How can I understand the Church's teaching on infertility treatments?

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birdie05

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Good Day, I am Catholic and am using my faith in a new way today. My husband and I are faced with difficulty conceiving. We will be seeing a specialist in the coming months and I want to understand the Church’s teaching for myself. I have only heard that Catholic’s can’t use assisted reproductive technologies like invitro fertilization. But want does this really mean. Can you enlighten? Perhaps suggest how my husband and I can learn more?

With love in Christ,
Birdie
 
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birdie05:
Good Day, I am Catholic and am using my faith in a new way today. My husband and I are faced with difficulty conceiving. We will be seeing a specialist in the coming months and I want to understand the Church’s teaching for myself. I have only heard that Catholic’s can’t use assisted reproductive technologies like invitro fertilization. But want does this really mean. Can you enlighten? Perhaps suggest how my husband and I can learn more?

With love in Christ,
Birdie
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I think the executive summary would be. You can take drugs and utilize other treatments to fix “you”. Anything beyond that is a no no.

Better than the drugs. Pray.

For 5 years every night my wife and I would pray that God grant us a baby. (And usually one of our boys would add…and please let it be a girl.) We have 3 boys from my previous marriage. My wife didn’t want to even consider adoption. She had 3 kids she didn’t give birth to that she was raising and didn’t see the point of adopting another one.

We’d done plenty in our lives that went against church eaching, but when we were married, we had made a decison to not do so in the future.

We tried everthing within the Church’s prescribed limits. But it was a no go.

Our Dr. was very frustrated because she could “guarntee” she could get us a baby if we would just let her do invetro…etc.

We said no and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not have a baby.

One day Cheyl said “This is too painful. If God want’s us to have a baby he’ll give us a baby. But we are not going to do this any more.”

Two weeks later a young lady called my wife and said she knew this girl who was preganant and was looking for a family for her baby. 6 weeks latter my wife cut the cord when Catherine Marie was born.

As soon as we decided we weren’t going to lay our conditions on our prayer. God chose to answer us.

God bless, and good luck.

Chuck

PS Be careful. Some of those drugs are prone to give you twins…and triplets…and quadruplets…you may get doubly blessed.
 
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Seatuck:
Hi Birdie,

%between%

naprotechnology.com/

My prayers go out for you.

Dianne
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I was going to write to you to inform you of something that I just became aware of. It is called naprotechnology. Obviously, Dianne has already given you a link for this. My wife and I just went to a doctor trained in naprotechnology. If you can find someone that is trained in this where you are, it might be of help.

Luke
 
recently got involved in NFP training group in our diocese through preparing couples for convalidation; never learned much about it before because it is many years since it was a concern for me. amazed to hear over and over again how the method works to improve chances of getting pregnant if you do it right. (Presumably just do the opposite of what you do to avoid pregnancy, I don’t know all the details). The pro-life doctors on the team do counselling to help couples do the charting and record keeping and report spectacular success even with couples who have tried in vitro etc.
 
I am also infertile and I am getting involved with the NaPro Technology which was talked about in the above messages. I would give you more details about it, but I just started the program and I don’t know much about it. Right now they have me charting my cycle using the Creighton model. NaPro Technology is totally in line with Church teaching. To find a healthcare provider in your area that practices NaPro, go to www.fertilitycare.org. There should be a directory section which tells you where your nearest provider can be located.
My husband and I have already been to regular doctors before we tried NaPro. I would not recommend it. Although fertility drugs are OK by the Church, they are not good for you. The doctors put me on a drug that caused me uncomfortable side effects. This drug also increased my risk of developing ovarian cysts. Their methods to treat infertility are unnatural and harmful, not to mention immoral (in vitro, for example). NaPro treats infertility in a moral way without harming the woman’s health. Hope all this info helps!!
 
From a more general perspective:

Our Papa, John Paul II, has written lots of incredibly beautiful stuff about human life and its relation to married love. One of his main points is that human beings deserve always to be treated with dignity. This means that Christ calls us not to “manufacture” babies for ourselves, but instead to allow God to give them to us if He so chooses. Naturally we’re allowed to cooperate with God in the process… you’ve heard the joke about the guy who prayed every day for five years that he’d win the lottery, and when he finally gave up and shook his fist at God he heard a voice from the Heavens say, “WELL, YOU COULD AT LEAST BUY A TICKET!”

Anyway, the idea is that God is in control, not us. We can use medicine to heal our bodies, including to correct the functioning of our reproductive systems. But we cannot morally use technology to replace human sexuality. To paraphrase the Pope: every child has the right to be the product of a loving and natural union of his parents.

I think that’s a profound and unique perspective on this issue.

God bless you.
 
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