Last week, through Facebook, I was introduced to Fran Circe Pitre by a relative.  Thank you, Julie! 

Fran is the author of Twins x 3. Yes, you read that right, she has three sets of twins! My first thought was “Wow! I can hardly handle my two. How in the world does she handle six?”  My next thought, “I bet she can teach me a thing or two about parenting.”  I am looking forward to reading her book and learning from her life lessons. 

Fran was recently featured in The Washington Post, "God's GIFT of 3 sets of twins" and after reading her story, I wanted to share it with my readers.

God's GIFT of 3 sets of twins (original article can be found at The Washington Post, "God's GIFT of 3 sets of twins" )
By Fran Circe Pitre
author

My husband Bruce and I were raised in Catholic homes, taught traditional Christian values, and grew up learning from our parents' examples of honesty and integrity. When we were married, we decided to center our relationship on our Christian belief system and to make our life choices by following the WWJD (what would Jesus do?) motto. Generally, this system wasn't too hard to apply to the day-to-day circumstances that arose. However, after enduring nearly five years of infertility, we'd been pushed to our limits and came to a difficult cross road. We'd prayed for so long, had gone through every conceivable diagnostic test (some more than once), and undergone dozens of attempts at becoming pregnant through different medication options and via simple office procedures without success.

Eventually, our doctor told us that we had a slim chance at conceiving. We were highly encouraged and persuaded by more than one specialist to undergo the ART (assisted reproductive technology) procedure called In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). I turned to my uncle, a retired OB-GYN, for advice, and he agreed that IVF offered us the greatest chances at becoming pregnant. Well, telling a couple who'd been attempting to conceive for half a decade that a procedure would likely result in pregnancy was a dream come true. Part of me felt that "this was it ... the answer to our prayers."

Another part of me, however, needed to learn all there was to learn about the IVF process before I would agree to pursue it. While doing some research, I regrettably learned that our Catholic Church disapproved of IVF for various reasons, mainly due to the lives that would be created outside of the body. These are human beings that, once alive, do not all survive the transfer (to the womb) process, nor do they all survive the cryopreservation (freezing and thawing) process. I was caught in a painful moral dilemma. I knew many couples that had successfully undergone IVF, and while that procedure was the right decision for them, it was becoming apparent that it wasn't the right choice for me. I fought and fought with this dilemma, wishing I'd never looked into it at all, but had just gone along with the doctors' advice (including my own uncle's). But undeniably, Bruce and I knew the facts, and we weren't at all naïve. We understood that the laws established by our Christian faith were not to keep us from living freely and enjoying life, but to protect us from making unhealthy choices for ourselves that may adversely affect ourselves or others.

Ultimately, Bruce and I investigated and discovered a procedure that, while not unconditionally approved by the Church, could be pursued if certain conditions were met and followed precisely. This procedure was called GIFT (gamete intra-fallopian transfer). This procedure did not involve creating life outside the womb, but would still significantly increase our chances at conceiving. When we requested this option to our doctor, we were turned down because it was considered "out-dated technology", a procedure that was "too involved and simply not done much anymore". We sought out other doctors until we found one who, although still believed that IVF was our best choice, agreed to perform GIFT. Two weeks following the procedure, I learned that I was pregnant ... with twins.

After some time, we planned to have one more child. Although we didn't wish to undergo GIFT again, many more years had passed without my becoming pregnant. Eventually, we underwent GIFT a second time, and I became pregnant with our second set of twins. Seven years later, we learned that I was pregnant again, but without undergoing GIFT this time around. Learning that we were having a third set of twins was the greatest surprise of all. We now have a 15-year-old set of twin girls, a 10-year-old boy/girl set of twins, and a 2-year-old set of twin boys. God is so good.

My advice to couples enduring heartbreaking infertility: don't give up! The answer is out there for you, but you must make the choices that fit within your belief system. Educate yourself and locate a doctor that not only you can work with, but one that will work with you while respecting and honoring your faith and beliefs.

All that any of us can do is to look back at the end of the day and know that with God's guidance and direction, we made the best possible, informed decisions for both ourselves and for those lives that our decisions affect.

Fran Pitre is author of "TWINS x 3: a mom of three sets of twins gives her personal testimony that all things are possible with God."

You can find Fran Pitre on her Twin x 3 Facebook Page, her website TwinsX3 and Twitter @FPitreTWINSx3.

To find out more about the book or to purchase, please click link below

About Fran Circe Pitre

Fran Pitre is a devout Catholic raised in a Catholic family from upstate New York. She and her family moved to the outskirts of New Orleans when she was 12, and she met the teenage guy who would one day become her husband when she was just 16. Bruce Pitre was also from a Catholic family, so after they both earned their college degrees (Bruce in architecture, and Fran in art education and graphic design), they were married. They centered their marriage around their faith and decided to make their important life decisions based on our Christian beliefs.

After they were married a few years while pursuing their careers and living in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington DC, they decided to begin a family. A fertility issue was suspected when they´d not conceived a baby after attempting for more than a year. After five years of tests and treatments, Fran finally became pregnant, but not without medical intervention.

When Fran became pregnant with her first set, she and Bruce decided to undergo a procedure that they’d researched extensively and felt comfortable pursuing. Unlike many fertility treatments available then and today which are not viewed as acceptable by the Catholic Church because of the ethical conflicts they present, they decided to pursue a treatment that, although was not unconditionally approved of by the Catholic Church, was also not disapproved by it, and they were careful about how all the aspects of the treatment were approached. Two weeks later, they discovered that Fran was pregnant, and three weeks later learned there were two babies on the way! Their baby girls were born in the winter of 1994.

Fran and Bruce underwent the same treatment over four years later and had their second set of twins, a boy and a girl. Then, three years ago, deciding to try for one more child, they received only minimal intervention from their doctor ... no surgical  procedure or fertility drugs, and discovered that Fran was pregnant with her now two-year-old twin boys.

TWINS x 3 is the story of how two people who wanted to raise their family, are blessed with both the struggles and the rewards that came from years prayer and perseverance.

Today, Fran runs her own graphic design business out of her home office and lives with her husband Bruce and their six children in Jacksonville, FL.

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