Baby talk

Guess what! We're not pregnant. We're two cycles through the Fertility Awareness Method and not a fetus in sight.

What I can say is that NFP has truly been transformative in the way we think about childbearing. I was reminded of this for a couple reasons; once during my Augustine class. We are reading Confessions and Gus is sharing with the reader the time in his life when he was in a starter marriage to a concubine. He was sexually faithful to her for 18 years, they lived together and had a child. For all intents and purposes, it was a marriage but he goes on to say this in Book IV:

"This experience taught me at first hand what a difference there is between a marriage contracted for the purpose of founding a family, and a relationship of love charged with carnal desire in which children may be born even against a parents' wishes -- though once they are born one cannot help loving them."

These first two months have been a transition from the latter to the former. When I completed my first post-marriage cycle we were both so relieved! We talked about putting "a star on our chart" and how we were proud of being so careful.

This month things have been a little different. It started out with the fact that my mensis would begin a little later than usual because of a plane trip I took to a conference in D.C. Because of the trip, I ovulated about three days later than usual. The rule with NFP is that, if you are still having high temperatures three days after your leutal cycle ends (which is very consistent and not affected by stress, sickness, planes, etc) then you are most likely pregnant.

Jake and I were talking about this the night before I thought I would start mensis. I said, "but if I don't get my period by Thursday, we're probably pregnant." We both paused for a second but the conversation ended. The next day, indeed I found I had not conceived. When we "debriefed" the experience Jacob told me that the night before he'd had a dream about a baby in our lives. He remembers feeling completely at peace.

While there was still a sense of relief, this month I think we also feel a slight sense of sadness. For all the will-be-grandmothers in the house, fear not. We definitely still feel relieved! But I think we are coming to a sense of the awe of the gift, of how precious it is to bear the image of God in your bodies and wonderous it is to be fully in the grasp of that potential. Perhaps, though, the greatest gift of all is that peace Jacob felt, the peace that transcends fear and want and falls helplessly into the arms of our creator. What a gift indeed.