When I found out I was pregnant with our third baby, Saylor, I remember the overwhelming fear of telling our family and friends. What would they think, what would they say?
I mean here I was happily married, living the life I had always dreamed of: living live with my husband, a great provider, our home, and never wanting for anything. How dare we be so “careless” and bring another life into the world. Right?
Wrong!
Within days of our announcement, I got phone calls from family asking:
Will Brennan get fixed this time!?
Is this the last one?
Geez, how many will y’all have?
All you do is make babies!
All of the things I feared were happening to me through these conversations. And the saddest part was, I was thinking about these things myself! I was begging my husband to just go get snipped and not tell me.
We had followed NFP for years now and it was good to us, but I was scared. The emotions and hormones of being pregnant, not knowing how I’d handle it all, and afraid of being judged for “only wanting to be a mom” were all rising within me and it was overwhelming.
It sounds awful, doesn’t it??
Fast forward to my brand new baby, all the joy, love, and happiness along with sleepiness… and, we were cleared for sexual intimacy postpartum. This time to be with my husband so intimately again and yet I was scared and nervous that God would gift us another little baby if we weren’t careful. I won’t share all the details, but let’s just say a form of contraception was brought into my home after our third baby.
This was the first time EVER in my marriage this was put on the table… quite literally. I remember sitting at our kitchen counter crying my eyes out. I felt like an object, not at all like a real woman. But, I thought I should feel so empowered to “take control of our sex life” and “be responsible”. So, why did I feel so terrible?
I felt like an object, not at all like a real woman. But, I thought I should feel so empowered to “take control of our sex life” and “be responsible”.
Bronte Pichou
I felt awful and I new this was not the path we would take. Just looking at the contraceptive, I could feel the physical attack of the enemy trying to hand it to us and grappling with our fears and our struggles with family planning and openness to life.
We both looked at each other and said, This is not us. This is not what we were made for! This is not who God is calling us to be. We knew that if we went down that path, our marriage would NEVER be the same. How could we be SO #prolife and even think about this? At that moment we told each other we didn’t care about other people’s feelings and what others would think of us. We were going to choose to surrender our fertility to God and be courageous with that surrender together – for our marriage and our family.
After making that decision, the fear still creeps in. But, I would never be upset about being able to give life, raise a family, and live the life I dreamed of! I’m not going to be ashamed and apologize for my dreams. We are living out our true identify as husband and wife – as man and woman united as one. We’re grappling with the fears, the selfishness that can tug at our hearts, and choosing each other. We are choosing to live in TRUE freedom.
Faith isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. And, sometimes, we are called to #JoanUp like St. Joan of Arc and be brave in our lives – including our fertility.
