My Delight with Sarah Bartel

What I Learned in the My Delight Course with NaPro Providor Jessica Whelan, ND

• Nathan Bartel

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What is it like to go through My Delight as a happily married newlywed with a good love life? Is there still more to learn? Sarah chats with Dr. Jessica Whelan, a naturopath specializing in hormone health who is also a certified Creighton model FertiliCare NFP instructor and NaPro providor. They discuss being the higher-desire spouse, enjoying lovemaking while struggling with infertility and trying to conceive, and communicating about intimacy with your husband. Dr. Jessica shares what it is like to be in the sisterhood of Catholic women who go through My Delight together. 

Find out more about Dr. Jessica Whelan's hormone and fertility work at drwhelan.com

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)


Sarah:

I'm so excited to be talking with Dr. Jessica Whalen. Dr. Jessica is a naturopath and an Napro technology provider. As well as a Fertilicare provider. I'm working out of St. Joseph Clinic in Vermont, and it was such a joy to welcome her to the MyDelight course that I ran recently. And to be able to just accompany her on this journey. And I'm so thankful, Jessica, that you've graciously agreed to come on and have a conversation about what that was like for you. So welcome.

Jessica:

Thank you. Yeah, it's my pleasure to share.

Sarah:

Thank you. So just take us on the journey with you. When you first heard about MyDelight and were considering joining, what was going through your mind? And yeah, what were you thinking about as you made that decision to enroll?

Jessica:

Yeah, so I learned about you, I think, I was probably a newlywed. I was married age 39 one year ago on January 13th. Um, I learned about you probably right when I first got married. And You know, we had a really blessed healing, courtship, dating relationship, but I just knew because of our past wounding that a lot of stuff was probably going to come up and I was scared, to be honest and my husband knew it.

So I

Jessica:

thought, you know, this is such a Holy Spirit opportunity to, that this, that you came into my awareness. Honestly, I don't remember even how you came into my awareness, but I learned about my delight and I just thought it'd be a really great proactive thing to do. for me and for our marriage.

Sarah:

Wonderful. And so this is your first, we had, I know that I had a few women who were somewhat newly met wed having married in their late thirties, which is so great. And this was your first marriage then. And your husband's, your new husband, he had already been married before, right?

Jessica:

Yeah. Yeah. So it was my first marriage and he had previously been married, had an annulment. But yeah, that was,

Sarah:

I think that's wonderful. Just that there's so many pictures of how a great marriage can look and be formed. So I know there's probably a beautiful story behind there already. So you just thought, okay, great. Let's just get more resources. And you thought you'd get some support as you start off your married life.

Jessica:

Right. Kind of like preemptively, I would say. Both of us, you know, had quite a bit of like past wounding. And, I had my personal reversion about five years ago. He came into the Catholic Church about the same time. We didn't know each other at that point. So I've done a lot of healing on my own and a lot of connecting to my, you know, my femininity and sexuality and we studied, love and responsibility and theology of the body. So intellectually, we knew This is going to be different. This is going to be fully sex and be good. But just like I knew the practicals were going to bring up a lot.

Sarah:

Right. And I love Theology of the Body. It is so good, true, and beautiful. And our Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality and marriage are so great, but they're also so abstract. And so when it gets time to Talk about a specific man and woman who are married and working out, creating their life of intimacy in marriage. Yeah, it's really important to know that that's not just a, once you believe the truth, then everything else is going to be great sort of situation.

Jessica:

Yep. And it was really helpful just being in that group. I can't remember how many of us were in that cohort.

Sarah:

I think there are in the, somewhere in the forties, we had 40 and 50 women,

Jessica:

pretty big. And it was just, we all had such diverse paths. I think it was really helpful to hear like. You know, some women share their story about, like, kind of coming from the purity culture, and some had the exact opposite, where it was like more sin and trauma based, but it was just really helpful, because I think when I came back into the church, I thought everyone else was perfect.

Sarah:

Oh, right.

Jessica:

Um, so it was really helpful to hear. Different backgrounds and it made me grateful for what we did have. We were really, really blessed to have like pretty easy intimacy physically like pleasure, but later on, like, more things would come up. So, like, doing your course really helped me with. Thinking through different situations and, um, think about a communicate and be more like vulnerable.

Sarah:

Oh, one. Yeah, cuz this I recall what you had shared was that things were pretty good starting off in your new marriage, right? You already had like a pretty good baseline. So Do you want to talk about maybe what it's like to go from good and thinking, well, we can still learn more skills or, you know,

Jessica:

Yes, because I didn't know what I didn't know. Like it was good. That was such a blessing. Like our, you know, physically because I know even personally, some of my clients really struggle with like either the pain or the low libido. So that was, it was good. But later on, like things came up and you had shared with me, like, Your experience of being the higher libido spouse and that's my experience and like as a woman that could be really like make you feel really And that brought up a lot of like past comparisons so to be able to like, just have that language, like you taught us about like responsive versus spontaneous libido and serving your lower libido cells. And just, you know, it's still can be a challenge as like the woman.

Sarah:

Right. And we don't hear about this a whole lot. You know, there aren't like models for it. for us or jokes or you don't hear about this in, you know, purity, sex talks or

Jessica:

whatever. It's hard. And it's like, you know, especially just with my husband's past, like sometimes I compare the list and I know that, the devil, but. And even as a doctor, like I know, like I'm like, okay, I need to help him with his adrenal and things like this and feed him nourishing food so he has more energy. But sometimes it, you do take it personally.

Sarah:

Right. And that's so good to be aware of that. Usually when the husband is the lower libido spouse, it is nothing to do with his love or, you know, appreciation or attraction to his wife. It is just something going on with him that, you know, and this just happens naturally. You know, we can just be matched in a variety of different ways as two human beings joined in marriage but yeah, maybe maybe there's stress or just you know, not as many cues or, uh, you know, making him think about sex. So yeah, it's just totally okay and I'm really glad that that was encouraging for you to hear that you're not alone being the higher libido or higher spontaneous libido spouse as the wife. Um, yeah. Oh, good. I'm really glad that that was helpful. Any other, yeah, what were maybe some other aha moments for you or things that you learned about through the course that you found out, you know, would be helpful for you either in your own marriage or working with your clients?

Jessica:

Yeah, I really love the prayer aspect. I was, again, really super blessed because my husband memorized the Tobit prayer before I married. And he still says that, I mean, we're a year in and it's still pretty consistent, which I really appreciate. It's like the you know, I took my wife, Jessica, because it's right, not out of lust. And I forget the whole thing. I should know by now myself, but I'm like, Lord, let us, maybe we grow old together or something like that. And I always just say, amen. But, um, so he was already doing that, but we started the practice of. You're just like quick prayer during, um, our union of saying, you know, come Holy Spirit, make our union be fruitful or let our union be fruitful. And that has bore a lot of fruit because something I didn't know when I started your course is how much I would struggle with like infertility. And I kind of knew, like I'm 40, but it's still really hard. Like, When I was newlywed, it was not even on my mind. We're over a year in, and like, I've definitely been through the rollercoaster of emotions. Mm

hmm.

Jessica:

Of like, oh, I haven't conceived, and like, kind of that grasp, and like, realizing no, our marriage is still really good and fruitful, and God has a plan, and to remind ourselves of that.

Sarah:

Yes, and the lovemaking is so good for fruitfulness. It's at the spiritual and emotional level and drawing on grace and just the creativity and joy and what God is making informing in this union. So I'm really glad you were able to do that and that that could be to draw on prayer to the Holy Spirit to bless you. And

Jessica:

honestly, like, yeah, and it's, it's good to share with my clients because I work with a lot of women or couples that are experiencing infertility and I notice that's like so big for almost every single one where they don't enjoy their union. And it's not pleasurable and not something that we look forward to. It's become like, you know, the enemy attacks us in different ways and, you know, separating that bonding from procreation in the opposite way.

Sarah:

Yeah. Well, and it, it's totally understandable, you know, that if you're hoping as a wife and as a couple to conceive And you're just expecting like one of these times lovemaking should result in that and it doesn't then lovemaking becomes associated with that place of frustration or disappointment and recognizing that there's just so much good there beyond just the functional aspect of, you know, procreation. We can really cherish it for the union as well. Yeah. And then they are just integrated as well.

Jessica:

Yeah. And like my understanding is like every time we come together in our sacrament, it's opportunity to get more grace and we're stronger together.

Sarah:

Yes. You're celebrating your sacrament of marriage. And St. Thomas Aquinas said that as often as a husband and wife. are in a state of grace and join in sexual union, they grow in grace and glory. So absolutely, you're building that covenant. Wonderful. Yes, it's true. I also have worked with so many women who've come through my delight at different points of trying to conceive or infertility or and often sex will become seen as just a chore. sort of a perfunctory thing, you know, and or or the wife's really just associating the value of sex with procreation. So I've seen this in other ways too when a woman goes through menopause or is confirmed, then she'll be like, well, what's, you know, I don't really, I'm not really appreciating sex as much anymore because I know I'm not going to conceive. And that was always just a big part of. you know, why I valued it before. So interesting. It's, it's good. For the union as well. Absolutely. Good. So you mentioned communication, and what would you say are some things that you found valuable about learning about communication, or just, you mentioned something like having more vocabulary, or?

Jessica:

Yeah, well it's interesting because as a I was already a crate and practitioner and so we we talk a little bit there like we like talked about arousal versus affirming touch, but that was about it. Everything else has to do with are you fertile or infertile this day and kind of your fertility. But for me that the biggest haha was that just differentiating like are you more of a responsive or spontaneous libido and I can like ask my husband like what makes you responsive like. Like sometimes even certain types of touch that I would consider very arousing. He's like, that's not necessarily arousing to me. Interesting, really? Because if I was you, it would be. So just like more specifics and I think just Knowing, like, talking about sex almost every day is, like, very fruitful because we might decide, like, how many times a week we want to come together and make a plan, but that might change next week, you know what I mean? So it's not, it's never going to be set in stone. And yeah, I think me just kind of leading and it feels sometimes, I told him, I was like, sometimes it feels masculine to me. I don't want to be the leader, but, I know it's not, I know it's me serving and loving him by asking him, like, what types of things can encourage your, you know, your desire? Like, is it, like, helping you remember things that I don't know. What you enjoyed in previous like unions, or is it like encouraging you throughout the day? So that kind of thing was like really helpful.

Sarah:

That's so good. And I love that you're talking about Discussing your love life regularly and keeping a good communication about it recognizing that Plans for the week for, you know, when we might, how often or when we might come together. That might be in flux and it just, it's so good to hear how it sounds like it's been more normalized now that this is now a normal part of your marriage is to be talking about your love life.

Mm hmm.

Sarah:

And that even talking about what might be, arousing or encouraging or not, and being able to have that conversation is in an ongoing way is so great. So really, it's so

Jessica:

true and even learning about talking about like different positions. I know you mentioned that. And, that's something if I did this course, I would have been more I guess just encourage myself to be more vulnerable and courageous because You know, I thought, like, oh, this is no big deal. Like, I talk about this for work all the time, but it was so different being one of the, what do you call, students, yes, versus being like, I'm used to being the doctor, you know, the leader and so. I don't know. I just never said it in the class, but it was specifically about like one of the positions that you were about. And I thought I was very comfortable with my sexuality. But when you had mentioned, like, Trying different positions, like I noticed myself feeling uncomfortable. I just like the thing about like, what about ones that you can't make eye contact? I don't know if you remember me asking that. I do, yeah. I was like, that makes me really uncomfortable and I don't know why. It's probably from my past. But yeah, so we were able to like kind of explore that and not necessarily jump into it immediately, but at least start talking about it.

Sarah:

That was so brave of you. Very good. It's interesting how we do have these fixed ideas that then when we, we learn that there's more that's morally licit or possible, like, okay, well, now I have to process that and consider, right?

Jessica:

Exactly. Yeah, and I'm still like on that journey for sure. Like I listen to Charting Towards Intimacy. Yes,

Sarah:

Ellen Holloway's Charting Towards Intimacy. I love

Jessica:

her. And sometimes she'll say something and I'm, I notice, I'm like, oh, I feel a little uncomfortable like with that. And I'm like, why? So.

Sarah:

Yeah, always growing. So that is something I wanted to ask you. If you now could talk to you as you began My Delight, what advice would you give yourself as you were beginning the journey?

Jessica:

That's a great question. Yeah, I think, honestly, I think it would just be more. like participatory and vulnerable because I think so much fruit can be come out of that. I mean, I still got tons of fruit out of it. I listened to like almost all the reporting. So if I wasn't able to attend live or, but I would tend to be like the quiet one in the group. So I think I would just. Probably have been more brave.

Sarah:

Well, that's good to know, just to dive in more. Yeah,

Jessica:

because so much, I mean, it's such a safe place and there's just so much fruit to be had like from the conversation we had with other women, too.

Sarah:

Do you want to talk a little bit about that? What it was like being part of the sisterhood of other like minded women?

Jessica:

It felt so safe. I don't think I've ever had that experience to be honest. So it's very unique, really like refreshing. And like I was mentioning earlier, just really beautiful how we came from such different backgrounds. Like I don't think anybody mentioned struggling with infertility, but I know some people mentioned like we're struggling with the opposite almost like,

Sarah:

like hyper fertility. Yeah.

Jessica:

But yeah, that was. It was just such a gift and blessing to have that community.

Sarah:

Just so you know, in the group that you were in, there were several other women who were struggling with infertility, but it might have been, I knew that because they were emailing me about it, or if I had coaching calls with them, but it's always, that's always part of some of the women coming through, my delight.

It's helpful to hear. Yeah. I think,

Sarah:

yeah. Yeah. I'm curious now with your own practice as a naturopath, as a NAPRO doctor and, you know, just helping women with their hormones and fertility. How do you think this is going to or already now in the months since Being in My Delight? How has this helped you work with your clients better?

Jessica:

Right so much because I have this new language like I knew kind of the physical stuff, you know Like, okay, if it's your adrenals or cortisol or whatever, you know Obviously if you don't feel good like that's gonna affect your libido But now I have a little bit a lot more understanding of like spiritual psychological aspect and obviously I'm not expert in it So I have like I'm so grateful. I have you to Direct them to and I have been sharing your resource throughout the year. And then as you have a new cohort coming I was encouraging my client to join

Sarah:

Thank you so much. Oh, it's wonderful so I Great. Well, so I'm talking with dr. Jessica Whelan who is a neighborhood doctor naturopath and Fertilicare practitioner as well, right you also teach the women the Creighton model Her website is drwhalen. com and I'd love to hear just a little bit more about what you, how you help women and yeah, the kind of like your ideal or the different kinds of women who come to you seeking help. I

Jessica:

work with women that are really struggling with PMS. So this looks like a lot of mood issues you know, insomnia, fatigue, but also painful periods, a lot of endometriosis, PCOS, that's my personal story. I've struggled many years with that and kind of. You know, I wasn't married, but kind of knowing I was having infertility or reproductive health issue. So women again with, like, kind of unexplained, quote unquote, unexplained infertility. And really helping them just move towards, you know, understanding their bodies more, having better hormonal balance, they have better moods, better energy, you know, easier periods, more predictable periods less pain.

Sarah:

Wonderful. That's so great that you're working out of the naturopath model as well, because then you just have a whole different suite of tools that are, that you are trained in. I love it. Encounter as she goes to like a mainstream alibi.

Jessica:

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, so everything I do is without the use of, you know, artificial hormones, no birth control or IUD, none of that. It's all, lifestyle medicine, nutrition, counseling and I do use NAPRO for clients that are in Vermont.

Sarah:

Oh, great. Okay. So for those who are in your home state of Vermont, then that's who you can use the NAPRO technology with. Uh huh.

Jessica:

Yeah. Okay. To quote, it's full of scope, but everything else I do, all the naturopathic can fall, you know, other across the country.

Sarah:

That is so great. This is such an incredible, beautiful work you're doing and such a needed resource. Especially, you know, so many women in their teen years, if they're struggling with heavy periods or. bad PMS or whatever, they, you know, they're, they go to their family doctor or their pediatrician and then they just get put on the birth control pill, which just makes it worse and mask symptoms and doesn't bring that, deeper healing. Right. So

Jessica:

it's all about finding the root cause. And like, sometimes that can temporarily help people feel better, but it's causing all this inflammation and, you know, hurting so many other organ systems in the process.

Sarah:

Yeah. Wonderful. How, what age range do you see women?

Jessica:

So most of my clients are, 30s, 40s, maybe 20s, 30s, 40s. I do have several teenage clients. My youngest client ever was 12 years old. She started learning how to chart the crate and model. So, so grateful to teach her that because I wish I learned this 20 years ago. Okay. We always say, right?

Sarah:

Oh, that's wonderful. And so St. Joseph Fertility Care, St. Joseph Fertility Care, that is your Creighton, like that the name Right. Your, your branch or I guess

Jessica:

of the Fertility Care Centers of America. Yep.

Sarah:

Oh, okay. Fantastic. And you mentioned to me before we started recording that you're going to be venturing out on YouTube. Do you know what your channel might be called If women wanna look for you?

Jessica:

It's under, um, it'll just be drwhalen. com. Actually, I have a link to it right now on my website and it has client testimonials. So I'm going to be adding my own educational videos on that as well.

Sarah:

Fantastic. And it's drwhalen, W H E L A N for those who are listening. Great. Okay. Well, I can't wait. This is going to be such a gift to see. Have your educational videos on YouTube. Well, Jessica, it has just been a delight talking with you, and I know that you're continuing to do so much good for your clients. Thank you very much for being with me on this conversation.

Jessica:

Thank you so much for having me, Sarah.