A few weeks ago I asked if anyone would be willing to discuss a topic that isn’t easy and share the story of their fertility journey. (You can read my story HERE.) I’m grateful to the women who chose to respond.
In this series women with different experiences will share the pain and blessings that the gift of fertility carries with it, in the hope of bringing out God’s grace and promise to those couples struggling to welcome this gift when it is not known how it will turn out in a sinful world.
This is Marie’s story.
I am the second of two children, the only daughter. As a child, I begged my mom to have more children. (I had no idea the strain it might have put on her or her marriage, as I now believe she wanted to have more children, but my father did not, and my mom also had some mental illness.) Growing up, I always wanted to have a “large” family, but never really considered what that meant. I dreamed of marrying a pastor, and being a stay-at-home mom while teaching full-time at the Christian Day School. I’m not sure I ever realized it wasn’t possible! Maybe it was the “women can have it all” culture talking!
I remember often wondering why some families were smaller and some were larger, but never really asked anyone about it. I also remember being extremely confused as a 5 year old when an unmarried woman we knew became pregnant. I didn’t know that was possible! I’m sure in confirmation class (taught by my father), adultery and fornication were specifically addressed, but I don’t recall those conversations.
Also, I’m sure in talking about boys with my mom, she would say something about “saving yourself for marriage,” but it was all much more vague than we talk about it with our own children. As for the birds and the bees, my parents handed me a book about it when I was 6 or 7, and I was shocked and disgusted about the whole thing, and couldn’t believe my parents would do such a thing! Looking back, I’m surprised I had such a drive and desire to become a mother, because so much around me urged me that the teaching “ministry” was the most important calling for a woman, and there were not that many women around me who had larger families. I can see now that God put that feminine drive in me!
On our second date, my husband brought up the topic of birth control. (We were on the fast track to marriage, and he didn’t beat around the bush!) He didn’t want to influence my ideas, so we spent a few minutes writing down what we each individually believed on paper and then compared our ideas. All I knew was that children were a blessing from the Lord and I dearly wanted to be a mother. I also wrote that once at a county fair, I’d picked up a brochure from a pro-life group that said that the pill can cause abortions, and I’d always wondered about that. My husband had gone to graduate school at Notre Dame and had thoroughly discussed the issue with many traditional Catholics (who opposed birth control). We mutually decided to take an NFP class and that’s what we’d use to “space” our children.
It never occurred to us that we didn’t have to space our children and could leave the fruit of our union in God’s hands. When we discussed having a “big” family (as if it was really up to us!), we always settled on 4 children. Then, one day, we saw a photo of a family with 8 children, stair-stepped from biggest to littlest. We loved it, and started saying 8 kids (still thinking it was in our control)!
At the time we married, my husband was a professor at the college where I was a student (hence the fast-tracked marriage… no need to wreck either of our reputations!) I was at the top of my class, and still had two years of studies left. My parents didn’t say a thing about kids, one way or another. My husband’s parents, insisted that I would finish school before children, because of course, it would be ridiculous for a PhD to be married to “only” a high school graduate. That played into part of our thinking. The pastor who did our marriage counseling also told us that it was okay for us to wait to have children. At that point, we were already taking NFP classes, and we disagreed with him because of the methods he suggested.
As a girl, I thought of “having a child” as a decision to be made– as if children were possessions to have if you wanted, and avoid if you didn’t. “To each her own.” Now, as an adult, I realize the precious gifts they are truly are, and how not everyone who wants a child can have one. I also believe the children are the natural fruit of the marital act, and should be a married couples’ expected “default”, rather than others assuming a couple will “wait” a certain amount of time before the “right” time to have children.
The burden of proof for birth control rests on those who tout it, rather than on those who choose to accept the blessings of God as they come. As a couple, our views have also changed. When we began our marriage using NFP, it was extremely difficult to wait 7-10 days to come together as newlyweds. (Maybe now, 10 years into marriage, with babies waking up at night, toddlers bed-wetting, and children with nightmares, it might not be so hard to wait! It was definitely a frustrating period of our marriage. But any other method of birth control was very much against our conscience. So we stuck it out.
But we still felt that we were in “control” of the situation. After our first daughter was born, we were relying on ecological breastfeeding to naturally space our children. I was struggling with post-partum depression (and didn’t know it— I just thought motherhood was simply awful), and had it been up to me, I would not have chosen “now” as the right time to have another child. But God is good, and gave us our second child anyway (who, incidentally, reset my hormones and snapped me out of the PPD)!
After her birth, we decided that unless we had some terrible circumstance, we wouldn’t use birth control or NFP to space children, but would just take them as God would give them. Which was terrifying for me, considering my first two were only 19 months apart. I’d regularly do the math, realizing that handing over my fertility to God might mean 17 or more children!!!! But, with God’s perfect timing, our 2nd and 3rd children are exactly 2 years apart (we get lots of comments about “our” good timing!), and our 3rd and 4th are almost 3 years apart.
We’re nearly to my 4th’s 2nd birthday, and I’m aching to be pregnant again, a feeling I never knew I’d feel, after being scared and nervous about conceiving another child “so soon” in the past. We also had a miscarriage in between our 3rd and 4th living children. That, again, put us in our place with feigning control. We can’t choose to bring a child into the world. They are gifts from God.
When we were first married we used NFP, and that was mostly because we didn’t ever consider that “not planning” our family was an option. That had never been brought up to us as an option. Perhaps it was also convenient considering that I had wanted to finish school. But to us it was “use NFP” or “choose an immoral method” like hormonal methods that can cause abortions, or a barrier method that we felt would break the 6th commandment and come between us. I think my husband and I have always been on the same page with each other regarding this. We have been each others’ main influence and sounding board, rather than being influenced by parents, friends, or advertising.
We hope and pray we will never be given a serious enough cause to consider permanent child prevention. I would find it very very emotional and difficult to know I was pregnant with or nursing my “last” child.
We have been blessed with 4 children, but we did lose one child through miscarriage, and have just barely touched on secondary infertility after our last child. I have had 10 cycles now, and still have not conceived. It is bittersweet. There were other times in our marriage where I would have been so grateful to have 10 cycles without conceiving! But now, I ache to grow another baby! How fickle my heart is, and how good is God!
We plan our lives around our children and our family, rather than planning our children and family around our lives. We do not plan anything farther than 9 months in advance, because we don’t ever know if we will have a new baby during that time. We are constantly reevaluating the needs of our children and rearranging our home and schedules to meet those needs. My husband and I are really unable to have “individual” lives/careers because of the needs of all of our young children (4 of them 8 and under). We really live as a family and try to work through problems as a family, rather than having competing self-interests.
This lifestyle has allowed to us to easily consider bringing my mom with dementia into our home. It’s not as if she we cramp or change our lifestyle, or like I will have to “give up” any of my own interests to care for her. Yes, it will be a challenge, but she’s another person who needs care, just like our children. It’s not really an amazing sacrifice, as some people seem to think it will be.
“Children are a gift from the Lord”. God said it, and He will make it so. He didn’t offer conditions on this. It’s not as if children are a blessing from the Lord when the following circumstances are met. They just are. We never say “no” to other blessings from God like patience, generosity, or love, so why should we say “this isn’t a good time” about children?
I want other women to know that even though I think living a non-contraceptive lifestyle should be the default, I’m NOT judging them for their own decisions (as I have often been accused of doing). God has not called me to make those decisions for you. As a sister in Christ, if you confide in me or ask for Biblical counsel, I will do my best to give it. If you are using contraception and your conscience is good before God, you don’t need to worry about what “I” think! But if you are concerned that I somehow seem to be judging you, perhaps you are not really all that confident in your decision. You don’t need to justify your decision to me, only to God.
I just wish that the people of God who had these convictions would have taken me under their wings and taught us and gave us reading material so we could think about such things. I aim to do that in the future, as we are able. Even though my husband and I are often uncomfortable, we try to talk frankly about these things with our children. Reading through the Bible offers lots of good examples for discussion about adultery (David), rape (Tamar), abortion (child sacrifices to Molech), and best of all, how Christ has loved the Church, and given Himself for it!
————————
Click HERE for more from this series.
I would love to hear your story. If you would like to share that with us please see these posts:
Fertility Stories – Would You Share?
More On Fertility Stories
Thanks, Marie and to everyone who has shared so far. Aubri this was a great idea. I am really enjoying these.
I’m enjoying these too Rebekah. Thanks for the feedback!