The Cardinal Sin of NFP

I had another blog post in mind for today, but recent conversations (both online and in person) have led me to write this one instead.   You guys will just have to wait to hear about changing diets with kids and all that fun stuff.  ;)

You see, we have 6 kids.  And we hope for more some day.   Yes, we might be crazy (the rest of the world seems to think we are), but we've found the Circus clowns to be unbelievably integral to our family.  Yes, it is a lot of work, and yes, sometimes we are really tired and frazzled.   No, we won't be able to send them all to college (that's a whole 'nother discussion for another blog post).  Yes, my grocery bill is pretty high.  Yes, there's *a lot* of laundry.

But also....yes, there's always someone to play with.   Yes, there's always laughter and love.   No, I can't imagine my life without any one of them (who could I "erase?"  No one).  Yes, my table is full at meal times and usually pretty loud with conversations.  Hopefully at least one of them will be willing to take care of me when I'm an elderly great-grandma.  Yes, there is always someone to snuggle and talk to about anything.  

In short, my life is fuller and richer because there are lots of kids in it.

Even more than that, is their existence about me?   No.  Not one bit.  I'm just "borrowing" them for a bit, if you will.  We've been allowed these amazing little humans on loan for a short period of time, in the grand scheme of things.  They will grow and leave home and go on to change the world of the people they come into contact with, and I feel incredibly blessed to spend this time with them.   Even when there's a lot of laundry.   Or sibling bickering.   

Because five minutes later, there are big hugs and giggles.   Goobery "I wub yous".

The hardest thing for people to understand is that we *chose* this life.  Well, more exactly, God led us to this life and we clung to each other for dear life and held on for the ride.

It seems to be the cardinal sin of natural family planning, according to the outside world.   To allow NFP to work on your heart and change it away from the "only have two replacement kids, preferably one boy and one girl" mindset of our culture at large, and start to believe, to know deep in your heart, that each of these rascals brings a new light, a new ray of hope, a new possibility, to the world.   Each of these kids brings something to our family, to our community, to the future, that no one else can.  

We just don't know what it is yet.

To tell people that we teach natural family planning and have six kids automatically leads to an assumption that NFP "doesn't work" or that we had at least one (they'd seem to prefer at least 2-3) "oops babies".   It's the reason why we start our NFP presentation with describing our family and making those jokes ourselves - everyone is thinking it (I remember thinking it when we were at our own marriage prep class) already, might as well address the elephant in the room.

The truth is that the elephant isn't really there.  It's just an illusion.

The truth is that natural family planning didn't *fail us*.  

Each and everyone of our six kids was hoped for, was "planned" (I hate that term when it comes to children, because there's really so little that we have control over - I'm not ordering a child).    Every single one of our six kids was a child we were praying for, a wanted child.

Natural family planning didn't fail us.  If anything, it helped us - it helped me identify a possible risk of miscarriage (I have a luteal phase deficiency), so we could supplement with progesterone as soon as I knew I was pregnant, hopefully sustaining a pregnancy instead of losing one.  Each of our bio kids was conceived using what we knew about my fertility cycle to get pregnant more quickly.  

It seems that in our greater culture, this is the cardinal sin of natural family planning.   It's why the jokes are there and why people refuse to believe that it's not the "rhythm method" (modern forms of NFP have high efficacy rates, just like forms of contraception, some even higher than contraception). It's why people see a family with six kids and joke about how poorly they must know NFP, because *obviously it doesn't work*.   This desire for more children, for a large family, for accepting more souls onto this earth, for being willing to (or, God forbid, wanting to) is treated as a moral failing by our culture, at large. 

I read a blog post years ago about large families being the "standard bearer", the flag bearers, for the pro-life community.  Without even trying, their very existence witnessed to the culture of life.   They led the way for the rest of the pro-life fight by being so visible.  I think about that any time one of these comments comes up.   I can't help but be self-conscious and filled with self-doubt when a snarky comment is made about how many kids we have, or once again, I'm being asked if I'm a daycare.   It's usually pretty easy to tell when someone is just having a "foot in mouth" moment, or if there's a little bit of snark or sarcasm woven into the comment - it's not malicious every time.   

But it hurts every time.

And I want to reach out and shake the commenter and ask them which child I should "send back?"   Which one isn't going to go on to change the world?   Because, friends, *each* of these children will change the world in their own way.  Some big ways, and lots of little, hidden, small ways.   They will change the world.

I can't help but think that is a good thing.