I personally like my kids older. Babies are not my favorite. So I really enjoy spending time with my children as they get bigger.

Do my kids have more responsibilities than their friends with one or two siblings? Absolutely. And that’s one of the benefits. While their friends spend all day playing video games while their moms make their beds, my kids are learning to work hard and watch out for each other. I think taking care of each other is a good thing.

As an older child of a family of seven, I was changing diapers, cleaning, cooking, and babysitting my younger siblings before I was ten years old. Where other children would be playing and enjoying their childhood, I was helping to raise my parents children. All because of my parent’s (specifically my mom’s) insatiable need for babies. Babies, not children. Once the infant reached about age 3, she would have another baby, and we (older children) would take care of the children she left behind. I recently talked to my younger brother, and asked him about what it was like growing up. He said that he felt like no one ever wanted him around. My mom would hand him off to me or my older siblings, while she tended to the newest baby. None of us wanted to care for him (or any of the children we were handed), my mom because she always had a baby, and us older children because we were children missing out on childhood.

It is sad for everyone involved.

Anyway, in order to resolve my guilt surrounding this issue, I did a bit of investigating. This is going to sound kind of funny, but I looked up every single one of the current First Presidency and Twelve Apostles and recorded how many children they each have. Turns out half of them have 3 or fewer children. The other half have 5-10 children each. Anyway, I realized that the Lord’s commandment is simply to have children. The number really isn’t as important as fulfilling the call to be a mother/father, and there’s room for all kinds of diversity within the Church.

I wanted eight kids of my own. Then I had miscarriage after miscarriage and alternated between blaming God and blaming myself. What was I doing wrong? Should I have been doing something I wasn’t? What it boiled down to was a temper tantrum on my part: “WHY aren’t you (God) giving ME what I want.” One of my wisest friends suggested that I try *gasp* reframing my prayers in the form of questions, such as, “What would you have me do instead of having babies right now? or What can I learn from this experience to help prepare me for future events?” as opposed to demanding Him to bend His will to mine. Anyone who has a two-year old can probably relate. Sigh.

After six years years of painful fertility treatments, multiple miscarriages, and emotional/spiritual contrition, I got pregnant. I don’t think it hinged on whether I was or wasn’t doing the right things. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Biology happens. I do NOT think that God was purposely keeping me from having children at that point. However, I DO think that HE can aid us in making the most of and getting the most out of difficult situations. I taught HS for over a decade, got a Master’s degree, traveled to Europe and all over the states with my husband, forging an amazing relationship with him in the process.

Four horrendous pregnancies later, which included being hooked up to an IV for hydration, vomiting non-stop for months-to the point where a home health nurse had to help care for me, placenta previa, toxemia blah blah blah you name it, I probably had it-I have four beautiful, wonderful children. And that is all I can handle. I mentioned in passing to God that perhaps He could have given me twins or triplets had He expected me to have more than four children given the deplorable condition I was in during my pregnancies. I thought the idea of a twofer was brilliant! There was no response from Him, however, so I’m pretty sure He’s fine with my having only four.

I spent years desperately dreaming of being pregnant, then months wishing the pregnancies were over. People who know me now have no idea what I went through to get those kids here, so I guess it’s just dangerous to judge anyone’s situation because there’s more to it than one realizes. Case in point: I was told by a well-meaning (I think) home teacher that I was going to hell b/c I’d been married for several years and wasn’t pregnant yet. I snapped and harangued him with the list of procedures I had been undergoing and he certainly left my home more sheepishly than he entered it.

If we can all give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that everyone is doing their best with their circumstances, we’d all have more free time on our hands:-)

My point is that even though I wanted a big, big family, circumstances prevented that from happening. It’s a personal decision that really shouldn’t be anyone else’s business..ha ha…I live in Utah now, so I know how THAT works! Have as many kids as you feel you’re able, care for them, love them, bring them up to be contributing members of society, and then sleep well at night knowing that you’re doing your part.

I wish I could remember which guy it was on one of the LDS blogs who, when this topic came up, said, “We have eight children. We only wanted two children, but we wanted to have two GOOD ones.” So funny.

-On another note- my husband’s last (of eight) sibling was married this weekend. Nothing can beat the feeling we had of all of us being in the temple together- Eight siblings, eight spouses. For my in-laws it was the highlight of their lives and you can bet they thought all their sacrifice through the years was worth it. I’m not sure how they did it-but it can be done! And we all get along too!