Fear/Worry vs. Trust

[goravens]

I could really use some sound advice and prayers. My husband and I have been married for a year and a half. Late this spring we decided we would start being a little “less careful” with our nfp rules in hopes of starting a family (we postponed previously due to me starting graduate school, mainly.) This is something we’ve talked about and been excited about from when we were first married - even before then.

Although I was really excited to start with, within the past two months I’ve really hit some sort of wall in which I’m scared to death of getting pregnant. A lot of it has to do with my schedule this fall, particularly as it has gotten closer. I work a full-time job and will be taking 2 classes and a practicum as part of my grad school. It will total up to 40 hours a week for my job, and about 20 for school without including study time. That’s something that has been worrying me more lately, and I’m typically not a worrier. There are two full, fairly grueling years left of school for me to finish and a part of me is afraid I cannot handle it and won’t finish when we have a baby. But more than that, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stay at home with our child and really enjoy them, or be a good mom because of that. It probably would not be affordable for my husband and I.

I’m really torn, and feel like my emotions change constantly in this area (not that I want to base a decision like this on emotion, of course). My husband has wanted to start having kids from the very beginning of our marriage and I feel as though I’d disappoint him if we waited longer. I want to trust in God that He will provide for us. Right now, this is robbing my joy.

Is it significant that my strongest feelings about throwing caution to the wind and getting pregnant come when we are at Mass, and see so many beautiful families?

Thank you in advance to all who respond!

 

[Arlene]

God will give you a child when it is best for you to have one. And if that means right now, then he will give you the means to provide for it. Being open to life means trusting God’s timing, not yours. Even if you got pregnant now you could still finish out the semester. Make your plans, go to school, and if God grants you a pregnancy, then alter your plans. You may end up being one of those people who have to try for years. But trust God.

Arlene

 

[Princess_Abby]

Every soul that has been and ever will be is accounted for by God. He has known for all of eternity when you will become pregnant and when you will enjoy a new baby as parents. You can’t surprise God! He is totally in control.

Just be sure to truly discern your circumstances and be comfortable with the decision. Don’t become pregnant beacuse you feel guilty over NOT being pregnant.

 

[puzzleannie]

you are focusing on the next few months and those goals, and not on your entire life, its purpose and meaning, and how that has changed now that you are married. Goal setting, planning are done as a couple and with a view to discovering and cooperating with God’s plan for you as a family. Your fundamental difficulty, as with all those who contemplate using any type of fertility control, is failure to trust in God. What that failure of trust leads to is the mentality that your body, mind, talents, abilities etc. are given to you so that you may “fulfill yourself and succeed in life” whatever that means. It usually means meeting some goal dictated by the standards of the world. As Mother Teresa says, we are not called to self-fulfillment but to fidelity.

As long as the marriage bed is regarded as a place primarily for the individuals to satisfy their sexual urgings, rather than as the altar of the domestic church, this attitude will infect every area of your marriage and family life. To the extent that fertility control of any type attempts to dictate to God how your life will proceed, and has as its aim enabling sexual expression to the exclusion of all other goods, you will be in a rocky situation.

Until mutual self-giving and trust and cooperation with God’s will become the bedrock of marriage, marriages will be incomplete and ultimately fail. We have the evidence of 75 years of the contraceptive mentality in marriage to prove it. We also have the combined experience of Catholics in my generation, the first to embrace the “sex is god” mentality of the sexual revolution and apply it to our marriages and families. learn from our failures and sadness.

 

[goravens]

puzzleannie:

you are focusing on the next few months and those goals, and not on your entire life, its purpose and meaning, and how that has changed now that you are married. Goal setting, planning are done as a couple and with a view to discovering and cooperating with God’s plan for you as a family. Your fundamental difficulty, as with all those who contemplate using any type of fertility control, is failure to trust in God. What that failure of trust leads to is the mentality that your body, mind, talents, abilities etc. are given to you so that you may “fulfill yourself and succeed in life” whatever that means. It usually means meeting some goal dictated by the standards of the world. As Mother Teresa says, we are not called to self-fulfillment but to fidelity.

As long as the marriage bed is regarded as a place primarily for the individuals to satisfy their sexual urgings, rather than as the altar of the domestic church, this attitude will infect every area of your marriage and family life. To the extent that fertility control of any type attempts to dictate to God how your life will proceed, and has as its aim enabling sexual expression to the exclusion of all other goods, you will be in a rocky situation.

Until mutual self-giving and trust and cooperation with God’s will become the bedrock of marriage, marriages will be incomplete and ultimately fail. We have the evidence of 75 years of the contraceptive mentality in marriage to prove it. We also have the combined experience of Catholics in my generation, the first to embrace the “sex is god” mentality of the sexual revolution and apply it to our marriages and families. learn from our failures and sadness.

I always appreciate your perspective, puzzleannie, and thank you for your advice. I’ll agree with you that trust has been lacking in this area - and I do believe it has everything to do with my/mine and my husband’s relationship with God and time spent in prayer. As you also said, it’s really important for me to see the big picture which is something that need work from me. I need to take a step back at times and get out of the immediate moment.

Some of your comments really hurt, as my husband and I have very prayerfully tried to discern God’s will for us with starting a family. Maybe part of it’s that I did not share enough for you to get an accurate perspective. The reason I’m in graduate school for example, is not because of a desire to “fullfill myself and succeed in life” selfishly and “meet a goal dictated by standards of this world.” Rather, I’m in school to put our family in a position where I can work part-time, still contribute to our family (without taking a significant pay cut), but be able to stay home and be a mom to our kids primarily. My husband absolutely supports this and thinks it would be a great thing for our family.

I very much take offense to many of the things you said, though realizing it’s a temptation that can be very real for all married couples. We would never, ever dictate to God our plans for our lives. Even as I struggle with some of the fear, we have continued being open and allowing God to work in this area of our lives without using nfp to prevent. Maybe I should have more specifically shared that.

This past fall, my husband and I suffered from a miscarriage. We let God work in our lives and choose to bless us (and take away) a life if He so wishes. Please, I need support. Not accusations that my marriage is embraced in a contraceptive mentality and selfishness.

 

[StephanieC]

goravens:

I could really use some sound advice and prayers. My husband and I have been married for a year and a half. Late this spring we decided we would start being a little “less careful” with our nfp rules in hopes of starting a family (we postponed previously due to me starting graduate school, mainly.) This is something we’ve talked about and been excited about from when we were first married - even before then.

Although I was really excited to start with, within the past two months I’ve really hit some sort of wall in which I’m scared to death of getting pregnant. A lot of it has to do with my schedule this fall, particularly as it has gotten closer. I work a full-time job and will be taking 2 classes and a practicum as part of my grad school. It will total up to 40 hours a week for my job, and about 20 for school without including study time. That’s something that has been worrying me more lately, and I’m typically not a worrier. There are two full, fairly grueling years left of school for me to finish and a part of me is afraid I cannot handle it and won’t finish when we have a baby. But more than that, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stay at home with our child and really enjoy them, or be a good mom because of that. It probably would not be affordable for my husband and I.

I’m really torn, and feel like my emotions change constantly in this area (not that I want to base a decision like this on emotion, of course). My husband has wanted to start having kids from the very beginning of our marriage and I feel as though I’d disappoint him if we waited longer. I want to trust in God that He will provide for us. Right now, this is robbing my joy.

Is it significant that my strongest feelings about throwing caution to the wind and getting pregnant come when we are at Mass, and see so many beautiful families?

Thank you in advance to all who respond!

I’ll start off by letting you know I’ll pray for you both, and for God’s will for you, tonight!

For clarity’s sake, here is the way your original post sounds to me: You have already made up your mind that work & grad school are definite musts–the question is how a pregnancy/baby will fit into the 60 plus hours a week you’ll dedicate to them. Is that accurate?

I understand your wish to go through grad school in order to contribute to the family w/o a significant pay cut. I think that might possibly be where fear & worry are steering you away from trust in God: not about pregnancy, but about finances.

Read any women’s magazine & you’ll find “Ten tips to help you juggle being a mom with everything else on your plate!” This is not the way to a healthy pregnancy, or a healthy motherhood, in my opinion, but it is so difficult to shift the paradigm and see our vocation as wife as God sees it. Parenthood = sacrifice, and wives have the honor of experiencing that sacrifice 9 months ahead of their husbands.

May I respectfully and gently remind you that babies are not at all considerate of mom & dad’s priorities? Even in utero, they have a way of saying, “Guess what, Ma? That job you need to go to? Forget it. You’ll be spending the day in bed today, trying to keep down a saltine.” And that’s with a healthy, full-term pregnancy. A baby doesn’t care one bit about the family budget. He does care that you are able to give him a safe, stress-free womb for 9 months, and then a pair of relaxed arms for the rest of his childhood.

After he’s born, well…browse around this forum for any amount of time, and you get a sense of how insanely complicated a new mom’s life is, but how suddenly irrelevant an outside job seems because of how utterly & completely bonkers in love you fall with your new Little One. You probably also get a sense of the fact that you can live modestly and still be rich in children.

I know all too well your fears, and sincerely will ask Our Lady and St. Joseph to intercede for you, especially in the matters of trust in finances. God bless!

 

[Island_Oak]

Princess_Abby:

…Just be sure to truly discern your circumstances and be comfortable with the decision. Don’t become pregnant beacuse you feel guilty over NOT being pregnant.

Great point. I have to say I think some of PuzzleAnnie’s comments came out more than a little harsh. There is nothing evil or selfish about planning your career in a way that both maximizes the talents God blessed you with and accommodates a family life. These boards are full of posts from people who are struggling in financial dire straights, frustrated with limited options, working dead end jobs and the like. Why put yourself in that boat when you have such better options? If age or fertility concerns are not in the picture, I’m not sure why you’re setting yourself up for a scenario that could well prevent you from earning your degree for years.

It seems like there is perhaps a resaonable compromise here. If you have 2 years of schooling left, why not continue to chart and follow NFP for the next year or so. If you get pregnant after that time it allows you to at least finish what you’ve started in grad school and then focus on the baby when it arrives. Is that a possibility?