Thinking Catholic on ARTs

A while back, I wrote a post explaining why I take issue with being told that we have done IVF when in fact we have only done FETs (frozen embryo transfers).  You can read the post here.  At the time, I still believed that I could reconcile the official Catholic teaching with my personal discernment on the subject.  My intended audience for that post was fellow Catholics who are too quick to judge when the idea of ARTs (artificial reproductive technologies) comes up.

I got flamed by a non-Catholic (at least a non-practicing Catholic) who went out of her way to accuse me of being self-righteous when all I was trying to do was explain WHAT the RCC teaches and HOW embryo adoption via FET is in line with that teaching.  I was not in any way trying to insinuate that those who actually do IVF are in any way less holy than me, because I know that is poppycock.

However, having been unable to convince the more narrow-minded "orthdox" Catholics to use their God-given reasoning abilities, I've realized that I was going to have to re-access the value of trying to convince haters to love.

Truth be told, when I was explaining how an FET is not the same as IVF, it was not to highlight how brilliant I am in remaining within the confines drawn out for me by the Church.  No.  I was simply stating facts.  But to be honest, this doesn't mean that I wouldn't have done IVF if I actually had the chance.  I might have.  In fact, we were going to.

This is no secret.  I discuss this aspect of our journey here and here. Granted, at the time, I was not fully knowledgeable on the Catholic church's teaching of ARTs.  However, I certainly discerned the next steps carefully.  I have said that the temptation to do IVF was removed from us by virtue of our SCOS dx.  However, honestly, this is a bit of a cop-out.  Now I see that in spite of all my well-meaning attempts to explain to the uninitiated how we ended up staying within the confines of Church teaching, I am still being judged.  I finally see that there is no pleasing some people.

I'm glad that the reason we didn't do IVF was for practical reasons and not theological ones.  Otherwise, I might be resenting the Church big time right now.

There are two reasons the Church opposes IVF.  One has to do with the creation of more embryos than can reasonably be transferred in a fresh cycle, leading to various additional moral dilemmas such as cryopreservation, possibilities of lab mishaps, and possible eventual adoption or destruction of "extra" embryos.  I fully agree with this reasoning.  There are too many things that can go wrong to fully protect created life outside the womb.

However, the other reasoning against IVF is a stretch.  While I am all for the sanctity of marriage and keeping marriage, sex, and babies all together in an Earthly trinity, we cannot pretend that marriage is a simple algebraic equation that cannot function without the right combination of factors.  Sometimes in life, we have to compromise.  Sometimes we have to improvise.  Obviously, separating sex from procreation is not ideal.  But to say that the spouses "deserve better" when that better is to remain childless and have that be a daily reminder of how the sex isn't leading to procreation? That's absurd.  How exactly is that honoring the marital bond between the spouses?  

And, dare I ask, where is the overwhelming support in our church communities for childless married couples, so that it can be abundantly clear how they are a complete family without children, how they are fully valued members of the parish, how they have many gifts to offer us and lessons to teach us?  I'm at a very friendly, "liberal" Franciscan parish, and even here this sort of climate simply doesn't exit.

Childless married couples are seen as social lepers. Oftentimes, they are first assumed to be contracepting, and therefore are judged for that.  When it becomes evident that they are infertile, they are then judged for not adopting.  Few people  bother to consider what adoption entails or that not every family is eligible to adopt.  When pushed into a corner with this knowledge, that's when the "here's your chance to shine as a saint" commentaries come out. 

At any rate, let's be honest.  The way Catholic life actually plays itself out on the ground, outside of theological books and encyclicals, is that to be a married Catholic means to be a parent.  Otherwise, the Church doesn't know what to do with you.  Catholics have a lot more options than many others when it comes to life vocations.  Many religions simply assume that everyone must get married and have kids. Catholics have callings to the religious life, to the single lay life, and to married life.  Unfortunately, the married life does assume children.  So we still get stuck with the short end of the stick, even in Catholicism.

I believe that our understanding of suffering as redemptive can only be useful for childless married couples when they have truly exhausted all of their options.  We are not supposed to strive for martyrdom!  If we can avoid suffering, or alleviate the suffering of someone else, then we are to do so, as long as in so doing we do not commit a grave sin.  And this is where I have to part ways with my fellow Catholics who consider a married couple who employ modern technology and medicine in their attempt to "be fruitful and multiply" (as God commanded) as committing a grave sin.

When it comes to sex and sexuality, I really think it best to leave the philosophizing to those who are able to apply first-hand experience to the subject at hand.  Only the spouses involved can decide if a certain decision will improve or deteriorate their relationship when it comes to their sex lives.  Well-meaning celibate theologians: let my husband and me be the judge of just how important the unitive aspect of our sexual intimacy is when weighed against our desire to be co-creators with God Almighty, per His command.

And so, I'm done apologizing for the choices we've made as part of our five year discernment process as we traveled the infertility road that we were placed upon.  The truth is that I love Jesus more than I love the Church, and I don't think He is upset to hear that.  In Mark 2:27, Jesus said that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."  Likewise, the teachings of the Church are there for our benefit.  They are there to help us grow in holiness.  They are not there to make us slaves to them.  We should definitely consider what the Church teaches and why before making our decisions, but we have to trust the movement of the Holy Spirit within us.

I'm still a practicing Catholic, mind you.  But I think I'll stop co-oping my conscience to theologians and take responsibility for my own discernment process.  I'm a thinking Catholic now.

Making peace with disappointment, twice

(This is the sixth installment in our detailed journey.  Start here, or go to part 2, part 3, part 4, or part 5 .)

While in Germany, I took it upon myself to use the time to try to make progress on my dissertation.  I wrote and submitted the first draft of the first chapter to my advisor, but when her feedback came back, I was faced with the realization that there was nothing left for me in this program.  There was no more motivation, no more inspiration, no more desire left in me to continue.  I was now looking at the prospect of making my peace with having spent the last five years of my life, and the 20,000 or so additional dollars I spent after getting my Master’s degree, on coursework and independent research tuition that would never result in another degree.

I had changed my topic slightly from the original pregnancy magazines to parenting magazines when we had been pursuing adoption for a while because it became painful for me to be reminded of other women’s pregnancies.  But that proved to be too little too late.  I agonized over the decision to withdraw from the program for several days.  Many tears were cried, but in the end, it just didn’t make sense for me to continue.

What makes this decision bittersweet is the alternative goal with which I replaced my near-life-long hope of a PhD: motherhood.  Two years have come and gone since I thought I “chose” motherhood over a PhD and a career, and I now have neither desire of my heart.  

In the larger scheme of things, this heartache proved to be a crucial turning point on our journey. I finally agreed to bite the bullet and pursue adoption via an agency.  It didn’t hurt that my mom, bless her heart, offered to fund the adoption with what I later found out was her retirement savings.  Given that adoptions from El Salvador, Alex’s native country, were closed to Americans, we chose to go with international adoption from my native Poland.

After some comparison shopping, we began the process with Lutheran Services out of New York in November of 2010, the month after we came back from Germany.  Finally, after three years, this was going to be a guarantee.  We invested $7,000 into this adoption attempt before withdrawing.  Crazy, I know.  Why would anyone withdraw from a near-guarantee?

My lack of patience played a big role.  We needed to get our homestudy updated before proceeding, and for some reason it was stalling.  What should’ve taken a couple of months was taking nearly half a year.  With anxious anticipation, spending lots of time online, I happened to peak on a fertility forum I had once been active on.  I don’t know what changed in my approach that led me to consider if there were things we might do to bypass our diagnosis. In the process, I came across a way to do IVF without the extensive hormonal preparation.  One of the only two clinics in the nation that specialized in natural cycle IVF just happened to be within commuting distance to us.  

We proceeded to schedule a TESE, testicular sperm extraction, with a consultation at the IVF clinic the following week.  I had become convinced that, since there was no identifiable reason for the azoospermia, it may be a matter of very low production that can be accessed via biopsy.  We drew closer to each other in faith in preparation for this procedure.  I spent the two hours in the waiting room reading my Bible and praying for good news.  I hadn’t yet learned to surrender my will to God.

When the doctor pulled me into a private room post-op to discuss the findings, I didn’t expect what she would tell me.   There were no sperm to be found.  Sertoli-Cell Only Syndrome.  Sperm were just not being produced.  In the grand scheme of things, if there’s anything that Alex’s body wasn’t going to be producing, we should be grateful that it’s not something necessary for his life.  On the other hand, it’s the one thing necessary for the creation of life for our mutual child.

I remember trying to make sense of what the doctor was telling me.  Surely, ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) is the cure-all for all things sperm-related, so at least she found some guys, however weak, that we could use in ICSI, right?  But she just shook her head and reiterated that there is nothing there.

After a moment to compose myself, I called the IVF clinic to cancel our consultation. Then, it was time to see Alex and break the news to him.  The doctor had told him, but since he was coming out from under anesthesia, he didn’t hear or understand her. When he saw me, he asked “Well?”  I tried to delay having to tell him.  I remember this tiny moment frozen in time, the moment before we both knew that a mutual biological child was definitely not going to happen.  When I told him, he did the same thing I did, asking in disbelief: “Nothing?”

The drive home was like a blur.  I drove while Alex napped on some ice.  He spent the next few days on a bag of frozen peas, sore and disappointed.  But thank God, he was back on his feet and at work soon, and his stitches dissolved on their own.

Before this experience, I hadn’t ever mourned the loss of a mutually biological child.  But as we prepared for the TESE, a spark of hope was ignited.  I imagined all the wonderful things about Alex mixing with all the familiar things about me in one unique individual, a walking manifestation of our love for one another.  I basked in the glorious way that God designed marriage to result in the next generation, how He shared His creative power with us, His creation.  I was empowered in a totally different way, thinking of the honor it is to be a child of God.  And now that I had developed a desire to share this gift with God, it was being taken away from me.

I was utterly confused by God’s will.  “What do You want from me, Lord? I thought You wanted us to adopt, but that hasn’t panned out.  Then I thought You wanted me to surrender my fear of fertility treatment, and again this isn’t panning out.  What else is there?”

(Part Seven to be continued...)