RTE No 20 Interior - Road to Emmaus Journal

Road to Emmaus Vol. XIII, No. 2 (#49)Natural Conception, Natural Birthyou can pull yourself up by the bootstraps, the rugged individualism of “I cando it, I can be it.” For many women who are career women and wives—professionallysuccessful, who entertain, shine socially and become masters oftheir own little universe—to not succeed at conception may be the first timein their life that they find themselves failing. This brings the realization thatyou can’t control everything: we are all subject to God’s will. Still, none ofthis diminishes or negates the pain or suffering of infertility because it is across. It is a cross that Joachim and Anna had to bear, as well as Elizabethand Zachariah, Abraham and Sarah. Yet, as Metropolitan Nikolaos says, biologicalsterility may become the cause of rich spiritual fertility for a couplethat humbly accepts God’s will in their life. 16RtE: Which saints inspire you in this work?Melanie: I always pray to Sts. Joachim and Anna, asking for their prayersbefore God for my infertile clients. I’ve had one client who has not been ableto carry a child. She conceived once with the method and since then she hasadvanced in age and has progressive endometriosis. She is now looking toadopt. For my clients who decide to adopt I pray to St. John Maximovitch,Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, because of his great love for theabandoned children of Shanghai. Recently I also began contemplating unmarriedwomen who have problems with their reproductive systems, or anywoman who simply needs to be restored to health. Here I thought of theGospels and the woman with the issue of blood, who in Orthodox tradition isthought to be St. Veronica or Berenice.RtE: What do we know about her?Melanie: By tradition she was married and had suffered from the issue ofblood for twelve years before she met Christ. This was a debilitating illnesson which she had spent all of her money searching for a cure. In Hebrewtradition she wouldn’t have been allowed to touch her husband because shewas bleeding, nor would anyone be allowed to touch anything that she hadtouched. So, she not only felt sick and physically drained, but was living almostlike a leper.RtE: We generally focus on the miracle and forget what those twelve yearsmust have meant.Melanie: Yes, and when she sees Christ she kneels down to just touch thehem of His garment. The first time that I really thought about that Gospel,I couldn’t understand why the Lord called her out in front of this crowd, bysaying “Who touched me? …Power has gone out of me.” Chrysostom saysthat this was a theft on her part, but a good theft, and that the Lord exposedher in order to ease her conscience so that she wouldn’t feel that she hadstolen the miracle. At the same time He praises the faith that opened her tohealing. I think He was also showing the Pharisees that although she hadbroken the law by touching him, her faith was rewarded.RtE: Melanie, to close, do you see people reawakening to the need for a morenatural approach to reproductive health and infertility treatments?Melanie: Yes. The Creighton Method practitioners in the Boston area areon the verge of being swamped. I’ve had five calls this week alone from couplesinterested in counseling, and this shows a growing awareness. Naturalconception in the body is the most loving and healthiest option, and I thinkthat that should be our goal—to restore a woman’s system to health and helpthem to have a baby in the best possible way.Melanie Sabtchev may be contacted at fertilitycare.of.ma@gmail.com.To find a local fertility counseling practitioner, look up the Creighton Method/Natural ProcreationTechnology websites at: www.creightonmodel.com or www.naprotechnology.com.16 The Greek Orthodox Position on the Ethics of Assisted Reproduction, http://www.bioethics.org.gr/MMLN%20assisted%20repro.pd3435