Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 980 | The Secret, Ethical Alternative to IVF | Guest: Catie VanDamme

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Today, we're sitting down with Catie VanDamme, contributor to the Federalist. She discusses her experiences with ob-gyn doctors who pushed IVF as the only way to get pregnant due to her diagnosed endometriosis and reveals how one of her doctors even questioned if she really wanted to be a mother at all, leaving her in tears. She also reveals what helped her conceive — charting her cycle with NaProTECHNOLOGY, a holistic and natural method that worked with her body. We give some encouragement for women who might be struggling with infertility and explain God's role in it all. --- Timecodes: (00:45) Finding out about fertility issues (12:15) Growing prominence of IVF (18:29) Second and third doctor experience (33:02) NaPro Technology  (42:00) Morality of IVF (53:05) Restorative reproductive medicine --- Today's Sponsors: NetSuite — gain visibility and control of your financials, planning, budgeting, and inventory so you can manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve margins. Go to NetSuite.com/ALLIE to get your one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. Focus on the Family — the new podcast, "Practice Makes Parent" brings you real, practical, and biblical advice. Tune in every Wednesday on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcasting platform. Find the podcast here: https://podcasts.focusonthefamily.com/show/practice-makes-parent/?refcd=1674101&utm_source=blaze&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=relatable America's Christian Credit Union — nationwide personal and business banking for people who still love God and country. ACCU is federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration. Learn more and get started at AmericasChristianCU.com/SWITCH. Fearless Army Roll Call — Go to FearlessArmyRollCall.com to reserve your spot at Jason Whitlock's upcoming annual Role Call event in Nashville, Tennessee! --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 876 | How LGBTQ Activists Are Redefining Infertility | Guest: Katy Faust (Part One) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000628613840 Ep 695 | Why Children's Rights Trump Adults' Feelings | Guest: Katy Faust https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000583336623 Ep 554 | IVF, Embryo Adoption, & Surrogacy: Answering the Hard Questions | Guest: Jennifer Lahl https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000549207733 Ep 552 | "Big Fertility" & the Truth Behind The Surrogacy Industry | Guest: Jennifer Lahl https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000548511958 --- Links: The Federalist: "Fertility Doctors Refused To Treat Me Holistically Because IVF Is Their Cash Cow" https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/18/big-fertility-should-stop-pushing-ivf-on-women-as-the-first-and-only-option-for-making-a-baby/ --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

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That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819-382. Katie Van Damme was diagnosed with endometriosis when she was a teenager. And then at the age of 29, doctors told her that the only way for her to have a child would be to go through IVF. But she decided to go a different route. She is here today to talk about what she learned and what God taught her through her fertility journey and what eventually led her to conceiving her baby boy naturally. This is an amazing conversation. You've got to listen to the whole thing. You are going to be so educated, but also so encouraged by her testimony.

Without further ado, here is Katie. Katie, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Can you just tell everyone who you are and what you do? Yeah. So I'm Katie Van Damme. I am married to my husband, Kevin, and we have a son named Thomas.

He's one year old. I am an LPC, so a licensed professional counselor. in Texas. And I've been doing that for a couple years. It's really a great opportunity to get to sit with people. And I first saw your story in The Federalist, and the headline is fertility doctors refuse to treat me holistically because IVF is their cash cow. Okay, so this came out on March 18th. So just take us back.

Tell us about your story. how you first interacted with the doctors who tried to get you to go through IVF. Yeah. Yeah. So my husband and I got married in 2020 and we knew that we wanted to start a family eventually. I back in my like late teens, early 20s, I found out I had endometriosis, which is a disease that affects women and their fertility, all that good stuff. Very painful and wound up having to go through lots of different things with doctors and wound up having surgery, knew that that would be something to consider when we were having children or when we were wanting to.

IVF? Sorry. No. The diagnosis of having endometriosis could possibly. You need to consider that that could make it more difficult to have children. Yes. more difficult to have children. Yeah, so I knew that I needed to be maybe cautiously optimistic in that we might run into some things. We got married and I thought, you know what, because I know

that I have this health condition, I would like to just go and meet with a provider and talk to them about, you know, my husband and I want to start trying eventually. Is there anything that I need to be doing? I think it was my, like, just being so naive and young and not really having. a lot of obviously I don't have a medical degree. I'm just wanting to go and ask some questions about my own health and of my own reproductive health. So I just kind of threw a stick and found a fertility specialist in the city. There's a million everywhere. And went in not knowing what I was going to be getting myself into. I thought we would be able to. to talk and discuss and just consider and having my husband and I hadn't even started trying yet.

Right. We got into our first appointment and they ran some like relative blood work, really normal stuff and came back saying that some levels of my ovarian reserve count. It's labeled AMH levels is what. I think doctors will tell you. It's a hormone level that tells you how many eggs you could have or will have. I say that because it's used kind of as a scare tactic. It was used as a scare tactic.

I think that was my experience of, okay, your numbers are kind of low. There was really being the kind of person that I am, I was like, let's talk about that. I'd like to tell me a little bit more about that. I love my research and love to hear. you're, okay, if you're going to tell me that this is going to be a problem, like, what are my options? Yeah. This is where my, like, naive part came in of where the doctor that I signed up to see just took me on this path of, well, this is a really huge issue that your numbers are low. And really, it was the sense of you needed to start IVF a couple years ago.

type of. So like you're already late, creating a sense of urgency in you. Yeah. If you ever want to have children, then, wow, we better get on it right now. Yeah. And probably made you feel like there are no alternatives to this. Oh yeah. No alternatives whatsoever. And now I remember, I'm kind of feeling it again right now just like I remember being in that office and just having like a gut punch of wait, hold on a second. But now looking back after everything that I'll get. And I'm just like, I'm going to get into. It's just so funny that I think something that's really important that I do want people to hear from my story is the scare tactic. I really understand now of when we look at how many embryos there are on ice. I think that Jennifer Law talked about when she was on

makes a lot of sense to me because of the urgency that I was pushed, like the urgency that was pushed towards you need to start this process right now. You should have started a long time ago. If you want to have a child, there's like a ticking clock. We need to do this. When in the reality, that's not the case. How old were you at the time that you were having this? It was 29. And we had not even actually started trying yet. Right. We had never even actually. Was this in 2020, 2020? 21. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I probably spent maybe 10 minutes in his office and he just started to go round and round about the whole process. What was most jarring to me is the push towards making embryos right away. It was like I went in

for blood work and all of a sudden I was supposed to be scheduling appointments to come back to start the process. Again, the pushed pressure. and I remember him talking about it was all such a blur but I remember him talking about like embryo harvesting and again have you I've only been in this office for maybe like seven minutes yeah and he's already talking about that like your head is spinning uh-huh and so um I I kept trying to interrupt and like, can we please talk about some other, like, if my body's not making these hormones correctly, like, isn't there something we could do? I know there's like probably some procedures or anything like that. It was kept reverting right back to, well, time. There's time on our

hands that we really need to get going here. Anyways. So basically saying because apparently your levels of AMH, you said, were low, that could perhaps. indicate that the availability of healthy eggs is low. So he was saying kind of, okay, while the more time we spend not creating these embryos, the more difficult it will be to be able to harvest your eggs and get the healthy embryos. So he's like, okay, it's basically now or never you're hearing as a newlywed 29-year-old, right? So when he's saying all that, okay, let's go, let's go, let's get these embryos. And you're trying to interrupt, like, how does that appointment end? So he started talking about embryo harvesting and that was in the moment.

I just felt this like, hold on a second. You're saying human embryo. Like, can you explain to me more about what that is? And like we're going to be putting them on ice and you're talking to me about like the rights that I have to discard those if I would like to or not. So he went right into all of that. Right into it. Right into it. And so. And so he really started to fumble around the, like, what is an embryo? It's what I get to decide, all of these things. And as he just kept talking, I was like, okay, thank you for your time. I need to, I have a lot to consider. And so I ended the appointment and was handed a packet for financial responsibilities of like how much IVF would be. Yeah. So that was my first appointment. So I thought, okay, I want to go get a second opinion. Yeah. So was he, that first doctor, did he explain to you, like, how you would go through the IVF process, the stimulating and retrieving the eggs, the freezing of the embryos, the cryopreservation,

the transfer of the embryos, or I guess before that, deciding which embryos are healthy, how many to get boys, girls? Like, did he go through all of that with you, too, in that first appointment? Yes, within probably the next 10 minutes. Yeah, he got into like the epigenetics of it. And like if I wanted more girl embryos, if I wanted male, you know, all these things. So dystopian. Oh, totally. And so I think he could sense my, like, I cannot believe you're talking about this right now. We just went over my blood work. And I'll have you. My hormone levels were not. not even like, we're not talking bottom of the barrel here. They were just lowish for my age. Yeah. Right. And did you know anything before going in about IVF or was this all kind of new information for you? It was all so new. Okay. Also know. I was thinking about that today. How I think my like lack of knowledge did not match up with, I don't know if this is,

you're a millennial, right? I think we're the exact same age. If you were 29 and 2021. 32 right now. Yeah, me too. So I don't know if this was your experience, but IVF wasn't really a thing when we were younger. I don't remember hearing like, oh, I'm an IVF baby. But then when we started to get older, they were like, this is your options.

And I don't know about you. I don't know if I necessarily fed into this, but in our culture, there was this be a girl boss and put your, I know that outside of like a Christian culture, maybe sometimes it feeds into that, that too. There's this, put your motherhood on hold. Like, go, go fight for a career, you know, go do all that. Like, you can always become a mom, but you're like PR job matters. It will only last for, which is like the opposite. Yeah. And so I bring that up because I think when I started to become more of like a reproductive age, IVF started to be this like buzzword. Yeah. Of like it's always an opposite. And it was just like presented as I definitely thought this way before a few years ago as just like morally neutral. It's just an option. I had no idea like you what actually went on in the selection of the embryos, what had to go on in women's bodies. I just thought, well, this is just another way for people to have kids who want to have kids. And that was it. That's all I thought about.

Yeah. No of the the details or the moral dilemma that you have to make these decisions about, okay, if you put 20 embryos away for these procedures, what do you do after? Yeah. You want to have maybe one or two kids. Right. Or the, I think this is something that was more shocking to me as I started to consider. are my options. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but the algorithm on Instagram is really good at like knowing exactly what you're going through. Oh, yeah, totally. It's pretty creepy. But I guess because I had been searching some fertility stuff, all these things started

popping up on my For You page. And I started to get all these accounts of girls our age going through the process of IVF. and I would look at their profiles and I don't know if you've ever noticed or ever seen but in their in their bios they would have listed you know I'm on round four or five six

of IVF they would have either marked with like a red X or a angel baby emoji to mark I didn't know that to mark how many miscarriages they've had

wow And I think that was so shocking to me. I know that was so shocking to me to see as I was trying to like wrap my head around, what is, what have we been told our options? And then I'm looking at all these accounts of these girls documenting what they have to put their bodies through with all the injections, all the hormones. And then the amount of loss that I don't think, apart from knowing what IVF was, I don't think. I don't think I ever was aware of how much actual loss women our age are going through.

They're being sold this. We can make you a baby at all costs. Let's do it. And then they're going through three, four, five miscarriages. Or they're staying. After they start. After they start. Yeah, I'm sorry.

After they start IVF. Or they feel like they have to stay stanchorage. duck at a provider because they've been given this almost like hope or maybe even like a gambling high of like, okay, we tried this one round. It didn't work. Let's try again. Yeah. Let's try again. And they've invested so much money into it. And also what I'm about to say, I'm not saying characterizes everyone or even most people who have gone through IVF, but you do have to consider that those that you're talking about that have created Instagram accounts based on this, this has become a brand and it's become a money-making opportunity and it is

really difficult to forego that. If you have made money off of sharing your IVF journey and that's what people know you as and you've commercialized that experience, you've basically commercialized the trauma that these children have gone through by freezing them and discarding them, then it's hard to go back on that. And so that just makes it even more accomplished. complicated for some of the people who are kind of publicizing their journey. So tell me then about going to the second doctor. You immediately knew, which by the way, I'm impressed. I'm so impressed that having so little knowledge about the IVF process like I did, like most of us did, you still, like the Holy Spirit was still pricking your heart. And you had enough

of an ethical and moral foundation to hear human embryo, epigenetics and all of that stuff. I'm not so sure about that because I hear a lot of women say, well, just the sound in my head, the voice in my head telling me, but you want to become a mom, but you want to become a mom, is so much louder than any questions or convictions that you might have. So I mean, I'm just very thankful that something, you know, pricked your heart in that office. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about that this morning on the way up here of how just the, the, I remember during that season the desperation and the despair, I think, that can come from, okay, my body's not doing what it's supposed to be. And I have this dream. I want to be a mom. It's not happening for me. There's this medical provider that's saying they can, but they're man.

Like, they're not God. But the internal war, like you're saying, of, okay, this man, this person's promising me that they can do this thing for me. Let's go for it. And yeah, it's almost like you would have to turn that part of you off if you were to continue to just keep going and going and going with each round. But I truly think that, I mean, I can't imagine the pain. I mean, I understand the pain and the desperation of walking through this process. and just the uncertainty of is this going to happen for me. As a believer, having the conviction of the Holy Spirit of like having a child is not your God.

God is your God. He's the provider of life. If this is his plan for me, this will be on his time. But the conviction of, okay, I have these men telling me. me that I can't I can't do this what am I who am I going to believe but the fear that's instilled I can't imagine girls who don't walk like don't have a relationship with the Lord don't have an understanding of his sovereignty I get how they could get caught up in yeah going and going for many years yeah especially when your either desires or your highest authority or you know

the men in white coats. I think we all have gotten kind of like white coat syndrome where we are intimidated by doctors who make us feel like, oh my gosh, if you don't do this, you're so dumb. Yeah. And what do you know? Oh, you're going to do your research. Well, I went to medical school. And so it's really easy to be like, well, what do I know? If, you know, they're telling me that this is the path to take, then of course they must be right. But you ended up getting a second opinion. So tell me about that. Yeah. So I wound up getting three opinions. The second one was just a flub, I went in the guy called me the wrong patient's name and I'm like laying down on the table and he calls me a different patient's name and is like, let's start this new trigger shot. And I'm like,

hi, doctor, I am the first time here. This is my first time here. I'm so and so. I'm not who you're talking about. In the moment that that happened, I was. Oh, yeah. She talked. I think we did it. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it's where they run the dye through your ovarian tubes just to see how clear they are. I think it's not HSG, but it's called something else. But anyways, I was like, okay, fine, I'll do that. But like, this gives me pause. The second guy. Okay, so after he was like, oh, you're not who I thought that you were. So if, I guess this is neither here nor there. I'm just wondering if, like, you hadn't corrected him if he would have just been like if he was just giving you a shot that wasn't even intended for you gosh it reminds me of the doctor

from 30 rock if anyone watches 30 rock um anyway okay so but after that you did get through the appointment then he suggested doing this to check your ovaries to see really how healthy they were yeah my ovarian tubes is what that was checking and so uh those were clear those were fine okay um but i just i think the the first appointment. I was like, no, I can't. This is a sham. I just kind of started to catch on of like, what are these people doing? And this, it felt like a conveyor belt. I remember sitting in the waiting room and there are all these girls around me and it's just like one after the other after the other. And I had already gotten into like seeing a lot of people's stories on Instagram. I just was like, I can't. So we went to a third doctor. And that,

was probably the most jarring experience. Really even worse than the first? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He took one look at my blood work and sat me down and said, and I wish I was making this up. I wish I was misquoting him or maybe caught him on a bad day. I do not know.

but it was again the same story of okay your blood work is kind of iffy you should have started IVF a long time ago but are you sure you even want to go through with this and I was like I'm sorry it was during the mask era so he really could not see during the pandemics we really could not see my face but he's just like are you sure you want to go through this experience he said I am one of the most renowned specialists in the world. So cocky. Yeah. I am God.

People seek me out from all over the world to make them a baby. And they come to me, they do a million rounds of IVF, spend thousands of dollars for their baby to die. Or they're born with birth defects. I've seen babies born without parts. Like, are you sure you want to go through this type of process? Are you sure you, yeah, are you sure you want to put your body through this? Ann, are you sure you even want to be a mom? I wish I was joking.

Are you sure you even want to be a mom? Why don't you just go travel with your husband? I know so many moms who come back to me after they've had a baby. They're like, this is really hard. I didn't know. I want to like, oh, my gosh. I want to pay this doctor a visit. Yeah. Oh, it's taking everything in me not to, like, actually quote his name. But yeah. But then he was saying, are you sure you want to have children? They're really spoiled. I have a really annoying niece. Yeah. So it's like, oh my gosh. So have you, Allie, this is already, this is after, this is the third doctor I've seen. And he said, and he's saying all of this to me. And then I start choking up. but I'm trying to remain calm because I'm like, oh my gosh. He's like, why are you crying?

And I just got up and I walked out. I got up and walked out and was like, okay, Lord, if I'm having a baby, you are going to have to do it. Obviously, I already know you're going to do it, but I'm not trusting in these doctors. Wow. I don't even understand what his incentive would be to say those things. Like if he was just like, you know what, I don't need any more business. So I got to like, I got to weed out the ones who don't really want it, take him through like some kind of weird warped initiation. Honestly, it felt, I remember the feeling while he was talking.

It felt like I was sitting across from death. Yeah. Like Satan. I think he has seen so much carnage of what he has done at the sake of making money. Right. And playing God. He's desensitized. He's so desensitized.

It was like a conversation we were talking about the weather. That's why it was most jarring for me to see of, okay, this is the third fertility doctor I've seen, like beating a dead horse here. And this is his reaction of, like he has the power to make a life. And he's so desensitized because he said, I have seen so much death. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. That's awful. It was like the Lord was showing you these terrible experiences, though, to make you realize that this is not the path that he had you on.

And before we get into the kind of natural path that you ended up taking, I mean, part of the article that you wrote in the Federalist or that was about you in the Federalist is about, you know, it becoming a cash cow for them. And so what did you discover about that? like the incentives that these doctors have financially to kind of push IVF so hard from the beginning. You know, really the majority of it was, I think, feeding off the desperation again of just really wanting to be able to create a life. I think, though, really it wasn't that I saw a ton of incentives. The only thing I can think of is one of the places would, like, you could put money down or you could, like, put it on loan. And then if it was successful for you, you could, like, obviously you'd have to pay. But if it wasn't, then you could keep trying.

And so I think the price would go up from there. But I don't really know if I knew a ton of incentives. It wasn't until I saw the last, or more of the holistic. doctor that he just shared with me because of how easy it was. I like wound up pregnant a month later after. I mean, we'll get into that. But I was like, well, I went to these doctors and they told me this is going to take forever. And I should have been doing this long time ago. And I just got pregnant basically by sneezing. So right. So crazy. And he just said, yeah, it's a cash incentive. Yes. Jennifer Law has done a lot of work on this. I mean,

some of the treatments that were suggested for you are about $40,000. And she has talked about the, um, how much babies cost basically an IVF versus, um, like restorative reproductive medicine treatment, which we'll talk about in a minute. I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. And so, of course, there is a financial incentive with some of these doctors. I can't say all of them. Yeah. But it is how they make their money.

And so of course, just like any other business, you want more customers. You need more clientele. And the more embryos you make, the more rounds of IVF you do, the more money they're making. They really have no personal incentive to say, you know what? Let's take a second look at this and see if you can go ahead and get pregnant naturally. Or I'm going to recommend some of these more holistic approaches to you. That's not their business model. It's just not. And I'm not saying that every IVF doctor, even though I think IVF is wrong in all cases.

Like, I'm not saying that they all have these like malevolent incentives or they don't think they think that they do. Some of them probably think that they're really helping. But at the end of the day, they are also thinking of paying their own bills. And so that's just, that's just part of it. That's just inherent in the industry, not to mention all of the pharmaceutical companies and all. of the big business that's behind the reproductive industry. It's all a cash cow. It just is. I mean, that's just part of it. Yeah. Okay, so tell me, after you had that terrible experience with the third doctor, what you decided that you were going to do? Because at this point, you all still weren't even trying for a baby, right? I think we had like, I can't remember actually. I'm sure we were like, let's just give it a try.

Who knows? Yeah, but we hadn't officially, like, started taking any medications or anything like that. Okay. But you decided to seek out a natural fertility specialist, right? So tell me about that. So, bizarrely enough, I, again, Instagram, just wound up coming into a account that was called Napro Napro technology, which is really an old, old, old method that takes a look at, you start charting your cycle and really not to get into the weeds of it on here.

But it was more of a natural holistic, like, alternative to IVF. And instead of going in, and this is what was so interesting. is when the doctors told me that my AMH levels were low, so my egg count was low, they were wanting to chalk me full of hormones to force my body to make eggs. But at the same time, I'm like, I thought I had not that many eggs. Like, it didn't make sense on paper exactly what I was being told. But anyways, I wound up coming across a couple of these accounts on Instagram that were these doctors trying to promote their specialties of NAPro technology. which really, you know, I don't have a medical degree. I don't know exactly all the things behind it, but I worked with a provider to chart my own cycles. And it was done through something called the Creighton method. And so you can Google this. It's out there. And there are providers that will work with you. And walking through like what's going on each cycle that I'm having. And he did, something as simple as like doing a follicle scan with me for a couple cycles and found out that

I just wasn't ovulating correctly. My hormones were out of whack and he said, we just need to look at your hormones and try to get them balanced. And something that is really important here is that right now what's happening with your follicles and why you're not getting pregnant is you can actually have be having tons of miscarriages right now because it's not actually doing your it's premature um ovulation is what so in other words the egg could be being fertilized but it's either not implanting or after implantation it's dying quickly and you wouldn't even know because it would seem like a period and so you could be having a ton of early miscarriages yes which meant that it's not that you couldn't get pregnant right necessarily it was the sustaining of

the pregnancy and he said yeah it's because of this thing right the follicles with the hormones is going on right and all he did was put me on some progesterone medication yeah it was four dollars with my insurance oh my goodness and a couple other a couple other things and again I think this is something that I do want to say is I understand that trying to have a child it's like out out in the world all these different options, well, try this or try this or try this, or try this. I am not saying just because this happened with me and this was my experience that, you know, boom, here's the solution. It's going to be the same for everyone. So I really say this very tenderly in with compassion or like, I understand the heartbreak of hearing someone else's

story. And it's like, well, I've tried this. Yeah. It didn't, it didn't work for me in the desperation there. But the point is that so many women are not even told that there is any other possible alternative. That is probably one of the most important things of why I felt called to write this and write in the Federalist was, I truly think that there's so much information being left out and left out for the nefarious reasons of, you know, making money. But this was way more simple working with this doctor and he told me to go on a paleo diet and take a couple of these different medications that help with ovulation and we'll just continue to see what happens. And in like two months, I was pregnant.

You were pregnant. Oh my goodness. That is so wild after going through the journey that she did. And even going back to when you were a teenager thinking, okay, you know the endometriosis it can have an effect on fertility and then hearing, oh, yeah, there's no way that you're going to be able to get pregnant naturally. Oh my gosh. I bet that moment of seeing the positive pregnancy test was just like, incredible. I was actually about to go to like another, you know, homeopathic type. I don't even remember I was doing acupuncture or something. But, and I took a test just for the,

just for the heck of it. and was listening to Ben Shapiro on a podcast. And then all of a sudden I'm like, what? What? What? It's actually positive. It's actually positive. Yeah.

So, yeah, that was pretty crazy. But I think to, maybe to cut, maybe I'm repeating myself, but I do think that's important to share with this is like how much information is being left out and how much much women are. age need to advocate for themselves and not take at first glance what a white code is telling them. You're putting your body and your future child's body in life in the hands of someone. You need to do your research. You need to do everything you possibly can to make sure that you don't have to do the most drastic measure. Mm-hmm. And listen to that prick in your heart, which if you're a believer, I think, is the Holy Spirit. Yeah. That is telling you, hey, there's something here. You're hearing human embryos. That means these are people made in the image of God.

Yeah. Which means we have to consider how we are treating them. And that's why, you know, some people make the comparison. Well, you know, medicine makes a lot of good things. possible and it's just like a cancer treatment or treatment for diabetes or anything else. You're just getting a treatment. Well, no, it's inherently different because we are talking about valuable human life and powerless human lives. And so you're not just treating an organ. You are treating a distinct individual, a person. And technology can tell us what is possible. It can't tell us what moral or ethical. And that's the doctor's role is to tell you it's possible. They can't really, or they don't often tell you what is moral, what is ethical. They see that as subjective. Obviously, they don't really have that. They don't see it as immoral or unethical or else they

wouldn't be doing it. And so you have to trust, you have to trust the Lord, of course, and trust the wisdom that he is giving you and not be intimidated by these persons. professionals who are telling you to silence any doubts that you have. Yeah. Yeah, I think I remember when we started going through this, there was a sermon at my church where I was talking about in First Peter about the verse that says like entrust your soul to a faithful creator while suffering. I think that stuck out to me so much because this is such a. a painful and hard road to go down. And I think that's something that I want for, you know, the listeners, the girls who are

feeling so desperate and so heartbroken over this process is that, like, God really does use suffering and the pain that we're going through to bring us closer to himself. and that again, motherhood and a child is not God. God is our God. And I think that was one of the things that he used during this whole process with me is to bring me closer to himself to know that if this is my calling, if this is something that he wants for me, he will provide. But to listen to and be convicted of, I don't need to at all costs.

have a what did you say the other day i think you said an unfettering access to creating these embryos unfettered probably unfettered something i can't ever remember things that i say but but it stuck out to me or just the wild wild west of fertility of right you can just go out and do literally whatever um that is of the world that is that is that is of man and not of god And we often say when technology takes us from what is natural to what is possible, we are obligated, especially when it comes to creating life to ask, but is this right? And is this good? Go ahead. Right. It's not like we're choosing what color to paint the wall. That's what I was thinking of. This is a human life, whether we're going to grow our family or if we're going to put these embryos and these things out outside of our world.

bodies. I can't imagine what the like women in Alabama, right? It was in Alabama where they put a pause on what you can do with your embryos, right? To have that part of you outside of your body. Right. I can't imagine. Right. And in the unwise decision of putting those on ice to wait and to try, it's just like I was thinking as well, I really wonder one day, if we're going to look back in years to come and just shake our head in awe of like, what have we done? Yeah. That there are that many.

I hope so. That there are that many like human embryos on ice. Just waiting. Yeah. Souls on ice. All right. This one is for the related bros out there by Blaze TV colleague Jason Whitlock. He's got an event June 1st in Nashville, fearless roll call.

This is round two of this event. last year's was so amazing. They got such incredible feedback from that event that they decided to do it again. You're going to hear amazing music by John Rich. You're going to hear from Jason Whitlock, Glenn Beck, North Carolina, lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, so many others that are going to offer you encouragement as men and as dads to take responsibility. You're going to find camaraderie with like-minded men, it's just going to be amazing. Go to fearless army rollcall.com. Get your tickets today.

That's fearless army rollcall.com. And people don't realize, too, that, yes, like, I do think that there are, so I'm against all IVF because of what we are talking about, because these are human beings made in the image of God. Plus, I think when you take reproduction outside of its indigenous. intended context and sex, there are all kinds of ethical problems with that, all kinds of issues. But even just looking at like the success of IVF transfers and pregnancies versus those who end up getting pregnant naturally, like the miscarriage rate is higher. And very often those little

embryos, maybe in God's image, don't make it because they are thawed to, early. And almost people don't realize that even those who strive, and I believe, like, they have pure intentions and they just don't know many, even those who strive to do it in the most ethical way possible, creating only the number of embryos that they want to implant and implanting or transferring all of the embryos that they've created. Yes, I think that's better, by the way. What the EU does. Yeah. Yes, exactly. guidelines outside of the states. Yes. It's totally, it is totally possible to do that. And it's better to do that, of course, than creating, you know, 12 to 20 embryos, which is sometimes what happens.

But, like, people don't realize that even in that process, there is a destruction of embryos. Like, there is a eugenics process that they go through. And doctors won't do it without that process. And very often, doctors won't even just create two embryos. They're like, no. No, we're at least, we're going to create, you know, five to ten. And then we can settle on to maybe a boy and a girl, the ones that don't have Down syndrome. Yes. The ones that you don't have the problems that we think, like even in the most ethical way possible to do IVF, you have those issues. Right.

And you're sparking my memory right now with the first doctor. He started to go into that of we will create the embryos. They will all be there, how many we get. And we want a big number. okay so a human embryo we want a ton of them and then we're going to weed through okay if this one looks like genetically deformed or and if you're not understanding of what he's talking about like that means that he's discarding ones that might not be fully formed or they might have down syndrome or they might be so exactly what you're talking about if you i don't think that women understand that's what

they mean when they say we're going to like make sure you have a couple of good eggs. Yeah. It's like they just kind of brush right past that because for them it's no big deal. And it really doesn't make sense. Like you were saying how kind of inconsistent the logic is. On the one hand, he's telling you that you don't have, you don't have very many healthy eggs. Like you're just not going to be able to get pregnant naturally because you've got such,

you know, low amount. And then he's telling you, but we're going to create all of these embryos. So you're going to be able to create a ton of embryos, but you don't have very many eggs. Time is of the essence. Like, again, it just doesn't make very much sense. It would have made more sense if he was like, you know, with your terrible, abysmal levels, we're maybe lucky to get two. You're dry as a desert. Yeah.

Which is not the case. Yeah. And he's telling you, you know, we're going to create all these embryos. And you're right. Like, we are so conditioned. I feel like we just live in such a pro-choice, pro-abortion world that even those of us who are pro-life have been condition to think differently when it comes to reproductive technology than when we think about abortion. All of a sudden, we're talking about IVF and we accept the clumps of cells rhetoric and the

clumps of cells logic. It's so easy to get caught up in in that rhetoric and the, I just remember the like probing of my heart of like, well, I understand what this man is saying to me, but like, is it really a clump of cells? Okay, well, if it is, but you have to, I even went and looked up like the definition of a human embryo. And I was like, what, I know the different stages, the zygote, all those kind of things. And there's somewhere, I think, on the Stanford website, Stanford University, it says, point blank, like, life is created at conception when an embryo is created.

That is the medical definition. It's distinct. With its own DNA. I'm like if Stanford University is saying it. Yeah. Like I think it's so pushed by the left of like, well, you guys are just thinking that because you're Christians. I'm like these like liberal universities, regular old definitions, it's there in the book. Yeah.

They're in the book. It just changes depending on, really it changes depending on adult desire. That's what it is. if adults desire to have an abortion, if adults desire to have a child, then all of a sudden we can change the definition of when life begins, we can change the definition

of what a human being even is. And Christians, of all people, are called not to think that way. That's not the lens through which we see the world and through which we see other human beings. And you can see like how that mentality has justified all kinds of human rights atrocities. Well, we want to do this.

You want to own a slave. you want to exterminate a group of people. And so that gives you the license to classify them in non-human language that, you know, makes you callous towards what you're actually doing. That's what we've done to all groups of people that we've tried to justify exterminating or mistreating. You start to call them names and apply categories to them that don't sound human. Yeah, desensitize.

Yeah. People just need to realize that. what's going on. Yeah, I think, too, speaking of, like, a liberal mindset, I was, like, pondering on, okay, what are we doing here if I'm trying to advocate for myself as a woman getting medical procedures done, right? Like, at the heart of the feminist movement, it's, right, like, I have rights over my own body. I don't want a man to tell me what to do with my body medically, right, for abortion and all those kind of things. It's so contradictory because, for those who are pro-choice, but they're also pro-IV, if you actually take a look back at the process

that I went through, it was almost as if I had, if I had not been paying attention to what these men were saying, I'm just putting my body as a woman and my reproductive rights in their hands. So true. It's a man telling you what to do with your body. So contradictory. And I think there's so much. move of like, I must have my rights and I must have these things. But then if you look at what happened in Alabama, like we said, their own human life that you created is now outside of you and now you've put it in the hands of the government can tell you what to do with it. So true. It's so contradictory. It is so contradictory. That's a really good point. And there's a lot of inconsistency too

with like surrogacy and the pro abortion crowd who also tends to be pro surrogacy. It's like it's my body, my choice until you become a surrogate. And then that woman loses all rights to her body. She's not allowed to decide what to do with the life that's been created and that she's carrying. Many times she's contractually obligated to abort the child if the child has a fetal anomaly or something happens. We've interviewed one of those women on this podcast.

And so it really is once you stop looking at it through the lens of adult desire and bodily autonomy and you look at it through the lens of this is a child and a human being, only then can you have a consistent ethic when it comes to creating life. I did just want to read this by Jennifer Law because like did you categorize the doctor that you went to. Did he call it restorative reproductive medicine? Okay. So she has a thread about this, which I had actually never heard of that term. Nobody. It's so sad. It's so sad.

That is, I think, an answer to so many people's problems with IVF. But it's not talked about. I think, I mean, don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but like, of course Big Pharma wants to keep that quiet. Or be like, that sounds kind of wacky. Why would you do that? I don't actin thing. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't make the money. So she says, she said, I want you to become familiar with restorative reproductive medicine. This was a tweet at the end of February, which aims to treat the underlying fertility issue in men and women. It's not popular because it's affordable and carries very little risk, if any. And so I can't go through every single thing here. But she talks about some of the studies that show the success of RRM. It has a low risk of twin or multiple births, a very good neonatal outcome with potential cost savings to the health care system.

So that's good. That's another thing with IVF is that very often these women, like multiple embryos are transferred in the hope that one sticks while maybe two or three or four stick. And then those women are pressured to reduce their pregnancies. And so you are purposely killing baby A, baby B, baby C, whichever baby is basically lowest and easiest to get to. That's another issue with IVF. no one talks about. And then she says these this data that she links shows that IVF are over four

times, IVF babies are over four times more expensive than RRM babies. And IVF success rates are actually lower. RRM as higher life has a higher live birth rate. And due to the low incidence of adverse outcomes, RRM likely has a better perinatal outcomes compared to IVF. Any government policy that provides exclusive funding for IVF threatens access to RRM treatment. despite evidence that RM may be a better treatment for many patients using RRM as a prerequisite option suitable patients. So true would save thousands and avoid the use of invasive procedures that often are not necessary. So basically saying, look, before you go the IVF route, try this, do this. Let's exhaust everything. And you know, I'm even looking back to when my

husband and I first started trying when I was 26 and I was. And I wasn't. pressured in any way at that point. But I am thinking back to like those first conversations because it took us four months and to get pregnant. And in my mind, I was like, oh, it should just happen immediately or something's wrong with me. And I do remember my doctor saying, okay, because y'all are healthy 26 and 27 year olds, if you're not pregnant by six months, that's when we need to have a bigger conversation. And I'm looking back and I'm thinking, And I'm like, well, actually, I know women who don't have any fertility problems, but it took them a year or a year and a half because there's so many different factors. Stress, what you're eating, the medications that you're taking for me.

I think it was my thyroid. I actually needed to get on the right dosage. And I, you know, we've never had to have any help getting pregnant. But I wonder, I'm like, okay, if it had been like one more month, there are two more months. And I had gone into the doctor's office and said, we didn't get pregnant. After six, only six months of trying. Would he have been like, okay, let's have the IVF conversation? Yeah, yeah.

I remember the doctor I wound up getting pregnant. I'm not getting pregnant with, but. I know what you mean. Under his care. Under his care. Yeah. He said, yeah, of course. If you're healed, why would they, right?

If we figure out what's wrong with your reproductive issues and we heal that, Like, you're no longer valuable to these doctors. They don't want you to know that through this NAPro technology or these other holistic understanding of what is actually going on with you, they don't want you to know that. And they really don't want you to be empowered to take control over, okay, I know my own body. I know, like, this month, this happened. They don't want you to know that because then you won't need their care anymore. you won't need it and and and something too with the Creighton method that I used it helped me understand

there are really only like a handful of days you actually are really probably going to get pregnant in a month I don't know about you but I grew up a purity culture and they're like if you sneeze you will get pregnant oh yeah I thought that immediately well I mean it is kind of crazy how that happens how you have married couples who try and try and have such a hard time getting pregnant and then you've got the 16-year-old to one time, she ends up getting pregnant. And so, but of course, like, that is part of like the fear, like in your teenage years that motivates you not to have sex, which I think is a totally like one, a valid fear. It shouldn't be the only motivation for the Christian, but I mean, that is a ramification of it.

And so you just think, well, that's how it's going to be also when I'm 25 and trying to get pregnant or 30 trying to get pregnant. And it's, you know, it's a little bit more calculation, not that hard. Yeah. but yeah yeah i something when we were talking a little bit about the statistics a little bit ago of ivf um i thought it was so interesting to look back at the like what is pushed through the regular like united states medical um culture is IVF is the best IVF is our biggest option how much it is pushed versus the contradictory nature of like the actual outcome of how many live births come from IVF.

The numbers are low. I think at one statistic I saw was about 38%. I mean, I think it depends on what articles you're looking at. Jennifer Law says 24.4% of births that are done through IVF are live births, right. They don't match up how much it's being pushed versus how much. much it's going to work. Something else, too, that comes to my mind is when we go back to advocating for your health and knowing that the doctors you're putting your trust in, you have to make sure that they are exhausting every option. What the, Dr. Jones is the man who I wound up working with

at the end. He had said that it would have been absolutely unethical. ethical to have started me on any sort of IVF treatment based on what was actually wrong with my endometriosis diagnosis and the ovulation difficulties that I was having would have put me at risk for so many miscarriages and so many problems. And he was saying none of those doctors looked into that when they knew you had an endometriosis diagnosis. So they're not doing, I mean, I'm not painting this all with a horrible brush here. Like I know there are doctors that probably work very hard for these women. But just the carelessness of they were not doing everything they needed to do to make sure that this was going to work. And again, it's not like we're painting the wall, like picking out

what color to paint the wall here. This is a human life being created. And so if we're not following everything to a tea of what we need to do to make sure this woman can carry. And a viable pregnancy. What are we doing? I know. And we haven't even talked about the increase in the rates of breast cancer and other kinds of cancer

that has a causal relationship with IVF. And so it's not even about it's, I mean, it's not really good for anyone. Yes, you might get a baby out of it, maybe. But gosh, there is so much destruction

and damage that is scattered behind the process. of making that one baby. And that's, I always have to say, like, of course, this doesn't mean that babies made through IVF are any less valuable or that you're not a great mother and that you don't love your children. I know that you love your children very much and that your babies are precious and made in God's image.

But, you know, just like in everything, while we celebrate all life as pro-lifers, we don't have to approve of how every baby was conceived. Yeah. We have to kind of step away from the any means necessary mentality. I so agree. And I want to echo what you just said of I know and love many people who have gone through the IVF process. I know and love their babies.

I think one of the most things that I feel called through this telling this story is, I just don't think our generation, Ali, like, truly understand what IVF is and what the process is and what we're doing here. I think there needs to be a major recall of do something first, do something else first. Yes. And, you know, as you said, can totally empathize and understand like the struggle of wanting to have kids and having that unfulfilled desire. And I do want to read the, as we close out, the Bible verse that you referenced, it's 1 Peter 419. Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will, entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. It's not so different than what we say often on this podcast to do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory

of God, but it adds such a beautiful comfort there that we are, as we are suffering, we are at the same time, entrusting our souls to a faith, I just love all of the words selected, a faithful creator while doing good. So the God who made us is actively caring for us and ministering to our souls while we are suffering. Our suffering is not for nothing. And we are also empowered to continue to do good while we are suffering. How amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

It's hearing that all over again is ministering to my heart of just how near God was during that painful time and the end part of while doing good, gave at the end of that, that I can entrust my soul to a faithful creator while doing good. It gave me this, like, trust me and keep going, not keep trying to. have a baby but keep living your life do not give way to fear draw near to me like I will use this suffering who knows if you're going to get a child out of this or not that's not promised but you'll get more of me you'll get more of my spirit and you in a closer relationship with me and at the end of the day as believers that's why we're here that's what we need yes and amen and

now in your case you do have a precious baby boy Which is, and how old is he now? He's over one. He's a little over one. He's a little over one, a spitfire. And I look at him and I just can't, I can't believe it. Yeah. But praise God, he didn't have, he didn't have to answer that prayer, but by his grace he did.

And it's a wild ride. Yes, it is. I mean, parenting is a wild ride. But there's not enough people talking about the wild ride that it can be before. Or we even can see those children. I forgot about it all. Yeah. So thank you so much for sharing your story.

You didn't have to do that. But I do believe God just uses these testimonies to change hearts and minds. And really, I don't know if you've ever sat with like the impact of sharing your testimony, but your testimony can literally save lives. As someone, I guarantee you one person at least is going to hear this. They're going to cancel that appointment. And they are going to choose a different path, a path that is not one. one that sacrifices little image bearers of God, but one that is actually a truly life-giving,

even if it is in just the gospel spiritual sense. So thank you so much, Katie. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you.