Tuesday, December 7, 2010

To be fruitful and multiply....or not?


And if not, am I being a disobedient Christian??

We have three children. The number I always saw myself as having in those long time ago days pre-kids. It took us a long time to conceive #3 and I think it took so long because I am now closer to 40 than 35 years of age.

So now we are faced with a decision. What to do next? Do we look at a long term, even permanent, method of contraception? Or do we "let God decide" whether we should add to our family? (ie. not use contraception but just see what happens without actively "trying").

The "letting God decide" option is a bit scary. Putting that term into Google along with "family size" brought up a lot of hits from blogs belonging to women who stay at home homeschooling their families of (insert any number greater than 4 here) children. That and the Quiverfull movement. A few interesting quotes in all those on the relationship between family size and "Biblical womanhood" that I will tackle in another post because of how wrong I thought they were.

Let me just say I am struggling with the whole thought of "letting God decide." While I think at the age I am now, it is less likely rather than highly likely that God would bless us with another baby, what if he did? All my babies have been early, and the trend over having the three of them is that they have arrived earlier and earlier. My third child was born after a gestational diabetes complicated pregnancy at 33 weeks. Any earlier than that and there are so many risks for both me and the baby due to prematurity. No one can tell me why they have come earlier than they should, so I don't have risk factors I can get rid of next time. In fact it's likely to be even riskier because of my age. And all three of my births have been Caesareans as well.

But is it "unbiblical" as a woman not to put my trust in God to take care of me if I should have another baby?

And the contraception road isn't necessarily the quick and easy alternative either. Researching all the options out there and deciding which are acceptable to Christians isn't a five minute task.

Financially for us, increasing the size of our family would be a stretch. I don't think I should be expecting the government to provide lots of financial assistance for me to have lots of children. In fact, it's my own belief that if you can't afford to have children and predominantly support them yourself, then you shouldn't have them (although I realise that not everyone, including many Christians, share this view).

So I feel a little uneasy about what to do here. I know I don't have a wide readership to canvass here but if anyone has been in a similar position, I am open to advice....






6 comments:

Wendy said...

I don't think I really have any advice, but I can tell you our reasoning. We've decided to stop for many reasons (not the least being the doctor saying, as he sewed me up after my third caesarean, that three was enough). Other reasons include small Japanese houses, the cost of international travel and the fact that we feel pretty much at the top of our level of ability to cope with parenting the three crazy boys we've got. I think it would be irresponsible to go for more, seeing as we have a choice.

My take on "letting God decide" is similar to my decision to get medical help when I'm sick. God has given us clever people who've found out cures for some illnesses, I'm sure He intends us to use those cures, rather than ignore them.

One for a wish.. said...

I think when you've gone down the take contraception route (and let's face it, most people do) then you've really stepped outside the strictly "let God decide" field anyway. if God really wants you to have more babies then you would have a child, vasectomy or not! :-)

Chris said...

I've got to agree with both the previous posters. I think God has given us contraception (as part of medicine) and we need to choose to use it wisely. But to refuse to use it and "let God decide" is like refusing to have an operation and "trust God to heal" you. He can, but he has already provided the means for you.

And to use a phrase like "letting God decide" seems to me to presuppose that we can decide for God- which leads to a whole heap of implications.

Wendy said...

Amen Chris.

Karen said...

Thanks all for your thoughts, much appreciated. I think part of my issue here is that I am going through a bit of grief as my youngest child moves from baby to toddler stage and I face the realisation that I have probably said goodbye to the baby stage of my life forever. I quite like babies (not newborns, but from about 4 months plus) and it's a bit sad to think I'll never have another of my own. So the inner self-talk is going something like this: "just one more" against "but you're too high risk Karen!". Heart versus head stuff. But I think time will probably cure this....

Jenny said...

Hi karen - I went through this grief process when my youngest was almost 3 and the best thing for me was to just keep looking forward to all the great things I would be able to do without a newborn/toddler. I was surprised by the grief because all the logic was pointing to 'no more kids' but my heart/hormones/etc took over. So I feel for you and I wish that more people would talk about it the ending of this stage of life because the sadness was a bit unexpected for me. But it has gone away and I can now cope with new pregnancies/new babies without the little tug in my heart.