NF…J?

Naturally, Fruitfully, Joyfully

Have you ever gotten onto a roller coaster without really getting a full look at what lies beyond that first incline? You get to the top without much fuss but soon you are looking over the precipice and there is the rush of excitement, fear and exhilaration. What a ride!

When my wife and I decided to marry in the Catholic Church we both knew that meant living our love naturally. We studied NFP, and had a pretty good idea of how things worked. We had no idea what was in store for us, but we were strapped in and ready to roll. I had no idea! We got it all: joy, pain, excitement, fear, challenge, work, laughs, tears. But most of all, love.

Early in our marriage we had dinner at a neighbor’s house. They had three young kids. We left that night looking at each other with wide eyes: “No way, Jose! How the heck do they manage?!” We never intended to have a bunch of kids. Turns out God did.

Beth, my wife, was blessed with fertility and regularity. We typically knew another baby was on the way before we saw that little plus sign on the EPT. Spacing happened naturally with breast feeding. When weaning time came, after about a year, we just never had a good reason to delay the next one. So, Joey, Ali, Gabe, Charlie and Maggie came about two years apart.

And then came Sam. Little Sammy was born a month early, but only after a few hours of being cut off from blood supply to his brain. Beth had awoken, fuzzy and near death herself, after suffering a placental abruption in the wee hours of the night. After rushing to the hospital, the great doctors there saved both Beth and Sam.

In the first week of Sam’s life outside the womb, the neonatal Intensive Care doctors (at another hospital) pressured us to pull him off the breathing machine during what they called the “window of opportunity”. They would not explain what was meant by this. So, we brought all the medical records to a Catholic neonatal neurologist at UCLA, who explained that the meds which saved Sam’s life in the birthing room also would suppress his ability to breathe for about a week.

We wanted only God’s will to be done, but that could not be to have Sam die from passing side effects, so we let that week pass before pulling him off the breathing machine. Sam lived another eight months. Though his brain was so damaged in those few hours before his birth that he could not see, swallow or react, he taught us all that love need not visibly be a two way street. A brain damaged child had been, in our imaginations, so scary we never even spoke of it. Even for a fun-infatuated surf nut like me, putting a little trust in God, as is required to live NFP well, is excellent training for whatever may come. God opened our eyes to what a gift Sam was and is.

Worldly wisdom would have had us stop with Sam. “So, are you done yet?” was often asked (well, we got that a lot before Sam). We consulted with our doctor. Though he has never struck us as particularly religious, his response to our question, “Why did this happen?” was, “God knew you could talk the talk but He wanted to see if you could walk the walk.” The abruption, he said, was the result of no malady he could find and there was no medical reason to avoid pregnancy.

So we had a few more! I thank God for a wife so generous with Him and, by extension, me, the kids, the troubled girls coming to our Life Center and the person next to her at the grocery line.

There were times in the ensuing years we did use NFP for avoiding children, due to some medical issues Beth suffered from. But between those times we were, over the next ten years, blessed with Henry, George, Ted & Molly. Though the younger ones never knew Sam, he is the first saint they ask to intercede for us in our family prayers, a saint that might never have been but for the fruits of living, naturally, fruitfully, joyfully, NFP.