The Plain Values Podcast EP #58 – Dawn Combs: Big Ag, Big Fertility, & God’s Design for Healing the Destruction

He felt like, you know, I love you, and this is the life that we’re given, and if children don’t come into it, I can be, I can be happy. Mm-hmm. I couldn’t. Our culture has followed the wrong god. I was doing all of the work on the outside holistically, what I need to do for food and what I need to do for herbs, while I was also tiptoeing on the edge of the Western fertility world. God did not say, “Kill babies and design drugs so that you can have less headaches.” He just didn’t. He didn’t. We got a lot of people that don’t realize they’re on the wide road. Have you th- thought about this huge gap, or this huge disconnect between generations? Mm-hmm. How many of the younger folks that are under 20, that are under 30, grow up with their grandparents- Yeah … anymore? Yep. And see the reality of getting older, and- It’s purposeful … life and death. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. Well, death, my thesis I wrote about dying in America, and the way that we die is part of the huge crime that’s happening. Th- the way that medicalized birth and death has been medicalized- Mm-hmm … and so it has been taken out of the home and away from the family, and it’s done, it- it’s done where we don’t have to deal with it or face it or be there for that person. And people do that, they think they’re, they think they’re getting something good, but I was there, uh, before I wrote, wound up doing my thesis, I was there, my father-in-law, Carson’s dad, decided to die at home in, in hospice, and so we were all there when he passed, and it was a gift to the rest of my life that I will never, I, I cannot un-know what I know because I was there, and it changes. And we’re take- we’re p- asking nurses who don’t know this person to stand by- Yeah … in this moment of… It’s birth and death. We have taken it away from making meaning out of- Yeah … us being here. I don’t remember who said it. I’ve been studying, uh, Canada’s MAID program- Yeah … quite a bit, and in that research, I found a guy, boy forgive me, that’ll come back in a s- in a second, but, but he, he made the point, maybe it was Voddie Baucham before he passed, but, but he, but the guy made the point, he said, Christ being born as a baby and, and walking the, you know, the 30, 30, you know, couple years of life all the way to the natural end, to his end, validates and, and m- it, it brings, what was the word he used? Doggone it, Dawn, I’m sorry. But he, he brings this value and validation to natural birth and natural death. Mm-hmm. And when we short-circuit- All the way. Right. Everything in between. I mean, Christ, Christ could’ve just been like, “Well, I’m up here, and I’m g- everybody sees me, I’m gonna die, so just, just-” Yeah … “blink me out. I don’t… And, and then Mom doesn’t have to see this happen, and all these people who love me don’t need to see this happen.” But, but he went through the whole process- Right … in front of everyone, in front of his community and also people that weren’t his community. Uh, that matters. It matters. Yeah. We’ve lost sight of some really important things, ’cause we don’t, we, we gloss over those details. We don’t think the- Yeah … details matter anymore. Yeah. That was not how I expected to start this. But I’m really glad we did, because that was really good. Um, so let’s go, let’s go back to your childhood. Ooh. Where, where were you born? Uh, central Ohio, uh, near where the Darby Creeks come together, little tiny town. I was, uh, raised on a, it’s i- an open lot, how people do now, where- Mm-hmm … it’s really suburbia sort of transplanted out into the country. Uh, so we had a house and we had almost three acres, and my parents raised their food and- Mm-hmm … and did all that stuff, and we were the weirdos. So back then, the, the suburbia thing was probably starting to creep your way, but it wasn’t there yet. So I went to high school with people who lived in housing developments and apartments, and we were, you know, quote-unquote, “in the country.” Mm-hmm. But, you know, it’s, it’s two to three acre lots side by side. Uh, these days, where we live now, it’s, it’s like the still, where you have somebody who wants a bit of land, but they still wanna live in suburbia. Yeah. So they have a, a yar- or they have a house in the middle of a big green lawn, and all they ever do is mow it. And I’m still the neighborhood freak because- … I, we actually get hate mail from our neighbors because we’ve created habitat on our property. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I’m, I’m assuming that the neighbors are- Frustrated with your dandelions or- We are worse than that … the fact that you don’t spray. Yeah, we don’t- Right … we don’t spray. Uh, I have questioned for many years why God planted us where he did. We are two and a half miles down the road from the Scotts World Headquarters. Oh, my goodness. We are in the belly of the beast. I’m sorry to laugh. So- That’s awesome … no, it’s, it’s hysterical because all of our neighbors are… I- if they’re conventional farmers, they work, when they’re not out on the tractor spraying the chemicals, they work at the chemical factory, and our neighbors are in… And then we’ve got Nestle right there, too, so it’s big food, big ag, big chemical. Uh, it- I am sitting right there, and so everybody has hated on us. And, you know, you think about it for years, I’d think, “Why, why have I been placed where I’m going to irritate the most people possible instead of…” We would travel, when I was speaking at Mother Earth, we would travel to, uh, North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina, and we would dream about, “We should just get a house here because people would understand us, and we wouldn’t have so much hatred at us all the time.” And nope, God was, God was like, “Nope, nope, you’re exactly where I want you.” Are you, are you saying that you are on your home place where you grew up? No. Okay. No. This is where we are now. Okay. Uh, my parents have since moved from the home place, and, uh, they built closer to us where we are now. But no, our, our farm as a, an adult married couple is, is greatly hated. Okay. Are you inside Licking County? No. Carson is the planning director in Licking County, but we are- Okay … on the other side of Columbus, and we’re in, we’re in Union County out in Marysville. Okay. Um, can we talk about Licking County for a bit? Yeah. So I have friends who are down there, live outside of Granville, I think, and they have told me a bit about the aquifers- Mm … and hence all of the data centers- Yep … that are being built. Yep. I drove down through there a couple weeks ago for the first time in a while, Dawn. I was, uh, I was blown away. There’s construction on a massive scale everywhere. Yep. What, what can you tell me about the water, about the data centers’ needs? W- what’s gonna happen to that whole thing? So I’m gonna tell you that you may wanna have a little conversation with my husband at some point, because you wanna talk about God preparing somebody to wind up where they’re supposed to be, Carson is a freak in the land of city planners. He is, he has been a farmer. He has shed a lot of the things that he was taught, which is eminent domain and progress at any cost, and, um, the story of him being a planner and then coming into our business, meeting me, I just blew up his life and changed everything, and then, um, he’s been in the business for a lot of years, and this, this planning, he’s the planning director in Licking County. So he is standing in the way of all of these data centers and everything that’s coming in, and if he were a different person, you know, let’s go, it doesn’t matter, the envi- you know, people don’t care, ag doesn’t matter, he- you could wind up with a very different outcome. But I think you need to keep an eye on Licking County because God has prepared a Christian man to stand there who has experienced agriculture, cares about preserving it, um, understands being a steward of God’s environment, and also understands that we still have to grow. And so he’s actually thinking about what do we need to do developmentally-wise to make sure that these places are- Mm-hmm … recycling their own, and I’m in his ear. I’m like, “They need to have water collection on the roof. They need to be collecting their own rainwater and recycling that.” And so, um, I think Licking County has a really big opportunity to demonstrate what this needs, what development needs to look like as we’re moving forward with technology. Coming in and cities growing, we have to still have, we have to value the agricultural past. We have to keep the land open, and there aren’t a lot of places where somebody’s standing in that role that understands that. Mm-hmm. Okay, I have so many questions. Number one, you’re talking about capturing rainwater. Mm-hmm. Those roofs are massive. Oh, they’re, they’re acres. Yeah. Like massively. Yeah. I- tens and, I mean, probably 100 acres on the roof. I, I don’t even know. I have no idea, but it’s massive scale. Yeah. And they, I know that Joel Salatin and, and a bunch of those other guys would have the math, I don’t know the math, how much rain th- like how much actual water they could capture. I don’t- You’d be talking millions of gallons … I don’t either, but if you could capture, if you could capture the water, and Carson has talked about, you know, making them build a reservoir underneath- Mm-hmm … their buildings so that they have a place, you know, cisterns. Is, is the aquifer under Licking County, is it- Is it the size that they are after, the amount of water that they’re after, or is it the purity? Licking County, that’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that. Licking County has a lot of water. Uh, there’s definitely some sort of heat island as the weather is going over Columbus that’s dumping in Licking County all the time. So, uh, if they don’t mess that up, th- there’s water to come from the sky- Right … to replenish. Uh, m- most of them, I, I know Carson’s talking now about putting in… The, the issue is the people that are in power to make these decisions don’t often think ahead, and they’re looking at the, the money that’s coming in- Mm-hmm … and what it’s gonna do, but they’re not thinking ahead for the people that live there and, uh, how the environment is going to be tended and stewarded- Mm-hmm … you know, the land and the animals. And, um, so Carson’s thinking w- they’re supposed to be asking development to be responsible, but many don’t. Mm-hmm. They don’t say, “Okay, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have so much more traffic. You’ve gotta build the roads.” Right. Uh, you have to build the roads, not the people who live here. Um, but Carson is thinking through, like, the development needs to pay for… They can’t just come in and rob all the water. They have to have a responsible plan for how they’re gonna circulate it- Mm-hmm … reuse the water that they cool, and I think rainwater is a definite, ’cause we can’t take all the water out of the ground. That’s really, really a fascinating thing, and I do, I do wanna talk to Carson about it because, you know, the, the things that, that Ian told me, I mean, you’re talking one data center is using, like, 50 million gallons a day. A day. Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s mind-numbingly- Mm-hmm … impossible for a goofball like me- Yep … to even comprehend. Yep. Which of course then I have to go, okay, now wait a second. How huge are these aquifers? Yeah. If you, if you can use that much water a day and it’s gonna last for a while, obviously I’m- It could be, and it could be purity. I mean, your, your notion there, we live, the aquifer that’s gonna be threatened by, we’re having data centers coming in ’cause Marysville’s just like, “Yeah, come in. We’re gonna pay you to take our land- Right … and our water.” And the tax- We have iron in it- … income … like insane. And so they’re gonna- Wow … what are they gonna have to do to purify that water? And we’re seeing already our township is, um… Uh, I should, I should tell you that I actually have done a lot of research and, and, and working on writings that I think cities are evil. Uh, I think cities are, they are not what God designed. I believe strongly that we were designed to have a relationship with the land that we lived on. It was meant to prot- provide to us, and when we pack more people than that square footage of land can actually provide for, it’s outside the design that God had. Mm. And in fact, the cities at that time that God was designing always had green acreage for the people in the cities. But, uh- Well- The, the need for more and more and more, um, is they take care of their own in the city. So our city is saying, water-wise, our customers won’t be affected. But I’m sitting just outside of the city, and I’m getting my water out of an aquifer. And the more our township puts housing developments out there to put dollars in their pockets- Mm-hmm … we have gone to a place where our water, uh, like, after a few days, I can’t, of, like, Carson recycling the water, I can’t put my hair, my hands through my hair in the shower because of the minerals- Yeah … because they’re digging deeper into the aquifer and stirring up the minerals where the water used to be cleaner- Yeah … and more pure. And, and most of the people making these decisions, they don’t, they don’t know enough to look down the road, and they’re also not, they’re not… I don’t think they’re consulting with an actual authority as to whether they should. Right. And when you’re only looking at the golden egg- Mm-hmm … you, you are not gonna care one iota about the goose. No, no. So boy, oh, that’s fascinating. Okay. Um, so you grew up down there. How did you meet Carson? Uh, he was teaching at OSU. Uh, he was teaching a friend that I encouraged to go back to school, and, uh, she’s very persistent. On the last day of school, she pushed and pushed, and against his ethics, ’cause he never went out, he never went out with students to celebrate, uh, she was so relentless that sh- he had to go. And they went to Applebee’s, and then her, um, her fiance just happened to not be able to come, and so she randomly called me, and so I walked in, and there he was, and that was it. That’s cool. Okay. Um, all right. You, you have, you have so many really interesting things that you talk about, the herbalists, the naturopathic stuff, the pregnancy- Mm-hmm … story. Where do you wanna start? I mean, I’ve got an idea, but- Well, um- How did you get into all this? Like, how, how, how did the whole story really come about? And I’m sorry to ask you a question and then, and then take it back Well, I was gonna go there anyway, so you were just reading my mind. I think, you know, any story you have to start from the beginning, and I think that’s where I got led into this. And, um, I came out of college, my undergrad with a botany, humanities, classics degree. I was putting together an ethnobotany degree. I was really interested in how plants, um, how they extract nutrition and the phytochemicals out of the soil into themselves, and then how humans are using those phytochemicals for healing and for maintenance- Mm-hmm … of health. Can I pause you for a second? Mm-hmm. Define ethno. Ethnobotany, um, it is the study of how plants interact. So it’s anthropological, it’s, uh, it’s really understanding… Short version, I care about the stories that are being passed down about how to use these plants. Okay. I’m interested in the ceremonial use, the, the science, how, how we’re taking… What kind of phytochemicals are in there, I care about that. I care about, um, your Great Aunt Suzy who taught you how to do a plantain- Mm-hmm … poultice. Mm-hmm. I’m in on this side where folklore and h- and science meet. So I came out with that degree, and I went in search. And, um, I knew that I wanted to learn the folklore aspect, and all of the, all of the f- all of the herbalists were not me. They were spinning in a field, uh, you know, talking about Gaia and, and it was really difficult for me to find somebody that was grounded in… At that time, I needed somebody grounded in the science to be able to take what they were saying. Can you contextualize the timing? Was that in like the- Mm, 2007, I think. Okay. Um, and there just weren’t, there weren’t Christian herbalists out there that were talking. Mm-hmm. It was… I, I’m of a, of a crop of herbalists that, that Jasmine who- Mm-hmm … does the Christian Herbal Magazine- Mm-hmm … and, um, there’s a few others that I, might escape me at the moment. But we’re this crop of Christian herbalists that kinda had to dive into the Pagan- Mm-hmm … stuff, and then extract truth. Yeah. Um, I had the science behind me, and I was just looking for the history. And i- in the midst of that, I, I had… I always knew that I wanted a family, and that was really critical. Even… I was also a vocal performance major in college. I have been on stages my whole life, and I was always going to sing. And then I realized, I realized in my junior year of college that if I became a professional singer, that I would live out of a suitcase, and I would be a sometimes wife and a sometimes mom. And I knew that that was not what I was supposed to be doing. I knew I needed to be all in in those jobs. And so I kicked the vocal performance, and then God- Wow … ironically put me on stages in a different… I perform in a different way. Yeah. Um, but I, I… In the midst of studying herbalism, because that was so important, that family, I told Carson I wanted to, I wanted to retire. I was doing technology for Chase Bank, and, uh, I wanted to start having babies. And then three months in they told me that I couldn’t have babies, um, that it, it just wasn’t possible, and, uh, I needed to take all of these drugs, and, and I needed to go into the infertility journey. Mm. And I was studying, I was doing all of the work on the outside holistically, what I need to do for food and what I need to do for herbs, while I was also tiptoeing on the edge, or so you think, of the Western fertility world. And you get to a point where, oh, man, I think it was like three years of Clomid and, um… You know, when you don’t start a cycle then they give you this drug that makes you absolutely insane to start your cycle. And, and we then… They, they tiptoe you because first you’re like, “We’re very natural. We don’t want anything.” And, um, “So, well, we’ll just give you this pill.” And my first question, which now I look back on, so, like they must have thought I was insane, ’cause I was like, “Well, will the pill make me have my normal cycle, or will it make me have the normal cycle of the, like the box woman?” And of course, there was no distinction to them. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, “You’ll have a… You’ll have the cycle that you’re supposed to have, the, the normal cycle.” Um, so we started there, and the… I was pulling naturally at the same time, but you get to a point in the fertility industry three years in where, you know… Carson wrote the forward for my first book, Conceiving Healthy Babies, and it’s so valuable because he came to resent the thermometer that I checked my temperature in the morning, ’cause I was tracking my own stuff outside of the Western medicine stuff. Um, you get to where in the Western mindset, it’s just about making your body do something that they think they can control, and it’s no longer about you and your partner coming together to create a, a being that is of the two of you that God is giving to you to raise. And, and now it’s about lab visits, and who’s got what count, and, and, uh, it, it, it just became so soulless, hopeless. You become a number. They don’t treat you Like it’s a blessing. They treat you like something to, to treat. And it got to the point three years in that, um, we were sitting across the desk from the doctor, and they just, they were like, “You’re fired.” As a client- We can’t, we can’t do anything for you … they can’t- You are broken. There’s nothing that anybody can do for you. And yeah- Yeah … um, I’m noticing that this is going into a story that I wasn’t… But this, here we are. This is what we’re doing. Um- Well, C- Hopefully it’s okay … it’s completely okay because, um, Lisa and I walked the same path. Mm. And your comment about Carson’s… Resenting … r- resentment- Yeah … I can identify with that. He felt like, “You know, I love you, and this is the life that we’re given, and if children don’t come into it, then I can be, I can be happy.” Mm-hmm. I couldn’t. And so I took us down a road that i- it’s, it’s awful. It’s awful. It’s a hard thing. It’s awful. It is a really, really hard thing. Mm-hmm. And as, and as a husband- Mm … I can identify with the pickle that it puts a man in- Mm-hmm … um, because you so desperately want everything to come together. And in our situation, it was more me than my wife. It was much more me than, than her. Um- So then you have issues of failing your spouse and- … and not doing what… You know, the first directive that we’re given on the planet is be fruitful and multiply. Yeah. But the work that I do now, because the arc for me went through this infertility, the work that I do now, um, the language needs to change around that. Not only did I wind up having infer… It was all, it was all me. Um, I had the infertility imbalance, but I also then failed to be able to nurse my children adequately, and ugh. Mm. Those are soul deep wounds that there’s only, you know, God can only heal. It’s not time, and it’s not… And I did what, um, I did what I can do, but which I teach how to, how to make your own formula. And I, I provided for my children everything that they could without- Mm-hmm … formula and all of that. And, um, that’s something that I, I feel really strongly in having that information out there. But having gone through that arc, on the other side, the languaging needs to change. So it’s not your fault. We have a culture fault. Our culture has followed the wrong god, uh, medically and in understanding how our bodies work. And, um, we followed, we’ve made Western medicine a god to just be really clear. And even Christian communities are worshiping this and not really realizing that it’s become a god. And the food is the same. The food and the medicine go hand in hand because you can’t eat the plastic food without the Western medicine to keep you functioning on something that you weren’t created- Yeah … your, your machine wasn’t created to work on. So then you’re taking a pharmaceutical, a drug- Mm … that’s gonna have other side effects. Mm-hmm. Oh, but wait. We have, we have drugs for those side effects too. That’s right. We’ve got it covered. And it is this impossible circle. Round and round and round. I call it the treadmill. Um, you get the t- get on the treadmill at one point, and then it just- Yeah … keeps going. You’ve, you’ve got to keep going. Um, but the, the languaging problem that we have is that it falls back on the man or the woman in that primary objective of be fruitful and multiply. Um, you’ve failed. You’ve done something wrong. You’ve sinned. You’ve… Like, there’s something that is preventing God from giving you this blessing, and we need something other than fault. I see it too in, um, all of the… We, we tend to serve the community of vaccine injured in, in what we do off of our farm, and I see so many parents that are… You know, they’re aware. They, they’ve found out too late, and so that it’s, it’s this constant beating yourself up. And there isn’t… There’s taking responsibility. There’s responsibility. I did that. I unknowingly did that. Now I know, and now I’m gonna… But that’s what repentance is, right? It’s I messed up. I’m not gonna do that again. Mm-hmm. And God covers it. So that languaging we need to have around infertility and, um, and, and trouble with feeding our children, women that are troubling, having trouble with lactation. Mm-hmm. Um, but living through it, uh, I realized after we were fired, uh, I went home and I mourned. And I really thought, you know, okay, this is something… Adoption at the time was not something that Carson was feeling that that was where he was drawn to go, and so I was mourning ever having children. Mm-hmm. And I, there’s this moment where one day… I, I was doing farmer’s market, so I was at home a lot by myself during the day, and he was off working. And, um, there was this one day where I was sitting there going through the mourning process, and this voice was like… I had been collecting data on myself for three years and giving it to the doctors, and they to a man were like, “Oh, that’s so cute. You can’t know your body.” And they were discounting it. And, um, I was sitting there that day, and this voice was like, “They were, they’re wrong. You, you know, you know the answer. You know what’s wrong with you.” And I went and I spread all of my charts across, like, our bedroom, like wall to wall. Carson came home, and I was crouched in the far corner, and I had wallpapered the floor with my cycles. And I was just like some feverish monkey. He was like, “What is going on here?” And I was like, I, like, was running through, across the floor. I was like, “Ovulation, ovulation, ovulation, ovulation.” Mm. I’m like, I was saying that that wasn’t my problem, and they insisted that that was my diagnosis. And so I saw it all, and at that point, I created a new protocol, and that’s how we have our two natural children. Mm-hmm. But I had, I had to listen to that voice, and I think that a lot of people don’t have access to that information. What were you looking for? So when you chart and you chart properly for a woman- woman, you can, I mean, our, our, our bodies aren’t unknowable. Um, we’re, we’re allowed to understand the cycles in our body and, and it’s very predictable cycle. But, uh, for me, my luteal phase was too long. So after ovulation, your luteal phase, uh, sorry, it was too short. Um, it needs to be 12 to 14 days, and every woman- Mm-hmm … it’s like a thumbprint. Some women might be- Mm-hmm … 12, mine might be 13, somebody else might be 14, and it’s always that unless you’re pregnant or out of balance. And mine was nine, and I had proof of ovulation. I could see the, the p- the temperature spike and then the drop, and you see temperatures up here, and then you see a drop, and it stays like this. So your charts are too leveled. Mm-hmm. When it’s working, and I had all that, but my luteal phase was too short, and any doctor that understood this for three years could have seen that. And I saw it, but I wasn’t listening to God, and I wasn’t listening, like, I wasn’t listening to Holy Spirit inside of me saying, “This is wrong. This is wrong. You’re going the wrong direction.” So when you saw that, what did you adjust? How did you get that nine days? So I changed the… I th- pretty sure I’m the first person that advocated for a biphasic application of herbs for hormones because I did, I had a tea that I did for the ovulatory phase, and I did another tea that I formulated for the luteal phase, and it wasn’t making my body do anything. It was supporting my body’s balance to work the way that it was designed. We are all, unless we have something that is physically corrupt- Mm … um, to use a computer term, um, or missing or, you know, something that’s happened structurally that we can’t get something to operate, we’re all designed perfectly. Mm-hmm. We are all designed to do this, and so I trusted that. And I, a lot of people were saying, “Okay, well, if I have a progesterone issue,” ’cause that’s, that’s what it was, it’s low progesterone for your luteal phase. A lot of people would be like, “Well, you take progesterone herbs then all the time.” Well, that’s not how the body works. The body goes high in estrogen, and then it goes high in progesterone, so encouraging progesterone across the board is against the design. Mm-hmm. Our best healing remedies, the things that we design to heal our bodies, mimics what God tells us the design is supposed to be. So I followed the design, and I used a tea that I now call Barky Rooty, and the recipe is in the book, and, um, it’s no longer available. I’m trying to bring it back. Um, but, um, I made, I made this tea, and I drank it, and within a month, I was pregnant. And I did have a miscarriage. I can never know, but I, I do believe that it’s probable that my hormones weren’t at a stable level that they could- Mm … still sustain. Uh, and then within three, within, within a year, I was pregnant with Aiden. Mm. And that was a successful pregnancy, and then we were surprised by Jacey. So to go from infertile to have a child that, w- what? Accidentally? Like, what? That’s insane. But- Wow … the really good news here is that I, God bringing me through this, uh, it was an awful time, but in writing the book and then traveling and speaking about it, it became really clear that I was blessed with this. I was given this as a gift because I have pictures all over my wall at home of babies that, I have people that come up to me at conferences and, like, pull me aside and open up a wallet and go, “They said I couldn’t have that baby, but I followed, I followed what you said, and I have that baby. And then I gave your book to a friend, and here’s that picture of that baby.” Our bodies are designed to heal, and so being brought through that, I was taught so much. I was taught to use what I was being taught. Um, I was taught that our bodies are designed to heal. They’re designed perfectly, and if we figure out where the error is and remove it- Mm … we can go back to that. The other thing is, I keep bumping your mic. Um, the other thing, I talk with my hands too much. It’s okay. I do it, too, so don’t worry about it. The other thing is that I have then gone on, so I’m now, I think I’m 52. I’m so bad. I don’t keep enough track, but I think I’m 52. So my mother, as I looked at our family history, looking back, my mom had five miscarriages. I’m the only one of her children that made it earth side. Wow. And that’s mind-boggling, and it’s a rabbit hole to go down, but- Yeah … she, um, she then taught me, um, there was, there was a, a very evident marker in my cycle that when I saw it, when I first came into fertility as a young girl, I went to my mom, and I’m like, “Is this normal?” And she said, “Well, yeah, that’s,” and she didn’t know. Her mother died when she was eight. So- Mm … her imbalance She just took as normal. And when I asked about that imbalance, she said, “Yes, it’s normal,” because she didn’t know any better And it’s what she had lived. She had a low progesterone level, passed it to me. Likely my grandmother had that too. My mother went through menopause in her early 40s. I still haven’t hit that. So not only can we heal our body- Mm-hmm … but once we heal it, if we don’t return, so here I go back to the theme of repentance, right? If we see the problem and we go after fixing the problem, and then we don’t re-offend, we don’t… Like, it’s really clear in our bodies. We can see this principle of what happens when we repent, and we turn away, and we go the other, like, we go God’s way. I have changed the trajectory of generational health. Mm-hmm. I’ve changed the trajectory in my daughter’s health because I healed what was broken probably three generations back that was perpetuating. So this gives me, like, this, this is what informs me to where I am. Mm. Gosh, I’m so bad. Um, it’s what, it’s where I am now was starting there. Mm-hmm. And that’s why it’s so important to tell this story, and I’ll, I’ll say one other thing about where I started. When I was going through the infertility, I went every day to the backyard to a tree, and I asked that I be given these children, and I promised to raise them in the knowledge that I was learning if I w- could just have them. And then I also promised that in exchange I would offer up my life, and that I wanted to become a conduit to share whatever needed to come through, and I asked specifically to be taught how to set myself aside inside that conduit so that I didn’t get in the way, um, and that I would go out wherever I needed to go and to say whatever it is that I needed to say. And so fast-forward today, I, I wrote that first book. I started, that, that story and that journey started impacting people. I got to write a second book. I wrote Heal Local, and the books that I write kind of follow the, the arc of my family. So I, I had the babies, and I needed people to understand what to use for infertility, what to use to build fertility because- Mm … oh my gosh, do we have to have a totally different conversation about fertility in this country. Let’s- Yeah … let’s pause there for a second. I just wrote down the question that I’ve been rolling around in my head ’cause I don’t wanna forget it. Okay. Okay? W- where are all these infertility issues coming from? Um, where aren’t they coming from? It is absolutely a full court press, in my opinion, to deselect for the human race, um, specifically for God’s people, I believe. Um, I go into churches. We see this a lot, if you read The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs. Mm-hmm. Joel is talking about what I’m talking about in farming and food. I walked into my children’s school to, they, for a minute they were in public school, and I walked in, and I looked at the plast- the styrofoam trays, all of the single serve plastic things with milk- Mm … that’s got hormones in it, and I looked at my husband ’cause we were, we were meeting for lunch with Aiden, and I looked at my husband and I said, “This generation, not a one of them will be able to reproduce naturally. It is not going to be possible.” It’s the food. It’s the water. It’s our behaviors. It’s sitting all the time. Mm-hmm. It’s, um, it’s the spiritual degradation. It’s the mental degradation. It’s the pharmaceuticals. It’s the, and it, all of these things kinda, it’s there’s a path. Mm-hmm. It’s the wide path, actually. God kinda names it in the Bible. Mm-hmm. Um, we got a lot of people that don’t realize they’re on the wide road. Okay, that’s, uh, that’s really interesting. Okay, when I think about the wide and the narrow, I think about the spiritual side of it. Mm-hmm. I think you’re alluding to the wide and the narrow even on a physical side. I- Am I on track? Yep. I believe that our churches are talking a lot about the spiritual, but we’re body, mind, spirit. God tells us to give him everything that we have in body, mind, and spirit. By the way, Joel’s, uh, Pigness, that is my favorite book that he’s ever w- Yep … written. Mine too. It, it’s the best. He- Yeah … he told me one time, Dawn, he said his publisher on that, on that project made him, I believe, chop, like, a third of everything he had written. Oh, well, he needs to bring that out. He’s going to. Good. He’s- Although he told me, he told me he’s never gonna… He was like, “Don’t…” The last time we talked, I was thinking about a new book. He’s like, “Don’t go to a publisher. Don’t, don’t go to a publisher. I will never again do that. Just publish it yourself.” Yeah. I think that’s part of why he’s saying that. I think that’s probably why he was saying it. Yeah. There’s, there’s more to say on that. Yeah. Here, here’s another question for you When you look, when you look at, at in vitro fertilization and Big Fertility- Yeah … and you look at the designer baby market- Mm-hmm … by the way, I, I love people who got pregnant through IVF. We, Lisa and I, went through the Big Fertility thing up to IVF, and we stopped. That’s where we stopped, yep. We tried the intrauterine thing. It did not take. It, it, all of those things. Anyway, the point is, at times, I struggle with the seeming thoughtlessness, and, and by the way, I’m not trying to judge anybody- Exactly … condemn. Mm-hmm. That, that is not my heart at all. Yep. Because I know, as a , as a, as a man, I cannot identify with, I cannot understand the depth of the desire to, to be a mom. I, I, obviously, I can’t identify with that, and so I realize that, that it’s, you know, beyond me. However, I do long for a conversation, more conversation and deeper conversation around the realities that IVF brings to the table, and they- Yeah … according to just simply looking at the basic data, Dawn, Big Fertility is killing more babies than Planned Parenthood ever has. They are, and not many people realize it. Yeah. Well, so I have lots of opinions on that, and, um, I definitely, with you, I, I wanna say that we have to have these conversations in grace and, and lack of judgment and to hear the things that I say that are in love and not in judgment. Right. But Right … but the fertility industry is designed to make your body perform a deed. It’s ta- it’s exactly like what we’re doing in our farmer’s field in conventional ag. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The soil is not fertile. The soil isn’t healthy. It cannot support life, and it also cannot support life in the way that we’re trying, like the magnitude- Mm-hmm, yeah, let’s just- … that we’re trying to put in. So we bypass God’s design, and we make it do something through our own will. Without any thought to the repercussions down the road. The repercussions, I can tell you, are really clear. You take a body who wasn’t, that wasn’t working. Now, the problem is is that we use the word broken. So I was broken in Western medicine. Um, this is the same thing again. I wanna go back to the soil because to me, there is a connection here for our understanding of this. When the soil is fertile, it produces life in abundance. When we ruin the fertility of the soil, conventional farming says, “Well, it’s just an empty container.” Mm-hmm. “And we have to, we have to fix that.” Um, and God says, “I made everything to heal, so broken soil just needs time and work and input to heal it.” A body such as mine that was broken, for the rest of my life, if I had skipped over and gone into the next step and done IVF and forced and hoped that implanting and making everything outside of the body would help it, my pregnancy would have been heinously difficult, fraught with all kinds of… You, you basically constrain yourself, or i- you’re shackling yourself into a slavery because now you need Western medicine. You’ve used Western medicine to do what you didn’t wait and do the work with, with God to heal. You skipped over, and you went for Western medicine to fix it, but now you rely on Western medicine to keep that baby alive in the womb, to deal with the hormonal… You had hormonal imbalances likely- Mm-hmm … again, unless you have a structural or things like that. You had a hormonal imbalance that was given to you from other mistakes behind you or mistakes that you made, whatever. You had hormonal imbalances that were preventing what we are designed to do to happen. You put it in there, and you forced it, and now you’re reliant on the Western medicine god- Mm-hmm … to make sure that that life sustains. Once that baby is born, in a hospital because now it’s medicalized, for sure, that life is compromised already. Mm-hmm. And we have to prop it up, so we’re shackling that child often to Western medicine. Right. And that woman, going back to me, had I skipped to that point, on the other side of that, I would have still had the progesterone imbalance, which is a magnesium imbalance. I s- would’ve been struggling with all kinds of hormonal issues, um, post… Oh, I, the most easy word is escaping me. I’m trying to get this out, but after a woman has a baby, she has, um, where they have anxiety and depression and- Oh, yeah. I, I- Anyways … yeah, I know what you’re talking about … that’s worse because now I’ve asked my body to do something. God, God gives- Plenty into a system that’s already abundant. We don’t, we’re not designed to have babies in the middle of famines- Mm-hmm … when we don’t have proper food or water. We’re designed to have babies in abundance, all the nutrition, all the good spiritual- Mm … goodness, mental goodness, and we are forcing it to happen without fixing the bodies. And it isn’t just IVF. I- we can say this to somebody who’s told, “You know, you have type 2 diabetes. Um, it’s fine, just keep taking this drug and, and we’ll help you have a, a baby.” Fix it first. Yeah. Fix the soil first. Does, does it not, does it not effectively come back to our medical system is treating the symptom instead of the root? Yeah. And they’re not really looking at the, the causation of something and the health of something, they’re looking at basically y- you know, sticking a Band-Aid on something. And, and if I can go back to a comment that you made about the cities, was it not Nimrod in the Book of Genesis that effectively gave God the finger when he said, “I’m not gonna spread out. I’m gonna build a city”? Yep. I have wondered, I have wondered for a long time, there’s something… Again, no, uh, I have many good friends who love city life. It’s fine. I’m not one of them, um, but that’s okay. But my point is, I think we were designed for an agricultural lifestyle. Or- There’s something beautiful, there’s something healing about that dirt under the fingernail … we are tied to it. Um, we are tied, we are so inextricably tied to the soil- The gardens … God makes our body out of the soil. We are the soil. Right. And, ugh, I, I play a game when we’re driving, ’cause we’re always driving. I don’t like to fly. We’ve driven, Carson and I, all over the country, going to places for me to speak. Mm-hmm. And I play a game as we go through a town, I look for the weeds, because I can, I can tell you- Yeah … what health issues that area has based on the abundance of the weeds that are- Really? Mm-hmm. We are tied to the soil. We’re tied to the groundwater. We’re tied to the soil. And I think that city living can be done- Mm … the same way we can use Western medicine. ‘Cause I’m not a Western medicine can’t be used at all person. Right. Right. When my son fell and broke his arm, we went and got that fixed. There are balances there. But it’s w- it’s how you use it and where you put your faith. So I think you can live in the city in the same way. You can live in the city and recognize that you still have to have a relationship. So some people live in the city and they have relationship with specific farmers that they’re supporting, and they have- Yeah … a relationship with the soil by proxy. Mm-hmm. Not perfect, but I think you can do that. Um, I have a whole thing that I’m writing right now. I have, like, big ideas about foraging, and I am anti-foraging. I have really strong opinions. But, um, I think that overall, people go to Western medicine and they go for these solutions because it’s so tempting. I, people come to me all the time asking for help with fertility, and I can see whether they’re going to be receptive or not really fast. Because I’m like, “All right. Over the next year we’re gonna, I’m gonna give you this suggestion of the food that we’re gonna, the real food that we’re gonna put back in, and we’re gonna, you know, these behaviors, and we’re gonna try this herb for you specifically, and I want you to focus on these imbalances that are going on.” ‘Cause that’s how we have fertility, is fixing that stuff. And I can see a lot of them just, the shutters start to come down, because they want… It’s, it’s we are designed to desperately want to have a baby. You want it now, and Western medicine can go, “I give you this test tube.” And it’s the same thing, “I’m really in trouble with my health.” Yeah, this person over here says I should go back to the beginning and fix my digestion and eat right and get outside and move. And that’s gonna take a couple months, maybe even a year, but Western medicine goes, “I’ve got this pill. You won’t even have to do anything.” It’s, it’s tempting. And then the other thing that I hear all the time is, “Well, God gave us wonderful minds, and look at the wonderful minds in medicine that are creating all of these…” And I’m like, “God did not say kill babies and design drugs so that you can have less headaches. He just didn’t. He didn’t.” That’s, that’s not, mm-mm. Sorry. Does, does that not, in a way, go back to pharmakeia? Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They’re… Oh, boy. Yeah, I know. Wow. You never know where a conversation is gonna go. Oh. And this conversation could go 60 different ways still, but yeah, um- Dawn, you, you have to come back. I would love to. You, you have to come back. Um- How long are you in town for the, the conference? We’re here… Well, we’re leaving sometime Saturday after- Okay … we’ve- After it’s over … packed down. Yeah. Okay. Um, let’s see if we can figure out a way, uh, potentially tomorrow, if you have time- Yeah … if you have time- That’d be awesome … to buzz back down and, and, and talk more. Because, I mean, I’ve, I’ve got a list of questions here. Um, boy. I took somebody’s advice and opened a Substack account. So, um, I am- That’s good … I am s- starting to write a lot of this stuff down- That’s good … as well. Um, okay. You and I have talked about your book already, you know, prior to this conversation, um, on fertility. That’s not available quite yet, again. Right. I should say that. I, I hope to have that back out. Heal Local is another one that I wrote more for family, ’cause as you, you have babies, and then they grow up, and you have to manage the homestead. So that- Yeah … um, that’s out of print, too. Um, but I have Sweet Remedies that’s in, uh, that’s out and anywhere. Mm-hmm. And, yeah. Where, where can people find you online? I am at the Family… Oh, shoot. The Family Health Steward. Uh, it’s just, it’s new. Okay. The Ha- familyhealthsteward.com. Um, and that’s… I’m trying to get off social media, but that’s, it’s there, too. Um, it’s really Heal Local kinda coming to life- Okay … is The Family Health Steward. Last question: How can we pray for you? Oh, so I am in a year of sabbatical, and I have learned that I’ve been running and running and running for a long time, and so far, I’m learning that I’m really willing, when God gives me, like, the germ of an idea, I am up out of my seat and running to do it. And what I’m learning this year, because I’m not doing anything until the end of the year, is that God has something… He ha- he s- he says one thing, and then he’s not done talking. And I’m already off. So I’m learning to curb that part of my, you know, what I think is really good. I’m super faithful and willing. And I’m gonna do whatever God says, no matter what craziness. But, but God’s saying, “Shh, sit down. I’m not done yet. I need to give you the full idea.” So, um, prayers for f- for my faithfulness to sit and abide. I’m abiding this year. I’m, I’m doing this sabbatical to rest and hear, and driving up in the car, I got a whole bunch more, which was really exciting. Um, so he’s faithful in giving me little bits, but um, I wanna get up and run. I, I wanna sign up. I, I, I wanna get into a speakers guild, and I wanna start running and doing, ’cause I, I think I got it. I got it. It’s, you’ve, you’ve said enough. I, I know what you’re- Yeah … I know where you’re going. I’m gonna, I’m gonna go ahead and run off. I need, I need prayers to just, that God will continue to reveal what it is that he really wants me to do with this life that he’s used me in so far, so that I do it right- Yeah … and that I get his message out in the fullness. Um, I think I maybe haven’t looked like I’m standing on a strong foundation before, and this next time, I think it’s really important- Mm-hmm … starting in January, that I’m standing rock solid in what I know God wants me to do, what the message is, and where I’m supposed to go with it. So, that. I was chuckling because I, uh, tend to struggle with the same thing. I have it figured out. I’m, I’m good to go. Mm-hmm. Dawn, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Yeah. Thanks for talking. Thanks for having me. This is awesome.