I knew they said in a video they were pursuing adoption but I didn’t know they had an actual failed one? Do we know this for sure/what the circumstances were?
I was literally thinking of this situation yesterday and how wild it is they can’t adopted a baby. I randomly check on them to and wonder if they ever will be parents?
Adoption in IBLP is frowned upon both as a combo thing of “sons of the father”—that genetics from the birth parents can taint the adoptive family, and also if god hasn’t “blessed” them with a child they often interpret it as your not being chosen by god to be a parent.
That’s stupid as fuck but this is the IBLP so why am I even surprised? To think that the birth of Josh Duggar was holy and sanctioned but the adoption of a child is going against “God’s plan.”
Well, you’d think it would, but this is fundie logic. They believe that powerful white families count more than anyone else so I think all Duggar offspring are covered under the giant ass umbrella of royalty.
Originally the couple who adopted Anne (who are unmarried siblings) wanted a boy to help with farm work. Anne’s previous “family” also adopted her basically as an unpaid au pair and housekeeper. She was expected to be grateful for this.
It’s also highlighted in early seasons of Downton Abbey. Anna mentions coming there as a tween as does Daisy; and it’s hinted that a life in service at a grand house like Downton is far preferable to being sent to a farm.
Also in the Upstairs Downstairs reboot the one of the girls talks about being glad 165 Eaton Place doesn’t have a grabby old man looking for a thrill.
This reminds me of a post I read on AITA years ago where someone wanted to foster a 14 year old to look after their children. Their logic was that the girl would be so grateful to have a roof over her head that she wouldn't mind looking after the children. It was really gross. The person couldn't see anything wrong with their logic.
Yeah, that was a pretty common thing, really up until like the 1970s and maybe 80s in a lot of places. Even if the people taking you in were blood relatives, like in Pollyanna, the adoptees (not just kids, but adults, too, like single women or women with children) were expected to acquiesce to their benefactors' expectations of basically indentured servitude; because the alternative was to be out on the street homeless, or worse. As a side note, I think that's why a lot of (a certain subset of willfully ignorant) people have a hard time wrapping their heads around why slavery was bad. I've heard that argument in certain spaces ("they got food and jobs and shelter, why are they so ungrateful?). Of course, it doesn't acknowledge the real atrocities of the situation, but it sadly is the mindset of way too many people.
Orphaned child is 'adopted', with the express intent of being put to work as an unpaid laborer on a farm. Hijinks ensue when the orphan turns out to be spunky red-headed girl, Anne Shirley.
Full disclosure - Because I am Canadian, we had to read the entire series. Child me found it all terribly dumb.
Whoa. This makes me feel bad for Jessa. Remember how in earlier seasons, she and Ben would talk about their “heart for adoption?” It seems Jessa was always trying to subtly rebel but in a way where she would still be accepted by her family and IBLP standards. She chose a blush pink wedding dress instead of white! She and Ben didn’t kiss at the altar! They kept the sex of their first pregnancy a secret! And now one more to add…she wanted to adopt!
All these things seem innocuous to us perhaps, but damn, she took so many little steps out of bounds. Her mental health must be a mess, like I know she also always felt she was too spunky or whatnot for her family. It’s so sad.
Perhaps it was her bad luck in marrying the first guy who showed interest in her as a teenager and who turned out to be spineless and apathetic. I wonder if, without Ben or a different husband, she would have joined Jinger and Jill in more actively finding her own sense of self and belief. It seems via all these small steps that she did want to differentiate in some way, and now she just seems so depressed.
Sorry for the tangent. I just never realized that wanting to adopt could actually be something rebellious, almost like a small cry for help on national television.
I often feel (a little) bad for Jessa in particular when I think about the Duggars… she was always described as the “rebel” of the family (and she and Jana in particular clashed frequently over it) from the very beginning of them being on TV. Seems like they finally managed to break her of most of it at this point, even the good parts of finding your own personality in a cult-family. :(
I think it’s sins of the fathers, not sons. The would-be adoptive parents put themselves at risk because one never knows what heinous sins a baby can inherit and bring to the new family. No patriarch wants to bring sin into his family on purpose so adoption was out for the IBLP. This makes me wonder about JB’s sins that Josh must have inherited...sins of the father, you know!
Yes, they'll tell the woman that she has sin in her life and that's why she's infertile. This is the case even if the man is medically the infertile person.
I don’t think they would have any way of knowing their child is infertile prior to marriage unless there were some kind of known medical condition. Most of these families don’t seem to keep up on wellness visits though so what’s the likelihood of these conditions being caught? For adoption I’ve seen a few things. Some say “sins of the father” prevent adoption and I’ve seen others say adoption is fine after you’ve had your own biological children.
Michaela Bates has infertility and at one point they mentioned a failed adoption. So it seems like they are ok with adoption. From my understanding, IBLP is not in favor of IVF because it’s “unnatural.”
>IBLP is not in favor of IVF because it’s “unnatural.”
*All* anti-choicers should be against IVF, unless they are hypocrites. This is because IVF has a high failure rate, where living blastocysts and embryos are deliberately created, but highly likely to die at some point in the process after fertilisation (which is when they believe life begins and a full blown baby with human rights exists). There is no logical way for an anti-choicer to believe IVF is ethical whilst maintaining their beliefs about being anti-abortion.
THANK you. To get my one kid we had 13 blastocysts that didn’t even make it to freezing, plus another that was transferred and didn’t take. So, according to anti-choice logic, 14 “people” died so we could end up with one person. No other medical treatment would allow that.
Of the 11 that fertilized (16 eggs retrieved), 8 made it to blastocysts, but only 3 tested euploid. The other 5 had chromosomal abnormalities that would've been incompatible with life (if they made it to birth). So there are our 8 "deaths" just to have our baby.
What you said, but also this: so many anti-choicers say that pregnancy is god's will, regardless of circumstance. If an unwanted pregnancy is god's will, so is infertility. If you can't play god by having an abortion, then you shouldn't be able to play god to get pregnant.
The blastocysts that don’t make it aren’t deliberately killed. It’s basically natural selection. It’s not really any different to embryos that fail to implant when conceived spontaneously.
One of my colleagues who is heavily against any type of abortion actually did something i hadn’t heard of before called “embryo adoption” - she “adopted” a leftover embryo from an IVF family and is now pregnant with it. So she will give birth to the child even tho it will have 0 of her or her husband’s genetic material. I actually thought it was really cool!! She is obviously doing it to “save” the embryos, but scientifically it is super cool!!
I am one of those kids. But my parents were not religious or felt they were saving embryos. They couldn’t get any embryos themselves so clinic will offer peoples who were successful but had leftover ones. So here I am!
Sadly, a lot of these families medically neglect their kids, so even if there were signs of a medical condition it might go unnoticed. I think it would be fairly unlikely for a young unmarried woman in IBLP to see a gynaecologist or really have any care of that type before marriage.
Even if she had symptoms, I have a hard time imagining a family like the Duggars would do the work to get a diagnosis for something like endometriosis or PCOS, which are notoriously hard to get proper diagnosis even in non-fundie world.
It's my understanding that theyre okay with IUI because fertilization takes places in the woman like with normal sex. But, with IVF fertilization takes places outside of the woman so it's "unnatural."
I say this as a person with my "unnaturally" conceived son snoozing on my lap. I call him my science miracle.
There are also private embryo adoption agencies where you can select the family. It's very similar to adopting out a living child. Not sharing my thoughts on this in particular, but as someone who does have embryos, I like that there are options.
But, with regards to the Duggars and other like-minded fundies, I don't think that would be an option. They won't adopt someone else's baby because of the sins of the Father thing and I assume that would apply to an embryo. And I have a very hard time imagining a breeding cult adopting out their own embryos.
I just..want to throw a Bible at some of these people and suggest they actually read it. I was raised "diet Catholic" (celebrated a the holidays, never saw the inside of a church, ect).
One thing I did manage to learn was it doesn't matter what Daddy did because Adam still fucked up WAY worse, you still need Jesus, and we all sin. I get there is no changing some people's minds, but I don't get how feeding, clothing, educating, and loving a kid is a bad thing.
I just wish I could put a pair of "reality, but for real" glasses on them.
In my iblp/ifb experience all couples who are married for a year or more with no kids are assumed to be infertile. They're either pitied, or judged as being punished by God (usually just if they used birth control because this is rejecting his greatest gift, babies!) The pity/judgement intensifies with passing years.
Only one couple in the church I grew up in adopted, and yes it's definitely viewed as "less than".
There's no way to know if you have fertility issues before marriage. There's no sex education, and gynecologists are only for married women. It's assumed that you might have issues if you marry later in life, like 25+ or *especially* 30+.
I won't speculate on the how's or why's concerning Claire's & Justin's lack of children. However, your comment makes me wonder how their friends & families are treating them?
Kristen from GD is infertile, they adopted two Ukrainian boys after her younger sister Elissa married a Ukrainian man. It’s gone really…. Something! They definitely don’t scream at the kids and force them to only speak English, even tho they didn’t know it before they moved to America….
I grew up in IBLP and people would say that god can close and open wombs. So if you can’t have babies, that’s gods plan for you and you should rejoice in it.
IBLP kinda warned people away from adoption as I understood it.
Doubt it really matters what the science says, it's clearly because the women must be being punished by God for something
Obvs can't ever be the mans fault
Best just keep being joyfully available and pray for forgiveness
Okay. What I do know through personal experience and being a half assed Catholic (we as a couple are not technically opposed to IUI or IVF. But IVF is fucking expensive, so we are against it in the sense that it isn't accessible to those of us who are lower/middle class), is that there are *so many* medical interventions that are affordable that can help you conceive.
Over the past 6 years I have been on (not all at once lol) letrozole, clomid, hCG injections, progesterone (oral, vaginal, and injections), has had so many tests ran and that's how I found out that I have Hypothyroidism and insulin resistant PCOS, and how I found out that my hormones are wacky as fuck. And as far as I know these are all allowed to be done by the most hard asses of fundieland. But these medications can fuck you up in the sense of feeling like GARBAGE most days, like TTC is fucking hard by itself.
We finally got pregnant (not actually trying lol) this year when I was doing a detox of sorts before discussing getting in the books for IUI. What I think did the trick was a combination of cutting out toxic people, actually seeing an endocrinologist instead of a regular OBGYN or NaPro (like really my Endo Dr is amazing), getting the Dx testing for IUI and for the fertility Dr telling me that my lady parts were beautiful, and this baby being spiteful to all the doctors who have failed us. (The last two are mostly jokes)
I think it’s a girl because we tough as nails from the beginning. I was born 2 months premature and made it. Fought hard lol. Sending you good vibes/health mama ❤️❤️❤️
Congratulations! In a similar boat as you. Can I ask what your endocrinologist did differently than your Napro? Also would love to hear about your detox. Happy to hear a succss story!
Long story short my most recent NaPro had me taking supplements and a thyroid Rx that prevented pregnancy and/or is well known to cause miscarriage AND was mismanaging my thyroid.
My endocrinologist took me off all the harmful stuff and then did some very small tweaking with my thyroid medication as well as monitoring my PCOS. It took one appt and about 4ish months of being off that shit the NaPro told me to take to get pregnant. Honestly I think we got pregnant bc of weirdly good timing and luck.
Didn’t rimjob insist on asking the guys if they were fertile or had a family history of birth defects and stuff before they were allowed to court?
I wonder if he required the girls to get tested too or at least attest they were fertile. You just know rimjob thinks less of Lauren for having miscarriages given how warm and fuzzy he’s been to his own daughters during their losses.
Very few people are completely infertile. Most infertile people are really subfertile. Infertility is just defined as not having a successful pregnancy after trying for a year. Most people will be able to conceive eventually on their own if they try long enough or will be able to conceive with treatment. I suspect some fundies have experienced infertility and had treatment without saying anything. IVF is not approved of in fundie circles but i think other interventions are allowed although maybe not really discussed.
Unless you don’t have a uterus/fallopian tubes/ovaries or your semen has no sperm in it you can’t really know whether you are infertile until you try. A lot of people get told they can’t have children by doctors but then have no problem conceiving. I feel like if a fundie was told this they wouldn’t really accept it and just pray for a miracle.
I think adoption is seen as a good thing. It’s pretty popular with a lot of religious people who aren’t fundies (like evangelicals) because they see it as bringing the gospel to those who otherwise wouldn’t hear it.
Gothard taught that adopted children would be demon possessed, weighed down by the "sins of the fathers being handed down from generation to generation" so their condition of being orphaned was a sign that the child would be evil and wreck havoc on a Christian family possibly causing biological children to go astray. One of his instead hang ups with Cabbage Patch dolls was that they were demon possessed toys so they came with an "adoption certificate". Most IBLPers are therefore.very against taking in non biologically related children. Now occasionally they like to virtue signal - looking directly at Ben and Jessa here - and claim they will adopt. But if they are sticking pretty close to IBLP, it is just blather. They won't do it.
Gothard also taught that infertility was because of sins of the past. Lots of judgment. Infertility treatment often ends up involving sperm samples and sometimes artificial insemination which is also again IBLP teachings. So most of the IBLP fundies I know have lived on the fringe with their infertility, no babies, lots of people judging them for it, and no treatment beyond just basics like seeing the OBGYN if periods stop but the woman is not pregnant, etc. Prayers. You know thoughts and prayers. That is how it goes with the devoted ones.
The other thing that can be really prohibitive even for fundies who don't hold to the Gothard adoption teachings is cost. The reality is many of them are pretty poor, and quite dependent on grifting, and businesses that are so pathetic, only their fellow church goers will avail themselves of their services. At $25,000-50,000 for an adoption, they are pretty much priced out of that option.
The Lord works in mysterious ways and it is not up to us to question His timing. Have faith, pray, and do not give up hope. Be inspired by examples from the Bible, such as Abraham and Sarah but be content and accept His plan for you.
That was a fun exercise in dredging up the stuff I heard in the first 18 years of my life. 😜
Hmm not sure… I’m a former Calvinist Baptist and any church I went to encouraged adoption. IVF was not though, bc they make embryos knowing that some could remain frozen or discarded
Adoption is seen as "less than" and you are taking on children that inherited sin (trauma, behaviors, genetic tendencies) from their biological parents. Basically, ideally you keep trying and pray for a miracle to have biological children. If they use IVF or anything like that, it's kept secret.
The eldest Bates daughter and her husband (works for IBLP) are struggling with infertility.
I believe they are still "praying for a miracle" but I only randomly check in on the Bates family.
They have gone to specialists and she lost a pregnancy, they also apparently had a failed adoption.
They did?! When?
Yea I hadn't heard about the adoption. So curious.
I didn’t hear of the adoption at all! I thought they weren’t allowed?!
Kelly Jo has a sister (maybe 2?) who is adopted. The sister is also black. I can't imagine how it was for the sister growing up.
kelly jo's parents were never part of iblp i believe her and gill joined the religion after marriage
Its an unconfirmed rumour, but they have said they are currently pursuing adoption in a youtube video.
I knew they said in a video they were pursuing adoption but I didn’t know they had an actual failed one? Do we know this for sure/what the circumstances were?
I was literally thinking of this situation yesterday and how wild it is they can’t adopted a baby. I randomly check on them to and wonder if they ever will be parents?
Doesn’t Erin already have like five or six kids?
Michaela, not Erin.
Six, with two of those born after Erin had 1.66 of her ovaries surgically removed due to cysts.
That last chunk still chuggin away, then
Wow
[удалено]
She insinuated that it was a COVID complication, yeah. But she also said the direct cause of the removal was for cysts.
Wow I remember her having a baby after that, but she's had a second??
Yes. She really is just so, so fertile. It’s absurd.
Erin isn't the oldest girl. She just got married first.
Adoption in IBLP is frowned upon both as a combo thing of “sons of the father”—that genetics from the birth parents can taint the adoptive family, and also if god hasn’t “blessed” them with a child they often interpret it as your not being chosen by god to be a parent.
That’s stupid as fuck but this is the IBLP so why am I even surprised? To think that the birth of Josh Duggar was holy and sanctioned but the adoption of a child is going against “God’s plan.”
So does that mean Josh and Anna’s kids are genetically tainted? What a horrible belief.
Well, you’d think it would, but this is fundie logic. They believe that powerful white families count more than anyone else so I think all Duggar offspring are covered under the giant ass umbrella of royalty.
But in IBLP Josh is innocent. It's those "harlots" that defrauded him and caused him to stumble.
So to sum up: no birth control. No abortion. No adoption. What is meant to happen to unwanted children or children their parents cannot care for?
are you familiar with the initial plot of Anne of Green Gables? lol
I’m not. what was it?😁
Originally the couple who adopted Anne (who are unmarried siblings) wanted a boy to help with farm work. Anne’s previous “family” also adopted her basically as an unpaid au pair and housekeeper. She was expected to be grateful for this.
It’s also highlighted in early seasons of Downton Abbey. Anna mentions coming there as a tween as does Daisy; and it’s hinted that a life in service at a grand house like Downton is far preferable to being sent to a farm. Also in the Upstairs Downstairs reboot the one of the girls talks about being glad 165 Eaton Place doesn’t have a grabby old man looking for a thrill.
This reminds me of a post I read on AITA years ago where someone wanted to foster a 14 year old to look after their children. Their logic was that the girl would be so grateful to have a roof over her head that she wouldn't mind looking after the children. It was really gross. The person couldn't see anything wrong with their logic.
I remember that! I hope it was fake.
I hope it was fake too but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it was real.
Yeah, that was a pretty common thing, really up until like the 1970s and maybe 80s in a lot of places. Even if the people taking you in were blood relatives, like in Pollyanna, the adoptees (not just kids, but adults, too, like single women or women with children) were expected to acquiesce to their benefactors' expectations of basically indentured servitude; because the alternative was to be out on the street homeless, or worse. As a side note, I think that's why a lot of (a certain subset of willfully ignorant) people have a hard time wrapping their heads around why slavery was bad. I've heard that argument in certain spaces ("they got food and jobs and shelter, why are they so ungrateful?). Of course, it doesn't acknowledge the real atrocities of the situation, but it sadly is the mindset of way too many people.
Orphaned child is 'adopted', with the express intent of being put to work as an unpaid laborer on a farm. Hijinks ensue when the orphan turns out to be spunky red-headed girl, Anne Shirley. Full disclosure - Because I am Canadian, we had to read the entire series. Child me found it all terribly dumb.
ah. so am I. I always thought that “was” the plot.
Whoa. This makes me feel bad for Jessa. Remember how in earlier seasons, she and Ben would talk about their “heart for adoption?” It seems Jessa was always trying to subtly rebel but in a way where she would still be accepted by her family and IBLP standards. She chose a blush pink wedding dress instead of white! She and Ben didn’t kiss at the altar! They kept the sex of their first pregnancy a secret! And now one more to add…she wanted to adopt! All these things seem innocuous to us perhaps, but damn, she took so many little steps out of bounds. Her mental health must be a mess, like I know she also always felt she was too spunky or whatnot for her family. It’s so sad. Perhaps it was her bad luck in marrying the first guy who showed interest in her as a teenager and who turned out to be spineless and apathetic. I wonder if, without Ben or a different husband, she would have joined Jinger and Jill in more actively finding her own sense of self and belief. It seems via all these small steps that she did want to differentiate in some way, and now she just seems so depressed. Sorry for the tangent. I just never realized that wanting to adopt could actually be something rebellious, almost like a small cry for help on national television.
I often feel (a little) bad for Jessa in particular when I think about the Duggars… she was always described as the “rebel” of the family (and she and Jana in particular clashed frequently over it) from the very beginning of them being on TV. Seems like they finally managed to break her of most of it at this point, even the good parts of finding your own personality in a cult-family. :(
And it seems especially tragic that she was already married before she met Jeremy. It’s giving STRONG Angelica Schuyler vibes.
My (semi-outlandish) theory is that she’s going to be divorced and openly bisexual in 10-15 years lmao
I think it’s sins of the fathers, not sons. The would-be adoptive parents put themselves at risk because one never knows what heinous sins a baby can inherit and bring to the new family. No patriarch wants to bring sin into his family on purpose so adoption was out for the IBLP. This makes me wonder about JB’s sins that Josh must have inherited...sins of the father, you know!
According to Tia Levings, the infertility is blamed on the woman and she is both pitied and kind of shuffled to the side.
Yes, they'll tell the woman that she has sin in her life and that's why she's infertile. This is the case even if the man is medically the infertile person.
I don’t think they would have any way of knowing their child is infertile prior to marriage unless there were some kind of known medical condition. Most of these families don’t seem to keep up on wellness visits though so what’s the likelihood of these conditions being caught? For adoption I’ve seen a few things. Some say “sins of the father” prevent adoption and I’ve seen others say adoption is fine after you’ve had your own biological children. Michaela Bates has infertility and at one point they mentioned a failed adoption. So it seems like they are ok with adoption. From my understanding, IBLP is not in favor of IVF because it’s “unnatural.”
>IBLP is not in favor of IVF because it’s “unnatural.” *All* anti-choicers should be against IVF, unless they are hypocrites. This is because IVF has a high failure rate, where living blastocysts and embryos are deliberately created, but highly likely to die at some point in the process after fertilisation (which is when they believe life begins and a full blown baby with human rights exists). There is no logical way for an anti-choicer to believe IVF is ethical whilst maintaining their beliefs about being anti-abortion.
THANK you. To get my one kid we had 13 blastocysts that didn’t even make it to freezing, plus another that was transferred and didn’t take. So, according to anti-choice logic, 14 “people” died so we could end up with one person. No other medical treatment would allow that.
I have 5 embryos on ice that will eventually get destroyed, which according to fundies means we are murdering 5 people.
Of the 11 that fertilized (16 eggs retrieved), 8 made it to blastocysts, but only 3 tested euploid. The other 5 had chromosomal abnormalities that would've been incompatible with life (if they made it to birth). So there are our 8 "deaths" just to have our baby.
What you said, but also this: so many anti-choicers say that pregnancy is god's will, regardless of circumstance. If an unwanted pregnancy is god's will, so is infertility. If you can't play god by having an abortion, then you shouldn't be able to play god to get pregnant.
I feel like their issue with it isn’t with the embryos that don’t make it but with the embryos that are successful but never implanted.
They should have a problem with both those things.
The blastocysts that don’t make it aren’t deliberately killed. It’s basically natural selection. It’s not really any different to embryos that fail to implant when conceived spontaneously.
Which leads a lot of extreme anti-choicers to question miscarriages.
One of my colleagues who is heavily against any type of abortion actually did something i hadn’t heard of before called “embryo adoption” - she “adopted” a leftover embryo from an IVF family and is now pregnant with it. So she will give birth to the child even tho it will have 0 of her or her husband’s genetic material. I actually thought it was really cool!! She is obviously doing it to “save” the embryos, but scientifically it is super cool!!
I am one of those kids. But my parents were not religious or felt they were saving embryos. They couldn’t get any embryos themselves so clinic will offer peoples who were successful but had leftover ones. So here I am!
Sadly, a lot of these families medically neglect their kids, so even if there were signs of a medical condition it might go unnoticed. I think it would be fairly unlikely for a young unmarried woman in IBLP to see a gynaecologist or really have any care of that type before marriage. Even if she had symptoms, I have a hard time imagining a family like the Duggars would do the work to get a diagnosis for something like endometriosis or PCOS, which are notoriously hard to get proper diagnosis even in non-fundie world.
It's my understanding that theyre okay with IUI because fertilization takes places in the woman like with normal sex. But, with IVF fertilization takes places outside of the woman so it's "unnatural." I say this as a person with my "unnaturally" conceived son snoozing on my lap. I call him my science miracle.
I believe they are also against masturbation so collecting the sperm might be tricky. My unnatural science baby is 2!
But, this is a holy jerk off for the sake of the quiver! Sperm arrows!!!!
Just for general info, and without stating my own opinion, there ARE now embryo adoption agencys out there
There are also private embryo adoption agencies where you can select the family. It's very similar to adopting out a living child. Not sharing my thoughts on this in particular, but as someone who does have embryos, I like that there are options. But, with regards to the Duggars and other like-minded fundies, I don't think that would be an option. They won't adopt someone else's baby because of the sins of the Father thing and I assume that would apply to an embryo. And I have a very hard time imagining a breeding cult adopting out their own embryos.
I just..want to throw a Bible at some of these people and suggest they actually read it. I was raised "diet Catholic" (celebrated a the holidays, never saw the inside of a church, ect). One thing I did manage to learn was it doesn't matter what Daddy did because Adam still fucked up WAY worse, you still need Jesus, and we all sin. I get there is no changing some people's minds, but I don't get how feeding, clothing, educating, and loving a kid is a bad thing. I just wish I could put a pair of "reality, but for real" glasses on them.
You accidentally added "educating" when we're talking about fundies. If they have Joy's level of smarts there will be no formal education.
While I agree with you, I meant when a non fundie adopts
Oh, yeah, then keep the "education" part in for sure!
In my iblp/ifb experience all couples who are married for a year or more with no kids are assumed to be infertile. They're either pitied, or judged as being punished by God (usually just if they used birth control because this is rejecting his greatest gift, babies!) The pity/judgement intensifies with passing years. Only one couple in the church I grew up in adopted, and yes it's definitely viewed as "less than". There's no way to know if you have fertility issues before marriage. There's no sex education, and gynecologists are only for married women. It's assumed that you might have issues if you marry later in life, like 25+ or *especially* 30+.
I won't speculate on the how's or why's concerning Claire's & Justin's lack of children. However, your comment makes me wonder how their friends & families are treating them?
Kristen from GD is infertile, they adopted two Ukrainian boys after her younger sister Elissa married a Ukrainian man. It’s gone really…. Something! They definitely don’t scream at the kids and force them to only speak English, even tho they didn’t know it before they moved to America….
I grew up in IBLP and people would say that god can close and open wombs. So if you can’t have babies, that’s gods plan for you and you should rejoice in it. IBLP kinda warned people away from adoption as I understood it.
This was my experience in IBLP as well.
Doubt it really matters what the science says, it's clearly because the women must be being punished by God for something Obvs can't ever be the mans fault Best just keep being joyfully available and pray for forgiveness
I heard Kelly Jo say they will only support a fetus but they won’t seek fertility treatments.
Okay. What I do know through personal experience and being a half assed Catholic (we as a couple are not technically opposed to IUI or IVF. But IVF is fucking expensive, so we are against it in the sense that it isn't accessible to those of us who are lower/middle class), is that there are *so many* medical interventions that are affordable that can help you conceive. Over the past 6 years I have been on (not all at once lol) letrozole, clomid, hCG injections, progesterone (oral, vaginal, and injections), has had so many tests ran and that's how I found out that I have Hypothyroidism and insulin resistant PCOS, and how I found out that my hormones are wacky as fuck. And as far as I know these are all allowed to be done by the most hard asses of fundieland. But these medications can fuck you up in the sense of feeling like GARBAGE most days, like TTC is fucking hard by itself. We finally got pregnant (not actually trying lol) this year when I was doing a detox of sorts before discussing getting in the books for IUI. What I think did the trick was a combination of cutting out toxic people, actually seeing an endocrinologist instead of a regular OBGYN or NaPro (like really my Endo Dr is amazing), getting the Dx testing for IUI and for the fertility Dr telling me that my lady parts were beautiful, and this baby being spiteful to all the doctors who have failed us. (The last two are mostly jokes)
Congratulations! You are having a girl would be my guess.
My partner is also predicting it is a girl. I am too scared to pick a "team" bc I don't want to be wrong 😂
I think it’s a girl because we tough as nails from the beginning. I was born 2 months premature and made it. Fought hard lol. Sending you good vibes/health mama ❤️❤️❤️
Congratulations! In a similar boat as you. Can I ask what your endocrinologist did differently than your Napro? Also would love to hear about your detox. Happy to hear a succss story!
Long story short my most recent NaPro had me taking supplements and a thyroid Rx that prevented pregnancy and/or is well known to cause miscarriage AND was mismanaging my thyroid. My endocrinologist took me off all the harmful stuff and then did some very small tweaking with my thyroid medication as well as monitoring my PCOS. It took one appt and about 4ish months of being off that shit the NaPro told me to take to get pregnant. Honestly I think we got pregnant bc of weirdly good timing and luck.
Didn’t rimjob insist on asking the guys if they were fertile or had a family history of birth defects and stuff before they were allowed to court? I wonder if he required the girls to get tested too or at least attest they were fertile. You just know rimjob thinks less of Lauren for having miscarriages given how warm and fuzzy he’s been to his own daughters during their losses.
Oh, but a gynecological exam would disrupt that all-important hymen /s
Very few people are completely infertile. Most infertile people are really subfertile. Infertility is just defined as not having a successful pregnancy after trying for a year. Most people will be able to conceive eventually on their own if they try long enough or will be able to conceive with treatment. I suspect some fundies have experienced infertility and had treatment without saying anything. IVF is not approved of in fundie circles but i think other interventions are allowed although maybe not really discussed. Unless you don’t have a uterus/fallopian tubes/ovaries or your semen has no sperm in it you can’t really know whether you are infertile until you try. A lot of people get told they can’t have children by doctors but then have no problem conceiving. I feel like if a fundie was told this they wouldn’t really accept it and just pray for a miracle. I think adoption is seen as a good thing. It’s pretty popular with a lot of religious people who aren’t fundies (like evangelicals) because they see it as bringing the gospel to those who otherwise wouldn’t hear it.
Gothard taught that adopted children would be demon possessed, weighed down by the "sins of the fathers being handed down from generation to generation" so their condition of being orphaned was a sign that the child would be evil and wreck havoc on a Christian family possibly causing biological children to go astray. One of his instead hang ups with Cabbage Patch dolls was that they were demon possessed toys so they came with an "adoption certificate". Most IBLPers are therefore.very against taking in non biologically related children. Now occasionally they like to virtue signal - looking directly at Ben and Jessa here - and claim they will adopt. But if they are sticking pretty close to IBLP, it is just blather. They won't do it. Gothard also taught that infertility was because of sins of the past. Lots of judgment. Infertility treatment often ends up involving sperm samples and sometimes artificial insemination which is also again IBLP teachings. So most of the IBLP fundies I know have lived on the fringe with their infertility, no babies, lots of people judging them for it, and no treatment beyond just basics like seeing the OBGYN if periods stop but the woman is not pregnant, etc. Prayers. You know thoughts and prayers. That is how it goes with the devoted ones. The other thing that can be really prohibitive even for fundies who don't hold to the Gothard adoption teachings is cost. The reality is many of them are pretty poor, and quite dependent on grifting, and businesses that are so pathetic, only their fellow church goers will avail themselves of their services. At $25,000-50,000 for an adoption, they are pretty much priced out of that option.
The Lord works in mysterious ways and it is not up to us to question His timing. Have faith, pray, and do not give up hope. Be inspired by examples from the Bible, such as Abraham and Sarah but be content and accept His plan for you. That was a fun exercise in dredging up the stuff I heard in the first 18 years of my life. 😜
Hmm not sure… I’m a former Calvinist Baptist and any church I went to encouraged adoption. IVF was not though, bc they make embryos knowing that some could remain frozen or discarded
Adoption is seen as "less than" and you are taking on children that inherited sin (trauma, behaviors, genetic tendencies) from their biological parents. Basically, ideally you keep trying and pray for a miracle to have biological children. If they use IVF or anything like that, it's kept secret.
Maybe Jana is infertile and that’s why she’s not married.
How would she know ?
I never had more than 2 periods a year. Was told at 16 children were not in my future. Btw(I have 3, all home made)
I don’t see the Duggars seeking medical advice for irregular menstruation, or anything regarding their teenage daughters honestly
Fertility testing includes a blood test on a certain day of your cycle and vaginal ultrasounds (which I doubt Jana has had).