A couple of my friend's daughters are undergoing in vitro fertilization.
I was one of those women who would have been pregnant my whole childbearing career if I wasn't actively trying not to. I was queen of the Pill. My grandmother had 13 children. That was before the sexual revolution. She had no choice.
But the other side of the coin is women who have great difficulty conceiving. Two of the greatest tragedies of the childbearing years are having babies we don't want - and not being able to have babies we desperately want.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is tough. Before the big event takes place there are weeks of shots and pills causing hormones to go amok. And then it may or may not work. And it's very expensive. I'm in awe of couples who put themselves through this process - sometimes over and over.
In the "Year of Living Biblically" book by A.J. Jacobs, I was reminded this morning that the religious community is all over the map on the rightness or wrongness of IVF. The Catholics want us to have babies the old fashioned way. Period. On the other hand, religious Jews are all IVF. Protestants are the ones who are all over the map.
Of course, you wouldn't think the Bible would address IVF. But Jacobs reminded me that it was "sort of" addressed way back in the Old Testament. I looked it up. It's a cool story.
Jacob (not the writer but the O.T. guy) had two wives. Leah, who was a baby making machine like me and my grandma, and Rachael who couldn't conceive.
Rachael begged her sister (yeah, Leah was her sister) for some of this root or herb called mandrake, supposedly an ancient fertility drug. Only Leah made Rachael trade a night with Jacob for the mandrake. So guess who got pregnant - again?
So Jacobs (the writer) is wondering if the Bible subtly disapproves of fertility treatments.
I don't think so. But I myself have some big time reservations about multiple births.
Back to the story of Leah and Rachael. Leah has eleven sons. Rachael finally has one. But he's his dad's favorite and ends up saving the whole nation.
You might remember Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat. That was him.
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