Infertility Awareness Week

This week is Infertility Awareness Week and as a Catholic woman I wanted to share how important it is that the Church recognize this week and the inherent challenges that Catholic infertile women face in today’s society.

Infertility is pretty rampant these days with infertility rates higher than ever and birth rates lower than ever.

As a Catholic woman, my options for resolving infertility are far more limited than the the average person. I cannot participate in methods like IUI, IVF, and surrogacy. I am given a few options: NAPROtechnology, fertility meds, endometriosis surgery, and adoption. That has “stung” over the years, even though I recognize the flaws of the other methods and their moral dilemmas.

I did not do the surgery after much discernment. I did take the meds for many years unsuccessfully, and I did use NAPROtechnology for many years as well.  I did eventually feel a call to adoption, and that is how I am becoming a mother currently. Adoption was three years in the making.

Like so many say, adoption truly does not resolve infertility. I see that now super clearly. It is a special calling, and dare I say, a very hard calling. But Catholic priests very flippantly say to consider adoption during infertility trials, without realizing the hardship of the path to get to an adopted child, the gravity of finances involved ($60K+), and the actual journey of parenting a child who is not of your own biology.

Not having your own biological child is a real cross that is hard to swallow even when you’re given children through adoption. Adoption requires a certain detachment and realizing that the children you have are never really your own and may choose someday to walk away back to their birth parents after all the investment you made in their upbringing.

I would challenge the Catholic Church to do a better job of walking alongside the infertile couples in their midst, especially given all the barriers the Catholic Church puts infertile couples through in creating a family of their own. I would also challenge the Catholic Church to stop assuming that adoption is the path for all infertile couples, and to be more realistic about the difficulties of that path nowadays - especially financially. And lastly, I hope that the Church eventually finds better solutions to infertility medically for infertile couples that help them achieve the biological child they yearn for. The current methods are very much lacking effectiveness for most of us.