Real Talk: How to Discuss Sex and High Risk Pregnancy While Dating
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Imagine vibrant hues dancing off placid waters while sand squeezes between your toes and water laps upon your bare feet as you rest in your dearly beloved’s arms watching the sunset. But before you two ride off into the sunset, real, potentially life changing conversations must take place. Before becoming serious, for me that conversation is about having babies and defining openness to life.
Pregnancy and delivering babies is a beautiful, self-sacrificial, and life-giving moment in a woman’s life. But what about those of us who peer into the possibility of marriage and family knowing with great love comes with great risks?
What about those of us who know that with great love comes great risks?
I’ve had a chronic health condition from birth. Even though I knew this alone could pose complications, a traumatic brain injury in high school sealed my reality of being a high risk pregnancy case. During coffee with a friend who was navigating a high risk pregnancy herself, she quoted her fetal medicine doctor who said, “Every woman takes a risk being pregnant and having children. We just know more about your risks upfront.”
Well-intended Catholics respond to my anxiety and concern with probing questions: “Are you sure you shouldn’t become a nun?” “Consecrated virgin?” or “I knew this lady who had three kids and was a high-risk pregnancy. . .” Part of me wishes I felt called to those vocations (it would have made my life “easier”).
But barring a miraculous healing, life has taught me to plan for the worst and hope for the best. After years of hoping, praying, and exploring, I closed the door to religious life or consecrated virginity. I developed friendships and dated men, seeking my God-given spouse while wrestling with the risks of marital intimacy and developing the courage to discuss the real topics with a potential spouse.
Here’s how I’ve learned to navigate these situations:
1. Choose when to tell him carefully.
This depends on the woman and the gravity of her situation, but I recommend telling him before the possibility of “I love you” enters the relationship (although not necessarily on a first date). That declaration of love makes a broken heart worse.
Discuss the reality of marriage and family. Be honest and direct. Convey your feelings and emotions. Ask open ended questions.
2. Remember you are the daughter of the king. Don’t apologize for your limitations.
You are beautiful. You are enough. You are made in his image.
3. If his response leaves you feeling used, confused, anxious, or unloved, end the relationship.
This won’t get better with time.
4. Get comfortable discussing intimacy.
Become comfortable discussing intimacy in a respectful and honest manner in order to set realistic expectations and boundaries regarding all types of intimacy in your dating relationship, engagement, and within marriage. Watch and listen for red flags and warning signs.
5. Discuss how you will grow a family.
Will you attempt having a biological child? Explore adoption and/or fostering? Discuss your and his expectations or the lack-thereof. Better to know now rather than learning too late. Your life could depend on it.
6. Discuss how you will express intimacy in marriage.
If you are making love, babies could be in your future. God, two people, and the marital embrace create babies. The only 100% effective way not to conceive a child is not to engage in intercourse. For a woman dealing with the reality of a high risk pregnancy, this could involve abstaining for significant amounts of time depending on the complexity of her cycle or health circumstances. A future spouse should not only respect this but advocate for and cherish his wife for this.
Discuss, learn, and utilize Natural Family Planning (NFP). Explore different NFP Methods. Certain methods may be more effective or comprehensive for your particular needs.
7. Ask tough questions. Be specific.
Let’s say a woman has a complex cycle or that serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy are present. How will intimacy be expressed during extended periods of abstaining from the marital embrace? Will those three useable days per month or every couple of months not only suffice but BUILD deeper intimacy between spouses? Will he turn to masturbation, sexting, pornography, or adultery (or other counterfeits of love) when his sexual “needs” aren’t met? Will you? Will you love the other person not for what you can get from each other, but for who each other is ‘til death do you part?
I know this seems like a daunting or maybe even impossible list. But just like the purpose of any romance, the point of discussing these topics is to learn to love a person as a person and not as an object of use. Yes, all the above takes hard work, but also this preparation and sacrifice produces a great banquet and harvest of love not only in this life but in the next.
Do I have a ring on my finger and years of marriage under my belt? No. But I trust in the Lord and His timing, knowing I must continue to be faithful in the moment and seek the one whom my soul loves. In the meantime, I’m growing in the hope and trust I will need, once I do approach marriage and marital intimacy.
To all who may read this article, I pray for your healing and wellness in whatever area of your life it is most needed. What real conversation do you need to have with your potential spouse?
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