Poor health and postponing pregnancy

[Nessie86]

I am engaged to be married. I have recently converted to Catholicism. I have read and been told that according to Catholic teaching, a married couple should not postpone or avoid pregnancy without serious reason. I had wished to live by this when I got married, and not wait too long to start a family. However, my fiance, and others, have raised concerns. I have suffered from poor health much of my life. I am continually trying to resolve my health issues. Currently I am in a phase of particularly bad health, nothing life threatening, but bad enough that I don’t know that I could endure pregnancy, and I am concerned that I may not have the stamina to properly care for a child. I had been trying to ignore this fact, because I don’t like the idea of my health dictating my life, but as the wedding gets closer, I’m forced to think about things realistically. Would my health be considered “serious reason” for postponing pregnancy, so long as I am striving to improve it? Another thought that crossed my mind: do I have any right to get married if I am in poor health? I mean, is it somehow morally wrong to get married if I am planning on postponing pregnancy because of my health?

 

[nodito]

Couples are permitted to space or postpone pregnancy using natural family planning for just or serious reasons. Couples may never use contraception (the pill, condoms, withdrawal, etc) to prevent pregnancy, because such methods violate natural law and offend the dignity of marriage. Certainly if you and your fiance are concerned that a pregnancy could threaten your life, that would be a serious reason to postpone. But in general, the Church doesn’t specifiy what constitutes a just or serious reason, she trusts couples to prayerfully discern this for themselves. Moreover, I don’t think that poor health necessarily precludes you from the sacrament of matrimony, particularly if you feel confident that at some point your health will improve such that you can capably raise children.

That said, on your wedding day you and your husband will vow to lovingly accept children from God and raise them in the Catholic faith. If either of you intends on never having children, it would invalidate the marriage (I mention this because you said your fiance expresses concerns about your health, and you should check to make sure you’re both on the same page regarding children and the purpose of marriage). Anytime a couple has sex, they should be prepared for the possibility that a pregnancy could occur. You should talk about what would happen if you were to become pregnant, knowing that abortion is never an option, even when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Do you have good health insurance? Are you living in proximity to familiy who could help you raise the child should your health fail? It’s good that your talking and thinking about all this now, before the wedding.

On an unrelated note, I read a great book called Life-giving Love by Kimberly Hahn the summer before my wedding and it really helped me understand and embrace the Church’s teaching on love, marriage, and sex. I highly recommend it as you prepare for your marriage.

God bless, and I hope you feel better.

 

[CountryMom27]

Why not work now to improve your health as a gift to you and to your fiance, before you get married? I don’t know about the teachings of the church on this particular aspect, but I do know that in general, you’re supposed to leave the decision as to when to have a child (when you’re married) up to God. That said, I seem to recall when we did our pre-Cana weekend that tracking your cycles and avoiding sex during your fertile window is ok - there was a whole session on how to do it. I’d recommend you take a look at the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility if that interests you - it’s not the rhythm method, much more accurate.

It sounds as though your health issues could be improved by you - and maybe that need to become your focus now as you prepare for your marriage. I will say, having two children myself, that being in the best possible health helps both with getting pregnant, avoiding pregnancy complications, and coping with post-partum changes. I wish you well - it’s good that you’re thinking about and talking about these things now.

 

[SMHW]

You are going to hear some people define “serious” to mean something like “grave”, “dire”, or some other extraordinary reason. But “serious” should be understood in relationship to “frivolous”. There are many serious, yet perfectly ordinary, reasons to postpone pregnancy to a more reasonable time. Poor health is one of them.

And keep in mind that the length of time you plan to delay pregnancy does matter. (At least in my opinion.) Even people who would like to conceive might chose to avoid for a couple of months for some relatively trivial reasons. But avoiding pregnancy for long periods of time (to me that suggests multiple years) is contrary to the purpose of marriage and would require a serious reason.

Unless you have some rather bizarre circumstance, poor health most likely would *not *require you to postpone marriage due to the need to put pregnancy on hold for a time.

 

[Nessie86]

Thank you both for responding; you both raise good points. I am very glad that I have been forced to think about this now, I realize I was being rather idealistic about it all, and not considering my situation.

I am trying to improve my health. I am working on improving my diet and excercise habits. I do a lot of my own research. I have been to many doctors over the years. Unfortunately, I have never gotten much help from doctors–many of them just slap you with a diagnosis and write a prescription, which in my case has not been helpful. I am not even sure what I am dealing with, because doctors either aren’t able to figure it out, or perhaps just chalk up my symptoms to “nerves” and the like. My experiences with “western medicine” have been discouraging, and now I’m at the point where I’m less inclined to go to a doctor, because they usually don’t offer much help. I realize I can’t just give up, but it’s hard to deal with sometimes.

As far as dealing with an unexpected pregnancy: I do not think my life would be in danger, as far as I am aware. If I were to get pregnant feeling like I do now health-wise, I expect it would be immensely draining for me, and all my energy would go into the pregnancy, but I do not see any reason that I would have major complications other than that. We will be living ten minutes away from his parents, should I be in very poor physical condition; my parents are an hour away. Both parents would be willing to help as much as they could. But yes, it would be difficult. I would hope and pray that God would give me the strength and health necessary. I suppose the best thing I can do is take the best care of myself that I can, and trust God to the rest. I know there must be answers out there, and I will just have to keep working to find them, and pray for healing.

 

[budgie2]

The only method of birth control approved of by the Church is Natural Family Planning. My mother always told me that if I was forced to use another form of contraception to use condoms as the contraceptive pill can act as an abortifacient and is also a steroid with other harmful side effects on health. If you’ve used this in the past then your sins are washed away in baptism and confession. So that is just to help you whatever you decide to do. It is familiar knowledge that condoms are a more acceptable form of contraception than the pill to longstanding practising Catholics. Sometimes you may feel under pressure to use the contraceptive pill by a doctor especially if you’re dependent on them for other reasons.

 

[Jenny_Z]

Definitely seek out an NFP class. Health is a perfectly valid reason to postpone pregnancy, as long as you intend to have children once you’re able.

I think you can find classes through this website, but if not, your local parish should be able to direct you to an NFP teacher. ccli.org/