That’s me on Christmas morning, receiving this book as a gift. I put it on my Christmas list after hearing about it from my friend Manda’s brother. He was talking with Bobby and me at Manda’s daughter’s wedding, and he asked me if I had read it. I told him I had never heard of it. He was in the middle of it and found it interesting, being the oldest of seven. He thought it helped him to understand his mother a little bit better. I finished reading the book last week and wanted to share some thoughts. As I write this, I’m realizing that I always did find Manda’s family interesting.

I met Manda on my first day of high school. I was 13 years old and very quiet. I’ll never forget sitting next to her in French I. She said with a huge smile, “Hi! I’m Manda!” I said, “Hi. I’m Cheryl.” We communicated more at school over the years, but I think it wasn’t until senior year that I went to her house for the first time. I was shocked at how loud her family was and how different her home life was from my own. She shared a tiny bedroom with her two sisters. She had a younger brother who was my brother’s age and three older brothers. They had a large round banquet table in their kitchen, and a big Rottweiler dog wandering around drooling. They had cats and a steer. They had some kind of a beehive up on a counter and an extra large stove. I remember being amazed at the size of the jar of peanut butter in their pantry closet. Her mom was folding laundry with mounds of it piled up in a room. Her dad was working on something outside. They had a chicken coop. Manda actually collected eggs. There were siblings coming in and out of the kitchen talking loudly.

I was the oldest of three. My parents divorced when I was around nine years old. We lived a few streets away from my grandparents and spent a lot of time with them. I slept over my father’s house on Friday nights and sometimes on Wednesday nights. We watched a lot of TV and movies. My mother often had migraines and my brother and sister and I had to be very quiet so as not to disturb her.

While I was reading Hannah’s Children, I thought I would like to write about my own story. First, I’ll write a little bit about the book. The author, along with her colleague, interviewed 55 American women, with five or more children, to find out why they do what they do, and what they think it means for themselves, for their families, and for the nation. I enjoyed reading the stories of the women who were interviewed in the study, but I didn’t love the book because of the many discussions about economics. A large part of the book focuses on reasons for the declining population and whether or not government incentives work… blah blah blah

This is my own issue. I don’t enjoy economics discussions. I took many business classes because my work paid for them and I got an MBA degree. I prefer the exactness of math and accounting. I’ve never really liked (what I see as) the “guessing” in economics and statistics and sometimes science. Much of this book is concerned with why the population is declining and what can we do about it. The answers are unclear. And some of the proposed solutions are not likely to happen.

Still, I think this book is worth reading, especially for the focus on the benefits of large families and the value of children. These are things you don’t often hear about in the current culture. What this book has done for me, is it’s stirred up questions as to how and why I came to have a large family (by today’s standards.) It feels like I never thought about it before. I fit right into the parameters the author has set for her research subjects. I’m an American woman, college educated, with five or more children. I don’t exactly know what questions she asked her subjects, so I’ll just tell my story.

I didn’t always want to have a large family. In fact, on one of the early dates with my husband, I said, “I’m never getting married and I’m never having children.” This bothered him. He brought it up the next time I saw him. He wondered what we were doing. Why were we were bothering to go out? I realized that this was something I always told myself, but I didn’t really mean it. I was just scared. I was afraid to be a single mother like my mom. I grew up hearing that it was not good to be financially dependent upon someone else. I grew up hearing that marriage was a piece of paper. That if you’re gonna have sex, you need to use birth control. You don’t want to be trapped.

When I met Bobby, I was a non-practicing cradle Catholic, who was beginning to pray again and was willing to trust God, though I needed a lot more practice with that. I believed that God would take care of me no matter what, and I told Bobby that I would be open to marriage and children someday if it was God’s will.

I’ll save the story of how we came back to the Catholic Church for another day. I’ll skip to the Pre Cana (marriage preparation) Day we attended as an engaged couple. We heard many speakers, including one couple who talked about their experience with natural family planning. They said that the divorce rate for couples that practiced NFP was around 2%, way lower than the overall rate of 50% back then. (Ok, so I find some statistics interesting.) This stuck with me. I appreciated the communication involved in the practice and the respecting of a woman’s body. Why had I never heard of this before? I knew I had to find out more.

Bobby agreed to attend classes at that married couple’s house. We learned about methods, and that it was up to us to decide, using our consciences, whether or not to practice abstinence during the fertile time. My understanding was that we were to be generous, and I think they said not to avoid pregnancy unless you had a grave reason. I remember them saying that they had six children and wished that they had had more.

We had discussions before we were married and I recall wanting to stay home with them if we had children. I didn’t like the idea of being split between work and children. It seemed like a conflict of interest to me. I wouldn’t be able to give my whole self to either. Bobby agreed with it. We never said we’d have a big family. And I never thought it. Maybe we’d have two or three. We had both come from households with three children. I don’t think we wanted to have an only child.

We got married at 27 years old. We started tracking my cycles and after three months we began trying to achieve pregnancy. We based our budget on Bobby’s income and put all of my income into savings. We weren’t making that much money, but we also didn’t have many expenses. When I didn’t immediately get pregnant, I think I started to get worried. After five months I said, “We can travel and golf and do lots of service work.” I guess it was my way of saying that I’d be OK if we couldn’t have children. I was pregnant the next month.

Though it wasn’t easy, I loved being a stay-at-home mom. When Matthew was a year old, I started having a desire to have another baby. If Matthew was going to have a sibling, I wanted him or her to be close to his age. I was one year older than my brother and we were very close growing up. I conceived in March once again. Joseph was born almost exactly 2 years after Matthew. Matthew was born at 11:59 p.m. on December 11, 1998, and Joseph was born on December 12, 2000. It felt like déjà vu being pregnant during the advent season. I felt a little bit sad for Matthew, who received so much attention from us, to suddenly be without us and to see a new baby taking our attention from him. It helped me to hope in something that Saint John Paul II said about siblings being the best gift you could ever give a child. Now I know, from experience, that it’s true.

I took that message that I received about not preventing pregnancy unless you had a grave reason seriously. When I looked at myself and my motives for not wanting another child, I could see it was all fear. What if… what if… what if… I didn’t consider fear to be a good reason for not having another child. I knew I needed to develop a greater trust in God.

Baby Sarah was born 19 months after Joseph. Having three kids under four years old was tough sometimes. Bobby traveled a lot. I remember one weekend being alone with them and they were all sick and crying at the same time. I felt so helpless. I was probably crying with them. I often went on Bobby’s trips. Once, I carried Sarah in the baby carrier on my chest, while pushing the boys in the double umbrella stroller down bumpy Bourbon Street. It was not how I imagined it would be when I dreamed of going to New Orleans as a young adult.

Reality is often harder than I imagine, but it’s also better. If I was in charge of my life, I would’ve sold myself short. I have been blessed because I was open to not always getting my way.

With Sarah, and only Sarah, I practiced something I learned called ecological breast-feeding. I was told it would help to naturally space babies and it did work for me. My fertility didn’t return for 22 months. When I realized it was possible for me to take care of three kids, I began to trust that God would give me strength to take care of another. After Sarah, I had my first miscarriage. It was heartbreaking.

Rachel was born almost 4 years after Sarah. I had complications during labor which led to a blood transfusion, and my being extremely weak for the first month after she was born. I was advised by the midwives to see a doctor they recommended. He advised me to try not to have any more children.

Throughout my pregnancy, we had been building a custom house. It was stressful and time consuming. When Rachel was three months old, we moved from the small raised ranch we felt like we were outgrowing, to our giant dream home that was big enough for as many kids as we could have. Because we started having children when I was 29 years old, I didn’t expect we could have more than 10, nor did I know if we would want that many. We kind of took them one at a time. But you can see how my attitude had changed.

I got a second opinion from a new doctor. He did not see a reason why I couldn’t have more children. We decided to trust God and try again. I had another miscarriage. This one was more difficult than the first one because I found out that the baby had died, but waited months for my body to realize it, and have a natural miscarriage. In the book, there was a correlation made between the loss of a child and the value placed on human life. I had never thought of this before. Given my experience, these losses very well may have been the cause of my attitude change over the years.

I remember having a thought after 911 happened, that if Bobby had died in those towers, I would have wished we had had more children. So if imagining death can change your heart, I am sure that experiencing it would even more so.

We were blessed with healthy baby number five, Hannah. After she was born, I became very focused on decluttering and simplifying my life. Not just our possessions, but also my time. I cut back on some volunteer activities and dropped blogging, which I had done for five years. This was a busy time for me. Did I mention that I homeschooled? I guess I forgot about that. That’s a whole other story.

After Hannah, there was another miscarriage, similar to the second one. And then Mary was born. Fortunately, for me, I arrived at the hospital in labor and delivered her in less than one hour in the WETU room. It was an unexpected blessing, and she was a wonderful baby, and her siblings all love her. She’s our last living child and she will be turning 14 years old in May.

After Mary, there was another miscarriage. And then another, which was also a molar pregnancy. I was told to avoid pregnancy for a year in order to determine, through blood testing, that no cancer cells were forming. I did that, and I never became pregnant again.

My “children” are now 26, 24, 22, 18, 16, and 13. And there are five more souls that I believe were meant to be. I never considered helping the population rate. I never planned all of this. I think I was just led one day at a time. I think as some of the moms in the book may have expressed…that I have received more than I have given. I’m too lazy to search through the book for quotes. I’m just going by memory here. I am convinced that children are gifts. There is a lot of emotional pain that goes along with parenting. Hopefully, that pain has led me to spiritual progress. There is also so much joy.

In the book, there was mention of things people say to parents of many children. One that Bobby heard a lot when he told somebody that I was pregnant again was, “What, are you crazy?” Bobby’s response was always, “Not the last time I checked.”

The one I think I got the most was, “Wow. You must be busy!” I think my favorite comment that people have said is, “Enjoy them! It goes by fast!” That’s good advice because it’s true, our time here on earth is short. I’m grateful that I was led to do something I now believe I was made for, that I didn’t let fear get in the way of it, and that I am receiving grace every day to continue on my spiritual journey.