I’m sorry that you’ve received such conflicting information, both in your other research and here on this thread. The truth is, the Church does allow for a woman (married or single) to take birth control pills to treat a legitimate medical reason. The links in the previous posts by Rence and Joe 5859 will explain this in more detail.
So, there’s that. But the other issue is that the Church *never *allows birth control pills for contraception. I understand you are against contraception. I only mention this because of some of the things you mention in your post that (which I underlined) indicate you might be planning to put off children anyway once you’re married…? If so, just be advised that although the Church allows the Pill to treat a medical condition, you can’t morally take advantage of the contraceptive “side effect” of the Pill when you’re sexually active. Even if you are married and sexually active and the Pill is in fact keeping you from conceiving, if you’re only taking the Pill for your medical condition then the contraceptive action of the Pill would be secondary and not intentional. And therefore, not sinful. It’s all about your intent and being open to life.
**I think what the OP is trying to say, (correct me if I’m wrong), is that she has to be on the medication due to her medical conditions, and that the symptoms of her ailments are being controlled by the contraceptives but will come back when she doesn’t take them. In order to get pregnant, she obviously has to get off the contraceptives. So in the case of someone taking contraceptives for a lengthy period of time, without a plan to come off them until they want to get pregnant, unfortunately, you’re going to have to plan when to have kids…do you know what I mean? if it was as simple as her just getting off of them and live goes on, it’d be different, but the OP says that she’s been on them a while and is willing to try to come off them, but that her doctor thinks she’ll have to go back on them due to a return of symptoms. She didn’t say what she was treating, but it may be that she will have to plan when to have kids if she is dependent on the medications.
Also, not sure if you’re aware of this but many women have to give their body time to readjust after getting off contraception. So as long as she’s being treated with contraceptives for a true medical reason, she’s going to have to consciously plan the pregnancies in order to come off them. And hope she can do so (without suffering ill effects from the original medical problem) long enough to get pregnant. **
In other words…if there is another treatment that could help your medical condition and would NOT act as a contraceptive, but you decide to not switch to that medication once you’re married until you are ready to start having children, then you would guilty of using the Pill as a contraceptive in that case.
**I think that’s the issue: these are the meds her doctor wound up treating her with. Unless I missed it, she didn’t say what her medical issue was. Her problem may have not been successfully treated with anything else. **
Or if you could, medically, ditch the birth control and you even intend to stop taking it (say your condition improves or your tolerance to the condition increases, etc.), but you decide to wait and not stop taking it until you and your husband are ready to have children…then again, you’d be guilty of using the Pill as a contraceptive in that case. Does that make sense?
**It makes sense if she
can get off them. For example (and again, she didn’t say what she was taking the meds for) if she hemorrhages during periods, and contraception is controlling her bleeding, and when she gets off them, she hemorrhages again, it would not be sinful to remain on the contraceptives and plan pregnancies thereby going off them to get pregnant and go back on them afterwards to control bleeding…because in order to stay off the meds, she would need transfusions and such. So, it depends on what they’re treating. But who knows, I have often heard of womanly problems resolving after pregnancy
So maybe she won’t need them after the first kid. One can hope, right? I truly hope it’s not something she’ll have to take for years and years.
I think that’s why the Church made that stipulation. If you must be on contraceptives to treat a medical condition, you can do so with a sound good conscience and with consul of your priest and doctor.
**
