St. Gerard, Pray for Us

The recent feast day of St. Gerard, patron saint of pregnancy, motherhood, and infertility, made me think about infertility, its impact on myself, and also what it means to be infertile living in our modern world.

When I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) in 2007, it was an incredibly painful time for me. My sister was pregnant with my niece, so I struggled with the dual emotions of rejoicing for her and being aware that it might be possible that I would never be able to rejoice in a similar way for myself. Add the fact that Brian was Catholic (and I wasn’t really on the road to becoming Catholic myself, then) and opposed to birth control/IVF of any type and my doctor’s telling me that the ONLY treatment for me was, guess what, birth control, added up to one troubled and confused college senior.

Since then, I’ve gained another niece and a nephew, and more wisdom about PCOS than my initial, “I’ll never be a parent! Brian and I can never get married because he doesn’t believe in birth control and they’re telling me I’ll have to be on it forever!” allowed. Not only was I able to get off birth control (more than 2 years of being on it made me realize that a.) it didn’t give me “less painful periods” like they promised, b.) it made my always frequent mood swings worse, and c.) it made me just feel miserable—constantly tired and bloated) but I’ve been more able to come to terms with the fact that “parenthood” doesn’t only exist for families that were able to have biological children.

I’ve come, also, to believe that birth control and IVF are wrong, not because I’m just accepting Catholic teaching, but also because I’ve witnessed it for myself. Being on a constant extra dose of hormones did not make me a better person in the least, and, knowing more than most about the eugenics movement in the United States, it’s become more than apparent that birth control is really used for population control (especially in “less desirable” populations, ie, non-white, non-rich, those with disabilities, etc. etc. ) IVF not only is unnatural (God made children grow inside a mother, not a petrie dish, for a reason), it also lends itself to making “designer babies”, allowing parents to choose the children’s eye color, hair color, and assuring that they aren’t born with disabilities of any kind. Master Race, anyone?
I know there are many out there that would argue that IVF has helped many families have children…I’m sure that’s true, but I also know there are a lot of parentless children out there, and it makes more sense to match parentless children and childrenless parents then it does to create babies in a lab.

Being an infertile female in a society seemingly obsessed with pregnancy—teen moms! octuplets! celebrity moms! abortion!—can, admittedly, be painful. Going to baby showers and birthday parties for kids, and knowing you may never reciprocate those invitations is like being stabbed in the heart a little each time. But I believe that God did make me infertile for a reason. Maybe it’s because there’s a child (or children) out there waiting for myself and Brian to become their parents. Maybe it’s because this whole experience has made me vastly more appreciative of the miracle that is conception and human life. Maybe because I’m meant to advocate a pro-life stance to those who I come across in my daily life. Whatever the reason, I know it’ll be a struggle, especially as friends and family start asking us…”So…when are you going to start a family?” I don’t have any other answer than “When God thinks that it is the right time”, because I am in an utter lack of control about when we have children. Whether and when it happens is not up to us in the least.

St. Gerard, pray for us.

A Baking-deprived world

For years, people have been telling me that I should sell my baked goods, and for just as many years I’ve been thinking that they were crazy. Who would pay for cookies when they can just make their own?

Recently, I made a cake for a pot-luck dinner and had someone ask, “Wow! How did you make this?”. This question dumbfounded me…do people really not know how to make cakes? My response was, “well, I just followed the recipe. It’s not hard” and she responded, “well, it doesn’t look like any cake I’ve ever seen!” (For the record, it was a chocolate chip bundt cake with a chocolate glaze.)

I grew up in a family of bakers…my mom always baked at holidays, for school bake sales, and for birthdays (when I was 6, she made me a three-tier birthday cake that looked like a carosel). Both my grandmothers baked, and when I was 8 I started not only helping them bake but also baking on my own. (My easy-bake oven never worked right, so I just graduated straight to the real thing).

I’ve been baking ever since…when my parents got divorced, it was really a source of comfort, and has continued to be that way. In college and grad school, I baked nearly every week, for bible studies and staff meetings, and just because I felt like it and wanted a good dessert. But I’ve never considered my baking special…I’ve never been to culinary school, and don’t know fancy tricks or names or how to make pastry or have any decorating skills. But more and more I’m realizing that cooking, and especially baking, is becoming a lost art. Most people don’t go to the effort to make things from scratch anymore, and many of them wouldn’t know where to start if they wanted to. (In college, I made a pumpkin pie in the dorm and had tons of people tell me it was just like their mom’s…I was, again, dumbfounded. What will they do when they want a pie and their mom isn’t there to make it for them? The obvious answer here is buy one from the store, but, as a baker, this never occurred to me.)

More and more I’ve been realizing a.) how much happier baking makes me than almost anything else and b.) it’s not as common a skill as I always believed. Just today, buying cream cheese at Target to make a cheesecake, the check out clerk told me, “You know, it’s much cheaper to just buy one”. I just stood gaping dumbly at her..just buy one? What?

Before I moved here, I had a coworker suggest that I contact the coffee shop in town and ask if they would be interested in selling my baked goods, as an extra source of income. Shocking even myself, I did, never expecting anything to come from it.
I’m still not sure if anything will come from it, but I have a meeting with the owners Saturday morning and am fixing up a slew of my best cookies, cakes, and pies for them to taste (snickerdoodles, cream-topped NY cheesecake, cream-cheese frosted red velvet cake, lemon bundt cake with almond frosting, and chocolate chip pie). Maybe the only thing that will happen is that they ‘ll have a very tasty Saturday morning (and all the friends we’re inviting over Saturday night to eat the rest will enjoy it, too), but I won’t regret it. I like sharing what I’ve baked, and if it makes someone’s day better, then I’ve achieved my purpose.

But…making a career out of it wouldn’t be too bad either.