catholic bible study on fertility

Maybe you grew up thinking like me: if a woman wants to, at some point, she can have kids, or not, and it’s that simple. Just wanting something, having sex, and there you go. My family was really open about how conception happened, how a baby grew & birthed, and it seemed all very straightforward. My mom never experienced a miscarriage nor her mom, nor anyone close to us who talked about it. I was clueless about the  sweeping arc of the journey of a woman’s fertility despite understanding the biological process. Even as a young adult, I really didn’t know that many people who lost a baby, or couples who struggled conceiving and carrying to term. I heard lots of “oh, a miscarriage is God’s way of taking care of a baby who would have had problems anyway” or “that couple must be waiting to have kids until they’re more financially stable or out of school.” It wasn’t until law school, when I first met peers who actually were married and had families, that I started to hear the stories. Stories about loss. Stories about trying and hoping and waiting for the pregnancy test to be positive. Stories about unexpected pregnancies when they already had a passel of kids and it looked “like too many” to outsiders. Stories about longing for a partner to have kids with, or the hardship of solo parenting. Stories about people who actually used natural family planning, or the fertility awareness method. New stories…