Told I can only have one more child

[twoangels]

As someone posted prior, I feel like there is such a huge push by a lot of obgyns to prevent future pregnancies vs. doing everything they can so you can have more. One of the first things they ask you is what method of birth control are you planning on using, as if having more children is a ridiculous idea. Heaven forbid you have more then two!

There is a tendency for OBGYNs to view pregnancy and birth as a severe health problem. They can be on the look out for problems and treat everyone as chronically ill. That’s one of the reasons I like nurse midwives. I’m definitely a firm believer in encouraging a partnership between midwives and OB’s so that midwives can handle the low risk pregnancies and thus decrease the number of unnecessary c-sections that may result from complications from other medical intervensions. The midwives I worked with still asked me what type of contraceptive I intended to use after I had my daughter. If anything I was warned that post partem NFP would be very challenging, but she was very familiar with the book “taking charge of your fertility.” She seemed very relieved when I told her I was in contact with an NFP consultant and wasn’t just going by a book. But even with that said, neither age nor the number of children you had were automatically used to determine if you were high risk. High risk was determined by real observations.

That said, when you are high risk, you need to trust your OBGYN and listen to their advice. A good OB will respect your decision to use NFP. When they ask you what you intend to use, just say NFP or fertility awareness.

It is my understanding that the use of NFP needs to have the consent from a priest?

Absolutely not. This is something between you and your spouse. Educate your conscience for sure. Use your priest to seek guidence to discerning complicated moral questions. He can be a guide, but a good priest will give you the Church’s moral principles and may encourage you resources to pray with. He isn’t there to replace the development of your conscience. He’s there to help you develop it.

 

[SurlyMermaid]

(I actually trust my OB, I wish she was NFP-only, but she does respect my beliefs and works according to them. Some of the nurses on the other hand…)

I could have written this!!! As soon as my doc leaves the room, her nurse usually makes a comment about “Well, just be careful on the rhythm method. It’s not reliable” or something similar! (I get the same at the pediatrician. The last time we were there with the baby, our wonderful guy who stays up on nutrition and for whom meds are a last resort, gave me info on keeping our baby vegetarian. AS SOON AS he left the room his nurse lectured me on why being veg is bad–and then threw in for good measure that I need to stop running because it’s bad for my knees and uterus!)

 

[KCT]

I could have written this!!! As soon as my doc leaves the room, her nurse usually makes a comment about “Well, just be careful on the rhythm method. It’s not reliable” or something similar! (I get the same at the pediatrician. The last time we were there with the baby, our wonderful guy who stays up on nutrition and for whom meds are a last resort, gave me info on keeping our baby vegetarian. AS SOON AS he left the room his nurse lectured me on why being veg is bad–and then threw in for good measure that I need to stop running because it’s bad for my knees and uterus!)

Do you make these docs aware that the nurses (whom they employ) are doing this?

 

[SurlyMermaid]

Do you make these docs aware that the nurses (whom they employ) are doing this?

I hadn’t. Hadn’t thought it was worth it or would make a difference. If you think it would be a good idea I would certainly consider it. I may gently bring it up at the next appointment.

 

[maryjk]

I hadn’t. Hadn’t thought it was worth it or would make a difference. If you think it would be a good idea I would certainly consider it. I may gently bring it up at the next appointment.

I had a doctor fire a receptionist because she wouldn’t stop practicing medicine. I would call with a question and instead of asking him, she would give me an answer. Sometimes, I didn’t know that she never asked him. When I found out I told him. It had happened before and he had talked to her about it. This time he just told her to leave.

So it can make a difference, IF the doctor is in charge. If they all work for a larger entity, you may be out of luck. But you could at least file a complaint against the nurse.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

As a doctor, this scares me. This is why I see patients refusing to take their metformin, even though they have diabetes. This is why I see patients smoking right outside of the office for their COPD appointment. Nobody trusts doctors anymore. What’s up with that?

I’ve noticed that phenomenon here, except it has a weird hypocrisy to it. On some threads, especially ones involving mental health, people are encouraged to seek a health care professional, as the opinion of a licensed psychiatrist is highly regarded. However, the expertise of OB/GYNs and any doctor associated with reproductive health seems to be thrown out the window.

I understand that the patient/doctor relationship is not always established and that you *should *“shop around” for a doctor that you get along with, but there is a difference between getting a doctor that complements you and a doctor who will just say what you want to hear.

Uterine rupture is BAD. Really bad. Get a second opinion, of course, but “paper thin uterus” is a classic risk factor for rupture, as well as a slew of other problems.

If OCPs are out the question, definitely go with NFP. But get your second opinion too.

As my mom ages I deal with this more and more. She just will not trust her doctor. I have to beg her to take his advice, and even then if one of her friends or cousins has a story about “someone they knew” with a similar condition I am back to square one.

On the subject of OB/GYNS I have a friend who is struggling with infertility and who has had a miscarriage. Will she take her docs advice to have an ovary, several cysts, and some inflamed tissue removed? No, because despite what her doctor says about that improving her odds of getting and staying pregnant she insists that the surgery will forever render her infertile, which is essentially what she is now.

And my favorite is from my teenage niece. She wanted to go on birth control. So the doc put her on a very low dose pill because of her age and low body weight, but of course she wanted the patch. The doc refused saying it would be bad for her. So what does she do? She got one of her friends to start giving them to her. Of course she was caught, and when her parents told her how dangerous it was and the doctor said no, she responded with “They don’t know!”. I really thought that friends trading drugs that their doctors won’t give them was an old people thing.

 

[Iheartcoffee]

A ruptured uterus is VERY dangerous. It could very likely kill you and your unborn child. I absolutely believe in getting a 2nd opinion, and most doctors (hopefully your OBGYN included) understand the desire for a 2nd opinion when the patient is facing serious health concerns.

NFP is great for avoiding pregnancy. I was matched to donate stem cells to a man with cancer and pregnancy wouldn have meant that I would not be able to donate the stem cells that could save his life. NFP works!

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

To the OP, I am wondering, based on your question about asking a priest for permission, if you have used NFP before, or if you have to learn it. It seems to me, that at least for now, it is very important to avoid pregnancy. Be aware that there is a learning curve with NFP, and that there is a failure rate with NFP just as with any form of artificial contraception. The failure rate is almost always related to a mistake in reading and interpreting the signs or making a faulty judgment based on those signs. In addition, the act of marital relations can result in some confusion re: signs of fertility, so it takes some experience to recognize the difference between the two. If you have to learn NFP now, I would recommend abstaining from relations for a couple of cycles while you become accustomed to the method. I would also recommend that you look into “Phase 3 - Only” NFP. Regardless of the method you are using, the people who need to be the most careful about avoiding pregnancy generally wait until the end of the woman’s cycle, after they have confirmed that she has ovulated and they have waited the appropriate time. The more conservatively you practice NFP, the more confidence you will have that you will be able to avoid pregnancy. If this isn’t news to you, never mind. If it is, hope it helps.

 

[nodito]

To the OP, I am wondering, based on your question about asking a priest for permission, if you have used NFP before, or if you have to learn it. It seems to me, that at least for now, it is very important to avoid pregnancy. Be aware that there is a learning curve with NFP, and that there is a failure rate with NFP just as with any form of artificial contraception. The failure rate is almost always related to a mistake in reading and interpreting the signs or making a faulty judgment based on those signs. In addition, the act of marital relations can result in some confusion re: signs of fertility, so it takes some experience to recognize the difference between the two. If you have to learn NFP now, I would recommend abstaining from relations for a couple of cycles while you become accustomed to the method. I would also recommend that you look into “Phase 3 - Only” NFP. Regardless of the method you are using, the people who need to be the most careful about avoiding pregnancy generally wait until the end of the woman’s cycle, after they have confirmed that she has ovulated and they have waited the appropriate time. The more conservatively you practice NFP, the more confidence you will have that you will be able to avoid pregnancy. If this isn’t news to you, never mind. If it is, hope it helps.

Good advice.

 

[kdmaney]

We have successfully used nfp before after my first daughter, which definitely will help going into this. Thank you for the advice.

 

[PaulGH]

I would also recommend that you look into “Phase 3 - Only” NFP. Regardless of the method you are using, the people who need to be the most careful about avoiding pregnancy generally wait until the end of the woman’s cycle, after they have confirmed that she has ovulated and they have waited the appropriate time.

I’ve never quite agreed with the “phase 3 only” approach myself, though I guess it depends on the woman’s typical cycles and fertility signs, and on the method of NFP used. For my wife and me, I feel much more confident in avoiding pregnancy when we have relations early in phase 1, as opposed to any time in phase 3. This is because every once in a while my wife has a cycle with an unexpected second mucus patch, and we rely on mucus only. So occasionally we think that ovulation has already occurred several days previous, and then suddenly we find out that actually it may be occurring right now. (To clarify though, I do feel confident about both phase 1 and phase 3, but I have always thought that phase 3 was the more risky of the two, even though that risk is still low.)

But as I say, that’s just our experience, and I guess I can see how it might be different for other couples. And what do I know anyway? I’m certainly not an NFP instructor. I just know how it works for us, but that’s not necessarily exactly how it works for others.

 

[Debora123]

We just delivered our second daughter two weeks ago via repeat c section. The doctor was shocked when she saw how thin my uterus was and said it was transparent and she could see the baby. She said it should be a couple inches thick and mine was paper thin. We had a classical c section (cut horizontally as well as vertically) with my first daughter because of complications and now every birth in the future has to be at 37 weeks via csection to reduce the risks for uterine rupture. she sewed a patch on the uterus to reinforce it. She told me, ‘I’ll let you have one more but that’s it! You definitely can’t have like six children!’ She also told me I needed to wait awhile with my next birth to allow myself to heal.

Has anyone else been told something similar? Have you gotten a different second opinion? It’s difficult to trust some doctors who are so quick to put an end to life! I want to get a second opinion with the next birth, but how do you find a good catholic or prolife doctor that will give you a good opinion?

We are consulting with a priest about the use of nfp to space out the next birth and what to do going forward. I want to maximize our chances of having more children if god wills it, but I also want to protect my life and the life of any future children. I’m surmising nfp in this situation is justified? We haven’t actually met with our spiritual advisor yet.

Has anyone experienced a uterine rupture before?

Thanks for any advice!

Listen to your doctor. If you want more children, adopt.