On Parenting and My Reproductive Rights

Photo credit: Erin Eileen-Photography 

When you get married people will usually ask when you’re going to have kids. After you have a kid they ask you when you’re having the next. I’ve been guilty of this too and actually look back wishing I hadn’t participated in the cultural pressuring of others. Eventually tho, there comes a different point when you have a seemingly “large” number of kids where people start wondering when you’re going to stop. 😂

It’s been interesting to me to see just who is comfortable with our choice to adopt and who is more comfortable with our choice to keep birthing children. People generally don’t do very well hiding their fears and concerns or even lack of confidence in another couple’s ability to make choices that they themselves didn’t make or wouldn’t have made. Fortunately for us tho, there’s usually a group of people who just stay supportive among all parenting situations.

For us the local foster/adoptive community has simply been easiest to belong in. 

In that community, I’m not accused of having more children just because I’m only concerned about numbers. In that community, it’s not unusual for a family with 4 kids to look around the dinner table and feel like someone is missing. And when that family of 4 grew to 6, and the same feeling of missing another child happened, it was no odd circumstance in that we would became pregnant with our 7th child and then still honestly happen to toy with the idea of potentially adopting again someday (if or when the time feels right). In that community, there was no weirdness when our friends found out we were expecting our 7th child. No mouths dropping to the floor, just genuine congratulations. Other friends and family in my life may have had different reactions and that’s okay, too. But what I love about the foster community is that we’re still a “small” family in that group of people and to them we seem normal. There also exists within that community the understanding that comes with the life experiences of a large family, the struggles that come with it, and the sentiment, “We know the types of struggles you’re choosing to face and we’re here for you to help you in a way other people might not be able to understand, because we’ve been there.”

With all that being said, I happen to be on my 9th pregnancy. I have delivered 4 babies and lost 4 babies. My husband and I have also adopted 2 kids. I’m hoping this child makes it safely into our arms. We’re very close to that. Of all of our children I would say that this one soon to be bundle is technically the first child I have chosen to have entirely of my own free will. Last year I had a serious mammogram reading that required a return visit and several additional scans to make sure everything was okay. Before I knew everything was okay, my life was literally flashing before my eyes, and I had a culminating moment with several realizations. One of those realizations came very clearly, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks. If I get out of this, I want to have one more baby.”  

When you’re at the larger end of family size it requires courage to choose to have more kids. Usually by then you know what you’re getting in to and because you know that “more is more”, and you know you’re looking at “harder not easier”, but that doesn’t change how you feel about moving forward. I do believe in God and I do feel that He expressed honor of my choice for many reasons that are far bigger than myself.  But this was the first child I’ve had where I wasn’t guided to birth out of a desire that was also coupled or tainted by a sense of obligation, a sense of cultural pressure, a sense of religious pressures, or a concern of judgement from the people closest to me. I made this choice because I wanted one more baby. The doctor told me with my increased health problems up to this point that “It won’t be easy, but if you get a confirmation from God, I’ll help you thru it.”

The confirmation came when I had actually already conceived before that conversation but hadn’t realized it yet. It also happened at a time that should have been medically impossible for me to be pregnant as I typically need fertility assistance. Later I would find out that both my sisters would miraculously be expecting children with me at the same time also.

My doctor was right, tho. It has been the least pretty of all my pregnancies. Instead of being high risk for the baby in just the first trimester, I have been a high risk patient for either the baby or myself (or both) at every stage of this experience.

A couple months ago I decided after this child to be done birthing children. I was keeping a mental list of all the medical reasons why. And my husband was supportive. We even planned for him to have a surgery. But a couple weeks ago my doctor told me I CANNOT have more children and he also told me that I would likely have a c-section. He said, “Would you like your tubes removed at the same time?”. What I heard was: “You have lost your choice and you need to be sterilized.” I was brave in the office. But boy was it emotional trying to process the situation regarding my own reproductive rights. We already made the choice. I told God we were done. My husband was genuinely willing to have the procedure to ensure we were done birthing children, but even with the choice we made BECAUSE someone else I trust my life with told me I needed to or medically should, it felt so disempowering. Like my choice in the matter was taken away. 

The idea and presentation of sterilization felt so cold. And the necessity or perceived force of it felt like the taking away of a large part of who I am and who I have chosen to become in my life.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have logically weighed all the options, and if for my personal health I need to remove my tubes I will. I have also decided that even with a c-section if I am not comfortable with the idea and would prefer the other plan my husband and I had already chosen, then I will only have the c-section and either wait for tube removal later or allow my husband to move forward with vasectomy instead. I am empowering myself by allowing myself to choose what I feel I should do based off of intuition amid the actual delivery circumstances that are presented. I do also realize that menopause is a natural sterilization process that happens to all women. I also realize that many women never are medically able to make this kind of a choice (especially not with a heads up going in to it). I do not take that lightly.

But what I do know is that it means a lot to me to be a mother and that my body is meant to be my body (even tho I choose to share it with my baby). I am a unique person and so is my husband. We are people who desire a large family, and it’s not because what we have is not enough. I respect people in a way I never have before who have chosen to have one child and be done, two children and be done, or even no children and be done. I admire their confidence, their empowerment to make choices, and their direction to know what they want and where they are guiding their life to go. I admire people like never before who have more children than I do, and who live in a way that I am not capable of. I feel so grateful that finally by my 7th child, that I have learned the value of choice. The value of consent. The value of being a parent because I choose to be a parent and not because I feel pressured along with that choice.

Parenthood is such a wild ride, too. It’s always a wild card. By birthing or adoption you can choose to love a little soul, but you cannot choose anything else that comes with that. You cannot choose how the child will turn out. You cannot choose their medical trials. You (usually) cannot choose their gender. You cannot choose if you will feel connected to that child in all their phases of development. But what you can choose to say when you birth and raise a child is, “I gave you life, now live it!” Or in adopting you can choose to say, “I gave you a different path, now let’s see where you run with it.” As a parent you can always choose to say, “I can’t wait to see who you choose to be, and I will be cheering you from the sidelines all along the way.”

Of course I’m a parent who is learning more about myself and my children every day. I’d say my children are the ones who spark  growth inside me more than anyone—even more than my own parents (which is hard to do because they have taught me so much). But because of that I know that my children may not learn everything from me that I hope, and someday their own best growth may come from their personal life choices and/or future families. Even so, I love teaching and I love learning. Both of these deeply rooted desires are gratified by my choice to be a mother. I truly do love having little children in my life and family. Even if my little kids put me thru the ringer, and even if the life I have chosen to live is harder than I ever imagined, and even if there are many people who might not necessarily choose what I have chosen. It’s okay for them to be them and it’s okay for me to be me. 

I can’t wait to see who this little person is going to turn out to be and I’m grateful for the lesson of self-empowerment that my 7th child has already participated in teaching me.

Come quickly little one, we can’t wait to meet you!

Photo credit: Erin Eileen-Photography