Ep. 103: Embracing Fertility

Our unique fertility has so many amazing gifts for us! But when do we ever hear about that? We think of fertility as a tool to get us what we want (whether that's pain free cycles, a healthy pregnancy, or the lack thereof!), but does it have more to offer? Today's episode shares some of the amazing things about fertility that we need to embrace -- including the first step to seeing fertility differently, and why how we see it really matters. I hope you'll enjoy this episode!

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NOTE: This episode uses the word sex multiple times and may not be appropriate for all audiences. Infertility is briefly mentioned. 

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Talk with Caitlin (you do not have to be a client): Need a safe place to talk about your fertility journey, what you're going through (faith, infertility, medical concerns, etc) or anything else about your fertility? Caitlin would love to hear your story and talk with you during a consultation! 

Transcript

Caitlin: 0:06

Welcome to the Woven Well Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast. I hope that everyone has had a meaningful advent season and things are going well as we prepare for Christmas next week. I can hardly believe that it's just a few days away, but I'm so glad that we could be together talking a little bit about our fertility as we head into the Christmas season. Today's episode is entitled Embracing Fertility, and that's because I found that through my years as a certified fertility care practitioner, that we as women really do need to embrace this gift of fertility before we can reap the many, many benefits and blessings that it provides. I think that we live in a cultural time when we would rather control our fertility than explore it. You know, we want to regulate it, not necessarily embrace it for what it is , but when we choose to live differently and we do embrace and explore our fertility, instead of controlling or dominating it, it really can be a totally different freeing and hopeful experience. And so I thought I would share some different things about fertility that really are worth embracing. The first is that it exists. I know that may be a funny one to think about. Like, okay, great fertility exists, but sometimes we wish that it didn't exist. I was talking about culture a minute ago, and we really do treat sex like it has nothing to do with babies. We shut down our reproductive systems without a second thought. And it's not so much on us. We are told by others. We are told by people in authority figures in our lives, they tell us to do this and we believe them. We go with it without a second thought. So and there's so many different ways in our lives that we try to live life as if it doesn't exist. I get that because fertility can be difficult, it can be overwhelming, it can sometimes feel scary, and we're going to talk about that. So when that happens, man, wouldn't it be easier if it wasn't something that we had to consider if it wasn't really that important? But we can't experience the good gifts of our fertility if we're living in denial about its existence. Okay? In my opinion, the more we ignore it, it actually starts to feel more and more scary to us. It becomes unknown. It's unpredictable. What would happen if we did let it loose, right? These are the fears that start taking over. If we don't understand something, then it just grows and grows in that sort of unpredictable way. So if we can set aside the fear for just a minute and look at it just factually to start, I think it'll make a big difference. So our fertility is a function of our reproductive system, a natural system to the human body that is designed to help us not only reproduce, but also experience the highest quality of life. We need these hormones. We need these natural systems just like we need our circulatory system or our lymphatic system. They're all intentionally designed part of the human body. So those hormones produced by the ovaries, they aren't really optional. We feel better when they're working properly. We feel off when there's something wrong with them. Our body runs better. We have reduced risks of issues down the line, like bone development issues. So there is a reason that we have these hormones and when we have them, we are going to live a better quality of life than when we don't. Any system of the body could go wrong. So I'm not saying that there aren't those out there who don't have perfect reproductive systems and issues. I would say the majority of us do not have perfect reproductive systems, but just because we can have something go wrong, it doesn't mean that we shut down our system out of fear that that may happen. You know, we learn about them, we take care of them. We go to the gym or avoid things we're allergic to. You know , we take care of our bodies to help reduce the risk of issues arising. So I do think it's important to start off by saying that the reproductive system and the fertility that comes from it, it exists. It's something that should be acknowledged and respected, and when we do good things will happen. So this leads to our second one, which is that fertility is good. Once we accept that it's our natural part of our body and humanity to have fertility, it's important to see next that it is good. I'm curious if you would say right off the bat that you do think that it is good. Has it been presented to you as something that's good or something that's bad or like we mentioned, just something that's scary and big. What is that maybe even internal reaction when you initially think about your fertility? Our fertility is not a punishment. It's not that scary thing that we have to fear. It's actually providing us with a lot of really good gifts, physically, mentally, even spiritually. And as I just mentioned, there are those reproductive hormones that have a positive impact on us as well. So we have physical needs for these hormones. I mentioned bone development earlier. It also allows our circulatory system to work really well. There's a whole list of ways that our hormones are beneficial to our physical bodies. There are also a lot of mental effects that are positive. Estrogen gives us a lot of energy and insight. It helps our mind to function really well. Whereas progesterone helps to reduce anxiety, helps us to sleep well at night and relax. So there are positive mental benefits when it comes to fertility and then even spiritually, our fertility is a good thing. It points us back to the intentional design of our bodies. It's a reminder that our creator designed us with purpose. It reminds us that we're created with beauty and intention and that fertility is a part of that. It reminds us of the promise of future generations and the faithfulness of God to past generations. So the reproductive system was not designed for our demise, but for our thriving. Even when there are issues, even when there are struggles, when we look at the big picture of fertility, it is a good gift from God. The goodness of our fertility is not bound up in the results, in the outcome of it. God is faithful to us through even our fertility. So we can see God show up in incredible ways even as we struggle, even when things don't go how we anticipate, even as it feels really scary, God is going to be present with us. And it is absolutely a huge spiritual gift to see God's presence in our fertility in our lives. The third thing that I think we should embrace about fertility is that it's not to be controlled, but we often want to control it. We would rather shut it down than risk it doing something we don't want. After all, we should have the final say in what happens with our fertility, right? It certainly feels like that. But when we can take a step back, remove that fear like we talked about earlier, and see it for what it is, we can see those good gifts that God provides us through our fertility, then we can stop feeling overwhelmed and intimidated by this thing that cannot be controlled. And that could be scary to hear when I say that it cannot be controlled. In fact, there may be some clients out there listening saying what? We can't control this. But there's a difference here. Control is not the goal. Instead, we are acknowledging our fertility. We're celebrating it as a good thing. We can start to hear God's invitation to work with him when it comes to our fertility. As much as we don't want this to be true, we are not the creator of life, okay? We don't get to determine with a hundred percent certainty when a baby does or does not come into this world. No wonder we feel so much incredible pressure to get it right when it comes to family planning. That's an impossible job. So it would feel incredibly stressful to put that burden on our shoulders and try to carry it alone. But God says we don't have to carry that. That is God's area, that is God's sovereignty, but incredibly mind-blowingly. We are invited into that process. So God wants us to come to him for discernment, guidance, and ultimately trust and obedience. So when we know that we can trust the God who designed this aspect of our personhood, then we can trust his design for our fertility. We can trust our understanding of our cycles and ultimately we can trust the creator of all life with our families, which leads us to the next thing that we can embrace about our fertility. And that's that it's not scary, but powerful. We've talked a lot about how fertility can be scary. I mean, the word scary has come up in almost every single point today. Here's the thing, I think we've confused, powerful with scary. There is no doubt that fertility is powerful. It has the potential to radically change the trajectory of our lives, either through something like chronic pain or some other women's health issue through infertility or the birth of a child or of many children. This is powerful stuff. And not only does it affect our individual lives, but it also affects the trajectory of our culture, sex, fertility, families, marriage. It all has a huge impact on the cultural moment that we live in and also future generations, both from a philosophical point of view, but also in a very practical way, how many babies are being born. We are literally birthing the next generation, and that makes a big difference. So there's no doubt about it, it is powerful, but just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's automatically scary. It's tempting to think that, but that's only the case when we can't trust the one with power. And maybe that's it. Maybe we live in a world that demonstrates just how abusively power can be misused. Or maybe we live in a world that's told us the one that holds power cannot be trusted, but who is it that holds this power? We know that it's the living God and his power is not scary. It's all inspiring. Have you read or watched the Narnia series? I've been thinking a lot about it lately, and maybe you know that famous quote when confronted by the idea of Aslan the lion who is a picture of God. Lucy says, is he safe? And Mr. Beaver responds safe, who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe, but he's good. He's the king. I tell you, this is what we can hold onto . When we are overwhelmed by the enormity, the power of fertility, and how it can affect our lives and future generations, we can remember that the one who is the creator of all life is our God who loves us desperately, who caress for us infinitely and who designed us intentionally, which leads us to our last thing to embrace about fertility. And it's that it points us to God, our fertility is real. It's good, it's powerful, and we don't need to control it. All we need to do is understand it. But what we're often surprised by as we do this is that the more we understand it, the more it points us back to God. As we begin to understand our bodies, how they are made, the actual organs and hormones and periods and cycles, we start understanding more about the creator of our bodies. We look at this magnificent God who created the sky and the ocean and the land and the birds and our femininity, and it was all done with beauty and with intention. When we think about fertility and we think about the next generation, we think about the generation before us, how our parents coming together created us and our mother's wombs, and we think about the future generations to come. We remember the father of generations, this God who has been faithful to us ever since the beginning and will remain faithful to us until the end of time and beyond. The more we learn, the more interested we get, and we get to dive into scripture and we start seeing how fertility was used to change history. We look at individual stories like Sarah or Hannah or Mary, and how literally the history will change through the birth of a child. We start investigating the meaning of this creation of fertility, of marriage, and we discover that it's actually a picture of Christ in the church. Wow, how incredibly important this is. If this is the picture of Christ in the church, it is worth understanding. It is worth respecting. And so the first step to all of this, to this incredible journey is to embrace the fertility that we have. You can see why, you know, when we mention the world that we live in and it's one that tries to deny the presence or importance of fertility, why that becomes incredibly important. But we can be different women. I would love to think that we could be a different generation, that we will inspire our sisters and our daughters and our granddaughters to really embrace this beautiful aspect of who we are as women and who men are as well. I'm certainly not suggesting that it's only women who are fertile creatures, but for my audience who are women of faith, who care deeply about the God of their creation and the creator of all life, I do believe that it starts with embracing fertility. I think about that, especially these few days right before Christmas, and I don't know if you're listening to this when it airs, which is the Friday before Christmas, or if you're listening to this later, but it really does bring home how fertility is world. Changing the birth of a baby not only changes our own lives, but it could change the trajectory of the course of history. So certainly my prayer for you all in these next few days and weeks as we approach the new year is how can we begin to embrace our fertility? Next week we're going to have an episode on fertility resolutions. So we're going to talk about active ways, tangible things that we can do, to begin to incorporate fertility and respect our fertility and understand our bodies. How can we begin to do that in the new year? So I hope that you'll listen and find something there that you can begin incorporating next year. As always , thanks so much for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.