Ann M. Koshute & Fr. Paul Varchola West | The Dr. J Show
We look at the hidden emotional and spiritual challenges of infertility and how Springs in the Desert accompanies couples carrying this cross. The guests share the ministry’s origins, the grief and identity struggles many couples face, the different ways men and women process infertility, and the need for compassionate pastoral care. They also explain how community, faith, and a focus on Christ—not just conception—help couples find hope, healing, and a sense of fruitfulness in their marriages.
Ann M. Koshute, MTS, is co-founder and Executive Director of Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry offering spiritual and emotional support to women and couples carrying the cross of infertility and loss. A graduate of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute, she and her husband Keith are Byzantine Catholics living in Central Pennsylvania. Ann speaks at conferences and retreats, contributes regularly to Eastern Catholic Life, and has written for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year Companion and daily Scripture reflections; in 2021 she was appointed to the USCCB’s Advisory Council. Fr. Paul Varchola West, Spiritual Father for Springs in the Desert, was ordained a Byzantine Catholic priest in 2020 and serves as pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Levittown, Pennsylvania. A columnist for Eastern Catholic Life, he was appointed Director of Deacons for the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic in 2025. He and his wife Alissa, married in 2009, enjoy music, the outdoors, and life with their two children—blessings that came after many years of prayers and infertility treatments.
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00:00 Introduction to Springs in the Desert
05:24 The Journey of Infertility and Founding the Ministry
08:33 Understanding Byzantine Catholicism and Spiritual Leadership
11:22 The Role of Spiritual Support in Infertility
14:11 Navigating Medical and Spiritual Aspects of Infertility
17:16 The Emotional Landscape of Infertility
20:23 Programs and Resources Offered by Springs in the Desert
23:25 The Importance of Community and Shared Experiences
26:30 Addressing Grief and Loss in Infertility
29:19 The Unique Perspectives of Men and Women in Infertility
32:46 Navigating Emotional Responses in Marriage
38:56 The Role of the Church in Supporting Infertility
49:51 Addressing Pregnancy Loss and Grief
54:24 Understanding Identity Beyond Infertility
01:02:01 The Temptation of Objectification in Relationships
01:04:54 The Struggle with Self-Absorption and Spirituality
01:08:37 The Urgency of Infertility Ministry Today
01:11:53 Changing the Conversation Around Infertility
01:16:33 Normalizing Infertility in Young Education
01:21:58 The Importance of Connection and Community
01:25:18 Action Items for Supporting Couples Facing Infertility
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Transcript
(Please note the transcript is auto-generated and likely contains errors)
Ruth Institute (00:40)
Infertility affects more people than you might think, not just here in the U.S., but around the world. In fact, if you ask women in their 20s how many children they’d like to have, and then ask them again in their 50s how many kids they ended up with, on average, women fall short of their desired fertility. How can couples deal with this difficult struggle in an ethical manner? Hi, everyone. I’m Dr. Jennifer Roback Morris, founder and president of the Ruth Institute.
an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love. My husband and I experienced four years of infertility, so I’m very aware of just how miserable this experience can be. And that’s why I was delighted to learn about Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry that accompanies those struggling with infertility. Springs in the Desert offers a place of respite and solidarity.
People can connect with God’s love for them and discover his call to fruitfulness in the unique circumstances of their lives. Anne Koshoot is co-founder and executive director of Springs in the Desert. She has a master’s degree from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America.
Father Paul Varchola West is a priest in the Byzantine Catholic Church and the spiritual father for Springs in the Desert. He’s also pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Levittown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Alyssa, were blessed with two children after many years of prayers and infertility treatments. If you know anyone who struggled with infertility, you will find this conversation fascinating and helpful. Father Paul and Anne, welcome to the Dr. J Show.
Ann Koshute (02:29)
Thank you for having us.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (02:29)
Thank you.
Ruth Institute (02:32)
So, Anne, let’s start with you. Anne, tell us a little bit about Springs in the Desert. What’s the mission of the organization and what prompted you personally, Anne, to start this organization?
Ann Koshute (02:43)
Thank you. So Springs in the Desert is a Catholic infertility ministry. Our mission is to spiritually and emotionally accompany and support those who are on the path of infertility, wherever they are on that path, navigating infertility and loss. And I think my involvement came because necessity is the mother of invention. So.
Springs in the Desert started in 2019 with my friend Kimberly Henkel. We were both graduate students at the JP2 Institute in DC. And while we were there, neither of us were married. But we received this incredible formation in marriage and family and the dignity of the human person. And I mean, it actually turned out to be terrific marriage prep for us. But sometime after graduation, each of us got married.
And we both found that we were having trouble conceiving. We were doing all the things, right? There were the medical interventions. We were charting. We were praying. We were doing the diet and lifestyle, all of those things. And nothing was happening for either of us. But the one thing that was really missing was that pastoral sensitivity and accompaniment.
we were experiencing all of these emotions. I know we’re going to get into that when we really dive into the conversation, but all of these things were happening around the experience of all the trying and the treatments that was not being addressed for us. so after actually a couple of years of conversations, we wrote an article for the online journal of the JP2 where we were really thinking through
what does pastoral accompaniment look like for couples in a season of infertility? And then we started a website and now six years later, we are a national and even an international ministry. So we were kind of unlikely founders, but.
Ruth Institute (04:55)
Well,
you know, what you say about necessity being the mother of invention. By now we have a spot on our website that we call recovering from the sexual revolution. And it’s basically various kinds of ministries are helping people deal with one thing and another, you know, and this is not exactly the sexual revolution, but it’s not exactly not also. I mean, it has some relation to it. And, you know, it’s amazing. Every one of these pretty much was founded by somebody who’d been there and done that and saw a need, you know, somehow
Somehow the Lord took that struggle, whatever the struggle was, and put it on their heart that they could contribute based on that. this is, you’re the only person doing this particular thing, but there are a lot of people with this sort of path that you’re talking about.
Ann Koshute (05:25)
Hmm.
Yeah, that’s right.
I mean, be careful when you ask God for help, because he just might enlist you to start helping other people.
Ruth Institute (05:44)
No!
Right, right, right. That’s right. That’s right. And we’ve had occasion to say this in a number of different contexts. No matter what you may have done or what may have happened to you, our Lord can use all of it. And he does use all of it. And it’s just a matter of you figuring that out and getting out of the way. know, we say that. And so this started in 2019. And now I would say, you know,
Ann Koshute (06:00)
Absolutely.
Ruth Institute (06:16)
just looking at your website, I’m like, you guys are like out of control because you have so many people working with you. I’m totally, I was blown away honestly, when I looked at them like, gosh, I only have a handful of people. Look at all these people they have working for them. So that’s a good sign. And I would assume all those people have their own experiences. Tell us some of the kind of people that work with you. know, if somebody opens your page and they see all these faces.
Who are these people and how do they contribute to the ministry?
Ann Koshute (06:47)
Yeah, you know, but God is so good because when Kimberly and I started, I mean, we put up this website, no idea what was going to go on it. In fact, she’s the one who said, you know, we wrote this article, we should have a website that people can go to. And I said, okay, but what are we going to put on it? And she said, we’ll figure it out. So, you know, we wrote a couple of blog posts. I mean, we were a little bit spotty on that. But we had people come to us and say,
Oh my gosh, what you’re saying are things that I can’t put words to or things that I can’t share with other people that I didn’t even know other people were experiencing, but you are giving voice to them. And so that’s how we ended up drawing people to us who wanted to then be part of the ministry and contribute in some way. And so now we’re a core team of seven.
And then we’ve got a number of different contributors who write for the blog. They come on our podcasts. They help us with retreats. what we say is that in ministering, we are really ministered to. And so I think, you know, that’s why we’ve been able to assemble a team of volunteers that’s so strong because
Ruth Institute (07:59)
Mm-hmm.
Ann Koshute (08:07)
They are ministered to, we continue to be in process, each one of us. We continue to be converted and healed by the Lord. But in the process of helping other people, it’s a real way, I think, of fruitfulness. It’s a real way of, I would even say, engaging our spiritual motherhood for the women and for our husbands.
Ruth Institute (08:33)
Yes.
Ann Koshute (08:36)
a real way of spiritual fatherhood.
Ruth Institute (08:39)
Yes, yes, I can picture that. Speaking of spiritual fatherhood, let’s bring Father Paul into the conversation. Father Paul, how did you get involved with this organization? But before you do, I think you’re going to need to explain to people, what is a Byzantine Catholic and why are you married? What the heck is going on here? Go ahead.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (08:56)
yeah, that question’s done to death, man.
But yeah, okay, so we often think of the Catholic Church as the Roman Catholic Church with some other churches that like belong to the membership, right, and that makes up the universal church, but that’s not how it works. So the universal church, the Catholic church, is made up of one western church
and 21 self-governing Eastern churches, right? So that makes up the whole milieu of the universal church. And we are all in communion with one another, recognizing the Bishop of Rome as the rightful heir to the seat of Peter, right? So that’s what makes us, right? Because if I look, I look kind of like Orthodox right now, right? And that’s what separates the Eastern Catholic churches from the Orthodox churches is that we,
Ruth Institute (09:48)
Right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (09:54)
are in communion with the Bishop of Rome and we say, he is who he says he is. So all of our sacraments are valid, right? You know, we recognize each other’s apostolic secession, ordinations and all of that good stuff. So a Roman Catholic can come to a Byzantine Catholic Church and receive the Eucharist confession, all that goes on and vice versa, right? So moniker Byzantine, often we hear the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite.
Ruth Institute (10:00)
Okay.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (10:22)
All that distinction is simply what liturgical rite you use. Like in the Western Church, they use the Roman rite that comes out of Rome. But we use actually what really should be called the Constantinopolitan rite, but that’s too much of a mouthful, so they just call it the Byzantine rite. So we use that out of, know, Constantinople out of Byzantium. And I saw Anne’s face there. That was fantastic.
Ruth Institute (10:44)
Yeah, there you go. Okay.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (10:52)
But so that’s what we are. follow the right of the east and our particular church that Anne and I belong to is the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church. So our people, our forefathers and mothers were from, you know, Eastern Slovakia and Western Ukraine in like that swath of Carpathian Mountains that really politically doesn’t belong to either country. It’s like its own little
Ruth Institute (11:19)
Right. Right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (11:22)
thing there. So that’s where we come from and we follow the ancient tradition of married men being permitted priestly ordination. So that’s right.
Ruth Institute (11:33)
There you go.
Now, do you know, I know a little bit more than the average Roman Catholic about this because I lived in San Diego for number of years. And San Diego, you may be aware, is the home of the largest number of Chaldean Catholics in the world for a long time outside of Iraq. But now I think they are the largest, probably the largest batch of Chaldean Catholics anywhere in the world because of all the terrible things that have happened in Iraq. But anyway, when you walk into their church,
It’s like, yeah, this looks like that. I’m familiar. I’m at home here. But there’s some things that were a little different. And there was a painting on the wall, a mural, that showed the image of St. Peter’s in Rome. So they were immediately signaling to you that we’re part of the Roman thing, that we’re in communion with one another. So that’s a great thing. now, just wanted people to kind of be able to situate you liturgically and theologically and so on.
And so I suppose you follow the same catechism that Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II created. You guys use that catechism or does that count for you guys too?
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (12:42)
Yes,
to a degree, yes, because we do follow all those things and we follow the teachings of the universal magisterium, but also in our catechism there’s a little different things like, for instance, we do the sacraments of initiation all in one clip, right? So it’s baptism, cremation, and Eucharist all at the same day, right? And so those kind of things that are particular to our
Ruth Institute (13:01)
Yes, okay.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (13:09)
tradition or like having married men be ordained to not only the diaconate but to the priesthood as well. Those sorts of things like those particularities. Yeah, we recognize those and Rome recognizes them for us as well. And likewise, we follow the and acknowledge the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Ruth Institute (13:18)
Yes.
The moral, I think you put it, the moral magisterium is universal. We all consider that to be universal. And you know, here at the Ruth Institute, we aren’t officially Catholic. I I tell people we follow the teachings of the Catholic Church, but my position is that these teachings are universally true and will bless anyone. And so we have a lot of non-Catholic followers. And that’s why I wanted to position you a little bit for those people, our Missouri Synod Lutheran brothers and sisters and our
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (13:34)
Right. Right.
Ruth Institute (13:58)
and our Latter-day Saints and the various people who follow us. But tell us now, Father Paul, your story of how you became connected to this issue and to this group of people working on this issue.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (14:11)
Sure, sure. It’s actually a little bit of a funny story and it’s laced with the Holy Spirit throughout. So I was married for about seven years, I think, before I went to seminary, like six or seven years. And I’m what they, I don’t like this moniker, but you know, you can refer to me as a second career vocation. I went to seminary in my early thirties. And so we were married for seven years and my wife and I struggled with
infertility and with pregnancy loss and all those things. And before I went to seminary, so we had this, this experience that we just carried with us, right? And, and not knowing what it was doing or what it would be used for, how it would be used to guide not only our lives, but our, ministry as well. So in 2019, right, that’s the magic year that Ann brought up, right? 2019, I was
heading into my fourth year of seminary. So I was just ordained a deacon and my bishop had sent me to the parish that Anne is a member of in Eastern Pennsylvania. So I get there and the funny part about it is Anne and I are regular contributors to our monthly diocesan newspaper, right? So we never met each other but knew each other because our articles were on adjacent
pages so she would always read mine, I would always read hers and we kind of got to know each other just through our writing. And so we met in 2019 and one day my wife, Alyssa, was in the vestibule of the church and just got talking to Anne and the topic of infertility had just come up somehow and from what I understand that was the magic moment where Anne said, know, it’s interesting you should have that experience because we’re starting this new
ministry and you know one thing leads to another and here we are now all these years later and I’m blessed to be the spiritual father of this absolutely amazing, amazing need that is being filled not only in the church but in the lives of so many individuals.
Ruth Institute (16:22)
Yes, yes. So now most of what I’ve heard about or read about has had to do with spiritual care. Do you guys ever talk about like restorative medicine and that type of stuff or do you refer people for that or what’s your approach to kind of the medical side of these things?
Ann Koshute (16:37)
That’s a great question and I think it’s something that really distinguishes our ministry from others because we don’t. If you go to our website, you won’t really find resources around treatments and things like that. Honestly, most of the people who come to us are sort of already in that space where they’re going through treatments. But of course, if someone asks, if someone needs some help finding a good doctor in their area,
we will certainly refer them. But we really like to say that our focus is on Christ, not on conception. And we really want to be a place, you know, with that desert imagery, we kind of want to be an oasis, right? A place where you can sort of step away for a moment from the treatment and the trying, you know, it’s like a hamster wheel, like we’re doing all the things and it’s so emotionally and spiritually exhausting.
Ruth Institute (17:16)
Mm-hmm.
Ann Koshute (17:35)
It’s exhausting in the marriage. It’s testing our faith. And so we want to be that place where you can kind of lay that aside for a moment and really talk about yourself and your emotions and your marriage. And ultimately finding the fruitfulness right now that God is calling to you, whatever may happen in the future.
Ruth Institute (17:59)
Do know, one thing that you said that I’ve got to comment on, and this is going to sound like it’s out of left field, but I don’t think it is, and that is you said, we’re focused on Christ, not conception. There’s another group of people that I keep interviewing and they keep saying the same thing, and that’s the people who had unwanted same-sex attraction. It’s not unusual for them to say, I was saying, make me straight, make me straight, know, release me from these feelings. And at some point they say,
I stopped thinking about that and started just thinking about Christ. And it’s amazing how often that kind of reframing of the problem, you know, okay, Lord, I want to follow you. This is not what I want, but okay. You know, it’s like, Lord, you know. It sounds like a very similar, who would ever put these two issues together? But this is the kind of thing we crash into at the Ruth Institute.
You know, by looking across these various issues, kind of see these common threads. Go ahead, Ann.
Ann Koshute (19:00)
Yeah, mean, no,
I think that’s a really good insight. you know, it’s something I’ve thought about myself. Again, these are two totally different kinds of crosses. But, you know, they both do require a real focusing on Christ for us, for those of us who carry this cross, we need to turn toward each other in our marriage, because it’s a shared cross. But we also have to turn together
Ruth Institute (19:12)
Right.
Ann Koshute (19:29)
toward Christ, because ultimately he’s the one who has the answer to all of our need. And just to go back to what you said about the same-sex attraction and that sort of desire, in the ministry we talk a lot about the desire also for children, which is so good and so holy and really intrinsic, I think, to who we are. And sometimes people will say,
I just wish that God would take the desire away because then it wouldn’t be so painful. And we talk about that and try to flesh that out a little bit because honestly, as painful as that desire is when it goes unfulfilled, if it’s taken away from us, it’s really taking a part of sort of our humanity away. It’s taking a part of who we are.
And that very desire and even that pain in that desire is what calls forth from us so many beautiful gifts like empathy, like the draw and the call to service, that spiritual motherhood and fatherhood that I talked about. it’s really quite a bit more complex than, these poor people, they couldn’t have children, isn’t that sad? So much more to it.
Ruth Institute (20:50)
Right.
Yes, yes. So what kind of programs do you offer to people? What’s the, how are you, you do this in some kind of structured way. Tell us about that. I don’t, either, either or both of you can tell me what, about that.
Ann Koshute (21:04)
Yeah, how about if I just kind of lay it out a little bit and then Father Paul can talk about specifically what he does with us in the ministry, which is a really important aspect of it. So I always tell people the first place to start is the website. We have lots of resources there. We have the blog, which has really blossomed so beautifully. And that’s where you can read stories of other people who who are have traveled this path or they are on this path.
And then you can go sort of a level up and you go to the podcast or our blog cast, which is audio versions of the blog. Now you’re hearing a voice, right? You’re hearing voices and you’re listening to stories. And that’s sort of another level of engagement. Maybe you’re not ready to meet people in person, but now at least, you know, you’re sort of getting to know other people.
who are giving voice to some of your own feelings and pain and so on. And then the next step would be some of our virtual events. So I do a prayer group for women every Wednesday night. Every year we have a Lenten series, a six week series that’s virtual. So that’s an opportunity for people, at least, you know, on the computer to see each other. And then the next level up would be the retreats and in-person small groups.
that we offer because this is such an isolating kind of cross. And so when there are opportunities to come together and form community and friendship, that is a big piece of the healing. But Father Paul has another aspect of the ministry that is really important. And we’re so, I mean, we’re so blessed to have him.
Ruth Institute (22:35)
Yes.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (22:56)
Well, I’m humbled to hear that. Thank you. But you know, so how I participate in this is my overlap is in things like, I’m in a lot of the podcast episodes, and I participate in a lot of the online retreats, the virtual retreats, but also my wife and I are part of the the in person retreat team. So like we’ll travel around and we’ll go to different places where Springs are hosting like a one day two day retreat kind of things.
Ruth Institute (22:58)
Hmm
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (23:25)
But also my primary role here in Springs is to be prayerful and spiritual support, not only for the team members, but for anybody who is seeking, who is searching, who is hurting, who feels lost. know, they’re searching for purpose or the Lord’s direction in their life or anything like that. And so I see people for individual spiritual direction. Majority of it is either by phone or by Zoom.
And I see, you know, I’ll meet with women, I’ll meet with men, I’ll meet with couples, you know, together, whoever, and we just talk it out. And it’s sort of like this safe space to bring up all of those like spiritual maladies and all those things that there’s nobody else to really talk to, right? You can speak to somebody who like truly gets it because I’ve been there. Not that you can’t have empathy.
not having experienced these things, but I mean, I know what it’s like to lose a child at, you know, six weeks, you know, I know what it’s like to watch your wife have to take these injections every month. Like I know what it’s like to go for like the morning monitoring stuff and every month wait for that great phone call and then get devastating news, you know? So there’s just that immediate thing. And then I think an important thing that we’re able to offer in this aspect is really, and this is where I find my
my most, you I guess, sacred place in all of this is the idea that I hear these people’s confessions, right, in this sacramental seal where it’s really hard to bring some of this stuff up in confession. And it’s not like, you know, not infertility isn’t a sin and anger isn’t a sin, but it’s when that anger begins to like, you know,
destroy your marriage or destroy your relationships not only with Christ but with people around you, you know and all that kind of stuff and it’s it’s when as Anne said when it cuts to the core of the human person not only does it slice you in half but it’s slight slices the Lord in half as well in that regard and it’s like we have to bring that back together and I really feel that that’s the most important thing that we do at Springs. This is making that available to people.
as best we can.
Ruth Institute (25:46)
And so when people come to you, I assume people are in all different stages when they discover you, when they stumble. Do you ever get people come to you who have done things the church does not approve of that have done in vitro or different things like that? How do you handle that when you’re both nodding? Father Paul, how do you address that when somebody comes to you with that as part of their story?
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (26:09)
with love and compassion and understanding and acceptance and, yeah, just like Jesus Christ would, there’s really no other way to go about it. And we, you know, we meet everyone or one should, should meet one where they are and walk the path with, you know, that’s
Ruth Institute (26:30)
Right, right.
Yeah, and this may be a time to mention that I’m aware of, the Ruth Institute is aware of a ministry that actually does minister to people who have used IVF and who have moral concerns about it after the fact. And there’s a lot of complicated feelings around that. So Father Paul, let’s take this opportunity for you to just describe for people something about the grief that people experience when they realize that they’re not gonna conceive.
the way they thought they were or whatever their expectations were that it’s not going to happen the way they expected. Talk people through what that grief is like for those who don’t know.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (27:08)
Sure, so I think the biggest part of that grief is either I have failed as a woman or a man, like plain and simple, right? As a human person, I have failed, but also maybe I have failed the Lord because I haven’t done something he may have wanted me to do and I made a mistake. So he is, you know, essentially punishing me by not, you know, blessing me in the way I thought I should be blessed. That kind of stuff. But also, I don’t feel like
a quote unquote, like a good Catholic, right? You hear that a lot. And these sorts of things where it cuts to the very identity of the human person, right? In this grief, it’s really, I mean, it’s kind of sort of unimaginable loss. It’s like almost as if somebody had taken away your right to be a human being, right? It’s almost as if somebody said, well, because this
happenstance happened to happen to you, well, now you’re less than. So you can just, you can sit to the side and watch us all, you know, be good and be fine. Correct.
Ruth Institute (28:11)
Right.
and be human.
You’re gonna be fully human and I have to watch. Yeah.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (28:21)
Right, and then we
feel, then we look at it and everybody says, well, if we look at scripture, you know, the Lord said, be fruitful and multiply. So how, if I can’t multiply, how can I be fruitful and how can I be a woman or a man or a husband or a wife? And we have to say, or I always like to say, it’s like, well, God says a lot to Adam and Eve before he says that. And it doesn’t mean what we think it actually means. Right. So it’s about processing, right. It’s about understanding scripture in a very
holistic sense and the true meaning of the word, right? Understanding the whole narrative of what the Lord wants from our life and from our marriages. you know, he just, you know, pardon this expression here, but he doesn’t want like baby making machines, right? He never said he wanted that. What does he want? He wants you, whoever you are, right? He wants you as you are because he loves you and he just wants you to love him.
Ruth Institute (29:06)
Right. Right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (29:19)
and we go from there, right? And then that’s where it gets very complicated and working through stuff. I mean, I have certain people who I’ve been seeing for spiritual direction at regularly for years, like literally years, and we’re still walking through all this, but that’s like, that’s the fruits of everything. Because ultimately we’re walking the path of the Lord, and that’s who you’re searching for, and that’s who we’re walking toward.
Ruth Institute (29:38)
Right.
And you know, there’s probably a special layer of grief for people who contracepted for years or who had an abortion and now they want to conceive and they come back and they find they can’t have, that’s what happened to me. Actually, infertility was what brought me back to the church. I was a lapsed Catholic for 12 years, you know? So that’s about me, but I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s had that kind of experience, right? Because what was being offered by the non-Catholic world or the secular world, the medical world,
was kind of flat in comparison. You know what I mean? I mean, they knew that it was painful and stuff, but they’re all ready to fix it with a pill or, you know, a shot or surgery or what have you. But there’s another whole layer of stuff that they’re not engaging. And what you just described, Father Paul, is a real engagement with the reality of human limitation and human suffering and, you know, and all of that. So, yeah, there’s a lot.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (30:41)
I think ultimately, to
round that out, it’s beautifully said and not to dominate the conversation with this, but I think ultimately what you said there, the difference is rather than focusing on a temporal solution, right, with a cure, like a miracle cure or a shot or a pill or this or that, we’re not trying to fix the temporal problem. We are working on the eternal problem, right, of our relationship with Jesus Christ. And I think that that’s really a big difference that makes us different.
Ruth Institute (31:06)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.
It’s huge. I’m very interested in the fact that we have a man and a woman involved in this because one of the things that we noticed as a couple is that I think it’s true generally that men and women respond to the infertility experience very differently. And I can honestly say, you know, as a lifelong career woman, this was the first time that I really noticed that my husband and I were different. You know, it’s like…
I don’t know if that’s still part of people’s life, but in the 80s and whatnot, it’s like, oh, we’re the same and all this kind of stuff. Well, no, this was completely, it just meant something different to each of us. Would you guys talk about that a little bit? Because I’m sure there are other couples who are stumbling over how to relate to each other and their grief about this stuff.
Ann Koshute (31:58)
Yeah, absolutely. And I know Father can kind of share from his pastoral experience with, you know, with spiritual direction and the kinds of things that come up. But, you know, what we see in the ministry and what I have seen and everyone on our team has seen is that there is that difference in how men and women process. I mean, there’s that overarching difference in the fact that we’re all unique persons, right?
Ruth Institute (32:05)
you
Ann Koshute (32:22)
We have baggage from our family of origin. We have our own personalities. All those things come into play. Then on top of that, you just add that male-female difference. obviously, that is the source of communion between us, but it can also be a real source of conflict. So for example, in my marriage, when we were in the thick of treatments,
I mean, you know, every five minutes I’m crying and I’m sad and you know, praying and all of that. My husband is a very sensitive and gentle man, but he, he wasn’t doing that. He wasn’t crying and being emotive. And so that would cause me to think, my gosh, you know, he doesn’t even care. So then I would get angry at him and that, know, and then that, and then that causes conflict, right? And I,
Ruth Institute (33:11)
you
Ann Koshute (33:16)
you know, there was a moment in which he came to me, I was just sitting at the kitchen table in the morning having my tea, and he just came and knelt beside me. And he put his arms around me. And he said, I want you to know that it hurts me too. And he just, you know, there were a couple of tears, he wasn’t he was emballing, he wasn’t getting overly emotional. But at that moment, he really revealed his heart to me. And that’s when I realized that
he doesn’t have to react the way that I do. And in fact, if we were both crying messes all the time, you know, we’d be in real trouble, right? We wouldn’t have much of a marriage.
So.
Ruth Institute (34:01)
I hear you. I shouldn’t laugh, but what you’re saying is so true, and that we need each other to balance each other out. I just endorse everything you said. I can completely relate to every piece of what you just said there. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful.
Ann Koshute (34:05)
No, it’s true.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
you know, that’s part of the generosity in marriage generally, but particularly with this, with this cross is that sort of dying to self that allows the gift to be given in the way that it will be given by our spouse, right. And so they’re, they’re not going to maybe react or process exactly the way our but that
Ruth Institute (34:25)
Ann Koshute (34:46)
exactly the way that we are. But they’re going to do it in their own unique way. And we oftentimes just have the generosity to receive them, you know, as they are and love them. And if we don’t, if we keep kind of fighting each other, the conflict will get worse and then that will be really worse for our marriages.
Ruth Institute (34:49)
you
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Father Paul, chime in. I want to hear what you have to say.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (35:14)
Sure, yeah, it’s very evident when we get to this fundamental difference, right, between men and women. And it’s always, I should say always, but let’s say like 96 % of the time, it’s always the same. It’s either the guy says, yeah, my wife’s crying all the time and I don’t know what to do. Or, you know, the woman saying, I’m crying all the time and he’s just ignoring me. Right?
Ruth Institute (35:40)
And he
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (35:43)
Exactly. So Anne’s perspective
here, Anne’s story was perfect as like your general type of story. But then when we start to peel that back, right, we just find that men oftentimes, now I don’t know if this is a product of biology or of societal conditioning or what, but we have to be the stoic ones, right? We have to be the upright ones. And we even look to scripture, right? We see in like the Gospel of Matthew, right? St. Joseph literally doesn’t say a word.
in the whole time in Matthew 1 and 2, right? But he’s there, right, the whole time. And then we come to realize when we think like, okay, so men process things differently than women and women than men, like that’s great, okay, so there’s a difference and a difference isn’t always bad. And sometimes what men need to learn, it took me a very long time to learn this, that, and sometimes, you know, the woman in your life will…
tell you flat out, like my experience is one time, my wife, she was just really having a bad night and was really, you know, like weeping and sobbing. And here I am like motor mouth, you know, trying to solve the problem. What if we do this? What if we do that? What if she goes, could you just shut up and rub my back? And I was like, okay. So, you know, right, I can do that. So we find as men that we can be strong.
Ruth Institute (37:04)
can do that. Yeah, yeah.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (37:11)
We can be stoic, but we can also show emotion, right? We can show tenderness. And it doesn’t have to be this outpouring of like flowers and chocolates and I love you notes and all this kind of stuff, right? We just find it, we find this within ourselves and this kind of opens us up and it softens us a little bit, you know? And then that’s.
Ruth Institute (37:30)
And you
know, yeah, and you know, overall, what I’ve experienced going through the infertility experience is that it draws you out of yourself in a way. And you need to do that before you become a parent anyways, you know, because if you’re, for me, the issue was I’m in control of everything. You know, I had everything all planned out my whole life. And, you know, I had it worked out when I was gonna have my baby. I’m at the end of the school year and go right back out, take care of the baby in the summer, go right back. You know, it’s ridiculous really when you get down to it.
But I had to be weaned from that. And once the kids did come, because we had an adopted child or birth child within six months of each other, once that happened, it’s like, you know, it’s a good thing I learned to not have a death grip on control, you know, I mean, because this is, they’re not doing it the way I expect. None of this is going the way I expected it, you know, and to be able to receive what your husband has to offer you, to be able to, you know, just.
Wow, it really draws you out of yourself when it’s done properly. That can be the fruit, if we could use that word in this kind of, that can be the fruit of the infertility experience itself, that you’re drawn out of yourself a little bit more. You know, on your website, you mentioned that your ministry raises awareness about these issues with pastors, diocesan offices, and healthcare professionals. Tell us a little bit about that aspect of your work.
What do you do for the, I guess you’d call it maybe the institutional church or the medical establishment? Tell us about that part of your work.
Ann Koshute (38:56)
It’s a.
It’s a really
important part of our work, but I would say it’s kind of secondary. So our primary mission is to reach those who are navigating this path, those who are carrying this cross. But that secondary mission of the awareness, all the things that you talked about, connecting with clergy and offering resources is at the service of that primary mission. Because if we can create resources,
and even just create awareness about the prevalence of infertility, the experience of it, the emotional, the physical, the spiritual impact of infertility. If we can get that information to pastors, to diocesan offices, to even NAPRO doctors and restorative reproductive physicians and counselors, if we can get them
a sort of real life perspective of what’s happening within an individual and a couple, then they will be able to better minister to those couples, treat those couples, and really draw them into greater participation, whether it’s in the parish, in the community, in the family. And so it can be very difficult to know exactly how to support.
a couple who’s going through this or what to say. Most often people say things that are well-meaning but incredibly insensitive. And so we don’t want to scold anybody, but we want to try to inform and educate and then give some language to help them support.
Ruth Institute (40:57)
And, you know, one of the most difficult days of the year for an infertile couple is Mother’s Day. And over the years, I have seen churches begin to handle that with a little bit more sensitivity. And if you’ve never thought about the cross of infertility, just, you do certain things. And if you have thought about it, you do those things a little bit differently. Between the two of you, let’s perhaps start with Father Paul. What do you, if somebody asks you,
What do you recommend that the pastor do on Mother’s Day that particularly takes the infertility experience into account?
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (41:35)
sure, absolutely. And
this is something I obviously do at my parish, know, being who I am and whatnot. But the big thing is realizing that motherhood in and of itself and the same thing applies to Father’s Day too. So for men who are listening to us, a motherhood or fatherhood, motherhood is not predicated on biology, right? That’s like the hardest thing for people because we often understand like, okay, motherhood, child, right? But
In reality, we kind of back that up and it’s not about motherhood, it’s not about biology, it’s about womanhood, right? And about the woman as a human person, as a female, as a woman. rather than simply celebrating all of those women who have been blessed to have children, you know, or fathers to have fathered children, it’s really about all women and their
own gifts that they bring to human society, right, and to the church and to our lives. And like I always joke, you know, if it weren’t for women, men would just be on a crash course to kill themselves in some stupid way. Right. And so, so yeah, and so we all need women in our lives. And if we look to the book of Genesis in Genesis two, it’s very, very clear that the the goal
of humanity is to live a relational existence with one another and with the Lord, right? Because we’ve seen the end of Genesis two and going into Genesis three, what do we hear the Lord says, right? That so he puts Adam into a deep sleep and then takes the rib out of Adam and creates woman. And now it’s specifically, you know, that we can interpret the rib as he, she didn’t know he didn’t take like the,
head or a foot bone or something like that. it’s like Adam isn’t above Eve or Eve is above Adam or anything right there. They’re equals, right? And even the word help me that we translate is really comes from like a part of the better translation is a partner with whom to walk the path, right? So that’s where Eve comes into the picture and Adam, right? He wakes up and he says, a last bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and
And she shall be called woman for she was taken of man, right? They’re equals. And then there’s a parenthetical note that St. Paul quotes in Ephesians 5. It says, it is for this reason that a man leaves his mother and father and cleaves to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. then, and parenthetical note, and the couple was naked and they were unashamed, meaning they were innocent before the Lord, right?
And so in that we see the true meaning of humanity. It’s not to crank out a bunch of kids as fast as possible. It’s to cleave to your spouse. It’s to be one flesh with them, to live in unity with the Lord. Like that’s the goal. And everything else comes after that, because as we hear in the gospel of Matthew, right, you shall know them by their fruits. But if that those fruits aren’t
Ruth Institute (44:31)
Yeah
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (44:58)
predicated on Jesus Christ and based on Jesus Christ, then what are they gonna be, right? We have to love one another and love Christ before we can see anything blossom from that marriage, from that relationship. And that’s really what it’s all about, is knowing that…
Ruth Institute (45:14)
So
do you give a full on homily about this on Mother’s Day? Okay, any excuse will do to give this homily. But you know, in a lot of parishes at the end of mass, they’ll say, well, all the mothers stand up and we’ll bless the mothers, okay? And that is very hard for a woman going through infertility. But I have seen some parishes.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (45:19)
you better believe it. I usually do. exactly.
Ann Koshute (45:21)
you
Ruth Institute (45:40)
adapt that in some way and say something different to all of the women or, you know, we’re going to honor all of the women who have been mothers to us or, know, whatever it is. Do you have something specific that you recommend to parishes along those lines?
Ann Koshute (46:21)
We we actually have resources specific to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, can find them on our website. We also wrote a pastoral guide. And there’s some information in there. We, you know, it’s very controversial, right? Because when you talk about touching Mother’s Day, people can get like, very upset, they have their guard up, and they will say, you know, don’t take away this day from the mothers, they’re so important.
Ruth Institute (46:24)
you
Ann Koshute (46:46)
They are important, absolutely. But Mother’s Day is not on the liturgical calendar. It isn’t a religious feast. It’s a wonderful thing. But I think that the church as a mother herself can do it differently. And so by acknowledging moms and all the women, you know, go back to John Paul II and that feminine genius, he doesn’t limit it to mothers.
He actually expands it out to all of the women who impact our lives and really mother us in so many ways. The other thing that I would say to your point about the final blessing, there’s nothing wrong with doing that blessing when everybody is already still standing, acknowledging the mothers and then acknowledging really all the women in the congregation.
You know, we have some women in our community who have suffered in some cases, multiple miscarriages and Mother’s Day is even, I think, more painful for them. it’s oftentimes they won’t go to church at all. We have a lot of people in our community who say they just skip it. When COVID hit and mass was online, some people shared that it was a relief.
Ruth Institute (47:49)
Mmm.
Ann Koshute (48:11)
because they didn’t have to go and be in the pews on Mother’s Day and stay seated during that blessing. So, I mean, these are things that I think people don’t really realize are going on. But the women, particularly who have lost a child, you know, that time comes and they think to themselves, if I stand up, you know, people are going to say, well, why is she standing? Or,
Ruth Institute (48:16)
Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Ann Koshute (48:39)
and even I think more traumatically, they might come to her and say, my goodness, are you pregnant? And they can be sort of re-traumatized again. So these are the kinds of things that I don’t think people sort of intuit those. Certainly I think the clergy doesn’t necessarily think about.
Ruth Institute (48:46)
Ann Koshute (49:02)
And that’s one of the reasons why, again, we’re not here to scold anybody. We’re not here to say, father, do this or do that, but just to make them aware of what’s going on with some of the people in their pews and some positive and practical ways to address it without kind of, you know, not acknowledging a certain group of people.
Ruth Institute (49:27)
Yes, yes, because you feel so isolated. At the very beginning, you mentioned what an isolating experience this can be. Do you, as part of your work with people who are going through infertility, do you have like a special thing for people who have experienced pregnancy loss? Because that can, for some people, that’s a huge part of the, they have no trouble conceiving, but they have trouble caring. What do you guys do with that?
Ann Koshute (49:51)
Yeah, so we talk about infertility and pregnancy loss within the context of that infertility experience. So if someone is really dealing with some deep-seated grief around miscarriage, we will send them oftentimes to our friends at Redbird Ministries who do some really incredible work with child loss in pregnancy,
after birth and actually on into adulthood. And so we do refer people to Kelly and Redbird. It’s a wonderful ministry. Of course, also if that grief starts to kind of pass along into depression, we will obviously recommend that they seek counseling. But we do have a number of people, a number of women.
who are part of our community that have experienced miscarriage, sometimes recurrent miscarriage, and they’re also dealing with infertility, and they have found a certain level of comfort with us. And another thing that’s interesting and I think different about our ministry is that we don’t kind of segregate or group people. We don’t sort of separate people out. So if you come to a retreat, for example,
or an online event, you will be with people who are going through primary infertility, they have never conceived. You will be with people who have had secondary infertility, they have one or more children, with people who have suffered loss, male factor infertility, all different places, menopause. Menopause is not an infertility diagnosis.
But when you’ve gone through infertility and then you see that window close permanently, that’s a whole new grief that comes up. So month after month, you’re mourning that your period has come, because it means you’re not pregnant. Now you go through menopause and you’re mourning that that period will never come again, because that means that that window to your fertility has closed.
So we bring all of these people together and I think in that way we can really learn from each other. One of the, I think, deadly things in any suffering and particularly in this one is to begin comparing our lives to each other and comparing crosses. So we go on Instagram and we think, my gosh, look at that beautiful house, I wish I had that. So we compare good things.
but we also compare pain and suffering and that leads nowhere. That leads to more pain and suffering and bitterness and the kinds of things father talked about. It’s not a sin to be angry or to feel really sad or to wonder like, is this happening? But when we start just allowing that that’s all we think about and we just keep comparing ourselves, then we start to become jealous. Then we start to become envious.
And then we’ve got to go see Father Paul to help us work through that.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (53:16)
Hahaha
Ruth Institute (53:18)
Or go to confession. you know, years ago, one time I heard a Catholic endocrinologist make this statement and it was in passing and I never, I don’t even know who he was, but he made this observation because as an endocrinologist, he had dealt with many people dealing with infertility, of course. And he said his observation was that infertile women tend to go one of two paths. They either become very spiritual or if they don’t, if they don’t,
Ann Koshute (53:21)
Both.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (53:22)
Yes.
Ruth Institute (53:47)
they become, they turn inward on themselves and they become fully, much more narcissistic. You know, it’s like, it’s like it pushes you one direction or another. And when you’re talking about comparing yourself, my trauma is worse than your trauma, you know, all of that is a kind of self referential thing that’s not really healthy. What do you think of his observation? I’ve never heard anybody else say that, but I must say at the time he said it, it rang true.
based on the people that I knew in my own experience, know, just kind of watching how different people reacted to it. What do you think of that? Is there anything to that observation?
Ann Koshute (54:24)
I have a lot of thoughts on that. I can tell by the smile on Father Paul’s face that he does too. So yeah, so let me go first and then I’ll let Father Paul pick up on it. So I sort of get that intuition and why it might ring true to you, right? Because you’re thinking about, you know, just turning inward and becoming maybe selfish or self-centered and what have you.
Ruth Institute (54:32)
cool! Great!
Ann Koshute (54:52)
I think narcissism is way too strong a term. mean, that is a personality disorder. So that’s talking about people who lack empathy, who are really envious and have an inflated sense of self. And I think implicit in that statement, though I’m sure from this doctor, this is not intended, is a real minimization of the deep pain and the isolation.
and the crises of faith and identity that are related to this cross and to this very holy and good desire. And so there’s a lot that we, know, we’re a peer-based ministry and then Father does, you know, really dig into the spiritual aspect. But even so, you know, there’s a lot that we need to untangle in this community because
our identity is so caught up in our ability to have children. It’s what our expectations are as women and as man. even that word infertile, I have to say that in our ministry, we’re really careful about our language. And so we don’t use that word. We will talk about the struggle with infertility, the path of infertility, difficulty conceiving.
Ruth Institute (56:15)
Oh, I
see.
Ann Koshute (56:18)
we’re
not saying everybody has to follow our rules. But the reason that we do that is because infertility is a circumstance. It’s not our identity. It’s not who we are. And so I think that’s an important piece. And then just the idea of a focus on a woman in particular, you know, this is a cross that’s carried in marriage. so I think a statement like that, again, I’m sure
Ruth Institute (56:30)
Gotcha.
Ann Koshute (56:47)
completely unintended, but it kind of puts the sort of the full responsibility of gatekeeping, emotional regulation, you know, right there on the woman, which I think is unfair, especially when she’s already really heavily burdened with all of that grief. But father, I hope I didn’t take all your thunder.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (57:09)
Nope, nope, nope, you’re good. But yeah, you know, and I got the thing I think Anne and I both share here is that yeah, those are, I think, some unintentionally harsh words and a harsh comparison to use because it’s now forgive me, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a doctor. I’m a priest. But that’s a very clinical observation, I have to say. Right? It’s a very, very clinical observation. And now the idea of like using
Ruth Institute (57:13)
you
Yes, I will say that. I would agree with that.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (57:38)
So we’ll pick up using like terms, instance, terminology is actually very important, you know, rather than saying an infertile woman, right? You know, it be a woman who is experiencing infertility or a couple who is experiencing infertility. Now this might sound like something new, right? This language usage, but it’s not. I work with various populations in my chaplaincy of people with medically complex physical and developmental disabilities, right? So a lot of…
Cerval palsy, spina bifida, some genetic mutations, all that kind of stuff, right? And so coming from this ADA compliant world, we see the concept of person first language, right? It’s like, you know, to say it would be fine societally 50 years ago to say the kid with Down syndrome or the kid with CP or you that autistic or you you say that, the autistic kid or the CP, right? Or this or that. And it’s like, wow.
What if we just change that around? We put the person first, right? A person who has spina bifida or a person who has autism, right? Because you’re still a person first. And the diagnosis, quote unquote, come second, right? So in the, you know, in our environment, those sort of seems like, well, what are you being so sensitive for? It’s like, well, we’re not, we’re just, you know, trying to do what everybody else is doing in that regard. But going back to the initial
Ruth Institute (58:39)
you
Right, right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (59:05)
comment about the either very spiritual or narcissistic, I know a lot of people who present as very spiritual but are horrifically narcissistic. I think that that’s just a false dichotomy there. think, you know, what that really boils down to is what’s happening inside with, you know, with the soul and with the Holy Spirit and because we can’t discount.
Ruth Institute (59:18)
Mm-hmm.
Right, right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (59:33)
that as part of like the physical about what’s going on, right? So we have this idea of Jesus Christ being the physician of both soul and body, right? And so we go to Christ, we look toward Christ for this healing and think about the idea of a, we’ll just say, because to stick with the comment that’s being discussed, right? A woman so distraught that she’s turned inward, apparently becoming self-absorbed and narcissistic.
when in reality all she wants is to be part of something.
Ruth Institute (1:00:08)
Yes, but
you know what, you guys, I’m gonna push back on one point here, and that is that people who don’t come to you guys, okay, the people who come to you are people who’ve already have some notion of a spiritual path. That’s why they’ve come to you and not the local IVF clinic. But if you think about the kind of person who does go to the IVF clinic, I think one of the processes that can be set in motion, I’ve seen this, I’m sad to say, I’ve seen this happen, they’re so focused.
on the goal of the baby, of having the baby, you know, that puts blinders on them. And they are, I think, this is my personal observation, they’re sitting ducks for the IVF industry, promising them, promising them, promising, and that baby becomes the goal, but the whole relationality of it is distorted by the way they’re approaching it. Does that make sense?
Ann Koshute (1:01:04)
Yeah.
Yeah. So I’m going to volley back. This is great. Um, so yes, I, I a hundred percent get your, get your point there. But where I would push a little bit is to say that the same can be true of pursuing licit treatments. Um, you know, so, so we,
Ruth Institute (1:01:08)
Okay, all right. All right.
okay, fair enough.
Ann Koshute (1:01:31)
You know, we regularly are talking with people, I’m sure, you know, Father Paul is talking with them in spiritual direction also about the pursuit of licit treatments and, you know, doing napro for example. And, you know, I, I talked or talk to her, see women all the time who are just, they just keep going. And, know, we had a woman who, who talked to her doctor about it and she said, well, how long can I keep doing these treatments? This is a napro doctor.
And the doctor said to her, well, you can keep doing it until you hit menopause. So I mean, this idea of like pushing your body to the limit, even when you’re doing it so-called the right way, I think is a temptation that we all have. And it is very true that there is a danger that the couple objectify each other. This happened in my marriage. There was a point at which I was just so overcome and desperate.
Ruth Institute (1:02:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ann Koshute (1:02:31)
I just started looking at my husband as a way to get what I wanted. It’s not a conscious, it’s not a sort of conscious thing that I’m thinking maliciously, but it’s something that can creep in and it’s easy to see the child as well as that object that you want to achieve. I mean, this will make NFP people
Ruth Institute (1:02:40)
Yes, yes.
Ann Koshute (1:03:00)
probably upset with me, even some of the language that’s used with NFP of achieving and avoiding, I mean, we get that kind of pushback from people in our community all the time, that that word achieve makes them think if they don’t achieve that pregnancy, then they have failed, then there’s something in them or in their marriage or some reason that God
has allowed them to fail. So I would agree that any of us can slide into a self-centeredness, self-absorption, getting goal-focused. And if you don’t have that spiritual kind of backup around us, it’s even more slippery and dangerous. But I guess from doing ministry, I think maybe Father Paul and I,
Ruth Institute (1:03:44)
Right.
Ann Koshute (1:03:57)
would take a little bit of a softer approach to all of it because it really is so deep and so complex. And when you’re in the business that we are of accompaniment, I think the perspective and the approach is gonna be a little bit different from what people kind of see from the outside or the instinct to go in and say, no, don’t do that.
Ruth Institute (1:04:25)
Right, right. Well, yeah, I think what I’m taking from what the two of you are saying is that the temptation to be focused on the goal is an ever-present temptation. It’s like a daily struggle. It’s part of the struggle to release that, to release the outcome and to stay on the path, you know, where the path means not objectifying your spouse. And actually, that’s like a low bar to refrain from awful.
Ann Koshute (1:04:26)
Yeah, our approach is going to be different.
Ruth Institute (1:04:54)
You know, that’s the first step, right? But awful is on the table like a lot of the time when you’re going through this stuff. know, awful is, you know, an ever present temptation, right? So I take y’all’s point. The dichotomy he’s talking about, it’s like Solzhenitsyn’s line between good and evil is in every human heart. It’s sort of the same point. The temptation to self-absorption versus the willingness to become
focused on the Lord and thereby become truly spiritual, authentic, that temptation is ever present for everybody. Father Paul, I want to hear what you have to say.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:05:33)
absolutely. And I think this is a very this then this ultimate question, it expands to this this sort of like this universal human condition, right? Where we think, regardless of if we are faithful, right, whether we’re like raised in the church or not, or whatever, right, regardless of what our our faith tradition is our faith background, we think that there is a moral upper limit to what
we will or won’t do until we become desperate. Right? I’ll never do this. I’ll never do that. I’ll never do, you know, these things. And you bring up Solzhenitsyn, which made me think of Jordan Peterson. He says something very interesting. He says, if you look at the book of Genesis, right, if you look at Genesis four and think, I would never do what Cain did to Abel, right? I would never act like that. I would never.
He says, that’s extremely dangerous, right? Because if you can look at yourself in the mirror and you can’t imagine yourself, and this is to quote Peterson, you can’t picture yourself being that garden, a Nazi concentration camp. You don’t know who you are and you don’t know what you’re capable of. And that is a very dangerous place to exist. Right? All of us, right? We are capable of amazingly, amazing good things.
Ruth Institute (1:06:53)
Yeah,
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:06:59)
but we’re also capable of doing a lot of not good things. And this is where the whole Jesus Christ piece comes in, right? That’s the center focus of our life. And when we start to objectify anything, it could be fertility, it could be a job, it could be money, it could be objects, it could be whatever. And when the object of our life becomes that thing and not Jesus Christ, well, that’s where we see
Ruth Institute (1:07:02)
That’s right.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:07:27)
all of these problems of self-absorption coming in because like Adam, like Cain, we think we know better than God. And that’s like the fall, that’s the ancient curse, right? That’s the original sin. Not that humans are innately bad, it’s that humans think they know better than the one who created them.
Ruth Institute (1:07:54)
Right.
Right. And as Catholics, we’re not allowed to think that humans are bad. We have to stay focused on the fact that we’re all good. In fact, God says very good in Genesis, since we’re speaking of Genesis, but subject to incredible temptations and the capacity for evil. This may sound like it’s off the wall, I think you’ll see the point of it.
I think now is a particularly opportune time for there to be a Catholic ministry about infertility. Do you agree with that? And if so, what is so special about our time that makes your work particularly important and valuable right now?
Ann Koshute (1:08:37)
I think one of the things is the numbers. I when we started the ministry, the stats were about eight in 10 couples. Now, if you go to the CDC, it’s about one in five. And so the numbers are going up. I would imagine that they’ll continue to rise. And then the other piece is a bit of what we were just talking about. And that is all of these
not so new and newer up and coming technologies, the ways of not even solving infertility, but bringing about life in ways that are outside of this beautiful marital union, the beautiful gift of self in the marital act. so, as Father mentioned, I think as people just become sort of more desperate
and they see these technologies that are really put out to us as a kind of panacea, but are not really as effective or easy as they’re sort of marketed to be. I think there’s gonna be even more and more of a need for a ministry like ours. And I think in this time for the church and for the pro-life movement to see that infertility really is a pro-life issue.
urgent pastoral issue, I think is very important. And so if we can be a part of that and offer support not only to those couples who are experiencing it, but to clergy and to others who, and family members, friends who can support those couples. If we can come around those couples with the sensitivity and the pastoral support,
and really uplift and elevate their marriages, right? Affirm their marriages for the good that they are. Then I think we can empower these couples to make pro-life decisions about their fertility. That does not mean it will be easy, but things are, I think, of much more, go much more smoothly when we can be in community, when we don’t feel like we are all out on our own.
And when we’re feeling desperate and, and we can, when we can have somebody who says, Hey, I understand. And this is really hard. Let me share my experience. Let me hear your experience. and then to just kind of walk along to, know, to stand at the cross. You know, we need people to just stand at the cross with the ones who are suffering, not try to give them all the solutions, not try to fix them.
like they are a problem and not even to only see the cross but to see them, to see the person, to see the marriage. I really feel like this is the time for all of that to come to fruition. I think this is what God is calling us to.
Ruth Institute (1:11:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Father Paul, you’re nodding back there in the background. I really want to hear what you have to say here.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:11:53)
No,
right. It’s so true about, you know, idea of like, you know, flipping the script, right, changing the conversation, finding this rooted in marriages. But also, I think this is simply a matter of to go back to earlier discussion about like, you know, the care comes first and then sort of like the advocacy that gets like built into it. Right. And we see this time and again in a broader societal structure, like just as
conversations change, right? For instance, like my dad and I always like to joke about, you know, 60 years ago, you didn’t really hear talk about high blood pressure and diabetes and all these kinds of things. All you knew was Uncle Frank dropped dead at 43 years old from a massive heart attack. Well, his cholesterol was 400 and his AC, you know, his A1C is through the roof, right? We don’t hear about these things. We just think, he died young, right? But now modern medicine allows us to
look at these things and we’ve changed the conversation. It’s well, maybe you should amend your ways, know, like Jesus Christ said, maybe you should amend your ways before you have the massive heart attack because we know this information. Same thing with people with disabilities. used to be like, well, you know, I got that brother, you know, but he lives upstate in the facility and we’re just not going to talk about this. But now it’s not like that anymore. The conversation comes forward. Why? Advances in medicine.
Advances in society, advances in technology. Same thing here with the infertility discussion. I mean, look at just the advances made in feminine hygiene over the past 50 years. That’s like a new thing still, right? Which is amazing to think about. Same thing with the focus on women in medical research and healthcare. That this is still this new thing where doctors are now looking toward women and are more like, okay, well, let’s research this a little more.
Let’s look into this and we’re finding out more things about diagnoses and these sort of things. And this is a new conversation. And of course, any new conversation will make people uncomfortable. But the only way we’re going to become comfortable is if we talk about it, like in a non-threatening, non-weird kind of way. We’re just going to have this conversation like, yeah, this is becoming a more prevalent problem because there’s more medical research.
Ruth Institute (1:14:00)
Mm-hmm.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:14:16)
there’s more discussion about it, right? All of a sudden we see numbers increasing, probably partly because of like environmental factors and societal things and whatnot, but also just because there’s more data, right? We can’t forget that. And this comes out and people who are discovering these things need to feel simply seen, simply heard, right? Not just dismissed, you know, because 40 years ago even, 40 years ago, right? So and so,
they never had kids or so and so is an old maid or whatever. she could never have kids. That’s all we heard about, right? But now not even a full generation later, it’s, well, there’s a diagnosis of endometriosis or PCOS or this or that. And look at all these things we can do to treat you even simply just to make your life better because you will be healthier as a person, let alone worrying about conception, right?
we can as healthy as we are to be the best human we can be for our spouse, for Jesus Christ and for the church. And I think that’s really where Springs comes in. It’s like this little stepping stone of like, we see you, we hear you, you know? And that’s that.
Ruth Institute (1:15:29)
Do
you guys feel like there’s a place for a conversation? This came into my mind as you were talking, that you would talk to young people before this is ever an issue, that you would somehow, that it could be normal, it could be a normal part of a conversation. Well, you know, some people don’t conceive on their wedding night. Some people have difficulty conceiving. Some people lose babies. know, how can we be supportive of that? How can we prepare the teenager?
for the fact that that could happen to you. I’m sort of making this up as I go along. I haven’t thought this through all the way, but I have a sense that where you’re headed or where you could be headed would be to have a kind of, make it less of a freaky thing. Given that it’s such a common problem, is there a way that you would recommend that we start talking with young people about it in the conversation around marriage and sex and dating and…
when are you gonna get your period and what all that’s like? Do you know what I mean? I bet you guys have thought about this before. What do you think, Anne?
Ann Koshute (1:16:33)
Yeah,
yeah, I think so. And I think you’re right about that idea of sort of normalizing it and just the whole experience of, you know, when when a young woman gets her period, and actually, we have a great friend Christina Valenzuela from the Ministry Pearl and Thistle. She does body literacy and NFP education for for young girls and then all the way up through to adult women in in perimenopause.
really, really wonderful ministry. So it’s that sort of holistic view of the human person and particularly of the woman and the woman’s body. So yes, I think that that should be part of education when we’re talking particularly in a Catholic or a Christian sort of sex education, you know, kind of thing. Also, we really advocate for a discussion on not just infertility,
but also fruitfulness in marriage preparation. And so sometimes I think the focus, you know, when we talk about NFP especially can be so much on avoiding pregnancy. And I think in a way, you know, we sort of seed that ground a little bit, right? Cause we say, well, most people are going to be too afraid. They don’t want to have a baby right away. And so we sort of come in with, well, here’s NFP and this is the healthy green
moral way to avoid children. You know, and that’s, that’s fine as far as it goes, but I think it would be helpful to also talk about this experience of infertility that can be part of a marriage. And to father’s point, you know, more people know that it could be part of their marriage because of these advances with diagnoses. And so women are finding out that they have endo or they have PCOS or, other things like that.
and then expanding our notion of fruitfulness, that our fruitfulness is not exhausted in the gift of children. And then in fact, even if we do have children, so I’m the youngest of two, my husband is the youngest of 16. And he was the caboose, he’s a twin. And he came in last and this incredibly fruitful marriage and family. And yet,
Ruth Institute (1:18:37)
it.
Ann Koshute (1:18:57)
their fruitfulness wasn’t done. They didn’t sort of, you know, have this little card that they punched and they said, okay, you’ve done all your fruitfulness. You know, they continued to be fruitful in how they, you know, helped in their parish and their community and the legacy that they left. And so the same is true with all of our marriages. They’re all called to be fruitful. Fruitful, first of all, in the marital relationship, we need to give life to each other.
and from the life that we give to each other, it’s very Trinitarian, will spring forth more fruit out into the world. My husband is not a part of the ministry. He doesn’t come on and do interviews or give talks at retreats, but he supports me 100 % in this work. And so this ministry and everything I do is not a fruit of me.
It’s a fruit of our marriage and listening to the call that God has given us. And I think that can be a really beautiful and empowering and hopeful kind of message.
Ruth Institute (1:20:13)
And Mr. Morse plays exactly the same role in the Ruth Institute. It’s not his thing, but he respects it and he sees the value of it. he’s retired now, so he cooks and you go to work. You go do whatever you’re doing. But everything you’re saying about fruitfulness, just think is very…
Ann Koshute (1:20:16)
Ha ha ha!
Ruth Institute (1:20:38)
Well, it’s beautiful, obviously it’s beautiful, but it’s also, it’s more real, it’s deeper, it’s more full. And I think one of when I asked this question, why is now a good time, you know, my mind is going to all the public policy things that I deal with all the time. And, you know, the idea of the federal government subsidizing IVF and, but deeper than that, you guys, deeper than that is this decades long message that we’ve all been pummeled with that there are too many people in the world.
You know, and so that has scrambled people’s brains. I don’t even want to get started on that. But you go through all these years thinking we must avoid children at all costs, yada, yada, yada, yada. And now all of a sudden, you know, well, I’ve got like maybe two years worth of fertility. Let’s do it now. And, you know, and then it doesn’t work. you know, it’s just put this layer of confusion over the whole thing, you know. It’s just…
I know the word I’m looking for is distortion. It has distorted the conversation. What you just said, I think is a much cleaner, more humane way of viewing our married life and viewing parenthood and all the rest of it. And we’ve got all this stuff that we got to deal with. You we got to kind of cut through all this, all this stuff. I’d love to hear your reaction to that, Anne.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:21:55)
Thanks a lot.
Ruth Institute (1:21:57)
Your ears perked up when I said that, we’re dealing with all this distortion and that what you just said was more fruitful.
Ann Koshute (1:22:05)
Yeah, we really are. I think, I mean, we live in a really broken world and in a really broken culture that is, I think, desperate for meaning, for connection, for truth. We’re so, I mean, you know, we use these phones and we can, you know, contact people in a split second and yet,
We have this mediator here. It’s a phone. We’re not person to person so very often. And so this is why this idea of fruitfulness, this idea of service and connection with others, I think is so important. And this is something we also say in the ministry that regardless of your family size, if you don’t have any children or if your family isn’t as large as you hoped it would be,
You are a witness. Your marriage is a witness to a world that is really hurting. And you are a sign of contradiction. It’s painful. It’s hard. But gosh, our marriages really reveal the goodness of marriage and that relationship and the dignity of the child, that the child is not something that we just grasp for, but we respect.
you know, the dignity of the child and the dignity of our marriages as well. And one other thing I just want to mention, since you mentioned, you know, people putting off having children. That is true, but there are also some situations in which a couple simply marries later in life. And I think this goes to some of the assumptions that people can make.
about why a couple doesn’t have children. And my husband and I met each other in our 40s. Now I worked for the church. So I was not on some career path where I was making big bucks, right? So, you I wasn’t delaying marriage so that I could have a career. My husband was not a commitment foe. That’s just the time that God brought us together. And it was in God’s good time.
Ruth Institute (1:24:21)
Right.
Ann Koshute (1:24:24)
Did we think it would be a little harder for us? It might take a little bit longer, sure. We had every expectation because we had that desire and we were doing things the right way. And God had another plan for us. You know, the shape of the cross in our marriage is infertility, but from that cross, God has brought forth such good fruit and so many opportunities for us to serve. So.
I guess the point of that is to, when you encounter a couple who is struggling with infertility, be careful not to make assumptions about what’s happening in their life and in their marriage, because we’re all carrying crosses that the rest of the world doesn’t know about and doesn’t get sort of the full weight of what we’re carrying.
Ruth Institute (1:25:19)
Do you know, I always like to ask people about an action item, you what can our viewers do? And you just said it. I mean, I think that’s an amazing thing to say that, and particularly if you are, if you’re a traditional Catholic, having a large family is almost a marker of Catholic identity, right? And so it’s on multiple levels, if you are unable to conceive or something, you know, that it’s painful. so, and I have friends who have had this experience.
Ann Koshute (1:25:36)
Thanks
Ruth Institute (1:25:47)
know, somebody says, well, why don’t you have more kids? they’re, you know, they’re, they think they’re being a good Catholic by supporting big families, but they’re not. They’re being really stupid. You know, they’re being, they’re being obtuse. You know, they’re just not seeing what’s in front of them. And so I think this is a beautiful action item that you just gave. And absolutely everyone watching this video, whatever your religion is, whatever your state in life may be, however many children you have, you can be sensitive to the fact.
that you may not know what’s going on in this other person’s life and don’t be making assumptions about it. And if you have some kind of experience of loss or something like that, if you can present yourself in an open manner, then perhaps people will feel like confiding in you. And then you can really be of service and you can really be help scolding somebody. Like you said, how did you put it? We’re not here to finger wag or something. That’s not what we’re about here. Because people go through all kinds of things that we can’t know about.
Father Paul, what action item do you, I just made that up on the fly here, as the action item. All right, all right. Father Paul, what do you have in mind that people can do that would be, what action item do you think would be a good thing to suggest to people?
Ann Koshute (1:26:50)
exactly what I was thinking. No, you’re right on.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:27:01)
on the spiritual front, know, those people who are like actively going through this, right, is pray. Like that’s the most important thing we should be doing, but also not praying for like the whole idea we fall into this desperation, like God, give me that child. God, give me that child and all my problems will go away. That’s all I need. Just please bless me with this child. it’s, find, well, how is that helping us? Right? It’s like,
Let’s shut the voice off. in Matthew five and Matthew six, right, we hear when Christ says, when you pray, right, don’t keep up all of these things right in front of the Lord is signifying that there are times where he just wants us in prayer, right? So he says, instead, go into your room, close the door and pray like this. And he says, our father who art in heaven, right? And he gives us the prayer. So there are times when
And this time is every day. Don’t pray for God to give you things. Don’t bring that as the prayer. Just bring yourself and bring a prayer that Christ himself has given you, whether it’s the our father or something, know, hail Mary or whatever prayer you like. Just focus on those words. Focus on that. Focus on your relationship with Christ, not on your problems. Because as we hear in Matthew six, right? God knows.
what you need, right? In secret, right? He will give you that in secret. He doesn’t need to hear that we’re struggling with anxiety and anger and depression. He knows all this and he knows everything else we’re going to do next Tuesday too. But that’s the whole thing is we fail to bring ourselves to the Lord in prayer, right? We bring all of our things, but we leave ourselves at the door. How about just bring yourself? Cause that’s what he really wants is you. So try that instead.
Ruth Institute (1:28:56)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. One other question that occurs to me. Do non-Catholics ever seek you out? mean, is Ruthie’s. We’ve gone full, Dr. J has gone full Catholic on you today. are, without apology, this is full Catholic. Do non-Catholics seek you out? And if so, how does that go?
Ann Koshute (1:29:15)
Yeah, they sure do. We in our community, we have couples who are non Catholic Christians, we have Orthodox Christians as well. They come on our retreats, they come to our virtual events. So just so people non Catholics who might want this support, but think, I don’t know, I’m not Catholic, I can’t go to Springs in the desert. I mean, we’re not sort of talking about Mary and the Eucharist for an hour when we’re, you know, when we’re with them. I mean, of course,
you know, that’s a part of our identity and who we are. But we are really there to support the person where they are and to point them toward Christ. And so that’s really where the focus is. So yes, if you are a non-Catholic Christian, if you are an Orthodox Christian, if you’re a Catholic who’s, you know, maybe feeling a little wishy washy, or maybe like yourself, Dr. Morris, who, you know, is sort of being reawakened,
to the Lord because of this particular suffering, come to us. You are welcome in this community. As we always say, it’s our honor to walk with you wherever you are on that path.
Ruth Institute (1:30:14)
Mm-hmm.
You know, I think this is a very good place to end our conversation, because that’s a beautiful parting thought, but I do want to give you one more opportunity. Is there anything else that you’ve noticed, either of you, I’m going ask both of you this, anything particular that you’ve noticed that you’d like to share with the Ruth Institute followers that, you know, that we haven’t already touched on, because obviously you guys have absorbed a lot from your experiences. Father Paul, is there anything particular that we haven’t mentioned that you’d like to share?
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:30:55)
Yes. Never let your feeling of unworthiness stop you from approaching the Lord or approaching your pastor or approaching the church or approach, you know, anybody looking for help. Don’t hesitate because you feel unworthy and don’t, you know, even the whole thing of, well, we’re all unworthy. That’s been done to death. Okay. It’s more than that. It’s yeah, you might feel
unworthy, but Christ sees you for who you truly are. Like, don’t be afraid of Him. Don’t be afraid of Christ. And so many of us are so afraid you hear people, I haven’t been to confession in 10 years because I’m afraid of this or this or that, or I don’t want to have to tell my sins to the priest, or well, when I was a kid, the priest was really judgmental, so I just don’t go to church anymore and all of this. But Jesus Christ is there, right? And He misses you.
He wants you as you are. if we put ourselves like, you know, we put a block in between that, what are we really doing? Well, the reason we’re not going to church or the reason we’re not confessing or the reason we’re not reaching out is why are we afraid of Jesus Christ who one loves us and two knows every ounce of our hearts? He already knows. We’re really afraid of ourselves. Don’t be afraid of yourself. Don’t be afraid of Jesus Christ. Just go.
Go to him. He’s there. Don’t hesitate because you feel unworthy.
Ruth Institute (1:32:26)
That’s beautiful.
That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. And how about you? Do you have any final words?
Ann Koshute (1:32:32)
Yeah, I would say that whether you are a member of the clergy, you are a family member of someone who’s carrying this cross, resist the temptation to solve the problem, to give advice. And I would say even in terms of prayer, it’s wonderful to pray, you know, as Father said, and, you know, we have all these different saints in the Catholic world, these infertility saints and those kinds of things. But when you are,
with someone who is carrying this cross, be careful how you present prayer or other kinds of solutions, because we can very easily take that on ourselves and now think, my gosh, maybe I didn’t pray enough. Maybe I didn’t pray to the right Saint. Maybe I didn’t, you know, I ate a cupcake and I shouldn’t have, and now I’m going to be inflamed and that’s going to prevent me from conceiving. You know, we can sort of get wrapped
up in all of the ways that we are the problem or preventing this gift from coming to fruition. So you don’t need to have the right words. All you really need to do is stand with them in the cross, love them and just be normal. Ask them about themselves. Affirm them in their marriage. Gosh, you give so much to our parish. It’s so amazing.
wow, you’re such a great aunt or an uncle, or we have so much fun with you, we love your marriage, you guys are really great together. Those are the ways that we can really support couples on this path in a very meaningful and life-giving way.
Ruth Institute (1:34:17)
Thank you, that’s a very beautiful suggestion. And will you give us one more time the website where people can find you guys online?
Ann Koshute (1:34:25)
Yep, so you can go to www.springsinthedessert.org. You’ll find the blog, all of our resources. You can follow us on social media, on Facebook and Instagram. We have a YouTube channel. And you can reach out to us at info at springsinthedessert.org. And we can connect you with Father Paul or just offer you any kind of support or if you want to ask for prayers, we pray every week as a team.
for everyone in this community. And so we would just love to walk with you and pray with you. And we’re here for you.
Ruth Institute (1:35:03)
Well, Anne and Father Paul, thank you so much for all that you’ve shared with us today and for making the Ruth Institute followers aware of this very innovative and important ministry that you’re doing. And I want to thank you so much for being my guest on today’s episode of The Dr. J Show.
Ann Koshute (1:35:20)
Thanks for having us.
Very Rev. Paul Varchola West (1:35:21)
Thank you, doctor.
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About the Ruth Institute
The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.
Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.
To get more information or schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.
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