Afraid to pursue fertility treatments

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NSFrame

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I am 36 and DH is 40. We have one child, 2 years old. I would love to have another child, but it has been two straight years of negative pregnancy tests - it’s very difficult every month when I receive a negative test.

But, I am a little afraid of seeing an RE. I am so afraid that God does not want me to get pregnant again and I am going against His will in pursuing treatment. Our 2-year-old is extremely healthy and is brilliant, and I am afraid with my age I will not get so lucky next time. Seems silly but there it is. DH is afraid of the same thing.

I would have loved to have started a family 10 years earlier, but DH has been very, very slow to dive into these things. I wonder if this is punishment for us missing out on our fertile years and God’s intention for us? My first pregnancy, when I was 32, took only 6 weeks to achieve.

I do have an appointment set up for 2 weeks from now and I will go - but I’m not sure how far to take the treatments, if any at all.
 
I would not let something like children may not be as smart or brilliant keep me from being open to life. If I had a medical condition, financial difficulties, then yes.

The boundaries with fertility treatments are, we can use those drugs that stimulate the ovaries to bring about the development of an egg. With that, I would caution against any strong one as you may have multiple eggs form = several babies conceived.

Put your trust in God. It is good to have a longing for another child because they are a great good. Sometimes, I have found, when you don’t try or focus on it, you relax enough and become surprised with a child! But definitely get checked out. Prayers for you.
 
Why not go to the RE, discuss your options with him/her, and then go home and talk about it and pray about it with your DH for a while? I know that with advanced age, you don’t have years and years to have these discussions, but at the very least perhaps having some tests done will give you some insight as to what your options are, and whether or not you want to or should pursue them. You don’t have to decide right now, for example, to have surgery or other drastic treatments; you can decide just to talk to the doctor and run a few tests. My DH and I have a saying: “More information is always good.”

As far as it being God’s will, that’s something for you two to discern together for your particular marriage. At a bare minimum, however, I can’t imagine that He would have any objection to your trying to get some answers!
 
NSFrame said:
I am 36 and DH is 40. We have one child, 2 years old. I would love to have another child, but it has been two straight years of negative pregnancy tests - it’s very difficult every month when I receive a negative test.

But, I am a little afraid of seeing an RE. I am so afraid that God does not want me to get pregnant again and I am going against His will in pursuing treatment. Our 2-year-old is extremely healthy and is brilliant, and I am afraid with my age I will not get so lucky next time. Seems silly but there it is. DH is afraid of the same thing.

I would have loved to have started a family 10 years earlier, but DH has been very, very slow to dive into these things. I wonder if this is punishment for us missing out on our fertile years and God’s intention for us? My first pregnancy, when I was 32, took only 6 weeks to achieve.

I do have an appointment set up for 2 weeks from now and I will go - but I’m not sure how far to take the treatments, if any at all.
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Do you and your husband discern that it is God’s will that you have a biological child at this time? If so, you set aside your fears and you do what is within your ability to cooperate. The Pope Paul VI institute is a big help to women in this position.

Do you and your husband discern that it is not God’s will that you seek out a biological child at this time? If so, you remain open to life in your marital relationship and do not pursue anything more. You don’t have an obligation to seek out fertility treatments in order to be open to life.

Do you and your husband discern that it is not God’s will for you to conceive a biological child at this time for good cause? If so, you practice abstinence or NFP to avoid conception.

God is not punishing you through your fertility. He will not punish you with a child who has disabilities. Sometimes our bodies don’t work like He designed them and this is because of corruption and sin in the world, from the time of Adam and Eve’s fall. Every sin has created chaos and discord. Sometimes, for no reason at all, that sin affects the body of a mother, father, or child. It’s not from anything they did. It isn’t a punishment.

The Bible tells us that every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of Lights. Children are a gift. They are also a responsibility. You need to be able to work through your guilt and emotions and fears before you’re going to be able to go deeper to talk to God about His will for your life. Once you know His will, you accept it, do it, and pray for grace and strength.
 
With a 2-year-old, 2 years of infertility is not even surprising, at whatever age you are.

Do you chart?
 
We are both open to additional children. He has much more of a laissez-faire attitude, however, and is very superstitious about “pushing our luck” and forcing something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise. (He is very superstitious in general.) I don’t chart anymore (he gets upset when I do), but based on CF, regular cycles, and the status of my ovaries as seen in ultrasounds, I seem to have normal fertility.

Right now we are very comfortable financially, about to buy our second home, and halfway through paying for full-time daycare costs. I feel like I should be OK with just one child, we seem to be doing great with just her, but for some reason I can’t shake the desire for a tiny baby and to have more young energy in the house with kids playing and growing up together.
 
NSFrame said:
We are both open to additional children. He has much more of a laissez-faire attitude, however, and is very superstitious about “pushing our luck” and forcing something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise. (He is very superstitious in general.) I don’t chart anymore (he gets upset when I do), but based on CF, regular cycles, and the status of my ovaries as seen in ultrasounds, I seem to have normal fertility.

Right now we are very comfortable financially, about to buy our second home, and halfway through paying for full-time daycare costs. I feel like I should be OK with just one child, we seem to be doing great with just her, but for some reason I can’t shake the desire for a tiny baby and to have more young energy in the house with kids playing and growing up together.
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What I’m hearing in the no column are all financial and secular concerns, which you say are not serious and amount to maintaining status quo. What I’m hearing in the yes column is that you feel a deep drive to pursue life and a larger family and don’t know where this deep in yourself desire originates. The fear is what happens if you buck the conventional idea of success and pursue family (and faith) first.

This sounds to me like the normal drive to live your vocation of married and family life is clashing with our cultural expectations. And a fear of trusting God, who you think might be vengeful for your past mistakes. We know that being open to life means being open to all life and that you might parent a child with disabilities. Your perfect life and health can change tomorrow for all we know. But we also know that God forgives our sins through the sacrament of reconciliation and he welcomes us back like the lost son. He doesn’t hold our past faults over us and this desire to share your love is beautiful just like God is beautiful.

The big question for me in this situation would be if being open to the possibility of another child by not practicing NFP would be sufficient to be at peace or if the drive was enough that I’d question if we should pursue the possibility of ethical fertility treatments and/or other avenues of parenting like respite, foster, or adoptive care. Those aren’t replacements for having a biological family, but are callings in their own right that can be explored to see if they line up with that desire in your soul to share your love just like fertility treatments have to be evaluated to see if they line up with your finances, health, values, desires, risks, and strengths.
 
BabyBumblebee said:
What I’m hearing in the no column are all financial and secular concerns, which you say are not serious and amount to maintaining status quo. What I’m hearing in the yes column is that you feel a deep drive to pursue life and a larger family and don’t know where this deep in yourself desire originates. The fear is what happens if you buck the conventional idea of success and pursue family (and faith) first.

This sounds to me like the normal drive to live your vocation of married and family life is clashing with our cultural expectations. And a fear of trusting God, who you think might be vengeful for your past mistakes. We know that being open to life means being open to all life and that you might parent a child with disabilities. Your perfect life and health can change tomorrow for all we know. But we also know that God forgives our sins through the sacrament of reconciliation and he welcomes us back like the lost son. He doesn’t hold our past faults over us and this desire to share your love is beautiful just like God is beautiful.

The big question for me in this situation would be if being open to the possibility of another child by not practicing NFP would be sufficient to be at peace or if the drive was enough that I’d question if we should pursue the possibility of ethical fertility treatments and/or other avenues of parenting like respite, foster, or adoptive care. Those aren’t replacements for having a biological family, but are callings in their own right that can be explored to see if they line up with that desire in your soul to share your love just like fertility treatments have to be evaluated to see if they line up with your finances, health, values, desires, risks, and strengths.
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It sounds like the couple is currently not doing NFP or anything else and the current choice is
  1. continue doing nothing in particular
or
  1. be more aggressive about seeking pregnancy (through charting or infertility treatment).
 
There is an incredibly important, yet subtle line in fertility ethics that most people fail to comprehend. Catholicism is NOT like JW’s or other groups that reject the idea of scientific medicine to assist in repairing bodily malfunctions. In no way is that any sort of rejection of God’s will any more than using a furnace in your home is a rejection of what might seem to be God’s will for you to freeze to death in December! God gave us reason as a gift to use within our identities as human beings.

Where things cross the line is when we attempt to use that reason to change who we are as human beings and alter the basic experience of being human. It’s a basic human reality of existence that sexual intimacy is tangled up with making babies. When we use contraceptives to prevent that, we alter who we ARE. Similarly when people use IVF, they change the human perception of what a baby is. Same problem, same sin.

But availing yourself of a doctor to identify a condition where your body isn’t working according to its design and to repair that problem if possible is of a totally difference character. You aren’t intentionally trying to alter your nature, you’re seeking to fix something that went wrong. The END isn’t to “get a baby.” The end is to be healed of what’s wrong. At that point, a baby may or may not result. That’s still in God’s hands.

God bless.
 
Xantippe said:
It sounds like the couple is currently not doing NFP or anything else and the current choice is
  1. continue doing nothing in particular
or
  1. be more aggressive about seeking pregnancy (through charting or infertility treatment).
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Yes, it does sound that way. And it sounds like she isn’t a peace with what they’re doing right now while he is. Which might be a signal of returning fertility. And it sounds like she’s trying to reconcile herself with this difference between them by arguing with herself if she should be at peace or should be able to quiet this desire in her soul. And maybe it sounds like she’s fearful if she is the one to push for another child and for it to not go perfectly according to cultural values, maybe he will be angry or resent her for it. So it sounds like she isn’t yet at peace with this desire coming from cooperation with God’s will and with trusting herself and her family to His providence, especially if her own husband doesn’t appear fully on board.

But that’s a lot to see in so few words and more than most people can wrap themselves around while they’re in the midst of it.
 
Thanks for the thoughtful responses :). I guess what I am trying to do is discern God’s will. Part of me feels like if God wanted me to be pregnant, I’d be pregnant, period. This is where the fear comes in.

I don’t know that the issue is so much cultural pressures as much as:
  1. DH was an only child of parents who married a bit older and has always felt like he’d like an only child, plus he had very little extended family, whereas I grew up in a house with parents who married young where we had 3 siblings and a large extended family. So there’s some dissonance there.
  2. Both of us are a little older in years in terms of our careers, how hard we’ve worked so far to get where we are, and wanting to relax and enjoy life a little more. I mean, it has been a long haul since I was 22 when I met DH, working on getting married, getting him to buy a house, then trying to get him to want to have kids rather than put it off longer and longer. It’s not that he didn’t want to do these things, he just wanted to do them at a much slower pace than me. See #1 above.
But I feel young, I look young, I get so disappointed every month when I don’t get pregnant and based on #2 above, I can’t figure out why. I wonder if my motives aren’t good, like it’s more that I feel like a failure as a woman that my body isn’t as fertile as someone else’s. I know I get so envious when all the other mothers I see of kids her age are either pregnant or have an infant. But I also know that I do have that genuine desire for a tiny baby and for another child to make our family bigger and have more love.
 
God asked us to be fruitful and multiply. Unless you have a very good reason to avoid pregnancy, this desire is VERY good!
You might be experiencing the natural consequences of what happens to our fertility when we get older. You may have regrets. I would work on those as it could keep you all upset and that does affect many things about us. God is not punishing you nor is He going to bless you with a child until you think HE thinks your motives are right. None of us would have children, believe me!
You still don’t know your fertility issue. Unless you go to the doctor, you will not know for sure either.
Sometimes being patient is hard. It is a virtue meaning we practice it, doesn’t happen magically.
I’m praying for you. Please don’t think you are being punished.
 
I am usually active in getting what I want in life - and I’m usually successful because I have realistic expectations of what can be done and what needs to be done to get there. In this case, I’m trying to decide if perhaps I ought to be listening to God here rather than myself - because it seems awfully strange that I have not gotten pregnant after 2 years of not avoiding. DH has not expected us to avoid fertile times, and I do feel that nearly every month there has been an excellent chance we’ve hit the fertile days even though we’re not doing any focused chart-based TTC.

The more I think about this, the more I realize I have general fear around pregnancy. My first, I lost at 10 weeks after seeing him growing on ultrasound twice - turns out I had a septate uterus. Very traumatic. My second, she took 6 months to concieve, and that happened right after I had an HSG and had just been told I likely have very few eggs left. The entire pregnancy I was terrified of miscarriage and then stillbirth, obsessively sleeping on the “correct” side, getting constant NSTs and ultrasounds (the former because I freaked out about any decreased fetal movement, the latter because I was always measuring too small) - then at her birth having to have an emergency C-section.
 
NSFrame said:
I am usually active in getting what I want in life - and I’m usually successful because I have realistic expectations of what can be done and what needs to be done to get there. In this case, I’m trying to decide if perhaps I ought to be listening to God here rather than myself - because it seems awfully strange that I have not gotten pregnant after 2 years of not avoiding. DH has not expected us to avoid fertile times, and I do feel that nearly every month there has been an excellent chance we’ve hit the fertile days even though we’re not doing any focused chart-based TTC.

The more I think about this, the more I realize I have general fear around pregnancy. My first, I lost at 10 weeks after seeing him growing on ultrasound twice - turns out I had a septate uterus. Very traumatic. My second, she took 6 months to concieve, and that happened right after I had an HSG and had just been told I likely have very few eggs left. The entire pregnancy I was terrified of miscarriage and then stillbirth, obsessively sleeping on the “correct” side, getting constant NSTs and ultrasounds (the former because I freaked out about any decreased fetal movement, the latter because I was always measuring too small) - then at her birth having to have an emergency C-section.
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Were at not for your history (which changes things), I’d say that two years between pregnancies is not strange at all. I believe a woman or two on the forum who doesn’t do any sort of NFP reports 2-3 year spacing. I personally would (based on past experience) probably not get pregnant in the first year postpartum and might have difficulty in the second.

But, then there’s your history.

Maybe you and your husband need to see a counselor to talk this out? If you passionately want another child and he says “no,” you might be very resentful. You may be a little resentful already. How about blocking out time to talk about it with a third party?
 
DH has left it up to me. He will not prevent us from having another child or stand in the way in any way. On the other hand, he also would not pursue any sort of medical treatment around this unless I wanted it. We have discussed this at length and his stance is “if it is meant to be, it will be”. He has told me that this stance has not changed in 2 years and will not change. But, he said that if I want to discuss with a doctor then he is on board, because he wants me to be happy. So, really, it’s all my decision, I’m deciding for both of us.
 
NSFrame said:
I am usually active in getting what I want in life - and I’m usually successful because I have realistic expectations of what can be done and what needs to be done to get there. In this case, I’m trying to decide if perhaps I ought to be listening to God here rather than myself - because it seems awfully strange that I have not gotten pregnant after 2 years of not avoiding. DH has not expected us to avoid fertile times, and I do feel that nearly every month there has been an excellent chance we’ve hit the fertile days even though we’re not doing any focused chart-based TTC.

The more I think about this, the more I realize I have general fear around pregnancy. My first, I lost at 10 weeks after seeing him growing on ultrasound twice - turns out I had a septate uterus. Very traumatic. My second, she took 6 months to concieve, and that happened right after I had an HSG and had just been told I likely have very few eggs left. The entire pregnancy I was terrified of miscarriage and then stillbirth, obsessively sleeping on the “correct” side, getting constant NSTs and ultrasounds (the former because I freaked out about any decreased fetal movement, the latter because I was always measuring too small) - then at her birth having to have an emergency C-section.
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Your trauma combined with your husband’s hesitancy added to your natural desire for a child makes perfect sense for them combining into complete confusion over which way to go.

Things that could help:
Heal the trauma from the pregnancies, births, and death. Many other women have been through this and can help.
Address any anxiety. When it shows up, don’t continue worrying in the anxiety or let it keep you from facing decisions or obstacles. Addressing the anxiety first allows you to address the issue with clarity.
Grow in faith in the area of understanding and appreciating that you are loved and an heir to the kingdom of God. That God isn’t giving you chaos, confusion, trauma, hurt, or other pains.

It seems to me if you address these that how to proceed with the pregnancy issue will be much clearer. The anxiety-inducer is that time is never on our side. That means that it is wise to do your information gathering like visiting the fertility doctor and working through the list at the same time, working at it from both ends. Then you aren’t committed to anything but as prepared as possible whichever way things turn out.
 
NSFrame said:
I am 36 and DH is 40. We have one child, 2 years old. I would love to have another child, but it has been two straight years of negative pregnancy tests - it’s very difficult every month when I receive a negative test.

But, I am a little afraid of seeing an RE. I am so afraid that God does not want me to get pregnant again and I am going against His will in pursuing treatment. Our 2-year-old is extremely healthy and is brilliant, and I am afraid with my age I will not get so lucky next time. Seems silly but there it is. DH is afraid of the same thing.

I would have loved to have started a family 10 years earlier, but DH has been very, very slow to dive into these things. I wonder if this is punishment for us missing out on our fertile years and God’s intention for us? My first pregnancy, when I was 32, took only 6 weeks to achieve.

I do have an appointment set up for 2 weeks from now and I will go - but I’m not sure how far to take the treatments, if any at all.
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Gods will is about doing what is right. IMHO, there is no basis to think that having a child or overcoming a fertility impediment, in the manner you contemplate, is “wrong”. Has the possibility of a fertility issue with your husband been considered?
 
Rau said:
Gods will is about doing what is right. IMHO, there is no basis to think that having a child or overcoming a fertility impediment, in the manner you contemplate, is “wrong”. Has the possibility of a fertility issue with your husband been considered?
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I was about to say the same. It’s worth having a consult done to see if there is an impediment in your reproductive system, or if perhaps your husband’s products are subpar.
 
I would certainly get checked out, but 36 is NOT too old to have a baby! Relax and try to put everything in God’s hands.
I will pray for you.
 
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