God's Ways not the Culture's

As more and more people learn of mine and Eric's little miracle inside my tummy one thing has taken me by surprise; there have been people who have questioned if I was pregnant before we got married. A few have even told me that they took out a calendar and added up the weeks to be sure it was correct. There are also some who don't realize that pregnancy weeks are calculated from the woman's last menstrual cycle. Eric and I are 9 weeks today. We got married 7 weeks ago and conceived on our wedding night (we know because we were charting my fertility). Because they calculate from the first date of my last period (October 1st) I am placed at 9 weeks pregnant. Sorry if that was a little TMI! Due to people not knowing this information some have counted the weeks since I was married and assumed that means I was pregnant two weeks before the wedding. Initially I was very hurt. I have spent the last four years of my life teaching Christian morality and the year prior to that teaching abstinence education in public schools in Ohio. Chastity and sexual purity has always been something very important to me and the fact that people doubted me was hurtful. Once I got past my pride and realized that this is a very common stumbling block even for some of the most faithful people I know, I was able to step back and look at the bigger picture of what is going on. We live in a contraceptive culture that can be very selfish. Eric and my situation is a slap in the face to our culture. Often times couples will date for several years, be engaged for at least 1 year and then wait a while before having kids. Now I am not judging the decisions other people make. I have several friends who would love to have children and have not been able to, so we should never assume that someone without kids is acting selfishly, but the reality is that in many cases couples use contraception to avoid pregnancy for the first year or so of their marriage. Eric and I on the other hand met, got engaged, were married, and pregnant in just over 10 months. When we met we both understood the purpose of dating and marriage and as soon as we heard the call of the Lord we followed without delay. During our engagement we decided to learn the Creighton model of NFP in case we experience any infertility. By the way for anyone reading this struggling to get pregnant, it is the most effective way to treat infertility and it is natural and affordable. As we were charting my fertility we realized that there was a good chance that my cycle would line up perfectly for us to potentially conceive on our wedding night or soon after. We talked about this and both expressed how amazing it would be to conceive right away. We both want a large family and we see that children are one of the primary purposes of marriage. Neither of us desired at all to wait to start having kids. I always remember my mom telling me that when she got pregnant she loved my dad a little more because they had made something that was 50% of each of them. So beautiful! I now understand completely. Not only did Eric and I like the idea of getting pregnant right away, we prayed for it. I wrote about this in my last blog so why am I talking about it again? It occurred to me as people were questioning when we conceived that we are totally opposite of our culture. Our desires and situation are not the norm and so I think many people can't even imagine our situation being real. It's hard to believe that two people really did conceive right away because that doesn't happen very often. I bet 100 years ago no one would have even batted an eye at our situation. It was expected that couples were chaste and without the use of contraception people got pregnant quickly and even saw it as a blessing. I am happy to be counter cultural. We are elated to already be a family. When we follow God's call in our lives we should expect some persecution and questioning. Eric and I believe that God is asking us to be an example of Catholic family life the way He designed it. What the future has in store we know not but for now I accept that people will often question us as we strive to follow God's ways and not the ways of the culture.