Probable high risk pregnancy problem inherited from mother?

Does it have to be a medical problem? She could just decide to not have a baby.

I’m with Helix on this. It’s never a bad idea to rethink fragile womanhood tropes - and more and more women are embracing the right to simply not reproduce.

How true do you want it to be? Doctors (and even parents) lie to women about this stuff and people who aren't very knowledgeable about medicine might hear one thing and interpret it as another (like "you have PCOS, so conceiving will be difficult" to mean "you're infertile, no babies for you). If you want your character to have a "miracle baby" then that can be an avenue to consider.

For things genetically passed on, it could be the Rh factor thing (but modern medicine has things to treat that). You could also have any sort of heritable condition that would make life for the child very difficult be reason not to reproduce. An ex got neurofibromitosis from his mother and he's very wary of passing that on. Also, as a woman gets order risks for most things increase, so there's that, too.

I think people would be able to give you better info if you give us a little more context or how this is going to be used in the story.

Sounds like the guy really wants a kid? That you are setting up a conflict between them along those lines?

I can imagine scenarios where I'd tell a guy that babies are out, and the arguments I'd offer him. I've worked with mutagens for years. The world has too many humans. I'm a career scientist (Ever seen the statistics on what happens to a scientist's career when she--vs he--has children?).

But to answer your question, women who took diethylstilbestrol had daughters who were more likely to have congenital deformities in their reproductive tract. These daughters, when they grow up and become pregnant, are automatically high-risk pregnancies. So, maybe the mom took DES when she was preggers with your gal. (There're all sorts of weird-shaped tubes and uteruses and cervixes that resulted.)

I had a smart, fun friend who had a great relationship with a smart, funny guy. Her first husband had died young due to cancer, and we were all cheering for them being such a cute couple when she was finally ready to get out there again and try again. But he was maybe 10 years younger than she was, and looked forward to having a family. And she was an engineer without a maternal bone in her body. They had a good "now" together, but their future would have been terrible, so they split up, and I lost track of him, but she went on to marry an older guy who preferred dogs to kids as well.

That said, if two people aren't on the same page on a major life issue for whatever reason, as a reader, I'd prefer to see them cut things off and look for someone more compatible, rather than try to convince the person in front of them that they need to rework a significant portion of themselves to force that relationship to work.

RBEmerson said:

Well, duh! It just occurred to me that Sarah's age is edging into the area where pregnancies start to become riskier. She's headed for east central Arizona. 1985 or not, quick dashes to hospitals for Problems isn't likely to happen. Ergo, having a risky pregnancy isn't a good idea.

Contemplating that, and working backward in age... click, everything I need drops into place.

Thanks for helping me think out loud!

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Not to rain on your parade, but the complications that increase with age are more for the fetus than the mother. And even with increased risk, it's still pretty safe, unless your character is into her 50s.

Source: I was 39 when my daughter was born and I read everything.

I'd hope that if the ob-gyny calls your character "missy" in the book your character then tries to strangle that ob-gyny with their own stethoscope.

Some women simply don't want to be pregnant or to become mothers. There are countless reasons for this. Some are due to fears over health risks, real or imagined (and no pregnancy is completely risk free, let's face it). Some have had bad experiences with pregnancy and/or miscarriage already. Others are simply because they don't want to go through the physical experience, or don't see themselves as moms, or have other things they prefer to do. None of these reasons is wrong, but they can certainly be legitimate conflicts and a potential deal breaker with a partner who wants kids.

There are health issues that make pregnancy highly risky for some women, so it's discouraged, or (if it occurs) would have to be managed carefully.

Diabetes
Serious high blood pressure
Being very over or under weight
Abnormal pelvic structure (though of course c-sections help with this issue)
Having had many pregnancies already
A blood disorder like Von Willibrands, sickle cell anemia, thylassemia etc.
Hyperemesis gravidarium (past history of it means it is likely to be repeated in subsequent pregnancies)
Certain structural problems in uterus or cervix that make it hard to carry a pregnancy to term
Polycystic ovaries
Lupus or some other autoimmune diseases
Kidney disease

Most of these can be managed, at least somewhat, via modern medicine, but they do make pregnancy and delivery riskier and risk of miscarriage and dangerous complications for the mother more likely.

Helix said:

I'd hope that if the ob-gyny calls your character "missy" in the book your character then tries to strangle that ob-gyny with their own stethoscope.

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Indeed. Though there was a time, not so very long ago, where this kind of patronizing behavior by doctors was more common. Maybe the novel takes place in such a time, or the doctor character is a relic.

Roxxsmom said:

Though there was a time, not so very long ago, where this kind of patronizing behavior by doctors was more common. Maybe the novel takes place in such a time, or the doctor character is a relic.

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I gather it's set in 1985.

Derail. In 1983, when I was unmarried and pregnant with my first child, the antenatal nurse kept referring to me as Mrs mccardey which made me feel awkwardly as though she was confusing me with my mother, and one day I said with tremendous embarrassment "I'm not married, actually. I'm just mccardey mccardey" - and she got mightily huffy and explained it was a courtesy title.

It took me about ten years to get offended by that remark, but I managed it.

(I was a very slow learner where the smashing-the-patriarchy was concerned. I like to think I've made up for it since...)