Hello World!

We have an open womb. What does that mean? Well, it means that though we regularly discern our family life and our family size, our womb is always open to the possibility of conception. We don't use artificial contraception in the form of a pill, a device or a condom. We know, despite our best efforts in charting, that if God wants us to co-create another life, our womb is open and hospitable. We also know that besides our spiritual and moral beliefs we face societal, familial, financial, and physical challenges that we must weigh heavily in our decisions about family planning.

Amidst all of our beliefs and considerations, we place our trust in God at the center. We allow our womb to remain open and either acheive or avoid pregnancy naturally by way of a process called fertility awareness. As Catholics, many know this as various forms of Natural Family Planning or NFP.

Our womb is open and God has decided to fill it. Completely in God's own way, well beyond my fertile period (my temperature had dropped, my cervical mucus was dry, and we were a good 8 days past my ovulation day of the past 12 months), we conceived our third child. We are so very blessed and so very humbled that we would again be entrusted with the life and upbringing of another of God's children. We are due at the end of May.

Some of you just did the math in your head and figured out that I am only about 8 weeks along. Some of you are asking yourselves, "Why is she telling the world at 8 weeks? What if something happens?"

If something happens, we will greive and we will share that grief and invite others to grieve with us as we have grieved others. However, our faith and our life is about sharing the joys and the sorrows of this journey. I'm pregnant! And I'm not going to let the fear of darkness and death keep me from celebrating and inviting others to celebrate. There is a new life inside of me and if I were a little less woozy (and could physically do one) I'd do cartwheels!

Trusting God with our gift of fertility is not always an easy road. Most dedicated NFP couples, fertile and infertile, will tell you the same thing. It requires trust and communication with both God and spouse. That being said, after finding out just how blessedly fertile we are (3 babies in 5 years), we are so grateful that we have never imposed barriers to the life-giving gift we've been given. Imagine if God had given us this gift of fertility and we had chosen to use a contraceptive drug that acts to prevent the implantation of a conceived child? Many of the contraceptives work this way and even if the science is still out, would you want to even take the risk a new life being flushed from your womb? We don't.

Every sexual act is a gift. It is a gift between spouses. It is a gift from God. It is a gift that is meant to be life-giving to the husband, the wife and our God. Our marriage vows, shared by most Christian marriages, are between three spirits, not just two. Our sexuality, our fertility, is a gift in which life is to be given and received.

Blessed John Paul II, Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, and Saint Gerard Majella, Pray for Us.