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MicheleQ
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 3:35pm | IP Logged
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Patty,
I can't imagine your post could be offensive to anyone but it breaks my heart to read that you have to suffer the additional pain of people's judgments. I'm so sorry for that.
God bless,
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 4:04pm | IP Logged
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LisaR wrote:
| with regards to the teaching of 8 days of abstaining- we have taught CCL NFP since 1997 and have NEVER said such a thing. It really varies as much as each woman's cycle- everyone is SO different- which is exactly why it is not the "rhythm-calendar" method. Good News! CCL has rewritten ALL of their teaching notes- they will be released in early fall- and they address so much about what has been discussed here. |
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That's really good to hear!
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I am sorry if I used the term "animal" (or I think I also used mammal  ) here or on another More the Merrier post. I have seen far too many Catholic, Homeschool marriages break up because of s*x addiction. Almost all of them were Providentialists and the wives shared in great detail the pains of feeling used. |
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No apology needed, this is ver sad indeed.
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Open to life when it looks imprudent to the world: THAT is a tough one! I think we all can feel judged if we have more than 4 kids-
We qualify for public aid. We have enormous amounts of student loan, housing, and car debt. we have little insurance, and absolutely NO savings, retirement, or any kind of help. Really. |
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Oh I hear ya. My dh has been out of work for months because of a severe herniated disk. Given that we've really been struggling to make ends meet we have been care fully avoiding fertile times the last few months. But God truly is in control isn't he? Dh is feeling better and starting a good job next week so our Lord apparently thought it was time to add a new member to our family - my pregnancy test this morning was positive! 
We told the kids this morning and everyone is thrilled (though for a while they thought it was an April Fool's joke). I am using progesterone cream (as I have in the last three successful pregnancies after it was determined that low progesterone caused my four previous miscarriages) and praying this one "sticks". If all goes well we should be meeting Quigley baby #10 sometime in Late Nov. or early Dec.
So now I have to go to a family party tonight for my sister's birthday. I'm hoping noone asks me if I'm pregnant...but someone always does!
God bless,
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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PDyer
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 4:08pm | IP Logged
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MicheleQ wrote:
Patty,
I can't imagine your post could be offensive to anyone but it breaks my heart to read that you have to suffer the additional pain of people's judgments. I'm so sorry for that. |
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Thank you for your kindness, Michele.
__________________
Patty
Mom of ds (7/96) and dd (9/01) and two angels (8/95 and 6/08)
Life at Home
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 4:41pm | IP Logged
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Lisa,
I moved your congratulations to this thread so that Michele has one thread to print and save for the baby book .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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LisaR
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 5:07pm | IP Logged
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will Patty still get my message? how long do i get to be a newbie at this?
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
Paul 14
Thomas 11
Dominic 8
Maria Gianna 5
Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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PDyer
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 5:13pm | IP Logged
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LisaR wrote:
| Patty- I am glad that you chimed in about your experiences with your two children and your health issues. The truth of the matter is that there are many more families like yours out there. I know in our Catholic homeschool group there are a few families that have spoken about how painful it is to participate sometimes- being around all of these big families and feeling second rate or like outsiders. May God Bless you, |
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Thank you Lisa. I can second what some of the members of your homeschool group have said, although I do enjoy being around families of all sizes as I love children. On the other hand, what *has made me uncomfortable are the rather intrusive questions I've been faced with in the name of evangelization. Perhaps I've been too open about our struggles and therefore brought some of the 'supervision' upon myself? I could be overly sensitive on this issue. Hard to say. But I'm glad we can discuss this here.
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Patty
Mom of ds (7/96) and dd (9/01) and two angels (8/95 and 6/08)
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 5:33pm | IP Logged
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I think everything is in the right place now  .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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MicheleQ
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| Posted: April 01 2006 at 10:31pm | IP Logged
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Elizabeth wrote:
Lisa,
I moved your congratulations so that Michele has one thread to print and save for the baby book . |
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Baby book? gee what a lovely idea. Really, I'm terrible about those sorts of things but thanks for the congrats.
Oh and I was outed at the party. My poor mother stood in shock for a moment and then just smiled and said "well it's just one more, I love all my grandkids" She's improving! Wonder what she'd think if it was twins or something??
God bless,
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: April 02 2006 at 10:38am | IP Logged
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MicheleQ wrote:
Oh and I was outed at the party. My poor mother stood in shock for a moment and then just smiled and said "well it's just one more, I love all my grandkids" She's improving! Wonder what she'd think if it was twins or something??
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Well, at least you've got that out of the way. I'm fifteen weeks pregnant and my in-laws still don't know. Dh has been out of town all but 10 days of this pregnancy and he "doesn't want to have that particular 'discussion' over the phone." They live about twenty minutes away. He's going to need to tell them before Easter...
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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SaraP
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| Posted: April 03 2006 at 9:00pm | IP Logged
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My goodness what a wonderful, wise, FULL thread!
I'm also an NFP teacher (Billings Method) and have a headful of random comments I wanted to make even though I am chiming in late.
The term Natural Family Planning - I hate it because I think it emphasizes the wrong things. The naturalness (which is not what distingushes NFP from contracpetion morally) and the idea of PLANNING when really we are supposed to be cooperating with GOD'S plan for our families. I like 'Fertility Awareness' better, but unfortunately that phrase already has a specific meaning in the 'contraceptive community' (meaning the people who research and write about such things) and it means NFP with the option of using barrier contraceptives during the fertile phase.
I do think it's also important to remember that even though NFP was not widely practiced until recently, the idea that sometimes couples do cooperate with God's plan for them by postponing or avoiding pregnancy is not new at all. The difference is that generations past didn't use periodic continence to avoid pregnancy - they used total continence (celibacy) and as far as I know this was considered morally licit in serious situations.
I've also wondered why NFP rather suddenly became widespread in the last 60 or 70 years (although I gather it has been around in some form since before Christ - apparently Aristotle wrote about the "red flow" of menstruation and the "white flow" that indicated fertility). The only answer I have come up with is that the Holy Spirit does tend to give us what we need only when we need it. In the 20th century we saw marriage itself and especially the integrity of the marital act under attack like never before, but we were also given NFP (not as an alternative to contraception, but as an alternative to total continence) and Pope John Paul II (who wrote roughly 2/3 of everything the Church has ever said on these matters).
And I agree that NFP used to avoid pregnancy is a deprivation and I'm pretty sure that the reason for that is that in world without sin there would never be a serious reason to avoid pregnancy (since there would be no illness, no poverty, etc.) and so NFP would be totally unecessary. But the world we live in is NOT without sin and I think that it is perfectly reasonable to desperately wish that NFP weren't necessary while still realizing that sometimes it is.
Regarding whether it can ever be sinful NOT to use NFP. . . I have taught three or four women who were learning NFP because their husbands were adamantly opposed to the idea of another child and had made it known that they would have a vasectomy (or in one case, file for divorce) if another baby were conceived. Now certainly these husbands were very, very wrong in their thinking, but I think that in such a situation it would also be wrong for a wife to say, "Nope, sorry, I refuse to do anything at all to avoid another pregnancy." Sometimes I do think the use of NFP (which, unlike contraception is not in and of itself evil) is an act of mercy towards a spouse who might otherwise be tempted to serious sin and refusing to use it can be a sin of omission. Not that this has anything to do with Willa's situation, but it is the one instance I hace come across where it really does seem like not to use NFP would be sinful.
Rachel wrote:
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So a little analogy, I was lead to believe from the 4 or 5 NFP classes I've taken, that periodic continence would be something like Holy Week and Easter and the Easter Season. I just had to learn to read my chart right. But for me, and many couples I know, NFP is really like living in Lent nearly perpetually. And the Church in her wisdom does not follow Lent and Easter with more Lent.
This, of course, gives us more encouragement to prayerfully discuss why we choose to use NFP at any one time, but I think the false expectations make it more of a burden. |
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Amen, Rachel. I think there is far too little honesty on this particular point and too many couples come away from NFP classes thinking that it will be all 'hearts and flowers' and are crushed when it isn't. I actually wrote a column about this (and the feeling that NFP is a privation) a year or two ago and it's still online at http://www.catholicmom.com/nfp0904.htm if anyone is interested.
But the fact that NFP isn't as 'sweet' as it is sometimes portrayed also makes it less likely to be used selfishly or thoughtlessly for very long and I suspect there are fewer couples using NFP with a contraceptive attitude than one might think.
Willa wrote:
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| God always seems to prefer us to be more aware of how we are using our gifts, rather than less aware. I've noticed it's a pattern with him -- He gives us very powerful things that have a potential to be misused -- our s*xuality, for instance -- but He wants us to use them in a supernatural light, not just a natural one. |
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Perfectly put!
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Mama to six on earth, two in heaven and two waiting in Russia. Foxberry Farm Almanac
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: More excerpts from "Covenanted Happiness"
