The year we got married was not an easy year. We were newly married during the recession, having decided to move forward with the wedding despite . . . well, everything.
Then a minor but very stressful medical issue on my end began to strain our very new marriage, and I was having to fight with my insurance company to cover my medical claims.
It seemed we had skipped over the honeymoon in more ways than just forgoing the romantic trip.
Avoiding pregnancy seemed the prudent thing to do — indeed, the right thing to do. And we didn’t consider the sacrifices Natural Family Planning (NFP) required as beneath us. But on top of everything we were facing, it was a strain.
So, I suggested we start up a daily Rosary for our marriage.
Planned or unplanned?
I never really knew whether to list the pregnancy as planned or unplanned on the medical forms. Must these decisions always be perceived in such a binary manner especially when you’re using NFP?
But the decision came from prayer. And frankly, had it come from anywhere else, I would have been upset. “What are you suggesting? Are you crazy?”
Well, maybe I am crazy.
We were sitting on the couch, murmuring our “Hail Marys” as we rolled our fingers through the beads. I was meditating on the First Joyful Mystery, the Annunciation, contemplating the feelings Mary might have been feeling.
For some reason, my mind kept jumping forward to the poverty of the Nativity and the journey to Bethlehem for the census. I kept speculating on how much Mary might have been able to anticipate before giving her fiat — her total and complete “yes”.
And so, after the Rosary was complete, I made the suggestion to my husband. At least for now, we’d . . . let things be. We wouldn’t try to control anything. Maybe it’d be just for this month. Maybe it’d be for the next month. We didn’t know. We’d keep praying.
That weekend, as a little girl played peek-a-boo with me during Mass, I developed this sense that we were going to have a little girl. I dismissed the thought as superstitious, but at the very least, I can say that my heart was opening up more.
When my period arrived (Oh no, she mentioned it), I felt both relief and sadness. I kept wondering why I was crying. There were so many reasons not to get pregnant! What was wrong with me?
But we kept up our daily Rosary, talked, and decided to keep letting things be for the next month.
And then? Well, then we were pregnant. Even our midwife thought it was fast.
We both felt such a mixture of feelings. Dread, happiness, embarrassment.
Okay, maybe the embarrassment was just me, but yes, I kept apologizing to people for being pregnant.
“Thank you for your gift of hand-me-down baby clothes. I’m so sorry I need it.”
Death in the family
Around this time, my grandpa passed away. A couple of months later, Grandma called and asked if my husband and I would visit her on a weekend and pick up some of his clothes. Maybe some of them would fit my husband.
With the drive being five hours, and our whole financial uncertainty, I declined the trip.
Then, my husband and I were back to praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. What’s in the Joyful Mysteries? The Visitation.
There Mary is in the middle of an untimely pregnancy, and what does she do? She doesn’t worry about herself. She recognizes Elizabeth is also in a time of need and goes out to her.
So, after discussing another impulsive — ahem, prayerful — decision with my husband, we took time off of work to make the trip.
Two days after our own “visitation” with Grandma, I got a phone call that grandma was in the hospital. She’d had a heart attack, and she wasn’t going to survive. When she did pass, a snowstorm prevented me from being able to attend her funeral.
As I kept thinking about the fond memories we’d built from that last visit, that last visit I almost didn’t make, God seemed unusually loud.
My life still seemed in the midst of a storm, a storm that was continuing to get worse, but here was this little blessing, this little grace that spoke so loudly in the midst of that storm. Everything was going to be okay.
Months later, our beautiful daughter was born peacefully in the waters of a birthing tub in my in-laws’ home. Why I gave birth there is a whole other story, but this one ends with a simple fact.
While my husband and I have approached NFP with varying degrees of trying to avoid and trying to achieve, we haven’t been able to get pregnant in the decade since.
And we’re okay with that. Because peace isn’t found in anxiously trying to get your way, but in discerning the choices God wants you to make and ultimately letting the rest be.
Angela Curio is the administrative coordinator of the Catholic Herald.