As you can see, it’s been months since I wrote. Life with three living children has certainly made me busy. It’s a blast though and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My last post was in December where I shared a bit about grieving our last child. It wasn’t about grieving a child we lost but grieving in the sense that we will never have another child…well, that we plan.
Our “last child” wasn’t planned at all. She was conceived unexpectedly and in the way that we had wished would have happened for all our children in the early days of our marriage. Surprise blessings are wonderful; although we hadn’t expected or planned for one in our 40’s. Pregnancy in your 40’s is vastly different in many ways, at least, that’s how my experience has been.
I have blogged before about ovulation. God has designed fertility as a powerful and amazing gift; one that secular society tends to damper and suspend through the emergence of birth control, contraception, and abortion. I truly wonder how wonderful it would be if women were to embrace their fertility by not suppressing the innate organization of their body’s design and giving their bodies the power to bloom. This does not mean that babies will be pouring out of homes. That’s not what I mean here .
I am once again about to ovulate. Something that my body suppressed for 20+ years and has only become more and more normal as I have aged. It’s odd. It’s a cruel joke of sorts but I understand it’s God’s design and plan for me. Maybe because I am finally in a place to allow God’s will instead of forcing my will, has He allowed me true fertility. It’s amazing but difficult.
The practice of Natural Family Planning (NOT the Rhythm Method) is a challenge. As Catholic’s it is a sin to contracept, it is a sin to kill our babies through abortion, and it is a sin to create life outside the womb. Oh how I longed for many years for a baby and wished I could have stepped outside my religious faith and demand a child. But we knew that God’s ultimate blessing and gift on a marriage is a child and we prayed that he would bless our marriage.
This is hard for many to grasp and accept. I have had my share of struggles with this as well. 22+ years of infertility (3.5 years to conceive our first and 6 years to conceive the 2nd whom died). I have experienced threatened ectopic pregnancy where I needed to chose abortion or removal of a Fallopian tub, a very sick baby in my womb with the potential to make me very sick and die, to having to say yes to a new life when I was clearly not prepared to accept her and had been contemplating abortion should I ever fall pregnant again.
Before you judge, I am not perfect. I am a sinner. I have contracepted. I have sinned in my thoughts and in my words so I am far from perfect and I contemplate sterilization often. And yes, I certainly felt like I would seriously abort any future baby and then suddenly was faced with the decision. I would love to have sex with my husband any time we felt like it without the worry of creating new life. But that’s not how He created us and I know that’s confusing for secular society. I certainly feel like an outcast.
So here I am, I know I have the power within me to create life this weekend and I am fighting the natural and spiritual pull. Ah, how powerful God’s perfect design is!! I have baby fever. I am exhausted and I yell at my kids too much these days but here I am longing to create a new life and have a new baby in my arms. Yet the thing is, I know that if I wait just four days, that longing and desire will dissipate.
I wonder if women who suppress ovulation through the use of birth control pills still feel this urge? I know that not only am I feeling the urge, my husband is as well because our bodies are complementary to each other. His hormones work in conjunction with mine and men are more attracted to women during the fertile period. This has been studied numerous times so it seems that women on birth control don’t have these fluctuations and may actually be “less attractive.”
I digress.
It’s been a while since I wrote and I have had so many thoughts to share but I have writers block I suppose. It might just be a lack of time. I certainly would like to share about my near death experiences last year. Many of you don’t know I was very sick in December and was in complete organ failure. It was scary but I had complete faith that God would heal me and I was.
For now, I need to get through these next four days, without “taking advantage” of my husband. Another child could kill me on many levels but it’s so interesting that ovulation creates changes within the body in order to “pressure,” not only the woman but the man in her life.
Ovulation is perfectly designed.
Oh, and if you want to read more about God’s intricate design and plan, read what Archbishop Aquila just wrote on Humanae Vitae.
