You just made my day here. We decided on Essure after I have had 2 still born children (3 1/2 months early) and 18 miscarriages. The last almost sank me and I suffered months of severe depression and suicidal thoughts. I can not mentally or physically handle more. We are left from my 3 I came into the relationship with and his 4 he came into the relationship with (the still born children were his when we dated 15 years ago; 2 of the miscarriages were his 1 before the twins 1 last year). That is a combined 7. I don’t think of the kids differently even though 4 are only here every other weekend they are all ours. In the context of a quiver holding 6 ours is then overfull. You made me smile (hard to do these days). We also chose because of the effects of hormonal bc to just not have sex until everything is healed and closed. In the midst of the procedure last friday the dr discovered so much tubal scar tissue from my losses that had we not chosen Essure we would have likely had a tubal pregnancy anyways. Sometimes God leads us to a place of peace somewhere foreign to where we ever thought we would be. I never in a million years thought I’d have a tubal of any sort but God led us there (him first, me kicking and screaming poor me) and it was a place of protection from greater risk and harm.

I don’t have a big family,(three girls) but if my health and finances permitted, I would have a dozen. Unfortunately that choice was taken away from me after a medical diagnosis six months after my youngest was born.

I disagree, he is not accountable for your own actions.

Great thoughts, Kelly.

Most of the rude comments I have had were from pastors and Christians. After our fourth child, our first boy was born, a lady asked me if my husband was getting fixed. I answered, “Why should we have him fixed; he isn’t broken. I don’t see any reason to have an operation on something that is obviously working like it should.” She was struck dumb.

I breastfed all my children and it helped to naturally space my children about every 2 and a half years apart. I have also had a couple miscarriages so the furtherest apart is 3 and a half yrs.
My husband and I saw that a lot of Christians gave God control over their finances and most other areas of their lives but they couldn’t give God control in one particular area. My husband and I made a conscience decision to let God have control of EVERY area of our lives and that included our bodies and reproduction. We let Him decide how many gifts that he wanted to give us and that number ended up to be 8.

You make an EXCELLENT point…totally agreed.

***New subject, related, but not entirely on topic***
Something I don’t often see in debates like this (on either side) is that putting away birth control does *not* necessarily equal having 12-18 children.

In seven years, we have never used birth control. We have 3 children, and lost another one to miscarriage. Mine are all two years apart and next time, if there is a next time, it will be 3+ years between my current youngest and the new one. What I have learned from this experience in my own life is that I am indeed not in charge of who comes into existance through me, or when. If I had my way, I’d have many more children by now. But I have realized recently that even if I am open to something good from God (babies!) I am not guaranteed anything. I have no right to be upset about that either, if I believe he is good and sovreign, as I do.

Unfortunately, I too often run into folk on both sides who feel entitled to their fertility “happening” on their terms, raging at God over “accident” children, or raging at him over infertility. If we truly trust him than we must accept what he does in our lives whether it matches our human-wisdom ideal or not.

Just a thought.

I have a 20 month old son, and a 9 month old son, and am 6 months pregnant with another boy. My youngest son will be born before my oldest turns 2. I am excited. My husband is excited. My church, who says they don’t believe in birth control but believe in NFP (to us it is all one and the same…trying to prevent a life) is starting to be critical. Our friends, who say they are against birth control AND NFP are “concerned” with how close together our children are for “health concerns”.

My questions are, doesn’t God know about my health? My natural doctor has said it would be good for me not to have a baby for at least a year or so after this one because of some issues with my back. I suffer chronic, daily pain. It is actually BETTER when I am pregnant. People say that we should listen to the doctor and at least do NFP. We feel guilty for even considering it. We are definitely quiverfull minded, but are there ever times it is ok to try to prevent for a little while and not be sinning? (Actually to be honest, we tried a barrier method two or three times between my last son’s birth and this pregnancy and just felt so GUILTY!).

We home birth so at least we don’t have the hospital and doctors breathing down our throats about birth control. But even our “supportive” friends are telling us we need to prevent, and that we are just “young and stubborn” (we’re in our mid-20’s).

Our church is starting to call us crazy, even though they say they believe birth control is wrong, but NFP is ok.

My husband and I are both happy leaving it up to God, but a lot of people are saying we aren’t “leaving it up to God, but are being irresponsible”. I am not keen on having a baby EVERY year and I am praying that God will allow us some spacing, but just because our kids aren’t spaced as far apart as people think they should be, that doesn’t make it wrong. God still gave us these blessings.