to actively plan my family (and for me, this would be through barrier or fertility awareness methods):
1) Since I'm not ecologically breastfeeding, I should protect my body from more pregnancies than it was meant to handle in a short amount of time. God designed our bodies to do one thing, but most of us veer from this design for cultural reasons.
2) My baby is still a baby. Many pediatricians and psychologists recommend a 3-year spacing between children as the ideal for having the closest possible sibling relationship with the least amount of sibling rivalry. My mother will attest to this: one of my brothers was three when I was born, and he was overjoyed to welcome me home. My other brother was sixteen months, and my arrival was traumatic for him.
Yet is the formula that simple? If the average baby is ready for a sibling by age three, that means some babies fall below or above that average. When a mother is ecologically breastfeeding, the frequency of her child's suckling tells her body how intense her child's need for her is. Her body responds accordingly, with her fertility hormones either rising or continuing to be suppressed.
Since I am not ecologically breastfeeding, shouldn't I err on the side of caution?
3) I'm not convinced that birth control is sinful. I'd like to research more about the church's position on this over the years-- how it originated, how it's changed-- but until then, do I want to play baby roulette (ugh-- what a crass term I just used)? Shouldn't I put more prayer and study into this before I make such a major decision?
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