Some Barely Coherent Babbling

I tried earlier in the week to process my chaotic thoughts with Tom. We're ordinarily good communicators, but this time our wires weren't crossing.

"So you want to make a baby?" he kept asking.

"No, actually," I said several times. "I very strongly don't want to make another baby right now."

"Then let's keep with the plan to start trying when Peter is two. February."

"That's when I'd like to get pregnant, but I'm wondering if we should be more open to letting nature take it's course. I don't really even think I'm fertile anyway."

"Yeah, but if you did get pregnant right now," Tom would say, "we'd be moving a year from now with a two-year-old and an infant. Peter is enough to keep up with as it is. Can you imagine trying to sell the condo, buy a new house, and make the move if you're in the middle of having a baby?"

I'd reply, "I know. I don't want to do that. That's why I wouldn't want to get pregnant until February."

"Okay, so let's stick with February."

"But I'm not sure that's the right thing," I'd say. "In fact, if you gave me the choice between having a baby sooner than planned or later than planned, I'd pick sooner every time."

"So you want to make a baby?" he'd ask, and we'd go through this same circular conversation again. I think we recited this dialogue four or five times.

I don't blame Tom for his confusion. How do you carry on a conversation with someone who keeps changing her position? What I didn't do was explain to him why I'm questioning birth control (of any sort) in the first place.

I'm not even sure myself.

I'm certainly not well-read on the issue. Oh, I know there's controversy over how the Pill works, but I haven't pursued it since I never found a type that didn't make me fat, moody, or nauseas. Plus, I've grown wary of messing with my body through artificial means. So that's out. Why not just use a barrier method? Or natural family planning? Possibly.

But how did my questioning even begin? I'll save that for tomorrow.

But 11 Pregnancies in 20 Years?

Aye, there's the rub.

Much as I admire my grandmother, her devotion to childrearing, and her willingness to sacrifice materially for what she believed, I don't believe that a woman's body was designed to have as many pregnancies and full-term births as she had in a relatively short period of time. Her kids were primarily bottlefed, and her fertility quickly returned between children.

Had she been "ecologically breastfeeding," she'd have had five or six kids, not nine. That's a pretty big difference.

This is the heart of my dilemma. While I appreciate the quiverfull philosophy which reminds us that children are a blessing from God, not a burden, and that the abundance of children is a particular blessing, I also believe that God did not design women to have a baby every year, or even every other year.* A 2-4 year spacing between children is optimal for both mother and child. This allows a woman's body to heal and restore itself between births. It allows each baby to receive as much of the mother's physical nurturing as he needs, from frequent breastfeeding to help getting to sleep, for as long as he needs it.

Quiverfull appeals to me, but as the mother of a high needs toddler, I sympathize with parents who feel overwhelmed at the thought of another child. And as someone who is almost, but not quite, ecologically breastfeeding, I sympathize with those parents who aren't eager to change their parenting practices. (If I were taking that afternoon nap with my son, I wouldn't be typing this right now.)


*I should note that most quiverfull proponents stress breastfeeding, but I know few who completely practice all seven tenets of ecological breastfeeding.

My Catholic Grandmother

My grandmother converted to Catholicism when my dad was two-years-old. A solid convert, she had a total of 11 pregnancies and 9 healthy births. She stayed home with her children, born across a span of twenty years, while my grandfather provided.

Had they limited their number of kids, they would have lived a comfortable, middle class life. Actually, I happen to believe that they did live a comfortable, middle class life-- just not by today's standards. The kids usually received one big Christmas present. As in, one present for all of the kids, not one per child. They shared bedrooms. They passed down clothes. They were expected to help with dinner and share the care of the little ones.

They also had food enough for all, a roof over their heads, and all nine children attended college.

My husband thinks I romanticize all of this. (Maybe I do, a little bit. Especially when I picture big, loud, messy dinners with a slew of children from teenage to toddler!) Really, though, I bring up my dad's story to contrast it with the sense of entitlement so common in childrearing today:

• My child is entitled to his own bedroom by a certain age.


• My child is entitled to music lessons.


• My child is entitled to attend camp.


• My child is entitled to ride in a car manufactured in the last six years.


• My child is entitled to a pair of heelys.


• My child is entitled to a dinner that she did not help prepare.


• My child is entitled to help buying his first car.


• My child is entitled to a college education paid by me.

What does this entitlement have to do with birth control? Well, most folks I know openly admit to planning their family according to what they "can afford." Yet, ironically, the greater the income, the lower the birth rate.

Some people would say that this is because the wealthier you are, the better educated you are, and therefore you have more knowledge regarding birth control and more concern for "overpopulation" (a theory, by the way, not a fact-- but I'll save that debate for another day). I don't buy it, though. I think the lower birth rate has more to do with ensuring Sally's riding lessons.

When I think about birth control in this light, I'll take my grandmother's conviction over today's materialism hands down.

But there's more to this story...

Nature's Way

In cultures where breastfeeding is the primary mode of nourishment during a child’s first 3 to 4 years, conception takes place every 20 to 30 months. Children suckle on demand, suckle for comfort, suckle throughout the night, and spend their days in close proximity to their mother. Mothers work, but they tie their babies to their back or, at the very least, allow them to play feet away.

What these women practice is called ecological breastfeeding, the seven tenets of which are the following:

1) exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months
2) allow baby to suckle for comfort as well as nourishment
3) no bottles or pacifiers
4) sleep with baby for night feedings
5) take a nap with baby
6) nurse frequently and avoid feeding schedules
7) avoid any practice that separates mom and baby

When women follow all of the tenets, not just the ones they happen to like, they hold ovulation at bay. Two to four years pass between the births of their children. Oh, there’s the odd exception. (As my friend Kristen says, “We live in a fallen world, and our fertility is fallen too. There are women who want babies who can’t have them, and women who can’t stop having babies no matter what they do.”) But, the vast majority of the time, if you follow all seven of the rules, you won’t be having a baby every year.

Here in the US, most women’s fertility returns within six months postpartum. Even among breastfeeding mothers, fertility has usually returned by the end of a baby’s first year. Why? Sometimes because we schedule our nursing sessions, or fill our kids with solids, or expect our kids to sleep in their own beds, or nudge our babies to independence from the moment we lay them in the hospital isolette or pop in that pacifier.

Am I saying that these things are necessarily wrong? That breaking any of the seven tenets of ecological breastfeeding makes one a bad mother? If so, I’m guilty. In his early months, my son liked a pacifier now and then. I don’t regret giving it. And lately Peter’s decided that the church nursery is tolerable. I’m enjoying it. As for my taking an afternoon nap with him, you can forget it. I like having that mid-day “break” to get stuff done.

But I will say this: when ecological breastfeeding is not practiced in all its fullness, I can’t expect lactational amenorrhea. This leaves me three choices:

1) Practice some sort of birth control (from the barrier methods to hormonal ones to fertility awareness).
2) Change my mothering practices so that I do fulfill the seven tenets.
3) Accept the possibility of children close in age, letting nature take its course.

What's it gonna be?

Family Planning-- or Not.

I'd like to put off my thoughts on birth control just a little bit longer. But I can't. I'm getting some serious signs that my fertility is increasing, and I've got to rip my head from the sand and deal with it.

So I’m going to make myself process my conflicting thoughts on ye ole’ blog this week, even if I find myself disagreeing on Wednesday with what I said on Monday.

R.I.P.

God spoke to Tom and I two days ago. He came in a cloud of smoke. From my car.

As we stood on the side of the highway in the heat of an Alabama drought with a crying toddler, my husband said, "So we'll look at cars this weekend." And I said, "Yeah."

With an old cell phone no longer in service, but charged up for such an emergency as this, we called 911 for assistance. Fortunately we were still in town, and Peter and I got a ride home with the sheriff while Daddy got to wait on a tow truck.

Since then, my car has been repaired. It wasn't expensive, but we're not looking back. The only question left is how to replace it.

I'm not 100% at peace with the idea of borrowing money. It's abhorrent to me. Yet I'm done with my car. Done. And I'm not willing to wipe out not only our savings but also our emergency fund. While I won't sleep well on a car loan, I won't sleep well on the other options either.

So financing we shall do. My only comfort is Tom's moonlighting. I'm hopeful, quite hopeful, that with the right discipline we can make this loan history by Christmas.

As for "Georgia," my college graduation present with whom I have spent my twenties, the car which saw me through dating, divinity school, my first job, marriage, my first house, and my first baby... May she rest in peace.

I Shot the Sheriff

Well, no, but Peter went for a ride in his car.

Did he push one too many kids on the playground? Disturb the public with a tantrum? Run away from home?

I'll tell you tomorrow. And then maybe I'll get back to my thoughts on birth control!