had said, you know, it takes a long time with the paperwork and the background checks and things, go ahead and do that, and you can still continue to try to conceive.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we did.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we ended up um with our son, a newborn domestic adoption, about six weeks after we had started the process.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it turns out that it was sort of about nine months after the last time we walked out of the angry doctor's office and never went back.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: When when you say angry doctor, what what he was angry or you were angry or you're both angry at us?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that doesn't surprise me.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they really push that hard, don't they?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Push it really hard.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you, if it's really hard to resist because there are pictures of babies everywhere, there are pregnant women in those offices.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: There, I mean, they make it sound so good, especially if you're young.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna tell you how great your chances are.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really it's really hard to say no.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, even if you go in there fully, like you feel like you've got this, there's no way you're gonna do this.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: But when you have been desiring a baby for so long and your arms are still empty, and somebody can just say, like, we can fix this for you.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: This can all be over.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you can really bargain with yourself in your head in your darkest moments.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just do this and then I'll never think about it again.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to talk to people about it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we won't create excess embryos, we won't do this, we won't do that.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, ultimately, obviously we were thankfully able to resist that temptation.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it was never a serious consideration.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that it's a real it's such a blessing now that Dr.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hilders, his students are now all over the country.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are other um restorative, reproductive medicine doctors out there.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's easier to find them.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And thank goodness, because if you're trying to chart your own way with a conventional practice that also does IVF, it's going to be very hard to get what you want out of that medical practice.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you're kind of a waste of time for them.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're looking back now and you're looking at all of these things.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't write this book just you mentioned IVF in here, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you didn't really dwell on it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to take you off track too far because there's some other things I want to get to.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody says, yeah, why don't we just do IVF?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you know, is it Yeah.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sure this is if you can do that in an elevator speech or not, Lee.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that's that's putting a lot on your shoulders, but No, it's okay.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's a very, a very simple thing that I use it often to like explain it to friends or loved ones who maybe aren't Catholic or well catechized.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's basically the basic teachings of our church about human sexuality.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: We believe the marital embrace is supposed to be procreative and unitive.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: IVF deliberately, number one, invites sort of other people into the bedroom.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And additionally, it complete it separates the unitive and the procreative.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then furthermore, it also treats um children not as a gift, but as something to be purchased.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's sort of the nutshell.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um also if you think about it, if if it involves, I mean, there are ways to do it that can skirt some other issues, but there's lots of different reasons why this is off the table for us with our view of the good of our bodies and sexuality.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I think, you know, in order to make sense of this, you have to see that, you know, the the this this bigger love story, huh?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that our bodies are actually sacramental, um, which which uh, you know, there's a couple ways I want to go here, but maybe I can just go a little bit further here and I'll backtrack because I wanted to talk to you to to you about Dr.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hilders and Nepero a little bit because I know people are asking those questions.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But often when I'm uh presenting theology of the body, you know, we're we're talking about this this sacrament of marriage, you know.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all created in the image of God.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: A fuller image, John Paul and the church would say, is marriage in the in the family.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, why?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the the God the Father, in essence, gives us love to the Son, the Son receives that love, and so beautiful and profound it comes out in the form of a person.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: We call that person the Holy Spirit, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: The love begotten of the Father and the Son.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this fuller image is a tiny sacramental reflection of Trinitarian love, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the husband gives us love to his wife, his wife receives that love, and it's so beautiful and profound, you know, really reflecting Trinitarian love that sometimes it comes out in the form of a person, a child.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what so many of these uh the women that I talk to, and the men too, you know, uh say, well, how about us if we're infertile, uh Lee?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, are you know where where does our fruitfulness come from in in our marriage?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you address those things and you do it very beautifully in the in the book.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, and and it is that is really hard because I mean, it's the works of uh St.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: John Paul II, I mean, we just uh really appreciate the way we're created and our bodies and the way we compliment one another in marriage.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when I mean, just think about this.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was looking at your beautiful Guadalupe picture behind you, and we have those all over our house too, but you there's just you know so many beautiful pictures of our lady with her hand resting on her belly, and this is, you know, our role model as wives, as mothers, and this is what we want to be, and it's not working.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's really it's a big battle you have with your own body.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why isn't my body cooperating?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: If it was so wonderfully made, like what's going on here?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially when you're given a diagnosis.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that I was given an unexplained infertility diagnosis.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think those are not as common anymore because I think the science and the technology is getting to a point where they're able to better give give better names to this stuff.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Although I've I haven't seen, you know, that kind of doctor in a long time, but I will from what I understand from my younger friends.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's there's that.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's sort of like, well, what are we supposed to do?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's this what's this gonna look like?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for us, like I said, adoption wasn't a big deal for us.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we went straight to adoption.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we had our son, um, and then we then we finally took the time to learn Crate and model and then saw Dr.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hilders when I think by the time I was able to get to Nebraska, my first son was three.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for us, we did it all at the same time.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that under if if you're you can be infertile, I think it's and I make a point of this a lot, and maybe um people are will be tired of hearing about if they've heard me say it before, but I do think it's important to remember that the day you say I do is the day you become a family.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And God loves you right now, as you are, and it's true all the time everywhere, and it's always so hard to remember it, but your family's enough.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you are capable of bearing fruit, and we shouldn't make the mistake of just always reducing the idea of fruitfulness to actual babies.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was I don't think you can say that enough, Lee.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're okay, good.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so either.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you can say that enough.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and whether you it you know you've conceived your own children or not, I don't think you can say that enough, you know, because uh oftentimes even a husband and wife, their relationships are getting strained and they end up divorcing.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you you have to realize that you're already a family, you're a union that the two became one, and let no man separate what God has put put put it put together, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, when are you gonna start a family really misses that point, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: But and we're all probably guilty of saying it, just not realizing it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I probably have said that too.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I'm gonna keep in mind, yes.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because you and again, you you say this in the book so well, and you make you talk examples of this, you know, you if we think about God, God is is is not a sexual being, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, God God is this flow of love, you know.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to remember that, that we were our bodies are created to be a sacramental sign.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're embodied souls, filled with the spirit, and we're we're just because we walked into this world and we're filled with God, we're bringing love into the world.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and can you describe that a little bit?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you talk about the and I I I think it was on page 99, I think.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I just it stuck in my mind this morning.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Inherent natural motherhood.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Inherent natural motherhood.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and John Paul uh was also speaking about the beauty of that, the beauty of uh of adoption.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the beauty of this love.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I get this image when I was reading your book of just this love just being poured out beyond, you know, this family, your husband and you, and then and then the fruitfulness just starts to pour out and and you see this around you, and you go, yeah, these people are bringing this beautiful fruit, fruitfulness into the lives of of your adopted children, but it also in other ways, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's really important to remember when you are an infertile couple, but you're not called to be an adoptive parent.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's really easy to um sort of conflate the two or just see it as a natural step, you know.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, and it's I've I've thought it too about people like, why don't they just adopt?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just, you know, it really, and I don't know how to describe it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I feel like I the what only things I really know about adoption are my own personal experiences.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I do know that that I mean and I have friends who were never able to conceive, but they weren't called to adopt a child.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And for whatever reason.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to pause you here for a second.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's very important what you're saying right now, because we often do that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I just don't want people to to miss that point again.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: So so kind of say that again, will you?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, I I'm sorry to do that to you, but I I think it's just really important.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that we um when we love someone, we want to help fix their problems, you know.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we see, especially if we know families who have adopted children and are happy and fulfilled, and they see like, wow, what a wonderful thing, they want other infertile people to do the same thing, you know, and you see them at church, you see just you think about like I mean, Mother's Day is like the pinnacle.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of women who write on infertility talk about Mother's Day at Mass.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a it's a really big one.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you think year after year you're there, and that's not happening for you.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we treasure families and children and motherhood so much in the culture of the church, which is obviously good and important, but it's easy for those people to feel awkward and uncomfortable and not sure where they fit, even in like you're just your small parish community, if you go micro like that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think we are those who have children or those who didn't experience the fertility, often lack the vocabulary to be able to talk to them about it and to include them in things.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we worry almost too much, you know, you sort of go out ahead with the I don't know whether that's the right idiom.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, the point is I think that they feel left out and we don't include them.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they feel even more left out and withdrawn.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And for some of us, I think if we think, oh, but if they just adopted a baby, then she could join the mom's groups and we could do this, and they'd be at the pair school and we would know what to do with them, you know?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas I mean, couples with out wholly married couples in the church without children offer so much.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: They have so much to give.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my friend Ann Cashute, who runs an infertility ministry called Springs in the Desert, which is amazing, um, she talks about it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Her and her husband, they had infertility, didn't adopt, but their radical availability to serve those like in the church, their older relatives, siblings, nieces and nephews, all kinds of stuff.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that because we talk a lot about welcoming children using like a radical hospitality, but her radical availability as you know, a a married couple without children to be able to go at a moment's notice.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: If someone's in the hospital, she's there.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: She's able, you know, this her maybe her siblings with children can't do that for their ailing father.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's a real gift that needs to be celebrated.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's so personal that that decision and that discernment, that call to adoption, that sort of suggesting it to someone that's, you know, in a casual way anyway.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, people have private, you know, conversations where that could be appropriate.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But sort of pushing that model on someone is just it's like a it's a step too far.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's and I think it's hard for sometimes people to realize that it's the same about like asking about like your marital love life.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but because it's it doesn't involve, you know, human reproduction to adopt a baby, people don't think about it as that intimate, but it is.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're it's still parenthood and baby raising and things.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that there just has to be a better understanding about it.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that conversation is developing all the time.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's getting better.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think the more we talk about it, I think the more that women who experience infertility can talk about that without making other people feel uncomfortable, the way that some, you know, women talk about, you know, their pregnancies and their birth stories over and over again.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: If if it's as common to talk about your infertility too, without it being, you know, just like sort of a big pity party, but just sort of like this is this is the way things happen for us.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously not all the time, but you know what I mean, be able to drop it casually into conversation, the stigma goes away.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Women feel less alone, couples feel less alone, they feel more part of the community.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: They are in turn less likely to be tempted by IBF because when you're suffering with shame and silence and you feel alone and not part of a community, it's very easy to convince yourself you could keep doing IBF a secret too, and no one would have to know, and then your family would look just like everyone else's.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that that conversation just needs to happen.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the other thing you talk about is for the it's so important for the couples to also share with each other because too, you know, there's also male infertility, and it's something again that just reminded me just to be careful in my conversations.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: To, you know, you said it's okay to stay in the ache in in essence.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So so so your own ache.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: We all have aches, don't we?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're afraid to go there, share that with others.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: People.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just wrote a book for my uh myself.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh should be published soon uh for these young guys.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that Claymore sword behind is is is our logo for for young men.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's an apostolate called Claymore.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the chapters I wrote in there is staying in the ache, you know, that you stay in that ache and invite God into that ache.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's different than shame, isn't it, Lee?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not shame.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's can you explain that a little bit?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you you did touch on that in the book too.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is not something to be sh ashamed about.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we chose.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you're gonna feel an ache, and don't just try to, I think don't just try to push it aside, but almost, you know, invite others and God especially into that ache so that we can start to share this with each other, especially husband and wife, I think.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really like that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I I like how you're kind of talking about it as almost if it's like the ache is like a a hole or like a divot or something that can be filled.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to like you can't pave it over.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: You have to let God's love come to you and l to let that ache also make you feel the ache is a lack.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be want to feel it and you want to be drawn to the cross.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be drawn into God's love for you.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And to for me anyway, it's because it's such a physical situation, it's a it's a medical diagnosis, infertility.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It has to do with like sort of the fleshiest parts of ourselves, the marital union, everything.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: It just reminds me over and over again.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And again, when I was in the depths of it, I wasn't having these sort of clear, clear clearer thoughts.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why you write a book you wrote a book later on, right?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back on on the but you just think about the reality of God becoming man to suffer.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that that whole fleshiness about that too, like really draws you into him if you let it.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just this unbelievable, soulful and physical ache.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I think when you embrace that, which is really hard, which is why it's called a cross, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it can lead to beautiful things.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that again, it takes time.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you're a young person and you're reading this, you're listening now and you're thinking, oh, you know, I don't know what my future is gonna look like.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't even found a husband yet, and you know, all these things.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but why it's important because uh a lot of the people we're meeting, especially the women, are getting older and they feel their biological clock ticking and they're wondering, maybe I won't be able to have children.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just by a victim of time.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because it, you know, not even, you know, and then I can't I get I can only imagine the the feelings of, oh, if I'd only met him sooner.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't it wasn't like a you know a physiological problem.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just old now, or I'm older now.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that has to bring with it its own kind of heartache.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the reasons why I tried to include other women's stories.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in and actually it's interesting because I had cast the net fairly wild, um by the wide, I mean wild maybe too.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: The but you know, I think just over the years, you make friends in Catholic circles and you meet other infertile friends.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought I had this really pretty big pool to pull from to get these other little stories.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And out of maybe eight to ten women I asked, only three responded.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because other people, I think they had realized that maybe they hadn't really dealt with some of these feelings yet.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe they hadn't really, they weren't there yet.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I thought that was interesting on its own.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the three that did were just perfect because one couple were married later, one couple has male factor infertility, and then another couple, um, she had such uh bad endometriosis that she had to have a hysterectomy resulting in permanent infertility at a pretty young age.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I wanted people to pick up the book who, again, either, you know, they didn't have the kind of infertility I did, or they didn't feel called to adopt, just to find somebody, another story in there, but to see how that kind of pain is a little bit universal within, I mean, obviously within human beings, but I think there are different ways that those things around childbearing and pregnancy and um you know that that longing for something, um, we all connect no matter what the cause, underlying cause is.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as as we we start to unwind here, time goes so fast.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you know, you I I I I do want to touch on the spiritual side of this because uh, you know, even you mentioned when you were struggling, yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're all gonna have strains in our marriages, and and and this is gonna add another strain uh uh strain to it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about the closeness, and this is so important, and and I think what we're seeing in our culture uh lead today is people are waking up that I'm speaking to.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're either not waking up at all, but when they do wake up, they're starting to look around and saying, wow, something, something about it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not who we're created to be.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there has to be something more, and of course there is.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh any couple, I don't care where they're at, if they don't find Christ and they don't find forgiveness for themselves and and and they feel that ache that we all have with Christ and then share that with one another, I don't know how you get through this crazy worldly.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you and you addressed that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just talk about uh the importance of your faith and your journey to Christ?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really beautiful.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't spend a lot of time there, but you spent enough time to say, hey, this is important.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that the fact that we both really treasured the teachings of the church um was uh an an a practical any uh aspect anyway that kind of helped kept keep us unified because there is a very, very high divorce rate among couples who experience infertility because of the stress and all kinds of things.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: But so so higher obviously than normal.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which okay Yeah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um I could see that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can I can too.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think and I don't know whether and those are just sort of you know, just normal stats.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know what the stats are for Catholics.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the um the idea that we were created for something, for something, even just even not knowing what that was gonna look like and doing it together, there was you know, we we are this one flesh union.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is our marriage.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: We were meant to do this together for Christ.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um made it so much easier.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ever really I mean, sometimes obviously the sort of more venal feelings get in the way, like why do I have to take all these shots?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I have to do this?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have to do, you know, but that's I mean, low level, you know, stuff, just that resentment that you just need to get over.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you can carry this, and I don't want to get too personal here, and don't, don't, don't, don't go there if you don't want to, but but this can affect that intimacy for sure in in in in the bedroom, right?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then a woman saying, you know, I I you know, this is supposed to be unitive and procreative, and I'm not getting pregnant, and you know, I there's gotta be Yeah, I mean there too, right?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And as beautiful as all this re uh restorative reproductive medicine, Naprotechnology is about treating women and coming to them with their natural cycles and stuff, it's still a lot of medicine, injections, timing, blood tests.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like drinking like herbal tea and dancing through a flower field and then praying, you know.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's still very could be surgical procedures in this.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, surgical procedures, recovery times, all kinds of stuff.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh I think that's important too, that um it don't over-romanticize that.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you're being treated medically for infertility, it's still gonna be that.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be just sort of waking up one day and realizing you're pregnant, like on TV.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think that's I'm really glad you brought that up because that's important and it does affect that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I advise against dating for a long period of time before getting married.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of feel like you should just get married.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: My husband and I uh had never received that advice and we dated for four years.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it helped that he went away, he was older and went away to law school while I was still an undergraduate, so we weren't in the same town, which I think helped.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: But we really developed a very, very close friendship.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: We were really good friends.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, we were young and we were kids.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's always been just a, you know, there's a playfulness.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're really, really good friends.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that we really like a good laugh.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that really sustained us through those years of like intensive, like, you know.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I tell a story in the book, I think it's in the book, that um one night he was out with some colleagues and he'd forgotten it was an injection night.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he had had a couple cocktails, well-deserved, hardworking man.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but getting that needle in was a little bit difficult.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so he was he was giving you the injections, huh?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, you have to have a good sense of humor to roll through it, you know.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think too, like we just a lot of couples stick with it.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: They stick with it for years and years and years.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: For us, we decided, you know, enough was enough at a certain point, and you know, we just adopted again and then again.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you you you adopted twins in in the middle there, right?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're are they all boys?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: All boys.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: All boys, yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, congratulations and and thank you so much for sharing that story.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I when I edit this, I'll put this up behind us uh so we'll see it better than when I'm holding it up.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: But uh infertile but fruitful.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I it's such a beautiful it actually the the image on there is is gorgeous, but when you think about but fruitful, you know, we we have a very small window of time uh on this earth, don't we, Lee?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to forgive ourselves and get over ourselves, and we have to say, hey, not everything's gonna be perfect like I dreamed, but they're very difficult to do.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think you can journey without good friends uh and without Christ.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how people do it, to tell you the truth.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they do it today.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I tried it myself a couple times, it didn't work very well, Lee.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's a failed experiment, you know.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um so you have to draw closer.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you know, you picture Jesus on the cross, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is my body given for you.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have to look up and say, the God of the universe loves me, has a plan for me.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not easy to do a first, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: We we know this.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Forever, really.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Forever.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but but you know, we we know as as you wrote in, you know, in here, that you look back and you go, God was there, God was there, God did have a plan for me.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't perfect.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know the whole story, but I I think about that image of the divine mercy, you know, and Christ gets hit with uh with the lance and and and the water and the blood comes out, you know, and and and the water is you know, baptism and forgiveness.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then the blood is a union, a communion with him, right?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so any marriage that we have um is always that union and communion is it when all the smoke and fog clears points directly at the Eucharist and his thirst, his desire to be one flesh with us.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really what it's all all about.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love the title, Infertile But Fruitful, Finding Fulfillment When You Can't Conceive.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: You you're gonna have to let this love go out, and you're gonna have to open your eyes and let God put the people in front of you that He wants there and and just love them because people need love, don't they?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lee in this crazy world.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: They we really need love.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I could see it's in your eyes.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're you're a loving person.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us where we can contact you, um, where we can buy the book and your radio show, etc.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want us to do?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: You direct us here in the last okay.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can go to lefitzpatricksneed.com.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, give me that again.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: LeeFitzpatricksneed.com.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Try to keep that posted up with new things that I've written or done.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, also, my work is often featured at thecatholicassociation.org.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there you could see the work of my colleagues too, which is all excellent.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Our EWTN radio show, Conversations with Consequences, um, can be heard as a podcast or from the on EWTN radio.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it plays on Saturday mornings.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And also you can listen to it on the EWTN app.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the book can be purchased at Sophia Institute Press, um, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere you find your books, but it's best to get it from Sophia.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll we'll get that, we'll we'll get those links in there.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.