Surrendering your fertility and family size to God

...and holding the joys and sorrows of motherhood.

“To be sorry and glad together is to be perceptive to the richness of life.” - Elizabeth Goudge (from her novel Green Dolphin Street)

Inspired by a fellow Substack writer on the question a mother gets asked re: her family size. The question: “Are you done?” I’ve been asked this before, countless times, and people are not always kind about it. My husband and I have 8 children and though I don’t mean to cry victim, it is hard in this world that can be so nihilistic and also make the assumption that we are in total control of our fertility and family size. But are we? I know there are things we can do to prevent conception from occurring, as well as things we can do to optimize our chances of conceiving. (Though, for the record, my husband and I follow the teaching of the Catholic Church on this matter. It was not always so but has brought us peace.) But my experience - and that of others - have shown me that we don’t always conceive when we’d like to, and we sometimes do conceive when we’d rather not. The teaching of the Catholic Church on this matter, in a nutshell, says that every marital act ought to be open to the possibility of the transmission of life, and that the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act are not to be separated. See Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Humane Vitae if you want a full explanation of this teaching.

I remember when my husband and I first got married. In my heart, I was ready for motherhood and longed for the day I would be pregnant. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen for us until a couple years after we were married. I’m not sure why but suspect that it may have been due to fibromas, which were removed by the ob/gyn that did the c/section with our first child (because he was breech, I had gone to 41 weeks, and that son was a whopping 10 lbs. 11.2 oz.!) After that, it seemed the stork made its appearance at our house every other year. With our last 2 children, there is a 4-year gap.

I do recall that things seemed tough with our first child. Adjusting to motherhood, to breastfeeding, to this new child that required the majority of my time and energy, was all a learning curve. When we learned we were expecting our second, we were surprised. I’ll admit that this child was not ‘planned’ per se (not by us, but I’m certain she was God’s plan), but we were open to this new life. I was blessed to be able to have a v/bac with our 2nd, but it was a long and arduous labor, so I’ll spare the details. In any case, having both my husband and I available much of the time made having 2 kids doable for us. They both seemed to have high needs, but there was 1 of us for each of them, so it worked out.

Then we moved and shortly after discovered we were pregnant with our 3rd. Labor and delivery were a little less arduous, but when our 3rd child (a daughter) was 3 months old, our older daughter started having some concerning symptoms. We took her to the doctor and were told that she had Type 1 Diabetes. This required several days in the hospital to stabilize her blood sugar and learn how to check blood glucose, administer insulin, count carbohydrates - and all the other care required to manage Type 1 Diabetes. My oldest daughter was only 2 1/2 years old and my youngest was a 3 month old nursling. (Thankfully the hospital permitted me to have my baby there as well.) It was so hard. I remember bursting into tears when we were learning how to draw insulin out of one bottle into the syringe and then draw more insulin out of another bottle in the same syringe, being careful not to mix them and ensuring that you get no bubbles in the syringe. And then I had to make sure to get my daughter lunch within a certain window of time after her morning insulin, lest her blood sugar tank. I remember it felt as though there was an engine barreling down the track straight toward us every day, and I feared her blood sugar crashing. I recall almost compulsively asking her while we were out driving, “Are you okay?” Thankfully, we learned to adjust to this new normal, and have found that though we’ve made mistakes (a ton!), there are ways to get back on track and correct course when needed.

I remember my Grandpa (who also happened to have Type 1 Diabetes) saying, “No more now,” referring to the number of children in our family. Well, I had to follow what my conscience and heart were telling me to do, and ‘stopping’ having children was not something I would do just because someone else advised it, no matter how well-intentioned.

Though it took time, we adjusted to life with 3 children (all under the age of 5) - and life with Type 1 Diabetes.* After that, it seemed things were more challenging. We were outnumbered, and it was harder to get excited about these additional pregnancies. We remained open to life, and though I did occasionally track my fertility/cycles, we were lax about it, because I began to feel that after having seen the measures people take to avoid having children - as well as the measures people take to have children, that there was something more at play here. That Someone seemed to be the One to decide whether/when to grant a new life. And that it had nothing to do with whether a couple was ‘deserving’ or not, but whether it was part of a larger plan, something that was not easily discernible to the human mind - something mysterious.

I did, however, feel so much guilt when I would discover another pregnancy. I felt like some kind of an ingrate because though I know that every human life is a gift, no matter the circumstances surrounding that life, but I also knew of women who struggled with infertility. Those women would have likely given anything to be in my shoes. Yet, I knew the difficulties inherent in pregnancy, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, attending to each child and his/her needs. It didn’t mean life was bereft of meaning or joy, I just wasn’t managing well.

Fast forward a few years and a few children, and I read the above quote in Elizabeth Goudge’s book. It really was illuminating for me because it helped me to realize that not all things are either/or propositions, many things are both/and so this little gem of wisdom helped me to expand my thinking - gradually, mind you - that life was far broader and more nuanced than this stifling, tending toward extremes thinking of the either/or. I didn’t have to ‘feel’ happy about a pregnancy, but I could still recognize that the gift of a baby did indeed come with some challenges, but those challenges have helped to form me into who I am today. They’ve also helped me to love more deeply and to try and surrender my will to God. I admit it’s not easy. Here’s a little rhyme, written tongue in cheek that explains the difficulty I have with surrender:

“In a tug of war with the Divine

He says it’s His, I say it’s mine.”

It’s so hard to let go, and I desire to, “let go and let God,” as they say, but it’s easier said than done. My spiritual director has asked me to pray phrases of surrender daily, such as, “Jesus, I trust in you.” (attributed to St. Faustina) - or - “Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.” (Father Dolindo Ruotolo, a contemporary of St. Padre Pio, made this a popular prayer in what’s called the Surrender Novena) So I repeat these phrases, alternating them - or others - as the Spirit moves me, and I think it is helping. It’s going to take a long time. For just as we women know that the ‘baby weight’ we accumulate with each pregnancy took 9 months to gain, it will take an equally reasonable time to lose. Long-held attitudes, behaviors and beliefs don’t just disappear overnight. These things are often deeply rooted and take a long time to uproot. I’m not sure exactly what it was that made me think I had to rely on myself so much (it’s likely a variety of factors), but I’ve had to learn to ask for help, to let go and it’s been difficult - but freeing - and will hopefully lead me to greater peace and closeness to God. A large part of this freedom has been gained by surrendering my fertility and family size to God, and that has brought me peace. I refuse to say it’s been without difficulties, but I have found that inherent with the sorrows of motherhood, there are rich joys to be mined. It has all been - and continues to be - worth it.

*Re: life with Type 1 Diabetes. I need to add here that we’ve since had 2 of our other children diagnosed with Type 1, and I myself have had a diagnosis of LADA - Latent Autoimmune Diabetes Adult-Onset. On my best days, I joke that we’ve ‘hit the jackpot’ with Diabetes. (Because if you don’t laugh, you just might cry, and I’ll admit I’ve done plenty of that. That being said, I have learned through this to trust God more deeply.)