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Has RA affected your decisions to have a family? Do you also have a family history of autoimmune disorders? Which has affected your decisions more, RA or a family history? Join the discussion!
Absolutely has. My wife and I have wanted nothing more than to be parents. But I refuse to pass on RA. I'm also on methotrexate and am not taking that kind of risk. So we are now attempting to get pregnant with a donor. For years we thought it wouldn't be possible but I came to the realization that I CAN be a great dad even if I"m not a biological father. RA has changed our lives dramatically - but now I get to pass on a lot of heritage to my kids - but not the risk of RA.
I was diagnosed with RA when I was 15 years old. I am now 23 years old and I def. see me having children. Also, I was on methotrexate for at least 4 years and I have been off of it for atleast 4 years now. My rheumatologist asked how I felt about having children when I was 19 years old and I told her most def. so she advised me to be off of it for 5 years before hand.
Yes. When I was diagnosed with RA in August, my husband and I were struggling with the decision to try again to have a child. We experienced 3 misscarraiges last year and mostly felt that we would not try again. I say "mostly" because we were deciding by not deciding. When my rheumy told me that I had to start methotrexate and that I could not conceive while on it, I was unable to concentrate on another word he said after that. Finally I was being required to make a choice. To be a parent or not to be. We decided not to be. Surprisingly, I am actually at more peace with my non-parental status now that we finally made a firm decision. We make great life partners and have the good fortune to share the joy of the children of our friends and families. Now if I could only find a way to enjoy the occassional glass of red wine without fear of ruining my living ... All the best to all.
-JM New to RA and not particularily thrilled about it.
I was diagnosed with RA at age 26, after alread having given birth to two beauiful kids. At that tiem I was told that due to the difficulties I had with my 2nd pregnancy hat i would never hve any anymore---then 10 years later along came number 3. I worry contantly that I've passed along my RA to my kids, but realize hat it's too late to do anything abut it now. I just worry and watch them vey closely and hope and pray daily that they will not have to suffer like i have.
Posts: 2 | Location: Meridian, Ma | Registered: 09-27-2006
Hey there As a physician and not an RA patient I think you all could spread the word and share your stories on a new website ive been an advisor for...it is a website of online medical communities (support groups) www.dailystrength.org check it out..let them know what you think you can join the RA community and whatever else appeals Dr Orrange
I was diagnosed with Ra in 2000. I had my first baby in 1998, when I was 32, but we wanted to have more children. I struggled with letting my RA go unchecked or go on medication and put off having children. Many doctors suggested trying to get pregnant because it may go into remission based on family history. My mom was diagnosed shortly after she had me and went into remission during each of her 3 following pregnancies. She loved being pregnant. My RA was starting to get so bad that I began searching for some sort of treatment that wouldn't be so toxic that I felt I couldn't have children afterward. I scoured books, medical journals, and the internet. I came across low dose antibiotic therapy and read the book: The New Arthritis Breakthrough. I thought it sounded very interesting and promising, however, I knew it was considered somewhat alternative and I thought it would be too hard to find a doctor to obtain treatment, so I put it in the back of my head and went on Celebrex, all the while we were trying to have another baby. Then, my arthritis got so bad I could barely walk. I got in touch with The Road Back Foundation who put me in touch with a doctor. I went on the antibiotic therapy and felt great within a week. I was even back playing volleyball. I stayed on it for about a year and had very little arthritis symptoms. I decided to go off the therapy and try to get pregnant again. Many times with this therapy, the symptoms will not come back for awhile. I was off the therapy for about a year and I started to experience some symptoms again and we had not luck getting pregnant. By this time I was 38 years old and I also had bad endometriosis. We decided we were happy with 1 child and I went back on the antibiotics. Within one week of being back on the medication, I found out I was pregnant. I had a wonderful, beautiful healthy baby girl. I was in remission my entire pregnancy. I breast fed her for 2 years which also kept me in remission. I just recently quit breastfeeding and my arthritis is coming back full force - but what a great 3 years I have had. I am now going back on my antibiotic therapy and know I will be feeling better soon. It has really changed my life. I have had no side effects, except feeling better. If anybody would like information on this therapy, please let me know. I just had to reply when I saw this post because I struggled so much when trying to decided whether or not I wanted to have children. And I felt so alone. Trust me - you are not alone, and you can have children if you want to.
I am new to this so I am not sure if i am responding correctly...anyways, i read your post and it made me cry. talk about feeling totally alone in this whole ra mess (well, me and my husband). We are considering getting pregnant which seems like the absolute last thing I should be thinking of but your message was sort of a sign. PLEASE tell me of the treatment you found. I am desperate and joints are failing left and right. I have had no luck with anything, however, I did modify my diet and eliminate allergins and that has made a huge difference. but please tell me of the treatment you have found.
thank you for your message.
quote:
Originally posted by JeanneC: I was diagnosed with Ra in 2000. I had my first baby in 1998, when I was 32, but we wanted to have more children. I struggled with letting my RA go unchecked or go on medication and put off having children. Many doctors suggested trying to get pregnant because it may go into remission based on family history. My mom was diagnosed shortly after she had me and went into remission during each of her 3 following pregnancies. She loved being pregnant. My RA was starting to get so bad that I began searching for some sort of treatment that wouldn't be so toxic that I felt I couldn't have children afterward. I scoured books, medical journals, and the internet. I came across low dose antibiotic therapy and read the book: The New Arthritis Breakthrough. I thought it sounded very interesting and promising, however, I knew it was considered somewhat alternative and I thought it would be too hard to find a doctor to obtain treatment, so I put it in the back of my head and went on Celebrex, all the while we were trying to have another baby. Then, my arthritis got so bad I could barely walk. I got in touch with The Road Back Foundation who put me in touch with a doctor. I went on the antibiotic therapy and felt great within a week. I was even back playing volleyball. I stayed on it for about a year and had very little arthritis symptoms. I decided to go off the therapy and try to get pregnant again. Many times with this therapy, the symptoms will not come back for awhile. I was off the therapy for about a year and I started to experience some symptoms again and we had not luck getting pregnant. By this time I was 38 years old and I also had bad endometriosis. We decided we were happy with 1 child and I went back on the antibiotics. Within one week of being back on the medication, I found out I was pregnant. I had a wonderful, beautiful healthy baby girl. I was in remission my entire pregnancy. I breast fed her for 2 years which also kept me in remission. I just recently quit breastfeeding and my arthritis is coming back full force - but what a great 3 years I have had. I am now going back on my antibiotic therapy and know I will be feeling better soon. It has really changed my life. I have had no side effects, except feeling better. If anybody would like information on this therapy, please let me know. I just had to reply when I saw this post because I struggled so much when trying to decided whether or not I wanted to have children. And I felt so alone. Trust me - you are not alone, and you can have children if you want to.
Hello, I'm new here and I was finally diagnosed with RA and fibromylgia last month during the forth month of my 2nd pregnancy. I have been sick for a long, long time but around here you can't say "Pain" to a doctor with out expecting pamphlets for rehabs or a prescriptions for antidepressants and a referrel to a shrink. It has been so sad to hear that I am not the only one who has gone through this. I'm a little too ambitious and straight laced to fit those assumptions but it happened anyway. Well, years of crying to the doctors one finally listened and did the simple tests to find out what was kicking my butt. Unfortunately the damage has gone too far. In the last 4 years alone I have gone under 6 joint reconstruction surgeries and still need more. 5 of those surgeries have been since my little girl, Ava, had been born in June, 2004. It has been tough especially now my optimologist is convinced this has gone too far and diagnosed my chronic eye problems with RA related uvelitis. Great! As if daily life wasn't hard enough now I need to worry about my eye sight. I just want to be able to see how beautiful my little girls grow up to be. Laci will be born in April, 2007! As far as my pregnancies are concerned I have done so much research as well as being a health care provider myself that I just feel confident in it. I think I am learning how to emotionally deal with the pain but my little girl can always make it better whenever she says, "I love you, mama." I think accomidation and assimilation is important (live style changes). I watched my sister-in-law outside with her kids in the dead of winter and felt guilty but now I created quite the painter and crafter out of my daughter. I know going outside in freezing weather will be torture so I make up for it and turned our spare bedroom into an art studio and get outside whenever the weather is good for me. I call it Jeti-Mind-Tricks on myself. I finally stopped caring if it was sanitary to eat off the floor and started looking at the finer things in life. I do things when I can and that's all. My knees are so gone that sometime in the near future I will require replacements but my daughter likes to see me at eye level anyway so I do things on the floor (even folding my laundry). They say that when you lose your health there is a process similiar to that of losing a loved one. I have been through denial, anger, grief, and acceptance. I knew there was something profoundly wrong before I finally got a diagnosis but I was not prepared for the anger I feel for not getting it sooner. Had anyone saw that I was truley suffering and not too young and healthy looking to feel the way I say I do then I would have not lost so much or suffered so many orthopedic surgeries. Please keep in mind I am only 32 and I have lost my career to this but I do have a wonderful husband and children. I say don't let RA rob you of the gift of motherhood but be sure you have a good support system behind you and DON'T be afraid to ask for help when needed. When I say help I mean in every way. People who live in chronic pain have a tendancy to experience depression that is not so much caused by your personal reaction but the way pain chemicals effect your seritonin levels. After birth there will be a burst in your RA but you also have hormones to deal with. Knowing this allows you to be prepared for the worse so you can deal with it as best as possible. As for my pregnancies, I have to trust my doctors when it comes to medications. It is probably a good idea to establish a relationship with a fetal-maternal OB who specializes in pregnant women with chronic illness. Even with RA most studies indicate you are likely to have a healthy baby and trust me nothing else matters after you hear your baby's cry for the first time. There is something about motherhood that makes us (women) so much stronger than we have the capacity to image. Good Luck and wellness.
Yes it has. My husband has had RA since we were 24. We have one son who is 6.5 and we have decided not to have anymore. He was very active with our son but since then his RA has progressed. He has been on remicaid, Enbrel and humira and now is going to start a new drug. If we had had another child his experience would have been severely compromised. we realized he would not have been able to carry the car seat or the baby at 20lbs. This has really been a very hard decision for us.
Lorenz, I understand exactly how your husband feels and you seem so empathetic to him. He is lucky to have you. Trust me if I had it my way I would have just stuck to having one child but I got pregnant again. It's the guilt that gets me and the anger of dealing with the inlaws who think my children deserve better than what they precieve I can give them. When my daughter was about 6 months old we were in the mall and all she wanted was for me to hold her. I broke down because the pain of just that little bit of weight was so intense we had to leave with out finishing our shopping for her. I couldn't take it. Now she is almost 3 and 36 lbs. and I hate that I can't hold her when she needs me. Furthermore my mother-in-law snickers at me because she thinks my health is unfair to her grandchildren no matter the fact that Ava perfers me over everyone else. Neither me or your husband choose this life for ourselves or our dearest & nearest but I just get on the floor and make the best of it. Everyday my daughters remind me that it is all worthwhile and they motivate me to keep going. Loren, when I think of everything my husband goes through I can't help but think of you here. My husband is so strong for me and I have so much appreciation for him and I know your husband must feel that for you. Having a baby is a life adjustment for everyone and you will figure out your routine too but it takes time. Hang in there and thank God for people like you. I just want you to know I truley appreciate you and all you must be dealing with.
This is my first time responding to the discussion area, but thought it was important for me to get involved in my own health. Over the years, I listened to those who I thought knew what they were doing. Come to find out, the decisions made to better my ability only caused more harm. As I have read over and over again, I too was not diagnosed with RA for over 20 years. I began having pain in numerous joints (I was 15 years old) and was made to feel that the pain was only growing pains or in my head. They did blood work, and the RA profile came back negative over and over again but my sed rate continually climbed, at times as high as 80. So the answer was to do surgery on my knees because there was obvious danger to the knee joints. This ended up being 15 surgeries in all and as a young adult making these hard decisions on my own. There was little or no support from my parents and many times I would enter the OR by myself. With all this pain came a major change in my physical ability to compete in sports which I had found as my second family What became a lifestyle of outdoor enjoyment like horseback riding, mountain hiking, school sports, and skiing, I became introvert and staying in my room for hours writing and drawing (until my hands became painful).
This all escalated into one of the hardest decisions I had to make: my childhood dream of having a large family. The doctors were prescribing one medication after another with short term benefits. This concerned me tremendously because I worried that I could pass down the illness I had to my children. If the doctors could not diagnose me, how could I impose the life I have experienced on a child that I gave birth to? So, at 25, I was asked by my orthopedic doctor if I had thought about having children and I can still remember the tears beginning to flow – I could not allow a child to experience the pain I have over the years so I made the decision to not give birth to a beautiful, innocent individual and imprison them in a life of pain (at times unbearable). The doctors could not give me any reassurance that I would not pass on a genetic possibility. This also left me with a decision not to engage in a serious relationship because I feared that the person I would get involved with would have the same image of family (with lots of children). It was a hard decision, but to experience pain from the time I was in my early teens until now, I struggled just to function on a daily basis. And than came all my nieces and nephews (I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters). Fortunately, my sister allowed me to be very involved in her children’s lives. This still left emptiness in my heart for the child I could love unconditionally which begins me to the second part of my life. To date, I have returned to college and have received my BA in Human Services and masters in Social Policy with a concentration in Children with Learning/ Physical & Mental Illness. I also took courses in Art Therapy because many children can not verbalize their issues but give them a piece of paper and crayons and they can communicate anything without fear. This has filled some of the emptiness in my life.
Thanks for listening,
psue
Posts: 3 | Location: Upstate New York | Registered: 05-23-2007
Rheumatoid Arthritis Community 
