Meet Member Faiza Saroki

In Faiza’s Chaldean culture, you start your family right after getting married. Faiza’s husband, a man of deep faith, wanted to use a “church approved method” to space their children but she didn’t have any resources. Faiza began counting nineteen days after the start of her menstruation to find her fertile window, and became pregnant.

After having her third baby in four years, she asked her sister-in-law for advice on how to space her children. Her sister-in-law advised she use an IUD. Though her husband did not want her to use an IUD, she had one placed anyway.

Faiza recalls what happened next so clearly even now, forty-five years later.

Faiza and her husband owned a liquor store. She opened the store one Saturday morning, while her husband was at home with their children. One of the customers, there early to buy a racing form, asked Faiza “Why are you working, didn’t you just have a baby?”

He went on to ask, “What method of family planning are you using?” Shocked by the question, she told him it was none of his business! The customer then identified himself as Dr Michael Bajo, a pro-life physician. Faiza admitted to him that she had an IUD, and he asked her if she was pro-life, to which she replied yes. Dr Bajo explained to her how the IUD works, by causing an early abortion of the newly conceived embryo. As a result of this “encounter” she then became 100% pro-life.

The IUD was placed for free, and she intended to have it removed after five years. When she asked to have it removed instead after three months, she was charged $176—a lot of money in those days.

Following the removal of the IUD, she resumed her “nineteen day method”, having three more children over the next seven years, then going twelve years without conceiving, followed by two more pregnancies, sadly both of which ended in miscarriage.

It was after her last miscarriage in 2001 that Faiza learned about NFP. Responding to an article in a newsletter she received from the San Diego Diocese which said they were looking for NFP teachers, she was initially trained to teach by Couple to Couple League. She currently teaches the Family of the Americas method, in Arabic and English, through the Diocese of San Diego. Faiza says that after she teaches a client couple, she may see them for two to three follow ups and then may never see them again unless there is an infertility issue.

Faiza thanks God for her faithful husband, whom she describes as “the best thing God ever made.” She credits him for the fact that all six of their children are practicing their Catholic faith. One of their sons is a Catholic priest (she teaches NFP in his parish) and one of their daughters is a family medicine doctor trained in NaProTechnology.

Faiza, why are you a member of CANFP?

“I like the mission of CANFP…to support and sponsor talks and conferences. They have the courage to say the hard things. We need more priests to say couples need NFP.”

When Faiza Saroki is not teaching NFP she loves to cook and feed people, especially her family, and spending time with her grandchildren. She and her husband are members of Legion of Mary and support the Junior Legion of Mary for children age 6-17.