Joshua and I have learned from our parents that people love to ask, “Do you know what causes that?” when they learn that you have, in their opinion, “too many babies.”
U.S. families are small: the average number of children per household is two. Most people just cannot fathom the idea that anyone would want a big family and assume that the parents must have made a mistake or had an accident if they have a lot of kids, or if they have their kids close together.
God gives surprises, not accidents.
As Catholics, we understand the beautiful practice of Natural Family Planning. We live in harmony with God’s design for our bodies rather than under the false pretense that babies are curses or rights, that our spouse’s fertility is something to be feared, or that we can control everything. Instead, we live by embracing God as the author of life.
If you Google the word accident, the second definition reads: “an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.” And the example that goes with it? “The pregnancy was an accident.”
Actually, there’s only one natural way to get pregnant.
That is, have sex. So, far from being accidents, pregnancies always have an extremely apparent and deliberate cause. The misunderstanding comes from contraception, which gives people the false idea that they can prevent the natural consequences of their actions. In this case, that’s making babies when they have sexual intercourse. A contraceptive mindset allows people to claim that pregnancies happen by accident.
But God is the author of life. He decides when children are conceived, whether that’s after a one-night stand with a stranger or a year of trying with your spouse. Even when we chart our fertility and choose to abstain during ovulation to avoid pregnancy, we still surrender to God’s will in our lives and risk having a surprise baby because we missed a biomarker.
It is a beautiful experience to actively attempt to conceive a child, and to be aware of the beauty you are sharing with your spouse. But we get to live in part of that beauty every day of our marriages by embracing God as the author of life and surrendering to His will, free of all false senses of control.
And babies are never accidents. They are surprising, beautiful, amazing gifts from God.
