Jason and Meghan credit the Walk to Mary with their answered prayers after years of infertility struggles
By William Van de Planque | On Mission
CHAMPION, WI — Nearly 10,000 pilgrims, breaking the record for number of registrations, participated in the 2026 Walk to Mary, the annual 22-mile walking pilgrimage from The National Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, on Saturday, May 2.
Many pilgrims walk to be drawn closer to Jesus through Mary’s intercession and unite their suffering with that of Jesus and Mary for specific prayer intentions. Some walk in thanksgiving for answered prayers.
A recent example of the latter is a married couple from Maryland, who completed a portion of the Walk to Mary this year in thanksgiving for answered prayers to conceive after years of struggling with infertility, though they did not originally register with that intention.
Before Jason and Meghan Sheehan, who met at the University of Maryland, got married in 2021, Meghan was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Her doctor told her that the diagnosis meant having children would be challenging and to consider other options.
“When I told my then-fiancé, Jason, about the news as I was clutching my St. Thérèse of Lisieux medal, he was unfazed,” Meghan said. “He knew God had a plan and that it wasn’t for us or even for doctors to tell us what would happen in our fertility journey.”
Jason and Meghan got married on October 16, the feast day of St. Gerard Majella, the patron saint of expectant mothers. At the time of her diagnosis, Meghan was living with her parents and praying with them the Family Rosary Across America, a nightly program on Relevant Radio, co-hosted by Fr. Francis Hoffman, known as “Fr. Rocky,” the major Catholic radio network’s chairman and executive director.
“That’s when Fr. Rocky, every night, started to plant a seed about the Walk to Mary,” Meghan said. “Over the years, it was something that would sound interesting, but it wasn’t a substantial plan I was ever going to have in the future.”
Fr. Rocky also often advertises the Walk to Mary pilgrimage on Relevant Radio using the tagline, “If you want a baby, don’t say maybe; come to the Walk to Mary.”
In 2023, after a couple of years of keeping up the practice of praying the nightly Rosary, Jason and Meghan decided to take concrete action in prayer and hope, and to participate in the Walk to Mary the next year.
“It became more tangible to us,” Meghan said. “We were done with saying, ‘Maybe.’”
The couple began training for the physically demanding pilgrimage by going on long walks on the weekends. In May 2024, they traveled to Green Bay and walked the full 22 miles, praying multiple Rosaries along the way.
Meghan and Jason prayed not only for their own personal intentions, but also carried written prayer intentions from the members of their Bible study, an idea Meghan got from Fr. Rocky, she said.
Jason was struck by the number of other people walking alongside them.
“Overall, I thought it was a really great experience, just being surrounded by so many other people,” he said. “You don’t know all of their stories, but they’re all here for the same reason.”
The physical pain Meghan experienced during the walk drew her closer to Jesus, she said.
“In a way, Jason and I were able to pray, ‘Jesus, help us carry our cross to Golgotha,’” Meghan said. “That helped us truly unite ourselves to Our Lord’s suffering … and realize that this cross that we were carrying of infertility was something that he wasn’t ignoring. It was something that he cared about too.”
When the couple saw the Shrine for the first time, especially the statue of the Blessed Mother in the Apparition Oratory, they felt immense peace and consolation. When they returned home to Maryland, they brought that same peace back with them, they said.
“I felt that our prayers were heard,” Meghan said. “That was something I was entirely confident of.”
Knowing her prayers had been heard, she was still unsure whether they would be answered, saying, “That was something I still didn’t know and was wrestling with in my heart.”
Jason, on the other hand, was fully confident that their prayers for a child would be answered.
“I felt like I already knew that (God and Mary) heard us, and now the clock is ticking; it’s only a matter of time,” he said.
After about a year of continued prayer, in March 2025, Meghan and Jason began seeing doctors about medical intervention and, at the same time, began the nine-month Surrender Novena, which ended in December.
They met with a secular provider who was covered through their insurance, but had a serious conversation with her, explaining to her that they were practicing Catholics and telling her that if she were to push “anything that deters from Church teaching, we will walk away,” Meghan said.
Meghan said that she knew that certain practices were deemed morally wrong by the Church, but she “didn’t understand the theological teaching behind it until I really delved deep into (Pope St. John Paul II’s) writings.”
The summer after their first Walk to Mary, Meghan asked a friend, with whom she is involved in a women’s Bible study, about the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II, “Theology of the Body,” and what she thought about Meghan leading the other women in a series on the saint’s writings on human sexuality. It was through that experience and extensive research that she learned a lot, she said.
From that time until December, Meghan took medication that would induce ovulation and went to the medical clinic for monthly testing that would provide information like the amount of hCG, often called the “pregnancy hormone,” that was present. The nurses would then tell Meghan whether or not that indicated pregnancy.
“We found that it was one failed cycle after another,” Meghan said. “I’d get the call from the nurse only for her to tell me, ‘I’m so sorry to tell you this, but you aren’t pregnant.’ After I was able to calm down, I (would) offer a prayer to God in suffering, but I will say Jason never wavered.”
“(As a part of) my personality, I feel like I’ve been a perpetual optimist for my whole life, really,” Jason said. “I like to try to see the best in people; I try to see the best in situations. In this process … for me, I knew it was just a matter of time. One of these months it would work.”
However filled with faith and hope Jason became, there was no doubt that he was suffering with Meghan.
“For me, it was hard seeing how Meghan was impacted every month,” Jason said.
After nearly a year of taking medication, praying the Rosary every night, and praying countless novenas to different saints, the couple decided in fall 2025 that if they found out Meghan was not pregnant after testing in December, they were going to take a break.
“That’s when we knew the Lord said, ‘Trust me; let me take control of this completely,’” Meghan said. “That’s what was on our hearts.”
Once again inspired by Fr. Rocky, the couple decided to give God a deadline.
“As we were nearing the end of the year … we adjusted our prayer intention from ‘help us to conceive’ to ‘help us to conceive before the end of this year,’” Jason said.
Jason would often tell Meghan, after their time of prayer, that God has a sense of humor and would likely answer their prayers at the very end of their set timeline.
“I feel like that was part of that optimism,” Jason said. “It was kind of a joke, but then that’s what happened.”
On December 15, 2025, the anniversary of the day Jason proposed, Meghan got the call.
“Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” said the nurses from the medical clinic over the phone. The nurses said that it was a miracle that it worked that quickly, Jason said.
Jason and Meghan were already registered to complete the full 22 miles at this year’s Walk to Mary when they found out they were expecting, and they had to call in to ask if they could change their registration.
When Pat Deprey, co-founder of the Walk to Mary, heard the news, he knew their story had to be shared.
The night before the 2026 Walk to Mary, on May 1, the Sheehans told their story at Relevant Radio’s “Evening of Prayer and Celebration.”
“The other thing the Lord has taught me in this time of waiting and suffering and carrying this cross was the importance of patience, the importance of trust, and knowing that his timing is better than anything we could ever conceive for our own selves,” Meghan said.
“It’s always when you’re at the end of your rope that the Lord comes through to carry your cross the rest of the way to Calvary. While I was getting discouraged, Our Lord’s words kept replaying in my head, ‘Pray without ceasing.’”