I am
trying hard to live a life according to the teachings of the Church. I am
a 34 year old female, married for seven years. We have no children and we
have never used birth control. I struggle more and more with this - not because
we haven’t been able to have children, but because I feel like there
is something wrong with me because I feel okay with the fact that I haven’t
and perhaps never will have children. My husband does not seem concerned,
in fact it rarely comes up in discussions. Neither of us have undergone any
sort of infertility treatment. I just can’t seem to get motivated
to go get probed and pumped with fertility drugs. This seems selfish
to me. We have touched on fostering children or adoption but not seriously.
I love children but I feel that I lack a maternal instinct. I have been working
. . . as a caregiver over the last year trying hard to find my place and
do my part in society and in God’s eyes and, indeed, it is wonderful
to be a helper and nurturer of others. I spend one hour before the Blessed
Sacrament each week and I ask for Mary’s intercession to help me open
my heart to motherhood and to help my husband with his overall indifference.
Can it be that some of us are called to things other than
parenthood??
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 irst of all, please understand
that the Catholic Church does not teach that infertility is a sin; the Church
simply teaches that the willful rejection of fertility within Holy Matrimony
is a sin.
There can be many reasons for
infertility, some physical and some psychological. Through my clinical practice
I have learned that
unconscious psychological conflicts can functionally
obstruct conception. In general, the unconscious conflicts related to infertility
derive from childhood problems with emotional intimacy that in themselves
result from emotional wounds in the family of origin. The defensive need
to “push others away” unconsciously can become manifested in adulthood
as an unconscious tendency to push away the fertilized egg from the womb.
In fact, I have had several clients who had been unsuccessfully trying to
conceive, who came into treatment for reasons unrelated to infertility, and
who, because of the scope of the work, had to encounter issues about emotional
intimacy. After about a year of treatment for the psychological issues they
were able to conceive.
So you would be best advised
to turn your attention to your own unconscious conflicts about intimacy (the
“maternal instinct” as you say)—not as a matter of infertility
per se, but as an aspect of your overall
spiritual purification. After all, anything in
your heart and mind that obstructs or holds back from total emotional openness
should be purged from you. If you are not inclined to enter
psychotherapy, then you might follow
the scrutiny involved in the Four Steps to
Humility.
Through that work you can discern
how you can use your vows of Holy Matrimony to serve God. You might get pregnant
spontaneously, you might decide to adopt a child, or you might find other
forms of service. In all of this, you also have two models: Abraham and Sarah,
and Joachim and Ann. You never know. But everything hinges on total surrender
to God and complete emotional openness to others.
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If you look around
the world about you, you will see that many Catholic parents do not raise
their children as children in Christian families
should be raised. Instead of raising the child to
cherish and protect his baptismal promises, those
promises are simply left behind in the church when the newly baptized infant
is brought home. Considering this sad and lamentable fact, you might discover
that working for the salvation of those children already born is just as
important as—if not, in some ways, even more important than—having
your own children. |
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So plunge into scrutiny and
prayer. And please understand that, as I say
throughout this website, you cannot make much progress in prayer without
detachment from the world. Trying to pray for
discernment without detachment from secular
contamination is like trying to drive a car with four flat
tires.
What the
Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
2374 Couples
who discover that they are sterile suffer greatly. “What will you give
me,” asks Abraham of God, “for I continue childless?” And
Rachel cries to her husband Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall
die!”
2375 Research
aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged, on condition that
it is placed at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights,
and his true and integral good according to the design and will of God.
2376 Techniques
that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person
other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are
gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and
fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and
mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the
spouses’ right to become a father and a mother only through each
other.
2377 Techniques
involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and
fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable.
They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings
the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves
to one another, but one that entrusts the life and identity of the embryo
into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of
technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship
of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must
be common to parents and children. Under the moral aspect procreation is
deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the
conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses’
union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings
of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible
procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person.
2378 A
child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The supreme gift of marriage
is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an
idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this
area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right to be the fruit
of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents, and the right to
be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.
2379 The
Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who
still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures
should unite themselves with the Lord’s Cross, the source of all spiritual
fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned
children or performing demanding services for others.
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