| Author | |
Becky J
Forum Rookie
Joined: Nov 06 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 61
|
| Posted: Jan 07 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged
|
 |
|
Hi everyone -- I am 39 years old with three children, ages 8, 6, and 3. My husband and I have been "open" to another pregnancy ever since the 3 year old was born, with no success yet. I finally underwent blood tests a few months ago; everything was normal except my progesterone level was a little low. I have been taking some small extra measures to time things or increase fertility -- e.g., using a fertility monitor, Pre-Seed, Fertility Blend supplement (but I'm scared to take more than 1 capsule a day when the recommended dosage is 3).
My question is for those of you who have not been able to get pregnant easily as you age and fertility naturally decreases while risks of pregnancy increase . . . how did you discern how hard to try to get pregnant? How did you make peace with the idea that if you didn't "go for broke" and take all the measures the Church allows, you might not have any more children? Did you ever say to yourself: If I can't get pregnant without trying too hard, maybe I am not meant to get pregnant?
As I said, I have tried some low-level measures that might increase my chances of getting pregnant. I am aware of some more dramatic steps I could take -- e.g., take Clomid, take supplemental progesterone, take megadoses of supplements like Marilyn Shannon recommends, or learn FertilityCare/Creighton Method. But all of these seem to have health risks, be time-consuming, or be expensive.
My husband tends to think that we should be happy with the children we already have. But I am afraid to "squander" the years of fertility I have left by not trying to take better advantage of them, then approaching 50 someday and regretting I didn't try harder to have more children.
Yet, I also keep coming back to a post Elizabeth Foss once had about how she personally had become leery about trying to "control" her fertility by charting either to achieve or avoid pregnancy. She spoke of learning "to trust God with both opening and closing the womb".
It would be helpful to hear how some other middle-aged moms have discerned these things!
Thanks, and God bless!
Becky
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
JodieLyn
Forum Moderator
Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 12234
|
| Posted: Jan 07 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Why not look at whatever you do as improving your health.. take higher doses of supplements.. why? well the RDA is the least you can take to prevent dificiency disease (the diseases but not the other symptoms), so taking what seems to be huge doses is not necessarily overboard. You might want to do the sympto-thermal charting.. it tells a lot of about the health of your body.. you can tell how your thyroid is for example.. and if your low progesterone really is too low to sustain a pregnancy.
As far as being leery of "trying to control" your fertility.. God always has the controlling vote. My job is to be healthy and give the natural order of things the best possiblity for success (whether in conceiving or not that we've prayerfully discerned) and that can mean something more such as charting.. having more knowledge does not mean you are manipulating God.. just giving nature the "best odds".
__________________
Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Mackfam
Board Moderator
Non Nobis
Joined: April 24 2006
Location: Alabama
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 14656
|
| Posted: Jan 07 2013 at 9:43pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Hi Becky. 
I wanted to share a couple of my thoughts with you. I will be 42 in a little over a month, and we are expecting our 5th child in late April. We're so grateful for the gift of new life.
Each child is total gift. We're not entitled to gifts, and we're not entitled to children. This is a very consoling thought because it fosters trust! It means that God knows the family and the children He has in mind for each husband and wife; our job is to be prayerful, open, trust, and enjoy the joyful peace from that trust. Period.
Open-ness does not mean eschewing the cardinal virtue of prudence which the Church invites us to make use of as husbands/wives in considering family size. (CCC 2368) Some families may be called to heroic open-ness. Each family is called - uniquely - to become what God wants them to be. (JPII: Families, become what you are.)
Since the womb IS always open (because we don't close it by artificial means), the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life, can always work with that. We're not manipulating our fertility by prayerfully exercising prudence, nor do we somehow eschew our trust in God by knowing ourselves through the non-selfish use of NFP. I have improved my overall health, and also my reproductive health, simply by charting and knowing myself in this way.
Be reasonable about extra measures to enhance fertility. Over the years, my husband and I have had variable fertility. We looked into Church approved measures that enhance fertility, and in some instances we made use of them. No new life resulted from these extra efforts, but we did learn some valuable lessons.1) We knew we had gone beyond reasonable measures for us as a couple when we felt stress in our relationship over this issue. In other words, it began to dominate every thought, every conversation. There was no balance. ("Reasonable" is a matter of prudence and could be different from couple to couple.)
2) Even reasonable measures offer no guarantee, but rather often ask us to dig deeper in our faith, exercising humility and gratitude so that our attitude didn't slip into one of feeling entitled due to the extra measures. This is a topic that my husband and I have invested a lot of private communication time in over the years in our relationship. We give ourselves permission to be gritty and honest about challenges, concerns, and other thoughts as it relates to this topic in our family. We challenge each other in ways that stretch us beyond selfishness, and we often question each other without expecting answers, but with the hopes of provoking prayerful reflection. I've seen how God has worked on us through this communication over the years. Don't ignore your husband's thoughts...even when they're different than yours on this matter.
Contentment is a choice. It's a result of gratitude and prayerfully accepting God's will for you/your family. Peace is generally a result of that prayer. Contentment doesn't arrive after a magical number of children. It's the result of praying, "Jesus, I trust in You."...and meaning it...and leaving it right there. And what is so wonderful about that peaceful contentment is that God is so generous with it...at the highs and lows of our lives! 13 years ago, we lost an infant son after loving and nurturing him through an entire pregnancy. Knowing that this child was a gift, and that we were privileged to carry our little boy for 9 months, and following Our Lady's example of giving her Son back at the foot of the Cross, we gave our little boy back to God with the same open-ness we received him. That's not to say it wasn't extraordinarily painful, but our prayer was the same, "We don't understand Lord, but we trust." We were consoled with peaceful contentment. Trust --> Peace.
If I had been typing to you 6 months ago, I could have told you that my prayer at that time was full of joyful contentment. We had 4 children, I was 41, and on paper, my fertility did not indicate that conception could or would occur. Our prayer was one of gratitude in being open to life. And we asked God to show us how to be open to His will if this was the family size He had in mind for us. We were at peace, and there was great joy in considering the many ways we would continue to seek His will. And then we were surprised. With the gift of new life.
May God's unique and perfect will for your family fill you with great peace and contentment, Becky! 
__________________
Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
guitarnan
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Maryland
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 10883
|
| Posted: Jan 07 2013 at 10:56pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Jen is so beautifully eloquent...I can't add anything significant to what she and the other caring ladies here have said.
We have only two children, spaced far apart by God's plan (which included Navy deployments). After our daughter was born, I really started to wonder what to do next. I, like you, Becky, did some small things to find out whether my body functioned normally, both before and after my second pregnancy. God had some other plans for us, I guess, because ovarian cysts seriously impeded my fertility after child #2 was born - and, in a way, that was the answer to my prayers, which were about our family size and how to prepare for new lives in the face of deployments. It was not the answer I was looking for - but it was an answer.
So, our family is small, but that has turned out to be a reassurance and source of peace for our extended family. My brother-in-law is a widower (my SIL passed away four years ago) and all of us (even me, surprisingly) find peace in the thought that if, Heaven forbid, something happened to him, there is room in our home and our hearts for my nieces. I hope he lives a long and happy life, of course, but so many relatives and friends worried...and they don't need to, because God's plan for us meant that we will have plenty of love, time, space and means to bring our nieces here if they need to be here.
It wasn't hard, in a way, to let go of my fertility (emergency surgery helps that process along!), but in another way, it was hard, because we didn't have much hope of adding to our family and that change happened suddenly. We didn't know then what we know now - that we have nieces who may need us as guardians later on, and that God would give us all we need to prepare for that eventuality. (That's another story, a miracle story, really. Trust in Jesus. He will give you His love and His forgiveness when you need them most.)
Prayers are always heard, and in my humble experience, they are answered, too. If you and your husband pray together and work together to discern God's will, you will be heard.
I will be praying for you and your husband as you discern together God's will for your family.
__________________
Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
kristinannie
Forum All-Star
Joined: Jan 27 2011
Location: West Virginia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1363
|
| Posted: Jan 08 2013 at 3:37pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I would LOVE more children. I am 36. I have been praying for more than two years for my husband to be open to life and he is now! Mostly...  I have really decided that I would just let God decide how many children we have. If I don't get pregnant, it will be a cross for me to bear because I want more children so badly. I would definitely also be open to adoption. I really feel like I need to submit to God's will in this area, but I think the situation could be different for different people. I will pray that God will allow you some discernment in this area and I will also pray for a pregnancy for both of us!!!!
__________________
John Paul 8.5
Meredith Rose 7
Dominic Michael 4.5
Katherine Elizabeth 8 months
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Jan 10 2013 at 8:07am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Dear Becky,
I had my fourth and last child at 39 (before we were Catholic -- I'm convinced that this unexpected pregnancy/new life, on the heels of our third child, was instrumental in my conversion -- as an aside!). My fertility fell off steeply not long after that, and I was finished with menopause by 45 (I'm now 48), all of which was very, very difficult, particularly since in that window of time when we *might* have had another child (but then again, we might not have), we were in a very difficult life situation in which it was honestly prudential to postpone pregnancy. Though we did flirt with NFP some during that time in order to postpone, we didn't do too much to prevent pregnancy. On the other hand, we also didn't knock ourselves out to achieve it.
So we did not actively pursue formal measures which might have enhanced our chances of another child -- we couldn't have afforded much in the way of intervention, anyway, at a time when we could hardly feed ourselves and the children we did have, though I read TTC forums obsessively for a while and tried various natural remedies, as well as charting. The realization that it really was all over was tremendously painful, particularly as -- inevitably, I guess -- I mourned those years of my early 40s when we *might* have had another. The end of fertility is a real techtonic shift, and I found it very hard, though with hindsight, I've learned to be grateful to God for his "no" as well as his "yes."
What I have learned about being open to life -- on a fairly steep curve, since the very concept of openness to life had not only been foreign to me for most of my adult life but had seemed like a form of insanity -- is that it means being open to *all* of life as a gift from God, both the bearing of children and the attaining of a stage where mothering goes on, even though childbearing does not. The Angelus has been probably the single most important prayer to me in my life as a mother -- I began praying it as an Anglican, when I was reluctantly pregnant with my last child. God changed my heart through that prayer then, and He continues to change it even now.
Random things I've learned:
*The worst times in my marriage have been times when my attention was consumed by the idea of pregnancy, either avoiding it or trying for it, to the detriment of my focus on my husband and our relationship. I do think that, as damaging as a contraceptive mindset is, it has its corollary in what I guess you might call a "conceptive mindset," in which the unitive aspect of the marital relationship is overshadowed by a consuming focus on the procreative.
In other words, what Jen said re measuring your attempts at pregnancy -- if it causes stress in your marriage, it's too much. As I'm learning firsthand, children do grow up and leave -- but my husband isn't going anywhere! Keeping things in proper balance, with our marriage as the crown of our household, seems not only a right ordering of things but also a sensible investment in the time when it will be just the two of us again. Much as I love my children and want them with me, I actually find myself kind of looking forward to that!
*While yes, I have had periods of regret that we didn't try harder for another child (my 9-year-old daughter wishes she had someone to share a room with!), I am at peace with the life I have. I miss having little children, but the freedom to focus on the growing children I have is also a gift. Like Nancy, we also have been named guardians of a friend's children -- may God grant these parents long life and health, but should something happen to them, we have committed ourselves to being open to their children as our own.
And while I think I'll always feel a twinge of "Oh, I wish!" when a friend has a baby, at 48 I find it quite enough to stay on top of what too easily becomes chronic exhaustion, so that I can be a decent mother to the children I do have. I think God did know just how much room I had on my plate, when my eyes were bigger than my stomach (in more ways that one . . . ).
All of this is just so much a matter of prayerful discernment and humility before God, who does know our capacities and limits better than we do. He may send one more child than we *think* we can cope with, and we find we do have the grace necessary to cope; He may send one less than we *think* we can handle, and we find we have the grace to cope with that, too. All of this doesn't mean, necessarily, that we don't try in active ways to cooperate with His gift-giving, but it does mean that we understand, always, that He is the giver, and that our job is to say thank you, and "Be it done unto me according to Thy will."
Prayers for you and your discernment.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Our Lady of Good Remedy and Care
Topic: How do you discern how hard to try?
