I’ve been using Mondays to get caught up answering the messages in my inbox. Here’s the one for this week:
Question:
I wanted to ask you a question, I have been thinking about it for a while. I always wanted to have a large family, but now I think it will not be possible. I recently suffered from a major burn-out and have really seen that I am not as strong as I thought I was.
When I listen to your song “Do You Wanna Have a Baby?” (I LOVE that song), I feel guilty for not wanting many children anymore. But I know we have to be very careful. We can’t enjoy sex without me worrying about a pregnancy, and we do need to use birth control until I am fully recovered.
It is hard, because I know all the great aspects of growing up in a large family. I know the bad effects of birth control. And I know how wonderful it must be to receive many children.
But we also have our responsibility for my health. What do you think about this?
Answer:
It doesn’t really matter what I think, but since you ask, I will tell you what I tell my own children: Having a large family made perfect sense in my particular situation — I’ve always had smooth pregnancies, easy deliveries, healthy babies, a strong body, a stable marriage, an aversion to contraceptives, an intense desire for lots of children, and a loving, supportive husband with a good job that allows him to provide for all of us. If any of those factors had not been the case, we might well have chosen to do things differently.
I understand that not every couple has been blessed with such ideal circumstances, and — depending on the extent or severity of the challenges they face — it may make better sense for them to limit family size by practicing some form of birth control. That is a decision that must be prayerfully made by each individual couple.
I would only advise that, if you do opt to use birth control, you avoid any method that acts as an abortifacient, as well as hormonal contraceptives which can cause serious health problems (for both mothers and children subsequently born to those mothers) — and would also caution against doing anything permanent (tubal ligation or vasectomy), since circumstances often change, and so may your attitude toward having [more] children.
Finally, I would warn you not to let your fear of getting pregnant cause you to push your husband away sexually. He still needs your closeness, and you his, so don’t neglect the physical part of your relationship just because you’ve chosen to limit your family size. 🙂
Blessings,Jennifer
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Fertility Care/ Natural Family Planning (NFP) is highly effective (98-99% with an instructor) and completely natural. You learn to read the signs of your body that tell you when you are fertile (4-6 days max) and infertile. It’s very empowering. You make intimacy decisions as a couple based on this information, while respecting the way your bodies are designed and not blocking any natural functions. That way you can give yourself to your spouse 100%, holding nothing back and putting up no barriers – physical or chemical. This means periodically abstaining if you are using the method to postpone pregnancy, which has its benefits too. The marital act/ the 1 flesh union is not taken for granted, no one feels used, women feel revered, respected, cherished. Communication is enhanced as you discuss the possibility of starting or continuing your family each cycle.
I agree that NFP can be highly effective, Annie, and is far less risky with respect to a woman’s long term health than many of the other options available today; however, when you consider that NFP calls for abstaining during that precise time of month when a woman’s hormones would normally make her most interested in being physically intimate, it doesn’t seem completely “natural,” after all. Also, if a couple chooses to abstain during the wife’s menstrual cycle as well as during the time she is most fertile, that adds up to a lot of abstaining, which can put a different sort of strain on the marriage relationship.
Couples wishing to prevent pregnancy might consider using a combination of NFP and some form of barrier method, which would allow for “protected” relations during times of peak fertility rather than complete abstinence, then “unprotected” relations for the remainder of the month. This approach also has its benefits: the one-flesh union is preserved and valued for reasons beyond its procreative purpose, no one feels neglected or marginalized, women get to enjoy intimacy at the time when their bodies are most primed to do so, husbands feel respected and understood, and communication is inevitable as you discuss during those fertile times whether preventing pregnancy is really worth the hassle of using condoms for those few days or not. 🙂