Ep. 227: A Look at Woven Well *THE BOOK* Now Available

In this episode, we celebrate the release of Caitlin's new book, Woven Well: A Christian Woman's Guide to Reproductive Health, Fertility, and Wholeness.

Listen in as Caitlin discusses: 

·      The inspiration behind the book

·      Who the book is for

·      A breakdown of the book’s chapters

·      What this book is *not*

·      How to order

·      Ways to connect with Caitlin during her book tour

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

SHOW NOTES:

Caitlin's book, Woven Well: A Christian Woman's Guide to Reproductive Health, Fertility and Wholeness, is now available! https://www.wovenfertility.com/woven-well-book

Transcript

Caitlin (00:24)

Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. And today is a very exciting day. You are hearing this on Friday, July 10th, but I'm recording it on Tuesday, July 7th. And that's an important day because it is the day that Woven Well officially launches into the world. So if you're watching us on YouTube, you actually can see the book in front of you, and we're going to be talking a little bit about this book today and just a little snippet of all that went into it. And I've been thinking about this episode a little bit because I wonder about who will be listening to it. Are you a listener who has been a part of the Woven Well podcast for years and you've heard all the episodes and

You stay up to date, you subscribe each week, so you hear our little episodes, 15-minute episodes about these issues that really impact your life on a daily basis as a woman. Or are you brand new to us and you maybe heard a friend talk about the book? Maybe you saw something online and you decided to get more information. And so you're brand new to it. I don't know which one you are, but I want you to know that you're welcome here.

And I'm so excited to talk with you about the book. I wanted to start off for those who maybe have been listening for a really long time and feel like you know me and the work that we do. I thought you may be interested in hearing a little bit of the backstory. And one of the things that means the most to me is that this book was inspired by the women that I work with.

So I have been a certified fertility care practitioner for the last nine years, and I absolutely love working with women and teaching them the basics of their cycles and their fertility so they can actually can know things like when their next period's going to start and whether or not they could be pregnant that cycle and actually which days are ideal for trying to conceive. how to tell if there are underlying health issues just in a regular routine cycle.

So I love empowering women to do all of that. and helping them feel like they can make informed decisions. But we don't always get the opportunity to take it that step further. My favorite part of this work is when these practical questions start to stir up the more personal questions, the deeper things that all of us as women work with, deal with.

Think about like, why did God create us this way just to suffer? Why do women have to have this experience? Why do we have to put up with so much? Is this the way that it's really supposed to be? These are so valid. They make complete sense because it is hard to be a woman. We live in a better time now than any time before, arguably, when it comes to healthcare and what's available.

And yet women so often are still expected to just kind of suck it up and deal with it. You know, hey, that's just part of being a woman. There's not much we can do. This really does not create a very healthy relationship with our female body. And that matters because it impacts how we treat our bodies, it impacts how we expect other people to treat our bodies, but also it plays a role in what we think about the God who created them.

So if we see our bodies as a curse or a burden, then what does that mean about the creator that gave us this body? Right? It starts to get really complicated. Most of us don't ever recognize that. We don't ever realize it or think about it. It's just sort of, you know, it is how it is. But when we start learning more information and getting more in tune with our body and actually how it's designed to function and the fact that there are ways to interpret what's going on behind the scenes, There is so much there for us to explore.

The things that really matter to our hearts and our minds and our souls, even if we don't recognize it because it's so commonplace. Right? It's so normalized. I'm doing that in quotation marks here. It's so normalized that we think this is just the way it is. This is just what it's like to be a woman. But I really don't believe that that's the case. And it's not just because I'm an optimist, it's because I have seen how the Lord has shown up in the lives of women for going on 10 years now.

Over and over and over again, women understanding how they were designed and for what purpose is transformational for them. So that was the inspiration behind thinking about a book instead of just the one-on-one working with women. How could we get this encouragement and empowerment out to more and more women?

This book is written for women who really want to believe that there's more beyond just things like period management, you know.

They want to believe that there's something special and meaningful to their cycle, and they want to believe that there are ways that they can actually work within it and not just suffer through it, but they're really not sure that that's true. And they're especially not sure that it's true for them.

So many of us feel like our bodies are too complicated to understand. Our cycles are way too difficult to be able to navigate on our own. But what most women don't know is God's actually already given us the tools to do that. So, within this book, by the end of it, it's my prayer that you will feel like you have a trustworthy guide to help you navigate those questions about women's health care, birth control and family planning, fertility treatments, and what to do next as a family. That is my prayer. Whether you are a single woman who is really trying to understand why her cycles may be heavy or irregular, or maybe you have a lot of hormone changes you suspect because you have mood shifts or acne or weight gain or anything else that could be going wrong and you think it could be hormonally related.

Or if you are married and thinking about family planning, you could be trying to avoid a pregnancy or trying to conceive it. This book is for everyone in that sense. It's for any woman of reproductive years. Now it does also say it's a Christian woman's guide to reproductive health, fertility, and wholeness. And I want to be clear about that. This is a faith-based book.

But there is space here for women who, yes, would confidently call themselves Christians and feel very comfortable with that label. But it's also for women who may be spiritually curious or have had a past in the church, but maybe didn't have great experiences, or your life has just been really hard as a woman.

And you're not sure how God is going to show up within that story that you have. I want you to know this is a safe book for you too. It's not just for one type of Christian woman. My goal and my prayer is that this book would be a really safe place to have conversation, ponder things anew, and really hopefully have a new encounter with your really good creator.

Okay, now I have a goal of later on, maybe in 2027, walking through the book with you all because I think that would be so fun. And I do know that we have a lot of groups who are reading this book in their book club or as a part of a small group. And so I think it could be really fun to have a podcast series where we walk through it as well. But for today, I just want to go through the basic outline with you so you can kind of know what to expect. So I'm going to open up to the table of contents.

And the first chapter i it's available online. So even if you go to just Amazon and look at the preview section where you can read a little bit of it. I think it includes the foreword and the first chapter, so you have the opportunity to read that. But then the book is broken into five different sections. And the sections are how can I love what I don't understand? Chapter one is Is this just what it's like to be a woman? Chapter two, thinking bigger than period management.

Chapter three, what you never learned about ovulation. So a lot of good practical information in these first three chapters. A lot of education. Because and the reason we started that way is because women aren't taught this. You know, it's not your fault that you don't know it. we don't learn it in school. At least what I learned in school was very inaccurate.

We're not learning it from our churches. A lot of times our parents don't know the information, so they have a hard time passing it down to us. If anything, we read things online that may or may not be accurate, most often not. And so we just don't have the information to go off of. So we wanted to start off by giving you what you needed to begin immediately, feeling more confident and more knowledgeable about your body and your design. Okay, that's how we started. Section two is called

My design proclaims something holy. This is again one of my favorite parts because it's not just about the biological. There is a theological component to consider here. Our design proclaims something holy. What is it? So the chapters are chapter four is my body is good and meaningful. Chapter five, my body is essential and extraordinary.

Chapter six, everybody and every story has dignity. It is so hard for me to not dive into that right now and talk about it, but I want to give you a chance to read it and then we can come back together and talk through it. you know, as a podcast community. I really would be interested in hearing your thoughts and talking with you about those things. Okay, next section. This holy purpose transforms my expectations.

So, chapter seven, my expectations for women's health care. Chapter eight, my expectations for family planning options. Chapter 9, my expectations for care when facing infertility. So all this information is not just good to know, it actually impacts how we make decisions about how we treat our bodies and how we expect other people to treat them, including in the doctor's office. So that matters. And you get to have a say in how your doctor cares for you. There are so many phenomenal physicians out there who want to work with you and partner with you. And sometimes it's just about stepping into the room, knowing what you want and why you want it. That can be so revolutionary. And so knowing the biological and the theological behind your design really empowers you to be able to do that. Next section, it's hard being a woman in a broken world.

Chapter 10, common challenges and questions. So we really dive into the things that people struggle with the most here. Chapter 11, pursuing respect and honor, because this is something that as women, it breaks my heart. But we're not always automatically given the respect and honor that we deserve. And then chapter 12, unavoidable suffering in women's health. Because we talk about the hard This book directly addresses the things that people usually don't want to talk about.

You know, some of it’s infertility, but some of it is different too. Sometimes it is just hard dealing with suffering that is unique to women that the men in the world just don't know what it's like. They just can't experience it. But sometimes the brokenness that we experience in life plays out within our own bodies. And so what do we do? How do we walk through that? How do we make medical decisions in the unknown? How do we make

Faithful decisions when we're trying to honor God. So we go into that in a chapter 12. And then the final section of the book: God is making a way for women. Chapter 13, Your Transformed Living, and Chapter 14, The Transformed World. And that's because I really and truly believe that how God is working through the lives of women, through our bodies, is transforming the lives of women.

And even bigger than that, it's transforming the world. I'm seeing it happen in real time. And this is why I get so excited about it. It's not about this book, it's about what God is doing. And God is moving in some fantastic, amazing, exciting, humbling ways within the lives of women. There is this movement happening, and it is so beautiful and invigorating. And the thing is, every woman can be a part of it.

No one is excluded. And I think that it all starts with education and empowerment. And that's something that we can all get behind. That's actually really important to me because this book is not a right-leaning or a left-leaning book. Right now, when we think about women's health or reproductive health topics, man, it comes down to like politics and lobbyists and policy. And that's not my space, y'all. That is not my space.

We're talking about how is God involved in this and what is he doing in the lives of women. So this is not a political book in any way. It is an empowering book and a faith-filled book that I really hope that any woman, no matter what side of the aisle or what side of the pew you may be sitting on, that you can feel comfortable reading it and even recommending it to your friends.

So I was very intentional in the ladies who read it ahead of time, making sure that, you know, we had Republicans and Democrats reading it, but we also had Baptists and Catholics reading it. So there's just a wide variety. And so far everyone has felt very seen and appreciated and acknowledged and honored. And man, that is the goal. That is absolutely the goal.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the book is now live. It is actually available to purchase. Meaning, if you go online and order it today, you're going to have it in two days, right? Maybe even one day, depending on how close you are to a distribution center. So you can order it and actually have it in your hands. of course, if you prefer ebook, that's available too.

And audio is out very soon. So if you're somebody who likes to listen to your books, be on the lookout for that. also, we're having events in different areas. So tomorrow kicks off our events. I'll have one in Birmingham, Alabama, and then the following weekend I'm going to be in Nashville, Tennessee, and then we're going to be headed places like Dallas, Raleigh, Denver, and other areas. So if you're interested in finding out if you're having an event in your area or you want to have an event in your area, be sure to reach out and let us know. We'll see if we can do it.

What I want you to know is this. This book, Woven Well, A Christian Woman's Guide to Reproductive Health, Fertility, and Wholeness, is for you. It's for your friends, it's for your sister, your small group, your women's group, your college friends, your cousin trying to conceive, you know, it's for engaged ladies, married ladies, single ladies. It's for those battling women's health issues.

It's for Christian women and spiritual women who are interested in how God could possibly be a part of this area of their lives. There are no disqualifiers for being able to get something out of this book. That's my prayer.

And of course, I would love to hear from you about it. So this podcast community is pretty special. I get to meet ladies who've been listening from all across the world, and it means so much to me personally, but I'm so glad that we have this avenue to connect. And so if you're reading the book, I would love to hear what you think. You can actually go in and leave a message. You can send us a text message, or you can leave what's called fan mail. I'm like, I don't really love that title, but that's what it's called. We can't always respond that way, but we can get those messages and we would love to hear what you think about it and who you think this book is for.

As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.