St Louis, Missouri – the begnning of FertilityCare Centers

It’s year 1974. Thomas W. Hilgers, MD, after completing his study comes here with his wife Susan to begin residency at St Mary’s Hospital. For the 4 years to come.

One day in 1974 he accepts the invitation from Missouri Nurses for Life (by the way, I wonder since when we’ve got to tell the pro-life doctors from the others – and shouldn’t we have in that nomenclature: pro-life and anti-life doctors – the neutral doctors do not exist, or do they?).

That group of nurses included Ann Prebil and Diane Daly. Dr Hilgers was asked to give a lecture on a pregnancy resulting from a rape and the special role of pro-life nurses in handling the patient after such a trauma.

A year later he called Ann with the offer of cooperation: she’s asked to take the post of an  Education Coordinator of a new program for Natural Family Planning at St Louis Univeristy. Ann accepts the offe, and initially shares her time between her work as a lecturer in a nursing school and this new program.

On February 12, 1976 the first meeting of the new program was held. It looked a bit like contemporary Education Programs. 6 people took part in it: Sue Hilgers, dr Thomas Hilgers, Ann, Diane and one more married couple who later left the project.

In January 1977 Dr Thomas Hilgers with his Wife and two sons, Paul and Steve, left for Omaha. A year later the first FertilityCare Center was opened in St. Louis.

What happened next and where the name Creighton Model of FertilityCare System comes from – in the subsequent parts of the story.

Fr Jay