Always Open: 5 Reasons I Love Having My Tubes Intact
I spotted an article online this week entitled Closed for Business: 5 Reasons I Love Having My Tubes Tied. It was written by a woman who had undergone a tubal ligation after the birth of her second child.
Nine months later, she is exuberant about her decision. Whether she’ll still say it’s “the best thing I ever did with my reproductive organs” twenty years from now, when her kids are grown and the nest is empty, remains to be seen.
As an aging mother on the opposite end of the fertility spectrum, the article made me sad. I’ve seen a lot of my friends come to regret having their tubes tied, so much so that several have gone through the trouble, pain, and expense of having the procedure reversed. Of those who did, a few enjoyed successful pregnancies afterwards while others remained barren.
All of which makes me grateful my tubes are still intact. Here are 5 reasons why I am always open to having more children:
I love being a mother
Getting pregnant, feeling movement, giving birth, nursing babies, cuddling toddlers, nurturing adolescents, guiding teens, and watching them all grow into confident, capable, compassionate young adults — I love everything about motherhood.
Sure, each stage has its challenges, but those pale in comparison to the blessings children bring to a family. And the trials are so short lived; blink and your babies are gone. My nest would have been empty for more than a decade by now if my husband and I had stopped at two children. I’m happy to think we have another ten years to go before the last chick fledges and flies.
It keeps everyone in suspense
When people ask us if we’re going to have any more — which they do, all the time — we tell them honestly, “God alone knows… but it’s a distinct possibility.” They get a similar response when they ask if all our children were planned. “Yes they were… but not by us! We only planned to leave the planning to God.”
A reader once told me that letting God plan my family sounded like “giving up my free will and holding myself not responsible” for the consequences. But I’d say, for us, it’s more like dining in a five-star restaurant and telling the world-renowned chef, “We know that anything you prepare will be absolutely amazing, so don’t bother fetching a menu — just send out whatever you think we’d like.” And guess what? This method worked splendidly, and we could not be any more delighted with the results.
It avoids unnecessary surgical complications
Any medical procedure carries with it certain health risks, and sterilization is no exception. Known side effects of tubal ligation include castrative menopause, severe hormone imbalance, increased risk of heart disease, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, atrophic ovaries, bone loss and osteoporosis, to name just a few.
I know that bringing up children is hard work, and I can understand the desire to space pregnancies out a bit, but there’s a big difference between closing the shop for a short vacation and burning it to the ground. Time has a way of changing one’s perspective on things like “the perfect family size.” That’s why I’d caution against permanent methods of pregnancy prevention.
It packs sex with potential
Choosing to leave my tubes intact (and forgoing other forms of birth control, as well) means that every time I have sex with my husband — which I’ve done with unwavering regularity for nearly thirty years now — there exists the marvelous possibility that our union might produce another baby. Even at 52 with menopause undoubtedly looming in my not-too-distant future, I would be absolutely thrilled to find out I was pregnant again.
Sex as God designed it to be enjoyed — by a husband and wife fully committed to one another and open to receiving the blessing of children — is a potent thing. When any of those elements are missing (marriage, faithfulness, procreative potential), sex is stripped of some of its power and meaning, and what is left is a distorted shadow of what was meant to be.
It’s an exercise of faith
As Christians, our goal is to love and serve God with everything we’ve got: with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. (Luke 10:27) He calls us to yield every area of our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For us, fertility is a natural extension of that concept.
If we believe that God can be trusted with our health and our home and our finances and our eternal security — and we do! — then why not trust Him with our family size, too? By leaving the family planning to God, we merely acknowledge what the Bible has made clear from the beginning: It is God who opens and closes the womb.
Of course, remaining “always open” to children by eschewing elective sterilization and other preventative measures does not guarantee you’ll have a houseful — or even one. We’ve known several couples who’ve never used contraceptives yet still remained childless and others who’ve wound up with a large family despite being on the Pill the full time. Clearly then, any perceived “control” we humans have in this area is tenuous, at best.
Yet Scripture depicts fertility and the children it produces as lavish blessings from God. If we are going to err, shouldn’t we err on that side of the argument, by highly prizing both?
Beautiful story! Thank you for sharing 😃 My husband and I have one baby in heaven we will be re-united with in eternity. We got pregnant naturally when I was 45 but MC at 10 weeks. I’m 51 1/2, we are still very open for business, and leave things in the Lords hands. Whether it’s getting pregnant, adopting if the Lord leads us down that path, or it’s just my husband and me growing older together just the two of us, whatever God has for us will be beautiful!! I’m curious if you ever had more children after you wrote this blog entry? I think it was written in 2018, and you were about my age at that time. Blessings to you and your family.
🦋 ~ Paula
Thanks so much, Paula. To my knowledge, I only got pregnant one more time after our twelfth was born, but am sad to report I miscarried that baby during my first trimester. I didn’t go through menopause for another decade after that, though, and we never altered any of our well-established routines with regard to intimacy — so I could have easily had five or six more babies had God continued to bless us as He had in the past. The fact that I didn’t have more babies despite remaining open to them is proof that God really does open and close the womb and can be trusted to give us exactly the number of children He wants us to have when we leave the planning up to Him.
Mmm, I have two children I never wanted any more. Everyone I’ve met have always been happy with the size of their families (apart from those who wanted them but couldn’t have them). I think it depends on your social and extended family circumstances as to whether people want big or small families. We all live in “bubbles” to some extent and seek out those who are like us. I don’t think you can form opinions about those whose culture, circumstances etc are different to yours. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone with two or three children who wishes they had more. That doesn’t mean to say such people don’t exist.
I’m glad you are happy with your choices, Angela. I’m happy with mine, as well. The point of this blog post was not to convince others to adopt my way of thinking, but to explain the logic behind it to people who–like yourself–have never encountered anyone who thinks as I do about this particular topic.
Hi Jennifer,
We’re putting together a list of tips for shop owners in Syracuse, NY on how to use signage and improve their storefronts. Love your “Yes, we’re open” photo. Could we get your permission to use it?
Laurie
Thanks for asking, Laurie. You are welcome to use the picture as far as I’m concerned, but you need to know that the original photograph is not mine. I altered the file considerably to make the image taller and to change the wording on the sign, but the raw material I was working with belongs to somebody else whom I do not know and was unable to track down when I first published my post.
This is beautiful. And bold. I’d be thrilled and terrified if I found out we were expecting! But Bod is always good!
I have nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger Award, because your posts never fail to inspire me. Please see the write-up here:
https://www.ridgehavenhomestead.com/sunshine-blogger-award-brighten-your-world/
Blessings!
Laurie
Thanks so much, Laurie. That was a sweet surprise. Not sure I’ll be able to answer the questions in a timely fashion, but I appreciate your encouraging words!
Thank you for your beautiful articles. They are so refreshing. I’m so so grateful for people like you that stand and speak to things that so many will never touch. Bless you and your family.
Thank YOU, Emily. I’m grateful for readers who take time to leave positive comments. More often than not, it’s poeple who take issue with something I’ve written who bother to message me about it. May God abundantly bless you and your family in this New Year, too!
Thank you so much. I gratefully accept that blessing. It means a lot. Your words and courage to speak against the grain of culture are precious to me. Thank you for what you do.
I know a lot of people who regret having many as they did. It goes both ways. Some people regret getting snipped later, and some regret not getting snipped.
That might be true, Anna, but I’ve heard from countless couples over the years who say they wish they’d had more children, while only one woman has ever told me she regrets having any (and even her comment sounded a bit tongue-in-cheek).
I would love your feedback, after 5 full term pregnancies all with very bad 9 month morning sickness, last with serious panic attacks, my husband has decided enough. I have serious mental illnesses which are stable with medication. During pregnancy i need to change medication that makes me extremely exhausted. But, I love being a mother. But i am obese because of medication weight gain and pregnancy weight gain. These are the facts. I am desperate to find peace. My husband and I don’t believe in permanent birth control. I believe in children being a blessing.
Hi, Freya. Obviously, I agree with you that children are a blessing. Given your medical history, however, I can also understand your husband’s concern for your health. The decision whether to have more children or not is one the two of you must make together.
I have been blessed to have extremely easy pregnancies, complication-free deliveries, healthy babies, a solid marriage, and a stable job for my husband that provides for our big crew, so having a houseful of children made perfect sense to us. Had any of those factors been missing — if our marriage had been on the rocks or my physical stamina had deteriorated or our babies had serious health problems or my husband couldn’t find work — then we likely would have done things differently. In any of those cases, I believe I could have used non-abortifacient forms of birth control with a clear conscious.
I will pray that God gives you and your husband wisdom, unity, and peace as you seek His will for your family size.
37 years ago I had my first, an emergency C-section, therefore resulting in my 2nd (18 mo. later) to be a planned C-section. There was a lot of pressure at that time to have a tubal ligation with doctors saying you should not have more than 2 C-sections. We felt at peace with the decision at the time, but 10 years later, I felt sad that I had taken the decision for more children out of God’s hands. We were missionaries in the Philippines and happened to meet up with a doctor (pioneer of microsurgery) who did reversal ligations. I had the procedure done not caring if my chances of being pregnant were slim or not. I just wanted to put it back in God’s hands. We prayed that if it was His will, to give us a baby and He did, just not how we thought. Six months later, a Filipino baby was brought to us and we eventually adopted her. We always felt that this little malnourished, sick baby was a gift from God and she has been such a blessing to our family. Your blog post was beautifully written and I admire you and your husband for the choices you are making.
Beautiful. Thank you Jennifer.
I had a tubal ligation after my second child was born,some 32 years ago….I do not say I regretted doing this. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have more after the first one,because of the difficulty I had. Yes they do grow up and out of the nest fast I love my two children dearly. I am not about to regret for a single moment, that I didn’t do the right thing for myself.. I don’t believe it to be selfish either. I could only afford to have the two that I have.. They are wonderful children who have brought forth my grandbabies…and serve God with all their hearts. God is good.