How I Got Ten Children

            I always thought that five children sounded like the perfect number for my future family. I pictured this perfect little angelic family with my five darlings posing in their matching satiny blue and white sailor suits, maybe three boys and two girls; so adorable with their clean, smiling, dimpled faces, sitting so nicely and well-mannered. It was picture perfection.

            When I met the love of my life, he informed me that he wanted 24 children. So, we compromised. End of story. Well, something like that. We did decide together that God wanted us to do our part in helping to multiply and replenish the earth and raise up righteous seed. We knew that, as hard as it might be, as long as we were keeping the commandments, God would bless us and somehow everything would turn out fine. 

            When I got to five, they were all pretty wonderful and I really wasn’t ready to stop. But when I got to eight, I did feel ready to stop. Eight is great, I told myself. Actually, when I was a kid, I used to watch a TV show I really liked about a “large” family called Eight is Enough. That was how I felt. I let my mind become filled with thoughts like, “God doesn’t expect us to populate the world all ourselves,” and “God expects us to be wise and use our brains to plan our families,” and “We need to focus on raising the ones we already have and providing for them,” etc.

            So, using some of these arguments, plus doctors telling me since number six that having more children could be dangerous, I convinced my husband that we needed to start using condoms and natural family planning procedures to avoid having any more children. When we “accidentally” got pregnant with number nine, I was not happy. I felt so tired of being pregnant. I felt like a baby producing machine. I was even upset that I was having to go through it all again. The morning sickness was worse than ever. And “morning sickness” for me was always a horrible, incurable, all-day sickness that lasted, at least, the first four or five months of every pregnancy. I was just so sick and tired of it all. 

            Five months later, just as I was finally getting past all the morning sickness, I had a miscarriage. It was so heartbreaking for me. I felt so overshadowed with guilt, like my bad attitude had killed my baby. It was a boy. I love my girls, but I have always had a special fondness and appreciation for my boys. I always wanted to give my husband a Boy Scout Troop. He was so fond of mountaineering and outdoorsman activities and being involved with the young men in church in Scouting and such. Anyway, I was more upset about losing my baby than I had been about getting pregnant. So, I shortly thereafter, began making every effort to again become pregnant. 

            After this baby was born, again the doctors told me that if I got pregnant again it would most likely cost me my life or the life of my baby. So, my husband and I did our part to keep from getting pregnant. Seven years later, we “accidentally” got pregnant again. We had to get a new doctor. But thankfully, everything worked out just fine.

            About a year and a half later, my husband passed away. We ended up with five boys and five girls. I couldn’t have planned it more perfectly. I am so very, very grateful for each and every one of them. There is not a rotten apple in the barrel. They are every single one a treasure, a jewel, a gift. They are all talented, beautiful, righteous, good young men and young woman. There is not a single one I would give back or want to live without. I am so glad God knew better about what I really wanted and needed than I did. And my husband was right, as poor as we have been at times, we have never gone completely without food to eat or shelter or clothing to wear, etc. God has always been so very good to us.

            Even as hard as it has been raising my youngest on my own, I remember the love that brought him forth. He brings joy and comfort to me more than he knows.