I will forever remember the first time I tried to educate somebody else about NFP. I was explaining that NFP along with natural reproductive technology, or NaPro, could actually provide health solutions for most problems treated by the pill. My audience: my junior level morality class.
I am one of the first in a generation that has used NFP from a young age. Rather than immediately being put on the pill for the issues I was having with my cycle, my parents took me to see a NaPro doctor and a Creighton practitioner. And so at the young age of 16, I was familiar with signs of my fertility, the way in which a woman’s fertility worked, and the fact that my current hormone levels likely meant that I would struggle to have children if they continued at that level into adulthood.
I quickly saw the many uses of NFP. I saw how it benefited me greatly in preventing immense pain throughout my cycle. I wanted others to have this knowledge, too. Hence, the position in which I found myself: explaining NFP, a woman’s cycle, and the downsides of birth control to my junior morality class.
It was at that moment that I learned that many of my classmates were in fact on the pill. Mind you, this was a Catholic school. However, many of them had been put on the pill for various health issues. Most of these health issues could have been addressed by hormonal support provided through NaPro Technology. I’ll never forget the reaction though from the boys in the class who looked at me and booed me and Said to all the girls in the class “We don’t want to hear about your flow.”
Although comical now, it points to the issue of educating not only young men but also women about their health and fertility. Fortunately, my school decided to address this issue by bringing in a Creighton practitioner to talk to all the girls in the high school. Perhaps the young men could have benefitted as well.
As I became older, I found myself having discussions about NFP with my fiance. When we attended marriage preparation the way in which NFP was presented to us was a sort of prosperity gospel: use NFP and avoid kids when you want. But when you want kids, since you have been following God’s will, they will come easily!
However that wasn’t at all our experience. We faced infertility and all the struggles that went along with it. I wrote about that extensively in my infertility series that you can find here. If that is currently your struggle, know that I am praying for you.
Once we were finally blessed with our first child in 2018, we then switched to using NFP to avoid. That was not nearly as easy as it as it had been made to seem either. For both of us when I was postpartum it seemed that there were infinitely less available days for use than the happy, smiling, overly cheery couple at our marriage preparation had made it seem. There were likely many days that had been available to us but that I did not feel confident enough in using. I was using Creighton the first time postpartum, and since Creighton is a mucus only method, it became confusing postpartum. Postpartum cycles and fertility markers are very different than in normal cycles, which is why I’m using Marquette this time around.
In both cases, using NFP required trust. Trust that we would be carried through our suffering. Trust in the purifying fire of Christ’s love and suffering. Trust that any child would be a blessing, no matter that timing. Trust in one’s spouse to communicate. The center of NFP is trust, which is why this method can be difficult to embrace.
If you don’t trust your body, your spouse, or Christ, other forms of birth control can become tempting. And while there have certainly been times that birth control has seemed appealing, I know it would leave me feeling empty. It would remove the radical trust required in each intimate act. It would become a divide between us rather than something that requires continued communication and trust, as NFP has been for us.
I find that NFP mirrors the requirements of love: it requires self knowledge, communication, vulnerability, and trust to work effectively. How fitting that these elements are also required for a healthy and successful marriage. And so in using NFP to plan our family, we practice the very things needed for a strong marriage and indeed, a strong faith as well. For at the center of our fertility is Christ calling us to relationship with Him, calling us to walk on the waters, to put out into the deep, to trust in Him. Christ is calling us to know ourselves that we may know Him, to trust that we may be vulnerable with him, to be vulnerable with Him that we may be loved by Him. Will you answer His call?
Suffering
When it Falls Apart
This is a post I wrote in February of 2020
Most of the time I am able to do things independently. I don’t like asking others for help. I definitely don’t like being seen as weak.
And yet there are times when the situation demands that I ask for help, even when I don’t want to at all. This requires a tremendous vulnerability, especially when I am at work. There have been times in the past few months where I have not been able to walk while at work, and have had to teach from my chair. There have been times when I’ve not been able to write on the board, and have had to ask my students to do it for me. Yet I know that in showing my vulnerability to my students, they see that their own shortcomings are opportunities for growth.
Things become even more difficult when I am unable to do anything at all. I woke up this morning unable to walk. Making breakfast was a Herculean effort for me. I used a chair to get from the couch to the kitchen and had to continually stop for breath. I have run a Spartan race, and yet I found myself quite nearly as out of breath as when I was running that Spartan, simply while trying to make my breakfast.
It is easy to write platitudes about how vulnerability and pain remind us that we cannot do it all. It is easy to write about how pain can remind one of the need for self care. It would be easy to write about how such pain reminds us that we cannot do it all and that we need Christ to redeem our sufferings. But I have written about those things before. And today, as I reflect on those things, I find that they simply do not outweigh my pain.
As I write this I am laying on the couch. No matter how I lay down, I am in pain. There were a few moments today when I found myself thinking that I would rather be in labor. Perhaps the distance of time has helped me to forget how great the pain of labor is, but that is where I am right now. At least with labor, there is a baby at the end of it.
I think we are often expected to find the good in our pain. There is this unwritten lie that says that if we cannot find the good in our pain, that we are simply complaining if we talk about it. That lie prevents us from one basic human need: to have our pain heard and understood.
Today when my daughter woke up, my husband had to bring her to me. I have only left the couch twice today, and both times left me utterly exhausted. My pain is not responding to any normal pain medications. And though I called my doctor today as soon as her office opened, I have still not yet heard back from her.
It feels humiliating, being unable to do so much. And yes, I know that this is an opportunity for vulnerability and growth. But I also know that I simply need to process my pain. Often we do not give ourselves and others that opportunity.
Adding to this physical pain is the emotional pain of isolation. I have tried to connect to others and to make friendships, and yet I find myself feeling woefully misunderstood by those with whom I meet and interact. my husband and I were trying to figure out who could pick up my daughter today from daycare since I am currently unable to do so. We were also trying to figure out if anyone could come here and help me. We came up with a very short list consisting only of Nick’s family members, but they live an hour away from us.
I say all this not for pity, but because I firmly believe that there are many other moms and families living in this situation. We have isolated ourselves when we need a village. We have idolized the independent mother and father who can do it all. We have put individualism on a pedestal, and we have lost the sense of interconnectivity with those around us. We have created a culture in which we focus so much on ourselves and our own families that we forget to reach out to others. And in doing so, we make things so much harder for ourselves.
I do not know that I have any solution for these problems. But I do know that something must change. We must go outside of our selves and beyond the excuse of ” I’m busy. ” We must learn that connecting with others is a vital part of self-care, not just for ourselves, but for our whole family. We must be willing to be vulnerable with those whom we meet. And since many of us are in the situation, we should try to cut the small talk altogether and just focus on building relationships.
We also must learn to accept our pain for what it is. Whether it is physical or emotional pain, we should be able to talk freely about it and have it heard and understood. We should not have to make excuses for our pain. We should not have to justify our pain. And yet, so many of us do.
And yes, we should recognize that pain is an opportunity for vulnerability and growth. We should recognize that pain is an opportunity to unite ourselves to Christ on the cross. But we should also recognize that pain is simply a part of living. And that pain is necessary for the human experience. Pain does not always need to be fixed. Sometimes pain simply needs to be spoken about and heard.
For if we do not have pain, then we do not have vulnerability, and if we do not have vulnerability, then we do not have true relationships, and if we do not have to relationships, then we do not truly have love. And what other purpose then can we have for life then loving Christ, our families, and those around us?
Simply stated, pain helps to lead us towards a deeper love. And it is in hearing and recognizing the pain of those around us that we can be led to deeper relationships thus generating a true and purified love.
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Song Amidst Sorrow
Ten men stand gathered in prayer. Maximilian Kolbe leads the group and begins to sing. The men join him in song, and their praises echo from within Cell 18 of Block 11. The men are shut in an underground bunker in Auschwitz, sentenced to die because of a prisoner escape. And yet, in the midst of this great darkness, the men were singing. Their leader, Kolbe, chose to be there. One of the men chosen to die had been Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant. But Gajowniczek began to cry out, “My wife! My children!” Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward courageously, saying, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.” And so after two weeks in the bunker, watching the men around him die, continuing to pray and sing, Maximilian Kolbe–instead of Franciszek Gajowniczek–died from a lethal injection of carbolic acid.
Biography
Maximilian Kolbe was born Raymund Kolbe on January 8, 1894 in Zdunska Wola, Poland. At a young age, Kolbe had a vision of the Blessed Mother offering him two crowns–one white and one red–for perseverance in purity and for martyrdom. Kolbe asked to receive both crowns.
The vision ignited within Kolbe a desire to serve Christ. At 13 years old, Kolbe left to attend the Conventual Franciscan Seminary in Lwow. He took the religious name Maximilian in 1910. He was ordained a priest and returned to Poland in 1919.
Kolbe taught the faith through radio broadcasts and publications. His monastery near Warsaw gave shelter to Jews during the Second World War. After his monastery published a series of anti-Nazi pamphlets, Kolbe was arrested and sent to Auschwitz on February 17, 1941, for hiding Jews.
In July 1941, one of the Nazi commanders found that some prisoners had escaped. He ordered the execution of ten men. When Maximilian Kolbe courageously volunteered to take the place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, the switch was allowed.
After two weeks, the guards came in with a lethal injection of carbolic acid. They needed to clear the cell to make room for additional executees. Kolbe calmly accepted his death, never ceasing his prayers for the men that were persecuting him.
Franciszek Gajowniczek was reunited with his wife in 1946, but his two sons died in the war. He attended Maximilian Kolbe’s canonization in 1981 and survived to the age of 93. Each year on August 14, he returned to Auschwitz, honoring the man who gave his life to save him.
St. Maximilian Kolbe and I
There are some saints that chose us, rather than us choosing them. I first remember hearing of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the saint with both the crown of martyrdom and the crown of heroic virtue, when I was in middle school. His story, that of a priest in a concentration camp that gave his life to save another, has stuck with me ever since.
For nearly two years now, St. Maximilian Kolbe has held a special place in my heart. Upon learning that I was pregnant, Maximilian Kolbe became one of my patrons as I asked for a healthy pregnancy, safe delivery, and healthy baby.
Madeleine’s middle name was originally going to be Cecilia. Neither Nicholas nor I felt strongly attached to the name. When we discovered we were having a girl, Nicholas and I knew that her middle name needed to change. There needed to be some connection to Maximilian Kolbe.
Nicholas suggested “Kolbe” as her middle name, but I felt it was too masculine. For a week or so, we prayed and struggled to find alternatives with a tie to St. Maximilian. Finally, we went to Mass.
During Mass, Nicholas turned to me and asked, “What about Immaculata?” It was perfect. Not only was it a tie to St. Maximilian Kolbe through the Militia Immaculata he founded, but also it was a tie to the Blessed Mother and a nod to me, as my birthday is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
He has been her patron ever since.
I first became fascinated by St. Maximilian Kolbe after a trip to Poland in 2015. There was no time to visit Auschwitz, but I saw multiple mentions of him throughout the trip. His courage and selflessness impressed upon my heart the great value that is a human life. Upon my return, I made him the subject of one of my creative writing assignments.
Maximilian Kolbe continued to pop up in various ways. I was working on an application to Dynamic Catholic in 2016. The topic I was assigned for my sample writing assignments? St. Maximilian Kolbe.
Last week, I began setting up my classroom. I looked at the saint outside my door, the saint designated as my classroom patron: St. Maximilian Kolbe, Patron Saint of Journalists.
I very nearly cried.
Just today, Nicholas informed me that St. Maximilian Kolbe’s birthday is January 8th. I was baptized on January 8th. Clearly, I am meant to have a connection with this saint.
This year, in all of my classes, we will be beginning class with prayers written by or asking the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe. He is a saint that demonstrates that there is light amidst darkness, hope amidst despair, love amidst great evil. And that is the sort of saint that many of us need in our lives to continue to hope when all else seems stacked against us.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, Pray for Us
St. Maximilian Kolbe, we ask you to help us to grow in selflessness and generosity. Inspire us to sacrifice ourselves and our desires for the good of others. Help us to remain joyful even in the midst of great darkness and suffering, and to pray especially for those that have wounded us.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, you were willing to give your life to save the life of another. Help us to more deeply recognize the sacredness and infinite value of each human life. Grant that through your prayers, all families, prisoners, and drug addicts may find joy and peace in Christ.
If you would like to read more about St. Maximilian Kolbe, you can find a creative piece I wrote on him here.
Beauty in the Broken
I have often struggled with feeling broken and betrayed by my body.
It began with our struggle with infertility and my anxiety, when I felt that because my body would not carry a child, that not only was I broken, that I wasn’t fulfilling my vocation as a woman and spouse.
When I became a mother, during my pregnancy I thought to myself, “now, finally, I am healed.” As I passed each milestone, and birth came closer and closer, I let go of those feelings of brokenness and rejoiced in my body. My body was creating life, and I rejoiced in the pains and struggles of pregnancy, because I no longer felt betrayed by my body.
I thought that feeling of brokenness and betrayal by my body would change definitively with my daughter’s birth. I thought her birth would heal that wound, the feeling that my body had betrayed me.
And yet, after Madeleine’s birth, that wound remained.
I was a mother now. Everything we had prayed for had happened. Her birth was beautiful. Madeleine was even born on her due date, the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel after I’d prayed a novena to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel that she would arrive on time.
And yet, in all that joy, I was drowning.
My body was a stranger to me. Nothing prepared me for how different my body felt to me after Madeleine’s birth. And then on top of that, Madeleine would scream when I tried to feed her. It sometimes took an hour and a half just to feed her.
It was then that I started to notice my hands.
I remember a reflection during our marriage prep that asked you to hold your betrothed’s hands. It asked you think about how these hands, the hands holding your own, would be the hands to care for you when you were sick, to comfort you in times of difficulty, to hold and love your children.
After Madeleine’s birth, my hands ached. They were constantly stiff and sore. I blamed having to take hours to nurse Madeleine and constantly hold her in the same position. But it kept getting worse. I thought perhaps my De Quervains Syndrome (like carpal tunnel) was returning and was sure that after a time it would get better.
Then my shoulders started to ache. I blamed my ring sling, and stopped wearing it. But the pain remained. I couldn’t lift my hands above my head without pain. I blamed having to sit in the same position for hours to feed Madeleine.
But then one night, Madeleine woke up crying. She needed to be fed. And I struggled to get to her.
I struggled to move myself out of bed. My whole body was stiff and sore. Madeleine’s crying became louder and louder. I felt terrible. And then, when I finally got to her, I realized I couldn’t pick my baby up out of her crib.
I woke up Nicholas, who brought Madeleine to me in the rocking chair. I could barely hold her, even with my nursing pillow. It was that night that I realized something was terribly wrong.
About two months after that night when my hands refused to work (this past November), I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis.
The doctor explained that my immune system had started to attack my joints. I would need to be on an immunosuppressant indefinitely. She explained that it was probably my pregnancy that had triggered the autoimmune disease.
And once again, I felt betrayed by my body.
My pregnancy and Madeleine’s birth had started to heal the wounds of betrayal I had felt after almost two years of infertility. Suddenly, those wounds were cut open again. My body was literally attacking itself. It wasn’t functioning as it should, again, and it was affecting my ability to care for my daughter. I was angry, I was hurt, I was broken.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned from infertility, it is that there is beauty in brokenness.
My body had betrayed me again, but I decided that wouldn’t stop me from being a good mother, from being a good wife, from being a daughter of God. Instead, I tried to turn to the Cross. I repeated to myself in times of weakness, “this is my body, given up for you.” I repeated it when it was difficult to pick up my daughter. I repeated it when I struggled to feed my daughter because my hands ached. I repeated it when I woke in the middle of the night to Madeleine crying, needing me, and my body was stiff again. I repeated it when I looked in the mirror and was unhappy with my body because my arthritis had prevented me from exercising until my medication started working.
I decided that my RA would not change how I parent, would not change my fitness goals, would not change my vocation, would not change my faith. I began researching ways to heal my body through diet and exercise. I have set a goal for myself to run a Spartan race either this summer or fall. I have decided to show my daughter that having a chronic illness does not mean that you cannot be active, that you cannot do extraordinary things, that you cannot lead a life of adventure and faith.
I started trying to take care of myself. I began a new diet about two months ago to help with inflammation. I purchased an exercise program to help heal and strengthen my core from pregnancy. I’m going to be blogging more often as part of self care and posting updates about my progress with training and treatment of RA. I’ve been trying to pray more often and focus on joy and acceptance.
We cannot choose our crosses. I do not know yet what purpose this cross carries, but I know that when we received news of my diagnosis and told my husband, that he had a profound sense of peace. “We need this,” he said.
I remember the reflection given during our marriage preparation now whenever I look at my hands and the hands of my husband. For although my hands are sometimes inflamed and in pain, I know that Christ has gifted me my husband to be my hands and feet when my own will not work. Before I was a mother, I felt broken because of our struggles to have a child. I felt betrayed by my own body, angry that my body wasn’t working as it ought, crippled by my body’s brokenness. Now, I feel broken because there are some days when my whole body aches. And yet, I know that I need this. I need to remember that I am broken, that I am weak, that I am wounded. Because in my brokenness, I am reminded to look at Christ on the Cross.
God gives us what we need. He challenges us, and allows us suffering so that we might realize our littleness. So that we might turn to the Cross, see Christ bloody, bruised, and beaten, and know in our hearts the great sacrificial love of Christ for us. Christ on the Cross shows us the profound depths of God’s love for us, and will always stand as a reminder to us all that there is immense beauty in the broken.
A Letter to my Future Children
When Nicholas and I decided to be open to children from the beginning of our marriage, we both hoped for the best. I could never have anticipated the heartbreak that has accompanied us on our journey towards having a child. I broke down the night after I took a negative pregnancy test during our fourth month of trying. And so as I knelt in front of our home oratory with tears streaming down my face, I felt a deep sense of loss. I had been so sure I was pregnant. I was heartbroken and crushed, and I started pouring my heart out in my journal. This letter to my children, whom I deeply longed to hold in my arms, is what resulted from that experience of loss. In a sense, It is this letter that marks the beginning of my journey with infertility.
A letter to my future children, April 30 2016
Oh my child, how I love you. I love you so dearly and my heart breaks that you are not yet with me. For I have loved you. Before God formed you in my womb, I knew you. I knew the tears I would shed for love and want of you. I anticipated the joy I would experience in finding out that you were coming. I anticipated the fear I would know as you grew. The pain as you were sick. My beloved child, before I was ever a mother, I loved you with a maternal love.
I prayed for the joys and the sufferings. I poured out my heart to Christ. I saw you at once a child and grown, and my heart welled up with joy and sorrow.
I have consecrated your hearts to Christ and promise to raise you as saints. Yet even now I know I must commend you to your true mother, Mary. She will always protect you.
I am imperfect, and I may hurt you. Already this fills my heart with deep sorrow. I beg your forgiveness, my child, and ask you to commend me in prayer to Christ through the Blessed Mother.
I cannot explain my love for you. I only know that I am your mother. You have always been a part of my heart and you always will be, even if you come to my arms through the sacrifice of another. You will always have a place in my arms and prayers. But until you can be in my arms, I hold you in my heart. But know that for me, you have always been here, though I cannot know the time or the way you will come to me.
I want to thank you for sanctifying me. I want to thank you for teaching me how to love. For though you are not yet in my arms, I know my beloved child, that you will lead me to Christ as I strive in my imperfection with the Blessed Mother to bring you to His Heart.
My darling, I pray for you. I pray each day for you. I sometimes fail in my prayer life, but you are always in my heart. Never doubt how deeply you are loved and how much your father and I have desired you. For we have desired you with longing and pained hearts, but the wait is worth it.
For though I love you my child, I do not love you enough. I can never give the love you truly deserve, for that love is the love of Christ. And it is only in His time that you, all of you, will come. But I know you will come. For I hope in the Lord. My Lord is my good shepherd, in Him I put my trust. My heart is waiting on the Lord, watching and waiting for my beloved children.
Love always,
Your Mama
This is the seventh post in a series for National Infertility Awareness Week.
On Coffee and Shoelaces 