August 30, 2007 6:47 AM
Evangelicals birth control free - your input needed
This email came in just as I was getting ready to announce that I need input for an article I'm planning on Evangelicals who've given up birth control:
Hi,I found your web site when I did a search for Yes to Carrots, which I also love. I also was researching large families, because I was feeling impressed by the Lord that my husband and I might have a large family. That might be jumping the gun a little because we have not had one baby yet. We actually have been married for seven years and have not had a baby yet, so it could be an over active nurturing hormone telling me about having a large family. I was wondering if you knew that God was going to bless you with children or if it just happened and how you knew that it was the right thing to do to adopt?
I was touched when I read your story.Thank You.
Joy
Joy -
When I was a little girl growing up in a far-from-adequate home (sometimes foster home or relatives), I dreamed of someday having many children myself. Somehow for me there was always the connection that my own unmet needs would/could find fulfillment by meeting the needs of others. Although in my 20s I did not plan on having a big family, I became a Montessori teacher because I wanted to make the world a better place for children.
However, the demons of my past needed to be worked through and my 20s and early 30s were also spent pursuing a lot of destructive behavior. I married, had two daughters, and divorced. In 1980, my life began to change when I gave up drugs and alcohol, began seeking a relationship with God - through Eastern religion - and married my husband Tripp.
I got reconnected to my childhood dream by accident really. Tripp and I had two children 17 months apart in spite of the fact that I was using birth control. It seemed to us that God (whom we really didn't know other than as some vague impersonal force) was trying to get our attention and that we were destined to be parents of a big family.
So we stopped using birth control.
The result was a string of seven birth children (plus the two daughters we started with) in our first 12 years of marriage. My last birth child was born when I was 45. Since then, because our next-to-the-last child had Down syndrome, we've adopted three more sons with Down syndrome. The first was a conscious decision we made, the second two were answering requests from others.
It was only when we reached the number 12 that I remembered my childhood dream of having 12. Was there a connection there? Only God knows for sure.
This was my personal path. I don't believe that everyone should follow it. Among my married children, some practice birth control and some do not. I do not judge them.
But I will say that because our culture conditions us to think that children are burdens rather than blessings, many people follow the dictates of our culture without questioning it enough. And I've met many people who only had two children - now grown - who wish they'd had more.
I've never met anyone who wished they had had fewer children.
I had a hard time titling this entry to solicit the input I need.
I'm not really fond of the term Quiver Full because some of the QF families have a reputation for being judgmental of those who use birth control.
I also don't want to just solicit input from mothers of large families because just because you give up birth control doesn't mean that you will have a large family.
The object is to surrender that aspect of your life to God's plan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Readers: If you and your husband have given up birth control as part of that surrendering process, Joy and I would love to hear from you: How you came to make that decision and how it has changed your life. Please mention whether you are Catholic and following your church's teaching or whether you are Evangelical, I want to hear from Catholics, as I know you are also going against the flow, but since the article I'm working on has to do with Evangelicals, I need to hear how they came to this conclusion without outer direction.
See Guerrilla Parenting for more from me.
Posted in Big families | Permalink
Comments
Hi,
What is Yes to Carrots?
Barbara's answer: a product I reviewed here: http://www.mommylife.net/archives/2007/02/yes_to_carrots.html
Posted by: Mrs. Ward | August 30, 2007 9:36 AM
My husband and I entered marriage thinking that we would postpone having kids until I had finished my PhD in chemistry (probably around 4 years), and then have "at least two, and five sounds like a lot." After a while, we started thinking, "What's wrong with a lot?" Now, having spent a lot of time around large families, five doesn't sound like "a lot" any more -- but we're still thinking, "What's wrong with a lot?"
A few months into marriage, I started realizing that I was unhappy in my PhD program. I'd entered it as a very new Christian, and had since realized that God was calling me to be a SAHM. Before, I had fought against the SAHM idea with every fiber of my being; now, God had so thoroughly changed my heart that I wasn't happy where I was and wanted to start with the SAHM calling on my life right now! We prayed for direction, knowing that God might provide it by having me become pregnant, since we were committed to my being home full-time as soon as we had any children -- and continued using contraception.
Within a month, I was pregnant.
Four weeks later, I miscarried. We were devastated, but decided to continue with our plans to have me exit the PhD program the following spring, around the time when our child would have been born.
The first four years of our marriage continued to be lessons in the fact that we were not in control of our fertility, whether we wanted to be or not. Our first two pregnancies were unplanned; both ended in miscarriage. Our third pregnancy we planned and tried for; it also ended in miscarriage. The fourth pregnancy we also planned and tried for; with the help of a fertility doctor, that one made it through first trimester (yay!) and then continued normally from there; our daughter will turn 5 next week. The fifth pregnancy was completely unplanned, and "poorly timed" from man's perspective -- closer together than we'd wanted, plus my husband was just coming off a time of unemployment and had only temporary employment and no medical insurance. But, being pro-life and believing that life begins when sperm meets egg, I went back to the fertility doctor -- paying out-of-pocket -- to keep our new little one alive through that critical and difficult first trimester. The first trimester cost us about $1000; then God provided long-term employment and health insurance for my husband, and the rest of the pregnancy and delivery cost only $20. Our son turned 3 earlier this month.
So from our first 5 pregnancies, whether we "planned" or "tried" for them had nothing to do with whether or not we ended up with a child.
By the time I got pregnant with our son, we were already thinking that we would avoid contraception use. There weren't any morally acceptable methods we liked, and we were already getting the idea that we weren't in control of this whole getting-pregnant thing anyway. It's not something we view as a hard-and-fast law -- "Thou shalt not use birth control ever!" sort of thing -- and in fact, when my new fertility doctor recommended last fall that we wait until January before getting pregnant, we discussed whether or not the situation merited finding some contraception. (Our conclusion was that it did not; the only consequence of getting pregnant before then would be that I would have to undergo the same painful treatments I'd had with our first two successful pregnancies, rather than having the possibility of a less painful treatment. As it happened, God held off pregnancy until January, I got the new treatment, it worked, and the new baby is due in early October.) But most people could abandon contraception safely, and most of the reasons Christians give for using it sound very shallow and short-sighted to us. We choose to believe God's Word when it says that children are a blessing, and take seriously the charges that God gives parents along with the blessings. While we certainly express our personalities and interests in the things we do, whether alone, together, or with our children, parenting is our first priority. It is what God has called us to for the next several decades, and we have accepted that calling.
Newt
Posted by: Newt Sherwin | August 30, 2007 9:44 AM
I don't use contraception, but I do practice NFP to space children. I do think it can be used with a contraceptive mentality, but the idea is that you are free to the possibility of children and not taking steps to STOP the conception once sex happens.
Posted by: SUZANNE | August 30, 2007 10:09 AM
I think the easiest thing would be to give you a link to my testimony posted on the Above Rubies site;
Persevering Faith!
In short, we have nine children and would love more, but at almost 48 I think my body is saying no more! I joke that I will be the woman on the news that has triplets at 55 our something!!
Have fun trusting God! We sure are thankful we did!
Sharon
Posted by: Sharon Hockenbury | August 30, 2007 10:17 AM
We entered marriage using the pill because that was all that we knew (as in, that was the standard for society as a whole and evangelical culture as well) and continued on birth control for about 3.5 years; at that time we decided we were "ready" to have children.
Once I was pregnant with our daughter we began to think more about family planning (who many children, spacing, how/whether to prevent, etc) and our options; through much prayer and discussion we decided that we would not use any type of contraception for the foreseeable future. We just found out that our second child will arrive in the Spring (our oldest will be about 20 months old).
I agree with you, Barbara, that this decision is not for everyone. It was a huge leap of faith for us to fully relinquish the size of our family and spacing of our children to God. It has, however, been a freeing experience and has provided a wonderful change in our attitude and vision of family.
As in all things, I think this issue must be approached with prayer and a willingness to heed the call of God on your life.
To Joy - may God bless you and lead you in whatever decision you make.
Posted by: Jana | August 30, 2007 10:43 AM
We had one child right away, then used birth control for about have been six months, then quit and had child 2 (they are twenty months apart). Then we used different forms of birth control for about a year, all of which made me very unhappy (I think I was allergic to most of them). Then we decided to try again, and had four or five years of infertility. Then I read a book and shared it with my husband and we became 'quiverful' in 1989, and promptly got pregnant. I thought I was giving God permission to give me a large family, which I had always wanted.
That baby was born, and two years later I conceived again and miscarried at 16 weeks. I was devastated. This was not part of my 'permission.' I worked through that, slowly and with much pain. We adopted two children (another long story, but God's hand was very evident and these children were obviously meant to be with us, and one of them is multiply handicapped). And I realized that being quiverful was not letting God give me a large family, it was letting God have full control, whatever that meant, and it might mean no children ever.
About the same week that I finally managed to accept that and even to praise God and be content with my five childen- I conceived again in 1996. I was ecstatic, but never took it for granted that I would actually carry to term and have a living baby. She is now 11- and very lively. And in 1998, to my surprise, I conceived again. And three years ago I miscarried again, the day after I realized I was pregnant. I am 45 years old and we have 7 children, and I have not used birth control since 1986, and in that time I have delivered three children.
This stance has made me so much more aware of several things- that we cannot know what is in other people's lives. Until I miscarried I had no idea how often other women had been through this, but they came out of the woodwork to comfort me.
I learned never to take fertility, birth, and the life of a child for granted.
As with homeschooling, opening my world to the possibility that these default positions of my culture were not necessarily God's positions and desires for my life made it possible for me to discover all kinds of assumptions I didn't even know I had and rethink them in light of God's world. And sometimes I end up in the same position at the end of the process- but I have arrived there deliberately instead of by accident.
I have learned not to follow my culture's dismissive and negative attitude towards children.
I learned that many of my Christian brothers and sisters would make fun of me, mock my intellect, insist I wasn't using my brains, belittle my choices by comparing me to livestock, and decide that hospitality only applied to people with three or less children- and then call people like me judgmental just for not choosing the default position. They would jump to false conclusions about what I believed without actually asking me, but they would not hesitate to share their erroneous assumptions with others behind my back.
And I remembered that I had once known a family of twelve where the parents did not believe in birth control, and that I, a student at the Christian college where this man taught (and was a popular, well liked teacher) had also made fun of him, professed to pity his wife, and had chattered with my friends about how God gave us brains and expects us to use them, and had looked down my 'tolerant' nose at him even while enjoying the company of his children my age, and I was ashamed and deeply regretted my wasted time.
And with each new child in my home I got a little more organized, a little more self disciplined, and a LOT more blessed.=)
Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress | August 30, 2007 11:25 AM
When I got married, of course I started on the pill. My mother saw to that. After 6 months, I was having dreams nearly every night of a baby boy. Finally, we turned it over to the Lord and stopped the birth control. Without telling my in-laws, who would have been upset to know we'd ever been using it. I always assumed I'd get pregnant right away, but it wasn't until I truly turned it over to the Lord and said, "I'll take them when they come" that we were able to conceive.
He's 9 months old now, and we're currently waiting until I've got my emotional state under better control. Mothering is hard, and I'm loathe to have another child before the Lord indicates that I can handle it from an emotional standpoint. So I constantly pray about knowing when the time is right to have another.
Posted by: Emily | August 30, 2007 11:29 AM
I just gave birth to our 5th child, and I am enjoying reading these posts. I wrote about our journey to accepting more babies here...
http://redheadedranting.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
scroll down and click on DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT CAUSES THAT?
Kristin
Posted by: Kristin | August 30, 2007 12:04 PM
We are plain old New Testament Christians, not Catholic, and I don't know enough about the term "evangelical" to know whether we are or not.
We had met a few large, homeschooling families at church and thought they were neat. (This was when we had 3 children, 1 miscarriage, and used birth control.) I thought they must have all had large incomes and incredible levels of patience and organization. I later learned that these things turned out to not be necessarily true or they were acquired or cultivated along the way.
One of these moms gave me the books "Full Quiver" by Rick and Jan Hess and "The Way Home" by Mary Pride. Those two books made me think about things that I had honestly never considered before.
Since that time, we have had 5 more pregnancies with one ending in a miscarriage. We have struggled with finances, patience, organization, and difficult pregnancies along the way, but God has always provided what we need.
I will be 41 next week and my husband is 43. We are committed to letting God have His way with our family, and we realize that times will not always be easy, but we feel truly blessed.
Posted by: Connie | August 30, 2007 1:07 PM
When we were engaged, Matthew and I talked about children. My mom had had trouble conceiving due to biological issues, but was able to have three children. I didn't know if I had the same issues, so I asked Matthew if he would still be okay with marrying me if I couldn't have children, and how did he feel about adoption? He said adoption was fine with him. If we were able to have children, he said he would like to have 8 (partly joking, but mostly serious - that was something God had impressed on him years before he met me)! That was a shock to me, as I had never considered having that many children.
We got married right after I graduated from college, and he still had a year left. Since I was the one supporting us financially, and since everyone we knew, parents included, told us to put off having children so we could have some time alone together, I started taking the pill.
A year later, we moved cross country and I was out of work for a couple months. Matthew suggested I use the time to pray about God's vision for my future - grad school, work, etc. - and we decided to also pray about when God wanted us to have children. That was the first time in our marriage the thought even crossed our minds to ask God that question! (Funny how we many Christians tend to seek Him on all decisions but that one! I've had Christian married friends flat out refuse to even pray about God's will for their family, they are so anti-children.)
I was 23 1/2 at the time (fall of 05), and I got the feeling that God was letting me know I'd be pregnant by the time I was 25. I tucked that away to ponder.
In the spring of 06, I came across information online about the possible abortifacient nature of hormonal birth control. I was upset at the author for presenting misinformation, since my doctor had specifically told me that the pill only prevented ovulation and did not affect implantation. I set out to prove the writer wrong. After extensive research, I found compelling evidence that the pill does indeed sometimes allow ovulation and therefore fertilization, and that it can affect the lining of the uterus to prevent implantation. I realized that meant it was possible that we had conceived while on the pill and that the hormones I was taking would have aborted our child before I even knew he or she existed. I still vividly remember the horrible sick feeling in my stomach when I finally reached that conclusion. Though children had not been in our plans those first few years, we still would have been happy to get pregnant. That made me think...just why WERE we preventing children anyway?
I presented my findings to my husband, and he agreed...if there was even a minute chance that the pill could have an abortive affect, we had to stop using it. Still unsure about taking on the responsibility of children (Matthew was finishing his MBA and I was still the income bearer), we used condoms the rest of the summer.
I was working at an ad agency where the art director was a fun and engaging Christian man...with 9 children. We got to know him and his wife and some other large families they knew. Spending time with them and their joyful clans reinforced our desire to have a big family. I remember one evening when we got home from spending time with them (July 4, 05) - we sat together in the car talking about how cool it was to see loving, close-knit families who thoroughly enjoyed each other. Parents who welcomed the children God gave them, whether that was 10 or 6 or more or less. We prayed (I think for the first time) for our future children.
By August, we realized that God really was challenging us to trust Him to bring children into our lives in His timing. Giving up control of that area of our lives took a lot of faith. It was a scary and exciting change. We thought we would get pregnant right away, but three months went by with no positive pregnancy test. In November, thinking maybe there was something wrong with one of us that we needed to figure out, we went from "not preventing" to "trying." I started charting my cycles, and three months later, in the middle of a January nor'easter, we got a positive test! I was 4 months shy of turning 25.
Katherine was born Oct. 06. She's 10 months old, and she's still nursing so much that my fertility hasn't returned. We are very much looking forward to welcoming more children as God chooses to bless us. We have really learned that He is the author of life - a phrase that is batted around so much in pro-life circles but that seems to be little understood. He is the only one who can create life, and He has a perfect plan for each child He brings into the world, regardless of the circumstances of that baby's conception.
Posted by: Becky Miller | August 30, 2007 2:08 PM
Hi Barbara- after we had our first two children, a boy and a girl, and were beginning to get the comments that "now" we can stop, since we had one of each, I began to question that. Sure, it would be nice to stop now, but basically, that decision would be made based on convenience, physical discomfort, the desire to be like others, etc. Since I'd recently become an evangelical Christian, I came to realize that all of those were the same reasons that I'd used to have an abortion before I met and married my husband. Would I now use the same reasoning to prevent children, now that I was a married woman and also a follower of Christ? I soon after stumbled upon Mary Pride's Book, "The Way Home" and that sort of cemented it for me. I "knew" my husband wouldn't agree, so I silently and quietly prayed about it for almost 5 years, during which that time we had two more sons, sort of planned, sort of not. Finally, after the 4th, my husband wanted to know what birth control we were going to use, since now we REALLY needed to stop all these babies coming. I asked him to listen carefully and then carefully laid out all the biblical reasons for surrendering this area of our lives. To my utter surprise, he agreed! It was crystal clear to him, by the grace of God. We have two more biological children and also adopted 3. Once your heart is open to children, God can use you for many things! Hope this helps!
Posted by: Nancy | August 30, 2007 2:14 PM
Sorry, I forgot to say that I'm protestant, of the non-denominational sort.
Posted by: Becky Miller | August 30, 2007 2:14 PM
When we got married, I started on the pill. A few months later, I stopped taking it, and became pregnant soon after. That pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. Taking the advice of someone during that time, we comforted ourselves from this loss by trying to get pregnant again as soon as possible! I gave birth to our daughter a year and nine months after we'd wed. When time came to decide if I should go back on birth control, my in-laws recommended we read A Full Quiver before making any plans. We did, and were convinced that giving God control of our fertility was what we should do. It wasn't an easy choice- I remember sitting at our apartment's kitchen table with my husband, listening to our newborn scream, and thinking, Oh, I am scared! But God gives more and more grace. About every fifteen months since then, I have given birth. I am just about on a first name basis with the nurses at the hospital.:)I just had our sixth three weeks ago, and that makes six children in seven years of marriage. Many in my family think we are nuts, but some are coming around since I have started my blog, and they see that I am not crazy, just trying to be obedient to what God has told me to do. Joy, I applaud your effort to pursue this idea you have; just make sure that your husband is on the same page, and proceed according to his wishes.
Posted by: Valerie@Consider It Done | August 30, 2007 2:27 PM
I had soooo much to say on this topic that I thought it best to write an entry on my blog and to post the link here
I hope that you and joy are blessed by our testimony!
In His Love,
Tammy
Posted by: Tammy | August 30, 2007 3:43 PM
Hi Barbara,
Before we got married, my DH and I talked quite a bit about our family. Because of my past medical history, we weren't sure that we'd ever get pregnant. By the time we actually got married, we'd pretty much decided to adopt when we were financially able to do so. We used NFP for the first few months we were married, but we decided that if we only got one chance at having our own baby, we didn't want to miss it because it wasn't at a convenient time.
Two months later, and six months after we were married, I was pregnant. We were astounded!
The pregnancy was tough, as was the delivery. After the baby came, my only request was that we wait a year before getting pregnant again, if that was what God desired. As it turned out, I got pregnant again when our son was 16 months old. We lost that baby, which was awful, but I was pregnant again two months later.
That pregnancy was pretty good and the delivery was great. At that point, I was thinking life was pretty good! I had always wanted a large family (I have three brothers) and it seemed like I was on my way.
Then I got pregnant a fourth time. This one was tough. My past medical history was catching up to me and my heart wasn't handling it well. Neither was my psyche. Under doctor's orders, I delivered over three weeks early. I was also told not to have any more children.
I was struggling with that so much. I've read your blog for a long time and grew up knowing people who'd given their families to God, including my parents. I was not able to believe that God would make me so fertile, and yet deny me the ability to bear the children I wanted so much.
When the youngest was seven months old, I had a heart attack. Through this occurence, God showed us that He was behind the doctors' directive to not have any more children. To have another child would probably kill me. At the very least, the meds that I'm on would damage the child tremendously.
It was still incredibly difficult, but my husband had a vasectomy. We had opened our hearts to something Godly and good, but for us the answer was "no." I was angry for a while, but I realized that for me, giving my family to God meant that I had to be graceful when given clear direction from Him. I wondered why He wouldn't just not let me get pregnant. I still don't know why my DH and I had to make such a painful choice. We have not ruled out adoption at some point, should my health and our finances allow it. But for us, saying "yes" to God's plan for our family has meant being thankful for the three children (and one in heaven) that He did give us and to be content with that. Sometimes being refused a good and Godly thing requires just as much obedience and grace as being given it.
By the way, I'm neither Catholic, nor Protestant now. When we got married, I was an evangelical and my DH was Catholic. Before our first child was born, we were both received into the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is where we are now. I'm not sure that my story fits with what you're trying to do, but I thought I'd share it anyway, since my desire was to open, even though it didn't work out for me.
Posted by: Lucy | August 30, 2007 5:50 PM
Like many other women, I started out my marriage on birth control. It was just what you were supposed to do, or so I thought at the time. No one, before I was married, told me any different, so it was on the pill I went. I am ashamed to say that I did not research anything about the pill before I started taking it. I had no idea how it worked, I just knew that I didn't want to get pregnant right away. We needed to "enjoy the early part of our marriage" and "have it all to ourselves".
At some point in the first year of our marriage we decided we wanted to start trying to get pregnant. It took us about 6 months to get pregnant. The very day that I had confirmation from my doctor that I was indeed with child, I went into my boss' office and told her that I was pregnant and that I would work up to about a month before the baby was born and then I would be leaving and not coming back.
Between baby number one and baby number two I went back on the pill. I can't remember exactly, but I think that after awhile I went off of it and we used condoms for awhile. I didn't like how I felt on the pill.
We decided we wanted another and number three came just over three years after number two.
It was after number three that I started being made aware of "quiverful" ideas -- going back to leaving it all up to the Lord. I read and studied and prayed and then presented it all to my husband. He agreed with what I had found and we prayed together and committed our family size to the Lord.
I believe it was three months later I was pregnant. Thirteen weeks into that pregnancy I started having spotting. I went in to the OB and through an ultrasound I learned that our baby had died at around th 8th week. There was nothing in my womb except for an empty sac.
This all happened in December 2002. I wept through the singing of Away in a Manger at church the Sunday after I learned of my miscarriage. I wondered why, when we had given our family size over to the Lord, did He take my baby even before it was born.
He graciously used that time to draw me closer to Him and the healing came fairly quickly. I was blessed with three healthy and vibrant children and I chose to thank Him for them.
That following July, we conceived baby number 5 -- living child number 4, and she is now a lively 3 year old.
We have continued to remain off of birth control and we do not follow any other birth control plan. So far, we have not had any more pregnancies, but we are open to whatever the Lord may have for us.
Posted by: Christa | August 30, 2007 7:15 PM
Two stories.
First my MIL. She had three, and she tells me she struggled some over the third. Then her uterus was falling out and they recommended a hysterectomy at the time. Something in her said "No way!" My FIL was working on a doctoral thesis on healing prayer (Which became a bestselling book called Healing the Sick) so they started praying for her, every day for a year an a half. After that she decided that since God gave her back her uterus he could use it as he wanted and had 5 more children before she was no longer able to conceive.
Me, I have three. I've never used birth control, we do use the Billings Method and it really works, we do use it to prevent and time pregnancies. Here is where I am on the whole idea of trusting God for your family:
When I was engaged to my husband we more than toyed with the idea of trusting God to decide our family size. We were willing to do so at the time, he is the eldest of 8 and my parents are both from families of 8 or more. I prayed about it a fair amount. At the same time we were learning the Billings Method of Natural Family planning. Eventually I concluded, I believe with God's guidance, that, for me anyway, to choose to ignore what I know about my cycle and how it is possible, without altering or damaging my body in any way or using abortive hormones to prevent and plan pregnancies, to blithely conceive with no thought for whether our budget, marriage, my body or our existing children are able to handle it would be just as foolhardy and irresponsible as it would be to sit at home all day on the couch and "trusting God" to pay the rent instead of using the gifts God has already given me to earn enough to pay the rent. We remain open to more children and sort of go with the "We're not done yet" feeling in planning for more chidren, but we plan not to plan when we feel ready to take on yet another pregnancy, and baby.
That said, I am bothered to no end by the child-free movement, by people who think that people should stop having children. I whole heartedly believe that children are blessings and that finances should not be the greatest factor when it comes to making that kind of decision. But it is a decision. God gave us cycles and minds to understand them and monitor them and to a certain degree control them and be responsible for them. As the pope himself has said, and I'm not Catholic, natural birth control should only be used for serious reasons. But there are serious reasons and one shouldn't neglect them if one ought to be considering them. I am not sure if we will have any more biological children, pregnancy is difficult for my family, and my marriage, I go through extreme pre-partum depression and my husband finds it extremely hard to live with but I constantly consider foster parenting and adopting as alternative ways to grow our family.
Does that help?
Posted by: carrien | August 30, 2007 7:50 PM
The night before my wedding, my father-in-law, an evangelical pastor, called me aside to ask if we had taken care of "planning," meaning birth control. I assured him I'd done my duty, gone to the doctor, and started taking the pill in plenty of time to avoid any "accidents." A couple months into our marriage, we were part of a discussion about the pill being an abortifacient. I went to the public library, pill box in hand, and looked up my drug in a huge perscription dictionary (this is before the days of easy internet access ;) Of course, I found out that indeed, that was the case, and with my husband's blessing, I stopped taking the pill that day.
Interestingly enough, we still didn't consider the thought that God would want to speak into our ideas on birth control and children in general. Shortly after this we accepted a position overseas with a large evangelical missions agency that required (not "requested" mind you) that we not have children for the two year duration of our assignment. It wasn't long before I realized how this very decision isolated us from the population we were trying to reach, but still, we didn't ask God and continued to use non-pharmaceutical conception prevention.
After being back in the States about a year (and working towards repairing our very out of balance marriage...another reason we didn't really think about having kids), we stopped using birth control and "tried" to get pregnant for six months. Shortly after our daughter was born, I was exposed to a group of hardcore (!) Full Quiver ladies at Bible Study...honestly I was absolutely intrigued by them and their ideas. It took another year or so, and my husband and I came to our conclusions on a different time frame, but I waited on God to lead him to the conclusion that God wanted us to have children with open arms. And then came the dreaded "secondary infertility." After being blessed with 2 wonderful children, we learned the hard way that it is ultimately and always God who opens, and closes the womb for his glory. Four years and two or three miscarriages later, we are 5 months into the pregnancy with our third child. I'm 32 now, which I know isn't "old"...but I can not help but regret the years we ignored God, His Word, and honestly, just thought and acted like the world on this issue. More than anything, I just wish young Christian couples would be willing to ask God from the get go. As Barbabra said, I don't want to assume that God has the same plan for every family, but we should all ask Him and be willing to obey.
Posted by: Jacqueline | August 30, 2007 9:37 PM
Well, we're Catholic, so it won't be useful for your story...
I was in a PhD program too, in biology. We were married just a month before I started. I assumed I wanted to be a high-powered professor, have 2 kids at some point, and stick 'em in daycare or have a nanny.
Let's all laugh at me now. :)
The pill made me crazy, literally. I tried a number of different ones, but I gained weight, got moody, lost my sex drive completely, and felt very unhealthy. The final straw was twofold. 1) The pill made my eyes so dry I couldn't wear my heavy prescription hard contacts, required for me to do anything in life, and 2) We heard the news that the pill can cause abortions.
So, I quit the pill. We tried some other methods that we hated or that hurt me. And then we remembered that mandatory NFP "it's so great!" meeting they made us attend before we got married. We signed up for the how-to classes, but I was a huge skeptic with a bad, bad attitude. Nonetheless, the class convinced me on a totally scientific level that this would work and be natural.
Little did I know how much the pill really changes your mind until I stopped it! Within 6 months, I felt healthy, had lost weight, got my sex drive back....and wanted a baby. Badly. Now. So, throwing caution to the wind, we got pregnant and had a son. Our families were a little disturbed (I was 24).
Our son had terrible colic. I really didn't like being a mom. I gratefully got a nanny and went back to school at 4 months. Then, he outgrew colic. He started loving the nanny. A lot. Ouch. I realized I didn't want that. I didn't want someone else being his "mom". So, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I told my dh I wanted to quit school when our son was 1 year old. I walked away with a 4 year masters degree (ha ha on me again) and the firm desire to be at home.
I do science/medical writing from home, which is great, lucrative, and part-time, and I'm a mom to 2 kids now, almost 3 kids (due in Dec.). We still use NFP. It transformed us. I came for the science of it--it works--and I found myself changed forever. Now we want to adopt a child or children after we have #3 baby, from foster care. God is calling us loud and clear to adopt from DSS.
NFP changed our marriage, and how we view children, forever. I never would have read a blog like this one, Barbara, in my pre-NFP life!
good luck with the story.
Posted by: Jill (colicmommy) | August 31, 2007 8:22 AM
We are Protestant, perhaps could be labeled evangelical--I'm not sure.
I come from a non-Christian background and was promiscuous and part of the liberal culture for a long time. I had no problems with premarital sex or birth control. I became a Christian in December 2001 and since then have only had sex after I got married to my husband. At first we were still using birth control, initially to control ovarian cysts. Once I found that the hormonal birth control contributed to depression for me, we searched for alternatives and the physician suggested trying Natural Family Planning. Delving into that opened our eyes to a whole different way of viewing our fertility.
We had felt 'not ready' to have children, but after reading more on the topic realized we would never feel totally ready, and that having children was a blessing. So we left it up to God and conceived my 9 month old daughter. She is such a blessing!
I have not yet had a post-partum menstrual cycle, but am looking forward to conceiving again. When the time comes when we feel we should space our children more, we will return to using Natural Family Planning.
Posted by: Misty | August 31, 2007 11:44 AM
Lucy,
Thank you for sharing your story. It reminded me that while my heart might have wanted more, it must have not been in God's plan for us. I feel guilt sometimes, as if I didn't trust Him enough. You reminded me that while I was open to more (sometimes), God had a different path for me.
Posted by: Christian Faith | August 31, 2007 8:19 PM
Hi Barbara. My husband and I are evangelical Christians (and Canadians, if that matters) who have committed ourselves to giving God control over our family planning (ie. no birth control) until or unless he tells us otherwise. We were married in 2000 and I took birth control pills for about 2 and half years, because that was just "common sense" and what all my married friends were doing. During that time I had a strong desire to have a baby but felt that we "couldn't", as we were both still in school, had a lot of student loan debt, and were quite young (we were both 20 yrs old when we got married). But gradually there grew in my heart just a sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with taking the pill, so I began to research it and was greatly disturbed by the possibility of it acting as an abortifacient an unknown percentage of the time. I also felt like God was confronting me with the fact that I was holding on to my fears rather than trusting him to provide for us in all circumstances - I was so afraid to let go of the pill and possibly get pregnant, even though I wanted a baby, because I didn't know how we would manage. But, I quit taking it anyways in April 2003 and by June I was pregnant. I was scared, but so happy to become a mommy in March 2004. God has been so faithful to us, providing for our needs and working out the timing of our work/school schedules so that we have always been able to cope. After our son was born, I tried to use the Billings method of natural family planning but was frustrated by the fact that I was breastfeeding and my cycles were so irregular. I just couldn't figure out for sure when I was ovulating and it was adding a lot of stress into my marriage. Eventually I gave up using it, realizing that in reality I was still just trying to control things on my own timetable rather than God's. Our second child was born in November 2005. After she was born, I again started trying to use the Billings method, determined to figure it out this time (stubborn girl, aren't I?)but God gave me a clear and compelling sense that enough was enough already, I needed to trust him completely or I was going to drive myself crazy with stress and worry over this issue. My husband and I wrote and signed a "vow" or commitment that we would not use any birth control unless God made it clear to both of us that it was ok. And about a month later, I became pregnant again. So, I am now about a week away from my due date with our 3rd child. To be honest I am a little scared, I feel overwhelmed sometimes with just 2 children and I can't imagine having 12(!), but I know that God knows what is best and that he will guide and provide for our family one step at a time. I should add that the process of coming to terms with trusting God in this area has been (and still is!) a real struggle for me, but that my husband's opinion ever since I quit taking the pill was that I needed to trust God, already, and stop worrying. He is confident in God's love for us and does not worry about the money, the stress and strain of raising children the way I do. I should have listened to him sooner.
Posted by: Jennifer | September 1, 2007 1:14 AM
Thank you all for sharing your stories with me. I have gleaned a lot and have much to pray over. I truly want what God wants for my husband and I, and did not realize how much I have been influenced by my past and the culture around me. I have taken myself down a path that I can see now is contrary to my original design and I want to do differently now. I did not realize until a couple of months ago when I had a miscarriage after 8 years of infertility, that all I had built in the world meant nothing to me.
Joy Davis
Posted by: Joy Davis | September 1, 2007 3:54 AM
My husband and I have rejected birth control since before our marriage. It was one of the first questions asked at the beginning of our courtship, as it is very important to have the same beliefs when it comes to that!
My husband is from Ethiopia and lived through the famines and the civil war. He is one of nine bio children (long after he was grown his mother ended up adopting a foster child she'd been caring for). His father was an itinerant evangelist there, and because he was gone when the communists "distributed" the land, he lost his family farm. They lived on a tiny stipend and whatever they could grow. As a young man my husband wrestled with the idea and searched for a way to justify birth control, as his growing up years had been rough. But he couldn't. So we are married 5 years and have three precious, adorable, wonderful little boys.
We are evangelical (and a little bit charismatic) and find ourselves looked upon by our co-evangelicals as very strange indeed.
Posted by: Margaret | September 1, 2007 7:36 PM
I always knew I wanted a big family. I also always knew I wanted to stay home, with that big family. When I got married in 2000, DH and I opted for the money and I went to work. DH wanted to wait for children so I reluctantly went on the pill. I prayed for two years straight to get off of the pill, while respecting DHs wishes. Finally he decided we could start trying. I promptly went off the pill. In the meantime we were both strongly convicted and felt led to ask forgiveness for our disobedience. See, we both felt like we should trust God with our fertility, yet we chose not to. Complications set in after I went off of the pill. I went almost a whole year with no cycle. When I finally started to get a cycle it was a rare thing. I would go up to three months with nothing. I was slightly irregular before going on the pill maybe missing a month every now and then, but this was completely new. When I asked my Dr about it he promised me that the pill had nothing to do with it. In my heart I think it did. Now I am regular and have been for maybe 2 years. We still have not gotten pregnant. In 2006 we adopted five children from the foster care system. In 2007 I was diagnosed with PCOS and Stage 2 Diabetes. We are working to get all of that under control in hopes that we can one day conceive a biological child.
My husband will tell you today that he thinks a lot of our infertility is due to our disobedience. Not that God is punishing us per se, but we are dealing with consequences. We have totally committed to God to allow Him to give us more children or not. The not part is the hardest for me. :)
I try to tell my friends and family about our experience with birth control.
We read the scriptures. We knew the truth and we turned our backs. I dont judge others for their choice of BC, but I do share with them our choice and why.
I read somewhere once a great explanation of the scripture that talks about the quiver full of arrows. (Im typing fast and trying to get the kids prepared for church tomorrow, Im sorry I cant look up the reference) When you go into battle against an enemy do you want one or two arrows or a whole bunch? As Christians we are battling everyday against an enemy so that made great sense to me.
I dont know if this is what you are looking for. But any opportunity I have to share our story I will.
I cant wait to read the final outcome.
Posted by: Julie | September 1, 2007 8:26 PM
Julie,
I also have PCOS; we never used birth control, partly because I always sensed something was wrong with me; it started with the normal stuff teens go through, only my symptoms gradually grew worse over time.
But let me put your (or hubby's) mind to rest: if you have PCOS, you had it long before you took birth control. It tends to show up not long after puberty. And it often worsens over time--and the pills would have masked your symptoms because that's the traditional treatment for the condition (they have recently discovered a common diabetes medicine greatly alleviates the symptoms for many patients with PCOS and that's what I'm on.)
I can see how going off the pills would send you for such a loop physically, but they did not cause the PCOS (which, as I hope your doctor told you, DID cause the diabetes, the root causes are interlinked.)
Anyway, to the initial question: My husband was active prolifer (I was an ignorant benchwarmer) so he was well aware of the abortifcant effects of BC and informed me early in our engagement. We were pressured to use condoms and such (His dad did his best to force us to use them) but by the time the heat came on, we already had our marching orders. As I said, I'd always had a sense of it, so it wasn't a surprise when the Lord told us not to waste our money--He'd closed my womb, and He'd open it again in His time.
On our honeymoon, I found a magazine with an article about a woman with PCOS and discovered my problem had a name. More than four years went by before the word rolled off a doctor's lips. I finally started getting treatment last January.
We've been waiting five years now for the fulfillment of God's promise, and we've never used any form of birth control/family planning. And we never will. Regardless, we plan to adopt as He gives us opportunity as well.
We're evangelicals, and when we hear young couples we know making fun of people with large families (they're usually mormon in our area) and that kind of thing, it makes me want to scream. I would love to have one. We have six names picked out (three girls' and three boys') and only faith and a promise to show whether we'll ever have any.
Posted by: Andrea | September 3, 2007 12:51 AM
Barbara, I am Catholic so my story wouldn't help your research specifically. However, I do want to say that Natural Family Planning is NOT Catholic birth control. It is a way of spacing births using the natural rhythms of our cycles. Catholics are not to use NFP except for "serious reasons". Couples are to discern for themselves the reasons that are, for them, serious enough to not have another child at this time. Due to the failure of our Church to properly teach my husband and me the moral reasons why we should not use artificial birth control, we did use birth control off and on during he first 12 years of our marriage. From this experience, I understand why artificial birth control is a marriage buster. When we finally learned why artificial birth control was wrong, we never again used it. We had 5 more children after learning this and have 10 children total. (Our youngest has Down Syndrome and so your blog is especially interesting to me.) Anyway, practicing NFP requires communication, self control, selflessness, and true love. This is why couple who use NFP have a less than 1% divorce rate. This also causes the couple to grow in virtue which causes the heart to enlarge and soften, and then, it is quite hard to not want more children because hearts open to God's grace want to cooperate with God's grace and with his power to create new life. Children are truly seen as "gifts" and not burdens. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "children are the supreme gift of marriage." With a firm understanding of the supreme gift of marriage, it is no wonder that a couple who practices NFP has many children. In conclusion, I would like to refer you to a book by Kimberly Hahn entitled "Life-Giving Love". She was an Evangelical when she first discovered, while researching a paper on if artificial birth control could be wrong, that all Protestant churches prohibited artificial birth control until 1930 when the Anglican Church, at their Lambeth Conference in England first approved artificial birth control for only the most serious reasons. Her research led her to understand and believe why the Catholic Church is the only Church today that still condemns artificial birth control. She eventually became Catholic. Hers is a powerful testimony and I think you would greatly enjoy her book, available through Servant Publications.
Keep writing your blog, Barbara, you truly give of yourself and that is why we all love you! May God bless you! Julie
Posted by: Julie | September 5, 2007 1:45 AM
I somehow missed this the first time around!
My husband and I have been off birth control for about 2 years. After my son was born prematurely, my husband and I were convinced that we couldn't have another child anytime soon. We immediately went on progesterone only birth control pills. Apparently, it is a common practice to put nursing mothers on these pills because, unlike combination pills, the POP's do not interfer with lactation.
At the time my husband and I were pro-life, but not particularly active or informed on the issue. I still thought Planned Parenthood was a benevolent institution that helped poor women! After doing some research we realized that the POP's I was taking very likely were changing the lining of my uterus and turning it into a very inhospitable environment for any newly conceived children.
We immediately threw out the pills. After that we used some fertility awareness methods to "space" our children. After several months of this, we decided to start trying for another addition to our family. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to maintain any pregnancy since we began "trying".
This has shifted our understanding of our fertility and made us realize that we are not in control. This realization has led to us leaving our fertility in God's hands and not doing anything to hinder or help it through medical intervention.
Furthermore, we have begun to realize that the heart of the birth control matter for us was an unwillingness to trust in God. Abandoning control in this area has inabled us to grow in our spiritual walk.
Posted by: Lauren | September 5, 2007 11:52 AM
I've never used contraception-before I was a Christian it was because something about filling my body with artificial hormones scared me. Who knew about the long term effects? Hormones are so delicately balanced, and bad things happen when man thinks he can make it better.
After I got married we have never used anything except condoms, and those only after my last baby-i had a really high risk pregnancy and needed to lose about 50 pounds- 15 left to go!
I have never gotten pregnant unless I wanted too-i have 3 beautiful daughters and I can't wait to shed this last 15 pounds so we can get started on another one!
Posted by: sara | September 5, 2007 12:24 PM
I am a Catholic who was pro-birth control until my dear husband helped me learn to trust our fertility to the Lord, as we entrusted Him with the rest of our lives at our wedding.
I have an article in the upcoming issue of "Celebrate Life" magazine entitled, "True Love is Pro-Life" where I tell the story of how the Lord provided for our family's needs as we trusted our family size to Him.
God gives the very best to those who leave the choice to Him.
Posted by: Leticia Velasquez | September 5, 2007 2:10 PM
I believe I finally have time to share my story here. :)
We had two children, perfectly planned. We weren't sure about a third, still equivocating when - surprise! - we were expecting her despite our best efforts and doubling up on birth control.
We were Christians, raised in Christian homes, but still were taught by our generation and those before us that children were a burden, not a blessing. We lived in an urban area where having a third child was considered crazy. I mean, how could we afford a home in the subdivision and a second car if we had more children than that?
We waited a few more years, and had baby number four. But that was IT! I was TIRED, and OVERWORKED! I remember being so angry at a mama of five who mentioned to me that our fourth was too young to consider stopping having children. How dare she? How could she know how hard I worked with these kids. (I had four, but I didn't enjoy them much.)
So, we scheduled a vasectomy. God began moving mightily in my heart, and it was Him alone. I had no support, didn't read materials relating to the blessing of children, nothing, except the scriptures. I finally realized how much women of the Bible wanted children. I realized that not a one of them ever said, "I am tired. I think I am done." I realized that I never read, "God's plan was for Jedidiah and Miriam was to have 2 children, so they had surgery to keep them from having more. And Miriam felt okay with that." Nope. They prayed for more children. God himself called children a blessing!
Grief set in. I cried for weeks, not really knowing why. I finally realized I was grieving the children I might never know. I was grieving the concept of breaking my husband's body - something that God himself designed to work properly. We weren't "broken" to be fruitful - we were doing what God designed us to do!
The night before my husband's scheduled surgery, I finally collapsed in his arms and begged him to not have the surgery. He gently listened to me, and agreed. He didn't really want the surgery. He was doing it because he thought I wanted it, because I was so miserable with pregnancy and because children were so hard to raise. He made the statement: "I will never have surgery to prevent children. If we have 8 children, we have 8 children." I think we both cringed, because neither of us at that time wanted 8 children. :)
Well, I am working on baby number 8, due in November. And we both desire this little one very much. Each child has enriched our lives, has deepened and matured us, and has drawn us out of our selfishness. Yes, it is hard sometimes. Yes, pregnancy is a hardship, both on me and my husband at times. But it brings forth an eternal soul, and It. Is. Worth. It. :)
God has even given us a name for each child born since that time. Some names are given before we conceive or before we know we are pregnant. It is so good to trust in Him and His perfect timing.
Posted by: Holly | September 6, 2007 2:59 PM
Sorry that it's taken me so long to respond - I was busy having baby number 4!
When we married we planned on waiting until we were in our thirties to have one baby (a girl) - we were 21 and 23 at the time. within a year the pill was causing me so many health problems that I started looking into other options and that's when we discovered that most hormonal bc could cause a miscarriage. Being pro-life, we couldn't live with that. God used that experience to lead us to study scripture and discover what a blessing children are. We spent the next three years trying to get pregnant only to discover that we really didn't have any control over whether or not we had a baby. When I finally gave God total control - vowing to praise Him even if we never had a child - we wound up pregnant the next month and He's blessed us three more times in the last six years!
Posted by: Shannon Miller | September 9, 2007 10:02 AM
Sorry it has taken me so long to get around to responding....a bit busy!
I was raised in a Christian home but, like many that have already written, it seemed that the perfect family was 1 boy and 1 girl. There was a family who had six kids but I can remember that people almost thought this was distastful!
We are a family that would be considered evangelical Christians.
I'll start at the beginning when we got married. Like everyone I knew I started taking the BCP although stopped after a short time as It really affected my moods and sex drive. We used a bariier method. I can remember so wanting a baby but just reasoned that I liked the idea not the reality! I prayed and felt that God was saying "not yet". I remember raising the subject with my husband on a long drive from seeing my parents. He said, "Let's ask God!" We did and Pete said he felt we should stop using contraception. Three months later I was pregnant which was the in the Fall of 1997.
I won't bore you with my obstetric history because that is not what you want to know but to tell you that I gave birth to my fourth child in March 2004. All my children have been born by c-section for medical reasons. I was offered a sterilization during the birth of no. 4 which I declined but was told that it was probably wise to leave off having any more babies
As far as I was concerned this was it. I gave away everything baby related when we had finished with it... clothes, equipment, maternity clothes, etc. My Dad asked if it was it when no. 4 was about 1 day old! He was so worried about the fact that I had 4 sections and everyone he knew had freaked him out about it! He told Pete that a vasectomy was a great operation!
After Becca was about 1 year old there started to be, in my mind, little questions "is this it?" "why is this it?" " What does God have to say here?" The questions prompted a journey, during which I found you! It struck me that I was fearful of what my doctors would say, not to mention our families. I was frightened of dying and having another section. I was frightened of not feeling in control of my life, although I am not sure why I ever thought I was!The biggest thing that struck me was that we have tried to be a family that has talked with God about our lives and the things we should be doing. Here we were saying that we weren't even going to ask God just make the decision ourselves....strange really! I know that God gives us authority to make many day to day decisions within our realms of responsibility but I just couldn't manage to put family size in that box.
I can remember trying to talk to a Christian friend about it and saying that maybe if we are trying to trust God in our lives that children were part of that. Her reply was, "That would be a foolish thing to do because it's obvious what the answer to that is...God sees children as a blessing so He is going to want you to have more!" I was so shocked at her response... ask God something is foolish because he will want to bless us!
I read this once..." The Bible says that debt is a curse and children are a blessing. We apply for curses and take medication to prevent blessing!"
During this time I have embraced being a mother to a greater degree; learned to lay my life down for them, and God, more and thus gain it (and more) back; to see that God's wisdom really is foolishness to the wise; to pour myself into these little people because this is what discipleship is about. In the middle of all this I was praying that God would show me the truth and it would set me free. I was praying for my husband too!
As I gave it to God it was as if He set my steps out on the journey,and I came across more and more, without really looking, about contraception and family size. Out of the blue, one day, my husband said, "So do you think that four children is it?"...this was about a year ago. I nearly fell over! We prayed and, although I had not shared any of my journey with him, he said that he felt our family wasn't finished.
So here I am pregnant although only 2 months gone. No one, other than my husband knows. I am not looking forward to the fight I am going to have when I say I am not accepting a c-section as inevitable. I am not really looking forward to telling our family although I am sure most of our friends will not be surprised! I am excited to think that I am part of God's divine plan, being part of the creation process, partnering with God.
I am trying to rest in my God.To live in the reality that I am no more, or less, in control of anything than I was before I had this life growing inside me.
I have friends who have not been able to have biological children. I have friends who have been blessed with one but for reasons only God knows haven't had any more.I have friends who are not in the same place as I am in all this. They feel that they couldn't cope with a bigger family because of things God has already called them into. I don't know what to say in this situation. I know that if Abraham had told me he was going to sacrifice my son I would have definitely told him he had heard God wrong! There is a lot of things in the Bible I wouldn't think God would do but He did. There are still many things I think God wouldn't say to people but He does.
This is our journey and above all I want to walk it with my God and have my life bring Him glory.
Sheryl
Posted by: Sheryl | September 12, 2007 7:19 AM
I was 24 years old and just a few months away from getting married when the Lord began to work in my heart concerning birth control and being truly open to every life that he wanted to give to me.
I was a very committed & passionate young woman who was serving as the youth pastor to hundreds of "on fire" radical teenagers. I considered myself extremely pro life and wanted to do everything within my power to stop the atrocity of abortion in our country. In many ways I was different than the average church going evangelical yet I found myself buying into the "planned parenthood" mentality of our days. I was engaged to be married to an awesome godly young man and we both agreed that the plan would be for me to begin taking the birth control pill a few months before we got married and then we would wait several years, go off the pill and have perhaps two children, a boy & a girl, and then be done.
Then I was challenged to completely rethink my beliefs. The Lord literally threw out questions rapid fire, one after another in my mind –
Have you ever considered asking Me what the plan for your life should be?
How about asking Me how many children I want to give you?
Do you believe that children are a blessing from Me? Why do you want to put a limit on my blessings?
Do you believe that I know and will give you the very best for your life?
Do you want birth control in your life or God control? (ouch…this one stung!)
Who is in control of your life anyway?
Do you trust me? (yes Lord I answered!) Do you really trust me with everything? (of course I do!) Do you trust me with this? (well.......)
I felt like I was in some type of wrestling match with the Lord as He tried to get me to release control of my life and give my plans over to become His plans. (Thy will be done) But when I was ready to stop arguing with Him and really listen He gently reminded me to just relax and trust Him…for He truly had an abundant life for me to live. At that moment I gave up my plans for my family size to the Lord and ditched my "planned parenthood" plans.
A month later I learned that the birth control pill was an abortifacient. (well documented and researched) I was appalled that no believer had shared this with me and I got down on my knees and thanked the Lord that I had never "accidentally" aborted a baby. With my heart & passion for the unborn that would have been difficult for me to live with.
On our wedding day we publicly affirmed & committed to bringing children into the world to glorify God. (to the snickers & laughter of many of our Christian friends) During our 21 years of marriage we have trusted God. We have prayed at times for the Lord to give us a "breather" (after we had 4 children in 6 years) and recently we prayed & pleaded with the Lord for over 3 years to bless us with yet another sweet baby to love.(and He did!) Children came at what others considered "bad times" (one during my hubby's last year in Bible school, several back to back which really seems to bug people, another when we were unemployed and had taken on a challenge of starting a Christian school, and of course the many concerns of a post 40 year old pregnancy that many think is a poor choice) but we see that God's timing was perfect with each one. Through it all we chose "God control" over birth control and ultimately said…"thy will be done".
The results….we have been blessed with just seven awesome children. (6 girls – 18, 15, 13, 12, 8, 4 and a boy 5 months) They have brought more love, joy & peace into our lives than we could have ever imagined. (as well producing other fruit of the spirit – patience & self control - we didn't start with these!) I only wish everyone could experience the goodness of God that being open to life brings. And we are ready, willing & wanting to take any more that the Lord sends our way. (to the utter amazement & sometimes dismay of most of the Christians around us.)
Posted by: Beth Lambdin | September 15, 2007 11:15 AM
I am a Christian, that would fall into the class of evangelical.
When I first got married, my husband and I decided that birth control was the best option for us. Even though we weren't ready for a child, after 2 years the Lord convicted me in this area. Basically, by taking a pill every morning I was taking control of something that the Lord wanted me to entrust to Him. From a practical sense, it was the worst time to get off birth control, we had just moved and we had no insurance. The Lord wanted me to trust Him completely though, even when it isn't practical.
I stopped taking the pill, and looked into natural family planning. We did this for a few months, and was almost certain that we would get pregnant. Do you know what they call couples who us natural family planning? parents. Well that's the joke, but I know that this can be a viable option for couples if done right.
I started graduate school, thinking that every semester that I got behind me before we had a baby, was one less semester that I would have to do as a mom. During this time we went from "let's see what happens" to "trying". Before I knew it, I was graduating, and still no baby. We then went to the doctor to see what was wrong. To summarize, 6 infertility treatment cycles and 2 miscarriages later, I finally gave birth this past July to our daughter. It was a difficult 4 1/2 years, wanting a child and feeling helpless in the process. Through it all, the Lord taught me to trust Him and gave me a reverence for Him as the author of life. I am so grateful that I got off birth control when I did. If I would have waited until we wanted one, then it would have been that much longer. My husband and I have chosen to no longer use contraception, and trust that the Lord will bring us children as He desires. In the midst of it all, we also started the adoption process and there is still a possibility that we may adopt an older child. People ask us how many children we would like to have, and to be honest we don't have an answer. We are trusting Him to fill our quiver as He desires.
Posted by: Kristy C | September 30, 2007 3:52 PM
hello!! My dear husband and I are actual practicing Catholics - we do not use birth control, nor have either of us ever. The closest we came was practicing Natural Family Planning for the first two months of our marriage in January 2007. We are now expecting our first child - due March 2008 and we are not going to use any birth control, ever. We will HAPPILY accept as many children as our Lord blesses us with. My dear husband was born to his mother at the age of 45 - the seventh child. His only married sister has thirteen children and is still welcoming blessings from God at 41.
We love truly trusting our Lord, especially in the fertility that He has blessed us with. We try to share this message with others. Please let us know if there is any way we can help your ministry!
Posted by: Sarina | October 11, 2007 8:53 PM
My husband is a Presbyterian, PC(USA) minister. The sermon for which he received the most negative feedback of his whole career was when he preached about letting God decide your family makeup, he never mentioned having 10 children, not using birth control, but this subject enraged people more then any other.
When we married I was 25 and he was 36, from the get go he made it clear that he believed in NFP so we took the course, read the books etc. I became very frustrated that almost all the material was Catholic oriented.
I did find a book called "Open Embrace" from the protestant perspective that followed this belief, later I became very disenchanted when after a few children the authors reneged on their belief. I became pregnant after a few months of marriage and Matthew is almost 2. I'll be honest I thought I'd have a second baby by now and expecting a third, but so far just one. Never let a spirit of fear keep you from right.
Posted by: Lela | October 11, 2007 11:06 PM
We are Bible believing Christians, married almost 4 years with a wonderful 14 month old son. We are on the journey of asking God what He would have us to do regarding our family size.
I have to admit that it kind of bugs me when people say "I don't think I could trust God with my family size" and dismiss the issue without further thought or consideration, but in the same way, it bugs me when others say, "I'm trusting God with my family size" and do the same thing - dismiss the issue without further thought.
Shouldn't "trusting God with our family size" mean that in the same way that we declare our dependence on Him to lead us in making other decisions, and trust Him to guide our every step, we trust Him with our family size?
Anyway, for us, it's a day to day question of "Lord, what would you have us to do?" This has definitely been a journey! We use fertility awareness for the sake of knowing where I am in my (very irregular) cycles and for a more accurate due date for any future children God would choose to bless us with. We are excited to see how God will continue to lead us in this area - it is the desire of our hearts to have many children, but more than that, we desire to have hearts constantly seeking Him and His will for us.
Posted by: Jen M | October 12, 2007 11:31 AM
We are Kory and Cara, protestant in background, and have been married 14 months. We have one 5 month old baby boy. If you do the math (as many do :)), he is a honeymoon baby, born 2 days after our 9 month anniversary. By the grace of God alone, we have been "quiverful" from day one. The road there was certainly very interesting. Both of us come from small families (I have one sister and he has two siblings) and, actually, I didn't want ANY children until about two years before we got married. Around the same time I was coming around to the idea of having children, my husband was in a biomedical ethics class. They had to research a topic and defend a position. For some reason (God's nudging), he chose the topic of birth control. He was shocked and very intrigued by the information he found about various types of birth control. He shared his paper with me and my interest was piqued. I did my own scripture hunting and general research. We happened upon the QF website and read a few books they recommended. Hours of research and prayer later, we came to the silently conclusion that birth control was taking CONTROL and we needed to trust God with all areas of our lives. The topic went on the back burner because we weren't even engaged, but 1 1/2 years later it came back up. It was a huge leap of faith but one we felt we could not afford NOT to take. We have never used birth control and it has been the most freeing decision. We love our baby boy and he could not have come at a more perfect time. We look forward to many more, if God so chooses to bless us!
Posted by: Cara F | October 12, 2007 3:38 PM
I know I'm a little behind in commenting, but we're very new to the Qf mindset. After we became christians 3 years ago, I first heard of being QF and did a bit of research. However my husband and I both basically dismissed it as crazy. Every so often, though, I'd get the itch and start reading about it again, trying to get to know families (mostly on the internet) who thought this way. After the birth of our 4th child two months ago, I was outright convicted. After much discussion with my wonderful husband and much prayer on my part, he has come around and we have made the decision that God is in charge of our family size. Hilarious of course, since He's in charge anyways. We just admitted it out loud. LOL
Posted by: Sandy | October 27, 2007 4:04 PM
I am grateful for blogs like this and others that encourage me. I actually stopped using birth control 5 years ago and I have 5 children. But that doesn't mean I don't practice another way of birth control. Not with any medicines though. I track my ovulation. I've had 5 kids in 7 years and I am 28. But because no family supports me on this, it's hard for me to hear the comments. I get ridiculed sometimes. I hope that I am a good enough mom to have more. I never really imagined having a big family. but once I found out the joy of children and how much they changed me, I love the new me verses the woman before and I'd never go back. Hopefully, soon I will be brave enough to homeschool. :)
Posted by: Virginia | October 28, 2007 1:35 AM
