NFP & Ideal Family Size

[prolifewife]

You seem to be putting the cart before the horse. You are not married yet and do not even know if your marriage will produce even one child, what less a large family. The philosophy that embraces contraception takes fertility for granted and regards fertility as a suffering. Every once in a while, God sends an infertile couple into the community to remind the rest of us that children are desirable blessings.

KellyGirl: We are that infertile couple. We thought we’d never have trouble getting pregnant. We suspected (due to family history) we might have a few miscarriages, but generally thought having a large family would come easily.

WRONG.

We’ve been trying for 4+ years and haven’t had one single pregnancy. Infertility is one of the hardest imaginable crosses as it affects you physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and socially. I spend more days crying than not. I have clinical depression stemming solely from my infertility. My whole dream from the time I was little was to be a stay at home mother with a LOT of kids. Now, we’d be tickled to death to be blessed with one.

I will never understood why God blesses couples who don’t want children with the ability to have a large family, and why those couples who want children more than anything in the world, often can’t have many, or ANY. But I do understand, if their is one thing I can understand in all this suffering is that life, each and every human life, born and unborn is more precious to me know than ever before. When I think of all we are going through to (PLEASE GOD!) have/adopt just one child, I can’t help but cringe at all that some couples do to avoid having just one more child.

KellyGirl you are so very blessed with the gift of many talents (a very healthy fertility.) Just like in the parable. If you realize how valuable your talents (fertility) are, you can use your precious gift of fertility to create more blessings for God to breath a life and soul into. OR…you can continue on burying your talent and go before God empty handed.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

… Every once in a while, God sends an infertile couple into the community to remind the rest of us that children are desirable blessings.

Wow, that’s a really interesting perspective. I wonder if that is part of the fruitfulness of infertility then - the witness to others of the love/joy/desire for children, so that more fertile people will recognize it as a gift. I have never thought of it that way, but that’s really got me thinking.

 

[prolifewife]

Wow, that’s a really interesting perspective. I wonder if that is part of the fruitfulness of infertility then - the witness to others of the love/joy/desire for children, so that more fertile people will recognize it as a gift. I have never thought of it that way, but that’s really got me thinking.

Me too TKC! It really helped me to see how even though I think I’m not doing anything special/important for God right now, I might actually be one of the few God has chosen to do this most special work or witnessing to the blessings of life. We may not be as visible in our work as say a large family (we don’t have a trail of children following behind us), but if no one ever struggled with infertility, there would be that many more fertile souls who took their fertility for granted.

Gardenswithkids, I have had more support from you and other large families out there than I get from most people dealing with infertility! Isn’t it it strange how even in this case opposites still attract? But then the willingness to receive as many children as God blesses you with is the same attitude whether that number be 0 or 12. Thank you so much for all your kind words and prayers. :hug3:

 

[agapewolf]

Christopher West says this:

Those who suffer from infertility one day will find in heaven that they have many spiritual children who will come to them and thank them for their suffering because it got them to heaven.

I know its not much comfort, but its something…

 

[Brendan]

PS look around at your church, how many families do you see with 4 plus kids?

Lots actually.

Our neighbors ( who are in our parish, just had #7). That is their 4th biological, they have 3 others that are adopted.

I’m the scoutmaster for my son’s boy scout troop of 22 boys. Our family has the fewest number of kids ( 5) than any boy in the troop. We have two families that are expecting in the troop. 1 family is expecting #9 and the other is expecting #7.

One family has 9 kids, all of whom are adopted.

When we were at Mass sitting behind another family that has 8, my daughter commented on how small of a family we had ( remember, we have 5).

Growing up, our family had 6 kids. What was a little on the large side for our parish, but not by much. It was certainly among the smallest of my relatives. I have 97 first cousins, not including marriages.

Large families are certainly doable, even in today’s world. We don’t have cable, we don’t have air conditioning. But neither are material necessities. Not only do we not eat out much, we make a lot of stuff from scratch.

I’m an engineer, so that’s a better income than many, but we are a single income. So I’d have to cast a skeptical eye towards any with dual professional incomes claiming they cannot afford more than two kids.

 

[prolifewife]

Christopher West says this:

Those who suffer from infertility one day will find in heaven that they have many spiritual children who will come to them and thank them for their suffering because it got them to heaven.

I know its not much comfort, but its something…

:bighanky: Thank you so much for this. You have no idea how much this means to me today. :hug3:

 

[puzzleannie]

I tried.

I just find it difficult to accept that it would be responsible of me to have several children if I was married and we had an average income. I wouldn’t want to rely on welfare either. I mean, what would the right thing to do be in such a situation? ?

have you ever studied family history? I find it interesting that previous generations, including my contemporaries, my parents, grandparents and so on, could support large families, 6-8+ children on working man’s wages but modern couples often with 2 incomes can barely manage to support 2. What do you think has changed?

 

[Brendan]

And if you all truly think that catholic couples are not using birth control or getting fixed, you are sadly mistaken!.

Yep, and there were certainly Catholics who owned slaves, contrary to the instructions of the Holy See.

That wasn’t right either.

So just because some Catholics, or even many Catholics do something doesn’t make it morally right.

What matters is that we follow the Church.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

…even though I think I’m not doing anything special/important for God right now…

I think you deserve more credit than that. Aside from everything you do in your life with the goal of charity or service to God, you witnessing to faifullness even in infertility, is very much a special and important act for God. What if one couple knows of your struggle, recognizes the gift and the fleeting nature of their own fertility, and decides to have the child they were selfishly putting off. That’s a soul created from your influence. What if that child became a priest, and might never have even been born, were it not for your witness? You may never know of these fruits in your lifetime. But they could very well be happening as a result of your faithfulness. That’s only one, more obvious type of fruitfulness. Don’t sell yourself short. You may not have chosen this path. And you may not be on it forever. But you are absolutely doing something special for God right now. I have personally been inspired reading your posts - that’s something right there.

 

[ryecroft]

I don’t understand this statement in the least…

Saying “I can’t have sex with you right now” seems so dis-joined, or lacking *unity *in marriage.
No, the conversation *should *be “I’m fertile right now… Do WE, together, feel this is a time we’re prayerfully ready to accept another child or not?”

Without that basic and upfront unity, NFP will never be successful. Otherwise it’s “me” against “you”.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough about what I meant. But when a couple has decided that having another child or having a child for say at least a couple years until they’re better financially or for whatever reason, then there should be no question of “if” the couple can be joined together in the “marital embrace” or however one would like to phrase it. One thing that our NFP instructor told us was to make sure you make this decision PRIOR to being on fertile days - this way, there can be no “whoops”, “uh oh” or persuasion (such as, maybe we could be o.k. if you got pregnant now…)situation. The teaching couples point was that it’s a lot harder to say no to your partner with all those hormones rushing through the woman and if you will, sometimes pushing up her desire to have sex. Also, being at that fertile time can cause the husband to want to be with the wife at that time, especially with those phermones working (and IMHO, obscuring the the couples thinking-in otherwords taking chances when neither feels they can handle a child for whatever reason at that point-this is also at a time when I believe a lot of “uh oh” moments come along-and I’ve got the God Children to prove it). If you leave the decision until that time, you can wind up with a pregnancy on your hands, which if this isn’t something you can handle, you are using the NFP to avoid. Hence my friends comment about this being a “cruel joke”. (and don’t get me wrong, we love each of our God Children and neices/nephews, but I can also see where some of these families are struggling much more than if they hadn’t gotten pregnant- especially financially, now)

When we were trying NFP to keep from having children, I have no doubt that if we had waited until that time where we were both very desirous of one another, there’s a good chance we might have said (and foolishly so, even though we knew it would be a very bad time to welcome a child into the family) - “don’t worry about it, I’m sure everything will be o.k.” IMHO this is allowing the hormones to do the thinking. To me, it almost seems unfair (and yes, I know no one said life had to be fair) -to wait until the couple really is wanting to be with one another- and this brings a whole other factor into the equation (not to say that there aren’t other times when the couple wants to be intimate)- but (IMHO) it would NOT be fair to the couple or the possible child (if they were to go ahead)- to wait until that time to make a (possibly) life altering decision.

I believe some of the best advice from the NFP classes, was when the teaching couple reccomended that the decision regarding abstention from making love be made long before all of the extra variables are put into the decision making process (i.e. the elevated hormones, desire and even phermones). This way, the decisions are based as soley as possible on whether or not it’s a good possible time to chance getting pregnant.

I really hope that any NFP teaching couple who are reading this, that would make sure to warn your classes about this (the secondary ovulation or whatever it’s called). There’s this horrible feeling of “defeat” that we both had from this happening. And it must not be all that unusual because I’ve had a copule of friends have this occur. Because of health reasons, I can no longer use NFP, and i’m not saying it isn’t pretty effective when used to the letter. It does get complicated though, when you have to use the little cards to decide what you are that day. If we ever you decide you want to have sex), that you could very likely get pregnant if you h wanting to be together.
God Bless
Rye s

 

[UncommonGrace]

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough about what I meant. But when a couple has decided that having another child or having a child for say at least a couple years until they’re better financially or for whatever reason, then there should be no question of “if” the couple can be joined together in the “marital embrace” or however one would like to phrase it. One thing that our NFP instructor told us was to make sure you make this decision PRIOR to being on fertile days - this way, there can be no “whoops”, “uh oh” or persuasion (such as, maybe we could be o.k. if you got pregnant now…)situation. The teaching couples point was that it’s a lot harder to say no to your partner with all those hormones rushing through the woman and if you will, sometimes pushing up her desire to have sex. Also, being at that fertile time can cause the husband to want to be with the wife at that time, especially with those phermones working (and IMHO, obscuring the the couples thinking-in otherwords taking chances when neither feels they can handle a child for whatever reason at that point-this is also at a time when I believe a lot of “uh oh” moments come along-and I’ve got the God Children to prove it). If you leave the decision until that time, you can wind up with a pregnancy on your hands, which if this isn’t something you can handle, you are using the NFP to avoid. Hence my friends comment about this being a “cruel joke”. (and don’t get me wrong, we love each of our God Children and neices/nephews, but I can also see where some of these families are struggling much more than if they hadn’t gotten pregnant- especially financially, now)

It breaks my heart to hear children being called “whoopses” or “uh ohs”. It is a human being that these comments are being made about! I think we need to be careful about the kind of language we use regarding this: either children are a gift from God, the King of Heaven and Earth, or they are not. I don’t think we can be calling them “uh ohs” and “gifts from God” in the same breath.

As far as the “cruel joke” goes – using NFP and abstaining is a sacrifice. It’s not just some “easy” thing like swallowing a pill or slapping on a prophylactic. It requires cognizance and responsibility and commitment from both parties of the couple. Kind of like marriage. I think that it’s a beautiful thing, very good for marriage. I believe that it even helps women to feel less like objects before their husbands.

Two years ago, my husband and I were planning to avoid pregnancy for a few more months, thinking that it would be “nice” to have a summer baby at the end of the next school year. But we moved in June, and we wanted to embrace one another in our new home. We got pregnant right away, which was unexpected because usually it has taken us months of trying. Our baby was born in late February last year, a very “inconvenient” time for my husband’s work. But this baby of ours has been such an inexpressable blessing. She was what could be called a “whoops” or an “uh oh”, that time time we were together when we moved into our house could have been called a “cruel joke”. But I would never say that about this amazing, beautiful gift we were given by God.

blessings,
Grace

mama to DD, 8, DS, 4, DD, 13 months

 

[Jennifer_J]

I agree, these baby’s aren’t uh-oh’s or oopses and NFP isn’t a cruel joke, because we ALWAYS have choices.

If a couple has serious reasons to avoid, then they will abstain. If the reason isn’t so serious, then they will re-evaluate and then probably embrace. Will abstaining be harder at certian times than others, certainly. But if that reason is serious/grave/just, then to say that HORMONES will cause us to stop thinking is crazy. We are rational beings. We choose our actions. This is the same reasoning that says teenagers can’t control themselves, give them BC. NO, we are responsible for our actions, not hormones.

Oh, and children are ALWAYS a blessing from God.

 

[Em_in_FL]

I agree, these baby’s aren’t uh-oh’s or oopses and NFP isn’t a cruel joke, because we ALWAYS have choices.

If a couple has serious reasons to avoid, then they will abstain. If the reason isn’t so serious, then they will re-evaluate and then probably embrace. Will abstaining be harder at certian times than others, certainly. But if that reason is serious/grave/just, then to say that HORMONES will cause us to stop thinking is crazy. We are rational beings. We choose our actions. This is the same reasoning that says teenagers can’t control themselves, give them BC. NO, we are responsible for our actions, not hormones.

Oh, and children are ALWAYS a blessing from God.

YES YES YES!!! Thank you!

I have SO been there with “raging hormones” when I’m ovulating… I can just look at DH and he knows I’m on the hunt :ehh:… but all he has to do is sit me down and say, “Really? Are we ready for this?”… and I can bring myself out of that animal-lust and talk rationally.

Maybe I’m just lucky that my DH doesn’t get upset over having to wait 5 days … it’s not like we are lacking sex within marriage… we definitely can make up for lost time …

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Actually, rather than a cruel joke, the whole raging hormone thing may be God’s way of making us check our “serious reasons” to avoid pregnancy. With a stronger desire at the time of ovulation, the couple is more strongly prompted to ask, “is it really necessary to avoid another child?”. Without that desire, we might become complacent with our wants and might not re-evaluate, and reconsider what God might be asking. The desire for each other at the time around ovulation is only difficult when we’re avoiding pregnancy. And avoiding pregnancy is not supposed to be the norm, but the exception based on a serious reason. So it is only logical that it should be difficult.

That’s not to say it doesn’t feel like a cruel joke sometimes. I am the first to admit, I get very frustrated with this (and other) aspect of NFP at times. But through my frustration, I recognize the “rightness” of it.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

Without the “cruel joke” the world would have come to an end a long time ago. Besides that who doesn’t appreciate a good practical joke? You just need to appreciate God’s sense of humor when it comes to such things.

 

[KellyGirlErin]

Jennifer J…not every woman can stay home and take care of her kids.
some have to work, and in this economy,may have to work TWO jobs.
Then what? Keep on having them and paying for daycare?
sounds like a vicious treadmill to me.

I stand by my view that birth control is all right to use. Why bring additional kids into the world if there is not enough money.

People are listening to their conscience and going by that.

If they can not afford any more kids…then that is between them, God, and their spouse.

and for what it is worth, I am not the only catholic woman using the pill.

And to pro life wife…not everyone wants kids.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Jennifer J…not every woman can stay home and take care of her kids.
some have to work, and in this economy,may have to work TWO jobs.
Then what? Keep on having them and paying for daycare?
sounds like a vicious treadmill to me.

I stand by my view that birth control is all right to use. Why bring additional kids into the world if there is not enough money.

People are listening to their conscience and going by that.

If they can not afford any more kids…then that is between them, God, and their spouse.

and for what it is worth, I am not the only catholic woman using the pill.

And to pro life wife…not everyone wants kids.

I AM that mom… with 3 kids, working full time… tough economy…

Use NFP.

 

[ac_claire]

Jennifer J…not every woman can stay home and take care of her kids.
some have to work, and in this economy,may have to work TWO jobs.
Then what? Keep on having them and paying for daycare?
sounds like a vicious treadmill to me.

Nope, you can use NFP; it’s a valid option. The fact is, there are hundreds of people on thsi forum alone who are living proof that it works. If you choose not to use it don’t act like there’s no other option out there except for artificial birth control. (And if you choose to not use it correctly, don’t complain that it “doesn’t work”…)

I stand by my view that birth control is all right to use. Why bring additional kids into the world if there is not enough money.

People are listening to their conscience and going by that.

If they can not afford any more kids…then that is between them, God, and their spouse.

I understand what your opinion is. It’s not what the Church teaches. Following what the Church teaches is important for some people.

and for what it is worth, I am not the only catholic woman using the pill.

And to pro life wife…not everyone wants kids.

I don’t mean to be rude but why do you keep bringing up the amount of other people who do these things too as though that…what? Excuses something that is intrinsically wrong? Or as though others don’t know how prevalent contraception is, even among Catholics? Why do you think that’s relevant to the discussion? (I’m really asking, not being sarcastic! )

 

[prolifewife]

And to pro life wife…not everyone wants kids.

Then you should have thought about that before you got married. If you don’t want kids…don’t get married. It’s not rocket science.

 

[Jennifer_J]

Jennifer J…not every woman can stay home and take care of her kids.
some have to work, and in this economy,may have to work TWO jobs.
Then what? Keep on having them and paying for daycare?
sounds like a vicious treadmill to me.

I stand by my view that birth control is all right to use. Why bring additional kids into the world if there is not enough money.

People are listening to their conscience and going by that.

If they can not afford any more kids…then that is between them, God, and their spouse.

and for what it is worth, I am not the only catholic woman using the pill.

And to pro life wife…not everyone wants kids.

You didn’t read my response very closely, did you? I WAS a working mom. If I had to remain working, I might have done any of the following: 1. figured out a way to stay home 2. continued to work and limited/spaced my children so that I optimised the time home–I’m a trained teacher 3. figured out how to split shift with my dh, not fun, but worth it 4. Continued to us NFP, because it’s a licit form of spacing/limiting children

The pill is not licit for Catholics to use, even if “everyone” is doing it. Periodic and total abstinence are the only licit forms of limiting/spacing births. Catholics are CALLED to children in marriage–it’s part of the vows. If you didn’t want children, you should have not married–if you entered the marriage with NO INTENTION of children, there are issues with the validity of your marriage.

Additionally, your response is VERY unfeeling to those who are infertile.