Mary G Bruno

I created a reel on Instagram with audio attached from an inspiring narrator saying “I think the next plot twist is that things are about to get really good. I think this world is going to open up to you in unimaginable ways. I think you’re walking into your best chapter yet. And finally, you’re going to see where all of this has been leading…”

This might sound a little counterintuitive for the topic, but I don’t believe it is. This has been my experience with infertility despite never getting pregnant and never pursuing IVF. Many with successful IVF experiences will disagree and that’s okay. While all children conceived are equally valued and loved by God and are a gift to parents regardless of how it happened, I would argue that a child conceived through IVF or otherwise doesn’t guarantee healing from infertility. It doesn’t mean the world has opened up. The only thing I would add to this narrator’s statement for this context is that things typically get really hard before they get really good. And both the good and hard will likely persist to varying degrees.

That is the conundrum. We don’t want things to get even harder. We want our problems to be fixed and the hard to go away, and we want it to happen yesterday. Our culture and our healthcare condition us to expect short wait times, quick appointments, and instant gratification.

Need to see your OBGYN? In and out in 15 minutes. Need a prescription? Refill online. Troublesome symptoms? Have some birth control. Can’t get pregnant? Try IVF. We are not used to slowing down, sitting with our discomfort, and getting curious. This is one reason why a lot of people view IVF as merciful. That’s what I want to challenge. That’s what I want to flip on its head because I believe that the actual plot twist is learning how to slow down, feel the pain of, and even become inspired by infertility rather than trying to escape it all with IVF.

I cut the audio off on that reel, but the next words out of the narrator’s mouth were “the hard work hasn’t been for nothing.” And make no mistake – infertility is very hard work. The doctor visits, the toll on our body, the unsolicited advice, the events we wanted to say no to but didn’t, managing hope and despair, and trying to keep faith in a God who suddenly feels foreign.

Hard work.

Whichever path for treatment we choose will include more hard work, whether that is RRM and/or IVF. Many have never heard of the former. I’ll simplify things a bit by explaining two of the biggest differences between these options:

1. Restorative Reproductive Medicine is more likely to cause suffering that bears fruit. IVF is likely to cause suffering that is unnecessary.

2. RRM pursues healing. IVF does not.

Those are not small differences. IVF is an unnatural imposition into a sacred space. Consider the actual process.

Sometimes birth control, a dose of synthetic hormones, is used to stop/control ovulation and the timing of the upcoming procedure. Then the woman is pumped full of an extremely unnatural amount of hormones to stimulate her ovaries to produce eggs (after birth control told her body not to ovulate). Afterwards, eggs are retrieved from the woman in a sterile procedure. Her spouse summons his sperm completely separate from his wife, whom he has promised to be faithful to.

Next, physicians take over the process of joining sperm and egg, completely divorced from the loving and intimate embrace of husband and wife, and with the hope that one or more human lives will be formed and successfully placed into the woman by their skilled hands. It is not unitive. I would argue that in at least some ways, it is not procreative. Considering the total amount of couples who endure this process, many of these human lives will have been created with the understanding that some will die. Some will be frozen. Some will have a chance at new life.

I don’t mean to sound grim, harsh, or crass. The IVF process does that on its own. This is the full reality of the IVF process, which is often sold as a merciful option to infertile couples. These are the cold, hard facts that are often drowned out by a valid cry for hope of pregnancy. Every child produced through IVF is good and equally loved and valued by God. But who is this process actually providing mercy for?

Is it the children that are potentially frozen or lose their lives? That we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the one or more who survive?

Is it the physicians who are financially motivated to not move heaven & earth to find and address the underlying cause(s) of infertility?

Is it the child who has been deprived of being created from the loving embrace of his mother and father?

Is it the woman whose body is manipulated to force a pregnancy? And if achieved, is not hormonally supported by the IVF doctors?

Is it the husband who masturbates to obtain sperm? The wife who waits in the other room?

Is it the mother and father for whom God was asking to wait, or saying “no, not right now” to for some reason that we may not understand?

Because God does not need IVF to make a baby.

It is understandable that many people view IVF as a merciful opportunity for a couple whose bodies do not comply to the desperate longing for a child. That desire is very good, but what and whom are we willing to give up and sacrifice for the sake of the IVF industry to continue in its efforts and for a couple to escape the potentially fruitful pain of infertility?

This life sentence has done its own damage on me. But even through all of its muck, infertility became my inspiration rather than something I had to escape at all costs. It wrecked me just enough to encourage me to be honest with and question God, and then to trust him into helping me to discover my authentic self. It opened up the world to me in many unexpected ways. It opened up God’s plan for me in many unexpected ways. It was a major plot twist I did not see coming.

What else would have made me so curious about my purposes outside of physical parenthood? What else would have motivated me to explore the gifts and talents God gave me that I had completely abandoned in pursuit of parenthood? What else would have encouraged me to consider adoption? What else would have inspired me to dig deeper into my Catholic faith to learn what She actually teaches and why it’s life-giving?

Could it be that the hard work of infertility, and any other suffering that we can’t control, is to bring about some good in us that IVF might actually deprive us of? Deprive the world of some fruit that may result from the wrestling? Could it be that IVF adds unnecessary hard work that thwarts the hand of God rather than trusting it?

That is up to you to find out. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do want to be someone who asks. I want to be someone who does not take the apparent “easy” way out. I want to be able to sit and wrestle in my discomfort and get curious about who God really is and where he is moving. I want God to write every chapter so that I can be sure the hard work is not for nothing.

I do not believe in sharing Church teaching in opposition to something *without also offering alternatives. Find RRM options at fabmbase.org > resources > external resources > Restorative Reproductive Medicine. Also, explore naprotechnology.com.