Were they all planned?

I am expecting my 6th baby.  Compared to the rest of America, that's more than will fit in your car (plus 2 parents)! However, in my kids' world, our oldest son once told me we had a small family- compared to the rest of the families in our home school group. 

I have been asked many times if we "planned" our babies, and how many more do we "plan to have".  It used to be that I never knew how to answer such personal questions, especially when they came from people I hardly knew.  But God has planned my family.  He knew each of my children even before they were knit together within my womb.  So, the answer is YES, each of my children were planned.  Each one was planned by our loving Creator and given as a gift to my husband and I.  Have I been surprised by God's plan, at times, yes, but God's plan has always surpassed my own expectations.

We cannot wait to meet our 6th baby and see what God's plan is for this little soul!

Equal Rights, A Defence of Our Children

I find this whole social debate on marriage very interesting.  I have seen posted several times, the question, "What are the negative effects of gay marriage?"  It is a good question, and one that I think needs to be answered.  However, I feel like this whole debate is just a political charade.  When same-sex marriage is legalized in this country, we probably won't see much of a change....at least in the short term.  (Did I already assume that it will be legalized, I guess when I look to the past, I can see what the future holds, but I hope I am wrong).

We are already living the negative effects of the violations to marriage.  This is not strictly a homosexual or heterosexual issue, as it is being made out to be.  The violations to the sacrament of marriage began in the 1960s with contraception.  Then came abortion, divorce, cohabitation, and now gay marriage.  But it is really all the same, it is the break-down of the basic social structure, the family. 

A committed, sacramental marriage provides a safe and secure place for children to grow up.  That's the way God intended for children to grow up. Today it is rare to see a family with a father and mother who are married and all their kids belong just to the two of them.  So many families have step brothers and step sisters, step parents, half brothers and half sisters.  There is the phenomenon of "his, hers and our" children.  This is not stability.

The violations of marriage and of our children are many.  Divorce affects 50% of marriages.  Divorce has profound effects on our children.  I worked as a nurse at a call center, and we got many calls from parents whose children were suffering headaches, stomach aches, worry, etc due to divorce.  There were also cases of miscommunication between parents, one parent didn't know if the other had already given a medication, the child, then either missed a dose or was over-medicated.  I have heard from many of my friends whose parents were divorced about how much they hated being shuffled back and forth between houses and sometimes even between states!

What about co-habitation of heterosexual couples?  Many couples like to trial marriage first, they want to live together to be sure they are compatible before they get married.  Or maybe they have no plans of getting married at all.  They just enjoy living together.  What happens then, when they get pregnant?  Now, they are in an uncommitted relationship.  They may decide to get married, or may not.  This is less than the ideal situation for a child, as their parents aren't committed, one or the other could leave at any time.  I encountered a women one time, who had 10 children with 10 different fathers.  This does not provide a sense of security.

Now for couples in same-sex relationships.  Aren't most of them living the way they want to anyway?  If they so desire, they are already living together and acting like a married couple.  Same-sex couples are even defying nature to have children!  This is why I say that the negative consequences are already being lived in society.  This debate won't change much for the short term.  I think that there are consequences to the technology that is used to acquire children for same-sex couples.  It is unnatural and will leave most children with many questions as to where they came from, who their real parents are, and where do they belong in society?  Even for same-sex couples who adopt children, there is still the unbalance of being raised by two people of the same gender.  I met someone once who, in a heterosexual relationship, used IVF to get pregnant.  They had 3 embryos implanted and (I'm not sure if they selectively "reduced" the pregnancy or if 2 of them died on their own) only 1 survived.  When their daughter was old enough to talk she started asking about the other two.  At first the parents were confused, but as their daughter learned more words, she started asking about her 2 sisters, "the ones that were with her before".  She never gave up on the idea and to this day, has 2 imaginary friends, who are her sisters and even have names.  Our actions have consequences.  We cannot fool God, even with the most advanced technology.

What are the negative effects of same-sex marriage?  We are already living them in our society, they are the same negative effects of every violation of marriage that we have already seen.  Are children resilient? Yes, they do tend to cope with things quite well.  But, I have to wonder, if every child had the opportunity to grow up within a marriage, with a mother and father who lived together and loved each other, would we see as many school shootings and random acts of violence?  Would teen suicide rates be so high?  Am I stretching it too far?  Only time will tell.

Football

Football has been on the TV all afternoon.  I have to admit I enjoy a good game.  My boys are getting old enough now that they are learning the rules of the game and also enjoying spending some time with Dad watching the game.  Here's the problem I have though, the commercials!  I was just in the kitchen listening to my husband telling our boys to close their eyes several times during one commercial break.  I don't think that there is whole entire commercial break that doesn't have at least one offending commercial.  They are hardly 'G' rated.  Even the pre-view for the Superbowl halftime show had too much nudity in my opinion.  I suppose the commercials speak for our culture, violent, sexual, and inappropriate.  It sad to me that something innocent like watching a sports game is ruined by inappropriate commercials.

Birth Choices and Morality

This is a post that I have been considering writing for quite some time.  I just haven't been quite sure of how to tackle it.

I am a birth fanatic....I love to read about birth, watch videos of women giving birth, go to births, birth children of my own...you get the picture.  I even teach classes on how to give birth.

As a Catholic I bring important decisions to prayer, and pray for God's will.  In my prayer about the births of my own children, I began to reflect on the ways in which women give birth and care for their babies.  My conclusions, and where I think God has led me through prayer, is contrary to the main stream (popular) thought of how women are supposed to birth their babies and how they're supposed to care for them.

God made a woman's body to be able to birth a baby.  Even before there were doctors and hospitals, women got pregnant, labored and birthed well enough to populate the earth.  Women and babies have died during childbirth, (we no longer live in the Garden of Eden) but we have discovered ways to monitor them and to prevent some things from going wrong.  But, in the name of technology and in order to try to escape the pain of birthing, we have interfered with God's design.  For example,  the majority of women in the United States chose an epidural for pain relief during labor. There are many hormones that orchestrate the birthing process.  When a woman has an epidural we change the amount and the way these hormones are released in the body.  (www.sarahbuckley.com).  When we interfere with hormones, we interfere with bonding and breastfeeding, and "mothering".  I would go so far as to say that we can interfere with the potential relationship and parenting of that mother and child.  Is it a sin to get an epidural during labor?  I would say no, but perhaps there is a better way. 

(I often hear to argument that you wouldn't have a root canal done without anesthesia, so why would you want to have a baby without an epidural?  These things are so different that they cannot compare.  Birth is a normal body process that involves many normal hormones.  Having a root canal is a remedy for a sick or dying tooth, birth is just the opposite, it is the transition to new life).

The reason the devil is to be greatly feared, is not so much that evil is always obvious, but because he is sneaky, the "father of lies", things often appear good on the outside, but underneath the fruit is rotten.  What if getting an epidural during labor (numbing the pain seems good, right?) is really an attempt to interfere with God's design for mothers, babies, and families?

The next step would be to interfere with Breastfeeding.  It's no secret that most mother's in the United States use formula or use bottles to feed breastmilk to their babies.  Breastfeeding is the way God made a woman's body to be able to care for her child.  It is so much more than just food.  Breastfeeding, is about bonding, parenting, and loving your child.  Again, there are so many intricate hormones that are at play in both the mother's and the baby's body.  Why do we think that we can do it better than the way God made it?  Is it a sin to give your baby a bottle?  No, but perhaps there is a best way (God's way) and an other way that Satan tries to make popular, in order to create yet another division in the family.

It's no secret that our culture is hurting,  Families are hurting.  Families are broken and many children in our country are hurting.  Divorce isn't the only thing that is tearing our families apart, I would dare to go back even farther, to birth.  Satan attacks the unborn in the womb, of course he tries everything he can to tear these precious ones from their parents even at birth and during infancy.



Parenting is difficult, I am learning everyday how to be a better parent, but I do believe that I have given my children the very best start to life that they could get!

Family size

I now have 5 kids.  Every time I go out I get a lot of looks from people.  Complete strangers ask me if they are all mine, and if I am having more.  I wonder why people who think that 5 is a large number of children to have, also are the same people who want to know how many more I am having.  I have a friend who has 12 kids.  I have another friend who has none.  The way I see it, my family is average!  I couldn't imagine life without each one of my children.

Cesareans and family size

The rate of Cesarean section in the US is at an all time high, with almost 1 in 3 women haveing C-sections.  I believe that part of the reason for so many cesareans is that we are anxious.  We cannot wait to meet our babies or for labor to begin, so we induce labors.  And, let's face it, labor takes a long time...so we use medication to speed up labor, and other medicines to take away the pain of a labor that we are trying to rush through.  I think that we sometimes create problems due to a lack of patience.  There are also many ligitmate reasons for a cesarean, but whatever the reason, many women are having this common surgery.

One thing that doesn't seem to come up until after the fact is that the first cesarean can dictate your family size.  Many doctors are resistant to Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), even thought ACOG has stated that VBAC is safe even after two previous c-sections.  And some womean are scared to choose VBAC.  I remember talking to a friend when she was pregnant for the second time, her first birth was via cesarean.  She was scared to try for a VBAC.  We hear a lot of talk about uterine "rupture" and that just sounds really scary.  One of the things that surprised me, after doing to research, looking just at the stats, the risk of a complication from cesarean was higher than the risk of a complication from a VBAC.  The risk of a uterine rupture or tear is real, but it is very small.

The point that I am getting to, is that more and more women are having multiple cesareans.  How many ceseareans are too many?  I cannot find a concrete answer.  I met a woman once, who had had 5, the last two were against her doctor's wishes.  A quick Google search, led me to a discussion board, where a woman had 9!  I know of doctor's who have limited women to 3.  There is not always a choice when it comes to needing a cesarean or not, but there is a choice with subsequent pregnancies to choose VBAC.  Choosing to have multiple c-sections can limit family size.  Even if you think you don't want more than 1 or 2 children now, doesn't mean that you won't change your mind in the future.

I feel that this is an important aspect that is too often over looked until it is too late.  A great resource on this issue is the International Cesearan Awareness Network.  http://www.ican-online.org/