I hardly ever rant… Or at least I try not to, but I have one topic that’s been on my mind lately (like for the past six years) and I just need to let it off my chest.

I’ve never understood the whole resolve of “if it’s meant to happen it’ll happen anyway so…” in regards to child rearing.

I get so confused when I get in the middle of these conversations.

I want my kids close in age. I think it would be awesome to have Lil’ J be two years or so years apart from her younger sibling, but that’s not happening by accident.

I was talking to a woman not long ago pregnant with her third child who was to be 16 months younger than her second.

“We were using natural family planning” she told me. I tried my best not to roll my eyes but I had heard versions of this story many times.

“We were in my fertile days so I knew we shouldn’t do it but I thought ‘Oh I won’t get pregnant this one time.'”

For a moment I through I was watching 16 and Pregnant and forgot I was communicating with an adult.

Another young woman in the room said “well you know what if it’s meant to happen it’s going to happen anyway.” Really? I don’t believe that. I know it may have sounded like that in my tongue and cheek he says/she says question of the week a few weeks back, but it’s not how I really feel. If you abstain from sex, you won’t get pregnant. If you use birth control correctly, you probably won’t get pregnant. But if you do the deed during your fertile days… You get the idea.

Natural family planning isn’t a bad method of birth control in my opinion, but you have to know what you’re doing. It’s not looking at a calendar and estimating your days. It’s temperature taking and/or being aware of your body’s signs and cues, and abstaining (or not if you’re trying to get pregnant) when you’re in those fertile days. I think it’s fantastic for trying to conceive.

I think this method gets a bad wrap because couples aren’t 100% committed to sticking to it then wind up expecting another little one. Which is fine and dandy, but it’s even better when that’s what the couple wants. I’m sure the couple is going to be happy after the fact but what’s the big difference between that and just one of the partners being caught by surprise?–Intentional sabotage? But aside from that…?

I’m going to be honest. If we were practicing the natural family method, baby fever may affect my ability to read my basal body temperature correctly. Maybe my husband knows that which is why he’d never go for it.–That and because I keep telling him I want six kids. We want to be on the same page for #2 which means doing what we can to not have him/her catch us by surprise.

Now let’s get back to the fate thing. I don’t think it’s fair to blame God on the outcome of our decisions. If you don’t want to prevent a pregnancy don’t be shocked if it happens. If you do prevent a pregnancy, ok, I’d be shocked too.

Are you going to drive without wearing a seat belt because if you get in an accident and are meant to die you’ll die anyway? Death is something we don’t really want to take chances with. But what about new life?

I’m not attempting to insult unplanned pregnancies, they happen every day–Heck, I’m a result of one. But I’m trying to understand. When birth control is alledgedly 80-100% effective, why do they happen so darn often?