Unexpected pregnancy

  • Thread starter Thread starter mbs979
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mbs979

Guest
Hi all - I’m new to this site. Just looking for extra prayers and encouragement. I don’t want to sound at all inconsiderate to the women who are not able to conceive.
I’m a stay at home mom to 3 healthy kids…ages 3, 2 and 1. I always wanted 4 kids (my husband 3), but the 3rd came so quickly that i have recently decided to use natural planning to prevent any further pregnancies. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed w/ the 3 I have - to say the least.
I just found out I’m pregnant. Very very early, but pregnant nonetheless. My husband is thrilled, and I’m really trying hard to get myself excited. I’m just asking for prayers to give me the strength to be a good catholic mom to all of my children and to see the joy in this new miracle.
I hate to admit, but I just don’t want to deal with the judgments of others - family, friends, strangers…“you must be crazy”. “haven’t you ever heard of birth control”, “how will you pay for college??” etc. Any suggestions on dealing or responding to these types of comments/judgments? Thanks for taking the time. God bless.
 
Hi and welcome!! :hug1:

I just had my fourth (our first together and his second) so I’m a SAHM to 5 beautiful babies now. I don’t have any advice about people’s ignorant comments. I try to be as gracious as possible. I pretend they’re not being snide when they are and smile and say something like, “Yes, God has really blessed our family!”

Or, just tell them you don’t own a tv. 😉

Congratulations to you. I think if you’re worried about being a good mom, you probably are a great mom. 🙂

Hang in there and keep us posted. PM me if you like.

SM
 
Who cares what others think. I wish I had 4. I got 1 so far but pray for more.
 
I would eventually like to still be able to try for a husband - you really are blessed. Just tell them yes you have heard of contraception and you are also painfully aware that it is a carcinogen. And after you do enough evangelizing on this subject people will stop bringing up the number kids to you. Or you could bring up the beauty of NFP and how close it brings you and your dh.
 
I have four kids and one angel in heaven under the age of 6. My average is 18 months apart.

It took me six years to slowly learn to start accepting God’s Will for my large family size. Long story short I slowly had to fall in love with my vocation of motherhood. Don’t compare with others and ignore rude people.

You my enjoy reading “Life giving Love” by Kimberly Hahn. God must really think you’re a great mom to trust you with four precious souls.

Join a Catholic moms group or if you don’t have one start one and you could have a book club starting with the book above. Its been so helpful to find other moms with many small children to relate with hope you can too.

after baby #4 if you have questions or want advice for nfp and postpartum you came to the right place us ladies on CAF talk about methods etc almost daily. there is even a “pregnant or not?” group in the parenting section. I hope you find great support here on CAF.
Hugs and prayers.
 
Congratulations! We have 4 (7,7,4, and 2, plus a four month old puppy) and that is a tiring time when they are all so little.

As for support, you may also want to check out Simcha Fisher (mom to nine, I think) and Jennifer Fulwiler (mom to five) at the National Catholic Register for blog posts supporting motherhood.
 
Welcome to CAF! 👋

People will give anyone funny looks for having more than two kids nowadays. To be frank, it’s really none of their business. I am always amazed at the inappropriate things people feel at liberty to tell others. It seems like this is one area in particular where normal etiquette seems to go out the window.

I’m sure you could Google “comebacks for large families” to find all sorts of snappy responses. 🙂 I think there have even been a few threads around here to that effect.
 
Congratulations on this new life! I know you’re not excited yet, but I suspect you’ll get there by the time you need to be excited. I have 4 kids, and would love to have a couple more. When I tell people that (because I get a lot of “are you done?” questions) some people look at me cross eyed, others say “wow, good for you” (in a I’d never be able to do THAT sort of way), and others start talking about themselves and why they are DONE. It is rare for me to get a truly negative comment, and I think it might be that I tend to speak very enthusiastically about the idea of having more kids. It also might be that my instinctive reaction to people’s comments is to assume they are trying to be nice to me." If someone says, “what, are you crazy?” to me, I’d probably answer, “Heck, yeah, I’m crazy, but that’s no secret!” For me, self depricating humor makes things light, and I think showing a light hearted attitude towards people not only diffuses what could turn into a confrontation, but also affects whether they view you in a positive or negative light. A little humor in a conversation that surprises people (because often their responses are made out of genuine surprise at openness to life) often results in them saying something like, “more power to ya” or something else generally positive. In fact, even on the rare occasion of a truly negative comment, a little “heck yeah!” often is a simple enough way to get out of the conversation without too much stress.
 
First of all - congratulations on the three children you have.

That was us - four years ago. We had 3 children in 29 months. Then we had a couple of miscarriages before having our fourth child (23 months after the 3rd).

You must be so exhausted - well at least my wife and i were at that point.

And when we had the miscarriages, we were getting comments - “It was really for the best”, “You know the risks at your age are so great” , “Why not just enjoy the beautiful kids you have?”. And these were the comments from family and other loved ones.

The trouble is - even if you were to be able to convince a few people not to make such comments, you’d never be able to stop all such comments. People often don’t even realize that their comments are hurtful. Oftentimes their just talking off the top of their heads to make conversation. Sometimes they are trying to be witty ("you know what causes that don’t you?).

After a while of being exasperated with dealing with it, we just realized that is was us that have to learn to deal with it.

So now, i just pretend that the person saying it doesn’t realize that it is hurtful. I pretend that their advice is the best thing i have ever heard, or i pretend to be so naive as to not understand what they are saying. (at least it is now entertaining to me).

So if we were to get
“Why not just enjoy the beautiful kids you have?”.
I would answer,. “We love our children so much. Thank you for recognizing that”.

it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t exactly match their question or comment. They either won’t realize that, or they’ll just drop it."

if we get the
“You know what causes that?”
I’d just answer in a very thoughtful reply. “No, we were trying to figure that out.”

I guarantee they won’t know what to say, and they’ll drop it.

if they say: “you must be crazy”
I’d probably say : “Yes, we must be - and we’re loving every minute of it.” with a smile.

So no matter what they say - assume they mean the best and answer accordingly. If they aren’t really that close to you, then it isn’t worth getting all bent out of shape what their opinion is on something so personal.
 
mbs979 said:
Hi all - I’m new to this site. Just looking for extra prayers and encouragement. I don’t want to sound at all inconsiderate to the women who are not able to conceive.
I’m a stay at home mom to 3 healthy kids…ages 3, 2 and 1. I always wanted 4 kids (my husband 3), but the 3rd came so quickly that i have recently decided to use natural planning to prevent any further pregnancies. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed w/ the 3 I have - to say the least.
I just found out I’m pregnant. Very very early, but pregnant nonetheless. My husband is thrilled, and I’m really trying hard to get myself excited. I’m just asking for prayers to give me the strength to be a good catholic mom to all of my children and to see the joy in this new miracle.
I hate to admit, but I just don’t want to deal with the judgments of others - family, friends, strangers…“you must be crazy”. “haven’t you ever heard of birth control”, “how will you pay for college??” etc. Any suggestions on dealing or responding to these types of comments/judgments? Thanks for taking the time. God bless.
Click to expand...
When my wife gets asked “Do you know what causes that?” She replies YES! My SEXY Husband!!!😉 Doh!!!
 
God Bless You! As a couple who wants more children and can’t have them, I truly consider you blessed.

Just remember (and I’ve observed this in my parents and grandparents) that the hectic, stressful, tiring aspects eventually get replaced by joy as your kids grow older.

God bless,
Bryan
 
FatherOfTwelve said:
When my wife gets asked “Do you know what causes that?” She replies YES! My SEXY Husband!!!😉 Doh!!!
Click to expand...
👍

I only have one so far, but hope to have a larger brood in the coming years. I really enjoyed this blog post by a father of 5, and how he responded to one particular individual who teased him about his family size.
 
I had twins to start . … so I was getting “Are you done?” comments before my first child(ren) was born!

Expecting number 4 right now myself. It was especially difficult this time as my husband was not seeking pregnancy, and was pretty upset when he found out. I felt guilty, even though I’d talked to him about the problems with having the spouse who wanted to get pregnant have all the responsibility for the birth control (NFP charting). He’s a stay-at-home dad, so I’d basically just signed him up for a huge increase in his personal responsibilities. That feeling of guilt made the comments sting just that much more.

As for the specific question, I dunno what to say. I’ve been surprised to find out, however, that the people who make the most comments or the rudest comments eventually seem to end up making very positive and supportive comments by the time the baby is born. I think the rude comments are something that comes out of shock and disbelief that someone might want that large family in this day and age, but when they see that you really are looking forward to the new little one - I think it touches something in them. Mothers and fathers of large families are doing something heroic, and I think people recognize that at some level. Our (elderly) neighbor kept saying such things, but then I was surprised to learn one day that he had raised four himself, and thought we’d love it, too. He wasn’t trying to be mean or rude, just had a bad sense of humor.

My sister’s comeback is “Why, yes, we do know what causes that, and we rather enjoy it!”

BTW, congratulations on your number four.
 
mbs979 said:
Hi all - I’m new to this site. Just looking for extra prayers and encouragement. I don’t want to sound at all inconsiderate to the women who are not able to conceive.
I’m a stay at home mom to 3 healthy kids…ages 3, 2 and 1. I always wanted 4 kids (my husband 3), but the 3rd came so quickly that i have recently decided to use natural planning to prevent any further pregnancies. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed w/ the 3 I have - to say the least.
I just found out I’m pregnant. Very very early, but pregnant nonetheless. My husband is thrilled, and I’m really trying hard to get myself excited. I’m just asking for prayers to give me the strength to be a good catholic mom to all of my children and to see the joy in this new miracle.
I hate to admit, but I just don’t want to deal with the judgments of others - family, friends, strangers…“you must be crazy”. “haven’t you ever heard of birth control”, “how will you pay for college??” etc. Any suggestions on dealing or responding to these types of comments/judgments? Thanks for taking the time. God bless.
Click to expand...
Congrats on your newest addition to the family! We’ve got our third baby due in late April, and we constantly get asked how many more we want, if we’re done yet, etc. We’re just honest about it. If someone asks how many more we want, we say that we don’t have a set number but that we’ll accept as many as God wants to bless us with. When people say that we’ve got our hands full, we agree and add that we wouldn’t give it up for the world. When people make comments to the effect of “don’t you know how that happens” we just smile and say that we can’t keep our hands off each other. We try to be upfront and honest with our answers, but not catty or snarky.
 
FatherOfTwelve said:
When my wife gets asked “Do you know what causes that?”
Click to expand...
I’ve started telling people, ‘yes, do you expect me not to do it anymore?’

Or if I am in a bad mood, I will ask them if they need my address. When they ask why, I tell them 'Well, I figured that unless you are supporting my family, I don’t really care about your opinion. Since you have given it to me, you must want to start sending a check every month.

Or, ‘I sure do, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what causes people to stick their nose in my business.’
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top