Sean and I spoke about our desire to have children early in our dating. In fact, on our very first date, I told him that I wanted my children to attend Catholic school. The fact that this did not scare him off is certainly indicative of how incredible he is!
I come from a large family, and I always thought I would want a large family. Our archdiocese requires us to take some sort of Natural Family Planning (NFP) course before getting married. They don’t really have any recommendations on what to take or with whom, though. (I won’t go on a tangent about how annoying this is and my opinions on the obligation dioceses have to form the faithful adequately on the joys and challenges of NFP).
There are lots of methods of tracking fertility. We decided to take virtual classes with a Creighton practitioner while we were engaged. Creighton is really cool, but it can be expensive. If you have any questions or want our our practitioner’s contact information feel free to reach out to us!
From the beginning, we decided that we would be open to conception as soon as we were married. We are blessed to be able to provide financially for children, and we did not feel called to use NFP to avoid pregnancy for any of the many reasons the Church allows.
After a few months, I began to worry because I wasn’t pregnant yet. It’s not that we were necessarily trying to get pregnant, but my charts indicated that pregnancy was certainly possible. Yet, month after month I kept getting my cycle. I began to obsess over what could be wrong, and the internet told me so many things could be wrong! My mom kept telling me that these things can take time, but I still felt so anxious.
Fast forward two years. After our second anniversary, we went to a few doctors and found out that we were likely not going to conceive. I felt so many different emotions about this news. However, I had suspected something was wrong since I had been tracking my cycles for two years. At this point, I felt ready to start exploring what our options might be for growing our family.
I also started sharing with friends and family that we are infertile. I decided that I wanted support through whatever our journey to parenthood was going to look like. The more I shared, the more people told me about their experiences with infertility. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in eight American couples experience infertility. So many people I know have struggled or are struggling through infertility, and I had no idea until I started being vocal about my journey.
In January of 2025, Sean and I starting taking steps to pursue adopting embryos. I write about what exactly this is and why we chose it in Post #8. It was after much prayer and discussions with our family, friends, and priest, that we made this decision. We are currently on the transfer schedule to receive two embryos from the National Embryo Donation Center (nedc) in Knoxville, Tennessee this August. It has certainly been a physically and emotionally exhausting journey up to this point, and I suspect that the journey will continue to be hard in the coming months. Please pray for us as we undergo these next steps for growing our family.
Also, if you have any questions about embryo adoption, please feel free to reach out! One of my prayers is that more couples choose to adopt these precious babies and give them an opportunity at life!
Mission Today 