Infertility is a brutal, heart-wrenching experience. IVF isn’t necessarily the solution. Medically, morally, practically.
We are not all in the same office, most of us NR writers. So Abigail and I weren’t talking about human reproduction at the water cooler earlier. These things are being talked about more and more out in the open, in large part because they are making a mess of human relationships, and politicians seem to have no clue.
I saw in the comments section of my earlier post a question about what exactly “restorative reproductive medicine” is. The simple answer is: Actual medicine.
I wrote a bit about it a little in a recent edition of The Lifeline (and other editions, too). This is some of it:
Making Way for Old Ways of Making Babies
For all sorts of reasons, I’m delighted the New York Times is profiling Emma Waters from Heritage as a Gen Z role model (not for the first time — they clearly find her normalcy exotic).
And, honestly, it’s sweet, in a way, how they can’t help themselves. Consider this, from the piece:
Mrs. Waters, 28, works on policy related to reproductive technology and the family for the Heritage Foundation. In a few short years, she has become a rising leader for a conservative movement that is trying to change the trajectory of modern life. And she is at the movement’s vanguard, driven by her belief that life begins at conception — which she says is grounded in biology and her Christian faith — and that family life is paramount for women.
“Belief.” This isn’t like she’s trying to sell you on minions who come at night to entertain her children and tell them about Jesus when she’s sleeping. What she “says” has basic scientific proof. There are photos that people put on their social media accounts — or refrigerators, if they are old-school like Emma clearly can be, despite having a podcast and things.
And then after pointing out that she wanted to be referred to as Mrs. Waters, as if she asked to be referred to as Marvin the Martian, there’s this:
Another goal is to evangelize a competing system of reproductive care, called “restorative reproductive medicine.” It is based on the idea that “natural” fertility has been impaired by untreated health problems or poor lifestyle choices, and that it needs to be repaired and restored — an approach that many medical experts argue may give false hope to couples who have not been able to have children.
Seriously, is the Times trying to be a parody of itself? Scare quotes around “natural” modifying fertility. There is such a thing. We’ve spent a lot of cultural/ideological/political time treating fertility like a preexisting condition to be medicated away through carcinogenic contraceptive pills early and often.
Women deserve better than all of this, but girls are never told to insist on it.
But forgive me, please. There I go “evangelizing” about something “natural.” Mrs. Waters must be contagious.
Honestly, I wish she’d asked to be referred to as “Mrs. Jackson Waters” (Jackson being her husband’s name) just to see how they’d handle it. As she has written in response, apparently the concept of a woman embracing her role as “wife” appears to be a novelty. . . .
Restorative reproductive medicine is basically doctors doing what doctors do best: looking at the patient in front of them and seeing how best to treat her. The scandal of women’s medicine is that this is not the norm, especially when it comes to reproductive-medicine protocols.
Too many couples have experiences with doctors going straight to IVF as an option when they are struggling with infertility.
Some patients have religious prohibitions/objections to IVF. Some are concerned about the lives created and destroyed in the process. IVF is also expensive and leads to further heartache more often than not.
“Natural” means of reproduction do not need scare quotes.
The International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine is a good place to explore what it looks like — and to find a doctor.
Our friend — former NR writer — Maddy Kearns has written beautifully about the alternatives she pursued. And I’ve interviewed and written about Ericka Andersen and her testimony, having had a change of heart on the issue; she used IVF for her children, not having fully thought through the children she would be putting on ice in the process.
Infertility is a brutal, heart-wrenching experience. IVF isn’t necessarily the solution. Medically, morally, practically.
And I often think of my friends John and Kelly who had no idea there were children in foster care where they lived, and once they knew, they had to do something. They wound up fostering and adopting. To say it was not an easy road would be the understatement of our lives, but it’s what love does. And there’s joy in the midst of some of the most painful suffering.
For Christians, it’s hard to get around the love of Christ on the cross being that.
If you don’t know about Bishop W. C. Martin and his wife, Donna, and their Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Possum Trot, Texas, please see the movie. I was on the set the day the Martins and others were there, and the story is true to life and, well, if there are children who are orphans, we need to step up.
Foster and adoption advocates will be quick to correct me: It sounds harsh to say, but fostering and adoption really isn’t the fulfillment of a parenting dream. That may be part of the story, but a child can’t be about adults. A child is her own person, with a backstory and needs, and the road won’t be a fairy tale.
Real love will find a way through.