(Today’s
post is a little longer than normal, but only because there is so much to
share! New feminism IS rising!! First culture updates and then another
contributing author’s story! Enjoy!)
There
is a wonderful story for you today about a woman longing for motherhood. Permit me, please, to share with you first
some interesting conversations about the nature of woman and motherhood going
on in our world. Both womanhood and
motherhood have recently be under attack this week, but also defended.
Actress
Ashley Judd actually wrote an op-ed piece about the comments people were
making about her “puffy face”. She was
horrified that there was no assumption of goodness, but instead all they wanted to know was
whether she had plastic surgery. She
wrote powerfully,
“The
Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are
described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our
worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple
physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our
accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted…
The
only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and
my relationship with my Creator…
I
choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered,
and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a
greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle.
The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and
subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the
general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my
face is really about…” [i]
I
love that she is bringing this up! I
believe that we, as a society, are beginning to see how this is not good for women! And even on MSNBC, there was a discussion
about a new show “Girls” and the idea that pornography and that women
could “have sex like men” has been unfulfilling and demeaning for women. “It’s easier to find equality in the
boardroom than in the bedroom” was one of my favorite lines.[ii] Yes!
That is what they said!
And
again, as we had mentioned in last week’s Unsolved Mysteries post, stay at home
mothers have gotten slammed. A
democratic strategist (Hilary Rosen) dismissed Ann Romney’s knowledge and
insight into women’s issues by saying “she has never worked a day in her life”. Not only has Mrs Romney raised five sons, but
she has also survived cancer, deals daily with MS and is a volunteer for many nonprofit groups. She fought back saying that a woman’s choice
of career should be supported and worthy no matter what she chooses – even if
she chooses staying home with her children.
To his credit, President Obama actually commented as well,
“There
is no tougher job than being a mom," Obama told a TV station in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa. "And when I think about what (my wife) has had to do, when I
think about my own mom, a single mother raising me and my sister, that's work.
"So,
anybody who would argue otherwise I think probably needs to re-think their
statement. More broadly, I don't have a lot of patience for commentary about
the spouses of political candidates.”
It is so good to have this discussion, because many have
underlying sentiments like Ms Rosen that undermine the value of motherhood.
And yet, what happens when we pine for physical
motherhood and it doesn’t come? Where is
our meaning found when that’s all we’ve been hoping for? Emily is a friend of mine who I met while in
Washington, DC. She currently lives with
her family in Dallas.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, here is her story,
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, here is her story,
“Eight….that’s how many kids I wanted….well, maybe 12. I had
all their names picked out – Katerina, Tatiana, Oksana (I loved those 1992
Olympians!), Scarlet (I had just read Gone with the Wind) …yep, I had it all
figured out in 8th grade. Who knew that 15 years later it would be
so hard to even have one baby?
Infertility never crossed my mind. I’m sure it crossed my
husband’s. He’s the worrier. But, me, nah….I wasn’t worried - my family is
huge! I’ve always prided myself on having well over 40 first cousins. Having babies
would be no problem. Sure, we might worry about them coming too soon or too
close together, but we would certainly have them.
As it turned out, it wasn’t so certain.
I knew early on, once we started trying, that it wasn’t
going to be just a matter of months before we conceived. I could just feel it
deep inside. As time wore on, there were some very, very dark days and nights.
Eventually, we sought professional
help, but were haphazardly treated for infertility with no answers as to why we
couldn’t conceive. Spiritually and emotionally, I was on a roller coaster. I
wondered “why me?” and “what did I do wrong?” I thought that perhaps if I could
just be a better wife or if I strengthened my prayer life, then God would give
us a baby. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of my husband’s pain, and it reminded
me that I wasn’t the only one hurting. But, often I felt alone. I hardly ever
talked to anyone about why we didn’t have children. I didn’t see anyone else in
my position….I could only see my pain.
But somewhere in
those years, I learned to get over myself (mostly), and I realized that
children are a precious gift. You can’t demand a gift – it is freely given from
another. Sometimes you get lots of gifts and sometimes only a few. And
sometimes you don’t get any at all.
Society never warns you about infertility. Women are
encouraged to get on the pill and men are told to be responsible and carry a
condom. Children are welcomed when they are “wanted,” but not before. Unwanted
children are discarded and, many argue, better off never being born. And little
attention is given to the role that hormonal contraception, STDs, abortion, and
delayed parenthood play in infertility. Society tells us to go ahead, have fun
with your body while you are young and when you decide you “want” children, we
can make one for you – in your womb, someone else’s womb, or a petri dish.
We were lucky because our faith had a lot of things to say
about marriage and family and babies. We had guidance on how far we should go
in our desire for a child. Someone close to us, after going through the pain of
an unsuccessful IVF treatment, said we were lucky that we had a faith that
taught IVF was wrong…because at least we had boundaries. She and her husband tried
IVF again and were, again, unsuccessful. I can’t help but think that if every
option is fair game, it must be very hard to say no to a treatment that might
make you a family. We were lucky – we did have guidance and boundaries, and I
was grateful.
In
Donum Vitae 8, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says: The
child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an
object of ownership: rather, a child is a gift, "the supreme gift" (Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 50) and
the most gratuitous gift of marriage, and is a living testimony of the mutual
giving of his parents. For this reason, the child has the right, as already
mentioned, to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his
parents; and he also has the right to be respected as a person from the moment
of his conception.
Finally,
we got in touch with people believed just this - that children have a right to
be conceived within the loving embrace of their parents. They aren’t in the
business of baby making – they are in the business of finding the root cause of
infertility. And, as it turns out, they back their beliefs with top notch
medicine. We traveled across the country for diagnostic surgery and discovered
I had severe endometriosis. Six months and a second surgery later, I was endo
free. From 3 states away, the good doctors and nurses of the Pope Paul VI Institute (link to:
http://www.popepaulvi.com/) monitored my hormones and adjusted my medication. With
the guidance of a FertilityCare
practitioner (link too: http://www.fertilitycare.org/), my husband and I tracked
our fertility using the Creighton Model. We were in good hands.
And
then….it happened. We got pregnant. When I found out, I laughed. I laughed and
laughed and laughed. I felt like Sarah when the three angels told her that she would
bear Abraham a child. She laughed. After so many years of married love without
a child, it seemed funny to me too. On our seventh anniversary, we heard our
son’s heartbeat for the first time. At seven weeks, he looked just like a bean,
but he had a heart, and it was beating. I cried.
Children
are a gift. Sometimes they come fast and sometimes they come slowly. Sometimes
they don’t come at all. Somewhere in those years of infertility, I began to feel
like a mother because my heart was open to the possibility of a baby. When I
loved my husband, it was with the love that yearned for our love to grow into
another. When our son was born, he was the embodiment of that love. But, even
if we didn’t have our son, I’d still have that mother’s heart – a heart open to
love beyond myself. As John Paul II says in Mulieris Dignitatum 31, In the Spirit of Christ, in fact, women can
discover the entire meaning of their femininity and thus be disposed to making
a "sincere gift of self" to others, thereby finding themselves. I
am grateful that I had to wait to become an actual mother. I don’t think I
would have appreciated my son or my husband or God as much if we had gotten
pregnant easily. I think it took me much longer to learn that we only find
ourselves in losing ourselves…that when we make a sincere gift of ourselves and
expect nothing – not even a baby – in return, we are more like God than we
know.” - Emily from Dallas.
And I will leave it at that!
Thank you, Emily for sharing!
Wow, true feminism being demeaned and defended! in our culture and a beautiful story of a woman's motherhood, spiritual and physical - what a lot to ponder!
That’s my view of it and I welcome yours! (Please comment below!)
If you have liked what you’ve read – please share the blog! Thank You!
If you have liked what you’ve read – please share the blog! Thank You!
This is a beautiful entry - thank you for sharing so personal a story. What a beautiful child that will ever bear witness to your story of faith, love and hope.
ReplyDelete<3
Beautiful story, Emily! Life is a mystery and God is the only answer. Thank you for loving and choosing Him in the waiting and pain...it is a great witness to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. We need more stories of encouragement (infertility is a hard road to plow)! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteEmily,
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what happened to my husband and I! 7 years of unexplained infertility. Met a couple at our parish who taught the Creighton Method for the NFP program here at Holy Family Parish, Peoria, IL. We conceived a daughter using this method, then my son 2 years later, then my 3rd child a surprise 6 years ago! God gave us the most wonderful family!
God Bless,
Gina
Love the stories! (But it was very hard on my eyes to read with the white print on the black background. Would you consider changing that?)
ReplyDeleteI love how each post touches different women! Thank you ladies for commenting!
ReplyDeleteAs for the text color...yes, I'd consider changing it. Is it really hard to read? I'm an artsy gal too, so I like the mystery of the black...like I'm a "hard core new feminist"! ;-) But I'm not stuck on it!
Theresa, I wonder if I might reprint Emily's story to include in our Pre-Cana marriage preparation materials?
ReplyDeleteTim, I'll email you!
ReplyDeleteOk, just kidding! I thought I could email you. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat diocese do you work with, Timothy?
I think it would be ok, bit let me check with Emily first.
ok, it's possible, Timothy! But find me on facebook to discuss details: http://www.facebook.com/theresa.s.martin
ReplyDeletethanks!
I only read your blog now! It's wonderful to read these stories of hope. It took my husband and me 9 years to have a little baby-girl... So we've been on that roller-coaster too. Along the way, I wrote a booklet on the experience of infertility (which first came out as a CD), about the does and donts, and how to turn it into a journey of hope. If you are interested, it is called "Embracing the Cross of Infertility" by Marie Meaney, and was published by Human Life International.
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful! I found your blog actually just after reading Marie Meaney's above-mentioned article and trying to find a way to contact her to thank her for a sensitive acknowledgement of infertility from a Catholic perspective, something I have sadly been unable to find without coming across judgment. At any rate, so glad to also read the word "feminism" in light of a truly pro-woman perspective!
ReplyDeleteYay! Glad you found us, Karolina! Welcome to the NEW feminism! ;-)
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