As long as there is a strong reason for not to have offspring it is licit (ok, allowed) not to have it. I would not use the word ‘indifinitely’ for your resolution since circumstances may arise that could change the situation.
As a matter of fact, you should bear in mind that, with adequate care and strict observance of a correct medical treatment, heart is one of the strongest organs, if we leave apart liver.
Let me tell you the history of my father.
My father had its heart strongly damaged since he was 16 due to a terrible rheumatic arthritis. He passed exam after exam to get to work as bank clerk. But he failed time after time to pass the medical explorations. My grandfather took a loan and sent my father to one of the best heart doctors in Barcelona, Spain. After one year of treatment he finally passed a medical exam, worked 45 years for the Banco de Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), had a son (that’s me) and cared of his wife, my mother, that, sadly, developed a schyzophrenia after her 31st birthday.
My father worked 8 hours every day, 6 days a week. But he followed strictly all medical advices.
He ate a lot of veggies, boiled fish, and white meats (chicken, turkey). He avoided salt, fat, fried meals, and red meats. He loved salami, but he never ate it. He never ate an hamburguer, or poured ketchup or mustard. Every mornig he ate two big slices of bread with olive oil and a glass of half skinned milk with brown sugar and some granulated soya lecitin, but not cookies, butter or margarine. He ate some cake at weddings but no sweets. He never smoke a cigarette, and never drank tea, coffe, or alcohol (nor wine, nor beer).
He did a lot of aerobic exercises (time-measured breathing, inspiration/expiration). He always slept 8 hours or more at night. He always got to bed and woke up about the same hour. He loved, I mean was driven crazy by, soccer. But I never remember him watching a match at TV, or hearing it by radio, o reading an sports newspaper. He loved films, but he never lost an hour of sleep by them.
He died at 68 by lack of medical attention at a public hospital during a week-end. Here in Spain, public hospitals are bigger, with more trained personal than most private ones. But they are run by civil servants. Someone took him out his daily SIMTROM pill and forgot to prescribe him a daily HEPARINA injection instead. Brilliant. Four days before I buried my father.
In Spain there are no trial lawyers since almost every service is public and all demands against public services are usually lost. Here in Murcia nobody has won a case against a hospital since 1975. Yes, at that time the dictator General Francisco Franco was still alive. Please, do not let anybody to fool you: public medicine is a public shame.
My father’s spartan struggle with his illness rendered him victory. His ability to keep on going gave to his only son, madly spoiled, time to get back on Our Lord tracks. After endless searching, his wife got finally proper (private) medical treatment. At last both, my father and my mother, enjoyed more than 10 years of happines. Finally, both of them were able to enjoy their first grandson. Now my father enjoys two more grandsons from heaven. He played his cards, and he won the match.
Now my mother is in her 70s and, believe it or not, she is able to live alone (two streets down my house, of course). Some months ago I asked her about my father’s illnes. She said that she always knew that he was very ill and that she would had to cope with his early death. He has lived until 68. Although everyday she wish he would still be with her, she says that she is satisfied to have spent her life with him up until 68.
Some years ago I worked with a woman at her mid 60s. She had to retire due to her heart illness. She was severily ill since she was a child. She married and wished a baby. She got pregnant against all medical opinion. She got her baby when she was 26. Now her “baby” is fortysomething. I remember that it was a sharp contrast to watch her always tired face and see the sparks on her eyes when she spoke of her daughter! When I switched to another work I lost contact with her.
That’s the history of my father’s heart with a little addenda (addition). I know that you weren’t asking for all that I have told you, but in such circumstances more questions will arise. Sometimes there is no better practical advice that hear of somenone’s way of coping with similar problems.
Now you can decide what you should do. You must be wise, but you must not let fear reign over your heart and your life. Since Christ gave His blood for all of us, what should we have fear of?
Remember: Deus providebit! (God will provide).
Forgive me the extension of my reply.
LAUS DEO VIRGINIQUE MATRI.
(Glory be to God and to the Virgin mother).
