Tag: fertility

Wonderful and ridiculous

Can you stand to hear a story that’s probably a little too personal for these august pages? Because I have one! And I do have a reason for telling it.

I’m 50 years old. I have 10 children, and the youngest one just turned 10. I have grey hair and wrinkles and a little arthritis, and I spend more time hunting for my reading glasses than I spend on almost any other activity. The other day, I couldn’t remember the word “fork.”

I also have a body that stubbornly continues to keep popping out ova every month, right on schedule. As far as I can tell, I could probably get pregnant again if I wanted to, which I most adamantly do not. I know the chances of carrying a healthy baby to term at my age are (unlike myself) much slimmer than they used to be, but they certainly aren’t zero. I look at my family history and I think, nah, I’m not taking any chances.

I really like walking past the diaper aisle without buying anything! I like being able to take medicine without freaking out about possible birth defects. I prefer to spend my days in agonizing worry over the 10 children I already have, thank you very much. I really don’t want another baby.

Well, maybe a little bit. I do like babies. I actually love babies. If we had another baby, I would adore him from the very first second I knew he existed, and it would be incredible. It would be amazing. It would be preposterous. It would be insane. It would be so nice.

These are the thoughts that run through my head every month.

So the other morning, I groaned as I dragged my sorry self out of bed to do what I not-very-funnily call “my chemistry experiment,” to see if I was fertile that day or not. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my schlumpy old pajamas and thought how absurd it was that I still have to DO this. I’m so old! It’s so ridiculous! I am HALF A CENTURY OLD.

Then I thought, and how ridiculous would it be to show up at the OB/GYN with my grey hair and wrinkles and arthritis and a big ol’ pregnant belly? So I sighed, and did my dang fertility test.

I was chatting about this with some Catholic women my age, about how ridiculous it would be; and one of them said that, if I were pregnant, it wouldn’t be ridiculous. It would be beautiful!

Ladies and gentlemen, it would be both.

Two things can be true at the same time. In fact, most true things are at least two things at the same time. When we get ourselves into trouble is when we expect some human experience to be pure, unmixed, and clearly labelled as one thing or another.

Let me give you some more examples…. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image by Matthew McPherrin via Flickr (Creative Commons)

NFP Awareness Week: Clearblue Fertility Monitor Giveaway #1 and #2

Here we are again! NFP Awareness Week. Here’s the deal: We love the Marquette method of NFP. It’s made NFP so much easier and has given us so much more confidence. And, like, Corrie is almost three-and-a-half and she is still the youngest, so.

But the monitor costs more than $100, and you have to buy a box of test strips every few months, too. For many years, we just couldn’t afford it, and I know plenty of people are in the same boat.

Happily, I have many generous friends, and ten of them have offered to sponsor a total of eleven monitors to give away, plus several boxes of test strips, plus instruction with one or possibly two instructors!

 

Today, we have two sponsors, each sponsoring a monitor and box of test strips to give away. One is my friend Tanya Cleary, and the other is an anonymous donor. Thanks so very much to them!

For my part, I will try to post a new, terrible graphic each day this week. It’s not easy, but I’m willing.

Today’s raffle is open only to US residents. There will be one prize for UK residents and one for Australia residents in the coming days.

The raffle details:

How do I enter? Use the Rafflecopter form below. It gives you several ways to enter. If the form doesn’t show up, click on the link that says “a Rafflecopter giveaway” at the bottom of the post. Only one prize per household.

How often can I enter? You may enter once per day, using as many ways of entering as you like (see form below for details). Two winners will be chosen per day. Each day is a separate raffle. Each raffle runs from midnight to midnight, eastern time.

Can I win if I live outside the US? Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are open only to US residents. On Thursday, there will be one prize for a US resident and one for a UK resident; and on Friday, there will be one prize for a US resident and one for an Australia resident.

When will winners be announced? I’ll choose two winners each day on Monday through Friday. I’ll announce all the winners on Friday, or possibly on Saturday if I am a terrible person.
If you are a winner, I will notify you using the address you provided to Rafflecopter.

Do I have to provide my actual email address, even though I worry that you will use it to steal my soul and then go on a shopping spree at Forever 21? Yes, please use an actual email address. I don’t even want your soul. Your valid email is the only way I have of getting in touch with you if you win, so please make sure that when you sign up for Rafflecopter, you use an active address! If I can’t get in touch with you, I’ll pick a different winner.

 

If the Rafflecopter form doesn’t show up below, here’s the link to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

New Women’s Wellness and Fertility Center in NH includes NaPro surgeon (and they’re hiring!)

I keep forgetting to tell you! There’s a new women’s wellness and fertility center opening in Manchester, NH, right inside Catholic Medical Center. They offer standard OB/GYN services  and well woman exams, and their new doctor, Dr. Sarah Bascle, is a surgeon who is trained in NaProTechnology.

As you may know, NaPro is not only ethically sound for Catholics, but it often has a high rate of success treating women suffering infertility, repeat miscarriages, endometriosis, PCOS, and other fertility issues, bringing healing where standard medical procedures fail. NaPro isn’t magic, but it’s real medicine, not woo, and it can be life-changing.

The Women’s Wellness & Fertility Center of New England opens in winter of 2017, and they are now pre-registering patients. Check out their webiste here, or call 603.314.7595.

They are also still hiring for a few positions, including an experienced Certified Nurse Midwife. Here’s some more info about that.

Best of luck to them! Many couples will travel for hundreds of miles to work with a NaPRO-trained doctor, so I’m thrilled to finally have one in New Hampshire.

 

Ding ding! Your wife is ready. Sex Ed at the Fishers, part II

I’ve recently started using Marquette, and haven’t yet formed the habit of putting the monitor away in the morning. (I haven’t yet formed the habit of putting anythingaway, to be honest, but that’s a separate problem.) This means that the kids keep finding it and going, “oooOOOOOoooo, what’s THIS?” Because yeah, the new style monitor kinda looks familiar:

 

monitors

 

It’s confusing, Bill. We’re all confused.

Nevertheless, as parents, we believe in Always Answering Questions, in as much detail as seems appropriate for the time and place, and for the age of the kid who wants to know. It’s much more valuable to answer a spontaneous question than to give unsolicited information.

So when my son, who is ten, wanted to know what this machine does, I told him, “Well, you know a woman’s body changes throughout the month, and she can’t make a baby just any time. Sometimes her body isn’t ready to make a baby. So this machine helps her figure out if her body is ready right now, or not.”

So he says, “Oh, it’s like when you preheat the oven, and it goes ‘ding ding ding!’ when it’s time to put the cake in?”

And I said, ” . . . Yes.”