Yup! Makes life a whole lot easier when there’s less to worry about–I let God decide the big stuff like that, I know He’s a lot smarter than me!Thank youI’ve never been happier than I am now with my two babies! And what a blessing it is to have a DH who is so supportive and 100% on board with trusting God to determine our family size! It’s a real recipe for happines :bounce:
Who am I to decide something as important as whether a new eternal soul should be created? That’s God’s job, I just get out of His way and let Him decide!
My mother is about your age and expecting baby number 9 (I’m a college student). We also live in a three-bedroom house. I’m not sure of our square footage though. So it happens!Though, I’m 38, so how much time do we have?
There has been some discussion of late among well-repsected apologists regarding the translation “grave” or “serious.” The conclusion is that the word might be better translated “reasonable.” There are many good reasons for spacing births, and not all of them are life-and-death. But as I said in my earlier post, we always seek the advice of our pastor regarding our reasons.
Quite right. The CCC clearly mentions financial concerns as a reason to delay pregnancy. Financial reasons do not qualify as grave reasons. The standard for NFP being used to avoid pregnancy does not require grave reasons.
Can you let us know where that is at? A #?
Here is a quote that might be helpful:
Now that my dh and I have rediscovered NFP, and discovered God’s intent for our sexuality, though His mighty grace…I would say that our wanting to not ‘intentionally’ have more kids is largely due to my husband’s age, he is nearly 50. I’m nearly 40. He is concerned that he is too old, and that he is not sure how it would be having a 12 year old at 60. Oh, how I wish we had a rewind button in life. How I wish we didn’t take for granted our sexuality in my stronger child bearing years. But, if God were to bless us with a new life he said that would be God’s will. We are not ‘intentionally’ trying to have more children.I’m looking into the question of NFP before I get married, but after having talking it over with my boyfriend, we have no reasons to use NFP in the future, really. I’m just curious to see what your reasons are and then I’ll use that for my Moral Theology class… No names mentioned!
Oh and if you don’t use NFP at all, can you please specify why you and your spouse have made that decision?
Just a word of encouragement. My father had eight children (unfortunately two separate marriages). He had his last two, my brother and me, when he was 55 and 53 respectively. He is now approaching 79, and I am 26, and we have a beautiful relationship. Having children in his mid-fifties kept him young in body and spirit. He has never looked or acted “his age,” and although I know he probably won’t be around for the latter half of my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. There’s a whole lot one can impart to a child in 20 or 30 years.Now that my dh and I have rediscovered NFP, and discovered God’s intent for our sexuality, though His mighty grace…I would say that our wanting to not ‘intentionally’ have more kids is largely due to my husband’s age, he is nearly 50. I’m nearly 40. He is concerned that he is too old, and that he is not sure how it would be having a 12 year old at 60. Oh, how I wish we had a rewind button in life. How I wish we didn’t take for granted our sexuality in my stronger child bearing years. But, if God were to bless us with a new life he said that would be God’s will. We are not ‘intentionally’ trying to have more children.
God bless all of you who are following NFP. Please keep me and my dh in your prayers.
God bless you.
Thank you very much for this support, mary! It is strange, but we both just want to do God’s will…not that that is strange,but never thought that we would even consider another child, at this stage. And truthfully, we are using NFP to follow the RCC’s teachings, and so forth, to keep from having further children, but if we somehow get pregnant despite staying away from the fertile times, then it would be God’s will. My kids are not happy that my husband and I were chatting about the what if, of having a new baby. I was explaining the Church’s teaching on sexuality, which went over my daughter’s head, seeing that she is only in 6th grade, but my son was intently listening…he understand sexuality, and did not know that there are 'rules of engagement,'so to speak…He said, why does God have all these rules? Suffice to say, we had a nice long talk about that last night.Just a word of encouragement. My father had eight children (unfortunately two separate marriages). He had his last two, my brother and me, when he was 55 and 53 respectively. He is now approaching 79, and I am 26, and we have a beautiful relationship. Having children in his mid-fifties kept him young in body and spirit. He has never looked or acted “his age,” and although I know he probably won’t be around for the latter half of my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. There’s a whole lot one can impart to a child in 20 or 30 years.
Besides … with all the medical advances of our modern age, everyone is saying “60 is the new 40.”
Blessings,
mary
But, it is out of love that God provides us a blueprint of how we are to live as husband and wife. Out of the mouths of babes, I tell ya. We need an extra room in our house–like a secret room–where the kids can’t hear all of our adult conversations! !
, lost #5 to misscarrage
two years ago. We moved out to the country (from the city of Milwaukee to rural Manitowoc Co. after the misscarrage) to a big old farm house. It needed some work, but it greatly decreased our cost of living.It took us until I was pregnant with our second child (in 1999) and extra graces from the Holy Spirit, before coming to this conclusion though -mostly because of me. DH always wanted to remain open to life and not use any contraceptives, but because of fear and ingnorance I insisted on it when we first were married in 1994, though we learned NFP then, it just logically didn't seem any different than using artifical contraceptives because the contraceptive mentality (for selfish reasons or fear of what others would say) prevailed in the people teaching, learning and using NFP.
As far as spacing of children, I have breastfed all my children and have been blessed with a good amount of natural spacing from breastfeeding, in fact I don't even get my period back until about 2-3 months after completely stopping and the soonest I got pregnant after my period returned was another 3 months. Now that I am 39 I seem to have lost even more of my fertility, it took almost 2 years after the miscarrage to get pregnant again. So for all the people who tell you you're going to have a dozen children if you don't use some sort of contraception they just don't understand that most couples are just not that fertile. And they are living in the fear that society has put into our culture since about the 1960's when children were looked at as more of a burden than a blessing.
It's not always easy, but their great!!!!!
Proud mother of David - 11, Nathaniel - 8, Tiffany - 6, Jennifer, St. Nazianz, WIYour post is inspiring!!! Thank you for sharing this. I have read about ecological breastfeeding??? That it does help to space the children…things have changed since I’ve had babies.Did not vote because we don’t use NFP. We decided through much prayer, discussion and reading the CCC (in the second edition (2000), it’s p. 569 - “the fucundity of marriage”) that we had no “just” reason because there is no physical reason for us to avoid and even though we strugle finacially, we realized that each child actually costs less per child the more you have and if you don’t let your pride get in the way and do a little research, there are a lot of social programs in the U.S. to help. We live in Wisconsin and because we are self-employed, we qualify for “Badger Care”(since 2000) state paid for health insurance, and with this current pregnancy WIC and “Food Share”(food stamps using a card), all more easily qualified for because of the size of our family. We don’t feel poor, but the federal government says we are because the size of our family, We are now expecting child #6 in January
Colin - 4, Shannon - our angel, Isabel - due January 21, 2008.Code:It took us until I was pregnant with our second child (in 1999) and extra graces from the Holy Spirit, before coming to this conclusion though -mostly because of me. DH always wanted to remain open to life and not use any contraceptives, but because of fear and ingnorance I insisted on it when we first were married in 1994, though we learned NFP then, it just logically didn't seem any different than using artifical contraceptives because the contraceptive mentality (for selfish reasons or fear of what others would say) prevailed in the people teaching, learning and using NFP. As far as spacing of children, I have breastfed all my children and have been blessed with a good amount of natural spacing from breastfeeding, in fact I don't even get my period back until about 2-3 months after completely stopping and the soonest I got pregnant after my period returned was another 3 months. Now that I am 39 I seem to have lost even more of my fertility, it took almost 2 years after the miscarrage to get pregnant again. So for all the people who tell you you're going to have a dozen children if you don't use some sort of contraception they just don't understand that most couples are just not that fertile. And they are living in the fear that society has put into our culture since about the 1960's when children were looked at as more of a burden than a blessing. It's not always easy, but their great!!!!! Proud mother of David - 11, Nathaniel - 8, Tiffany - 6,
Code:Jennifer, St. Nazianz, WI