In 2017, an MWP reader named Heather reached out to us suggesting we cover the topic of the end of childbearing. Her idea blossomed into our End of Childbearing Years series, in which we published nearly a hundred stories from Mormon women about this important life transition. Meredith Nelson interviews Heather about her own story in this episode, beginning with her childhood in Salt Lake County in the 1970s and 80s where she grew up third in a family of nine children. They discuss some of the messaging Heather grew up with regarding womanhood and mothering, and how those messages complicated some of the pain and difficulty inherent in motherhood and in her particular story. Finally, we learn how Heather’s perspective and faith expanded through both the joys and challenges of her journey.

By Lisa Balser I had three daughters with my first marriage and when that ended, I sort of thought about possibly having more if I remarried. Fast forward eight years as a single mom, I felt that ship had sailed and had no desire for another baby. My girls had suffered tremendously from the abandonment of their father and we were a close little group. I then married an amazing man who had no children and was more than thrilled to be their father. I warned him that I had no intention of having another baby. He loved us so much, he was willing to forego having his own biological children to be my husband and father to my girls. He has an eternal perspective on life and reassured me that he knew this was the family he was meant to raise. Something changed shortly after we were married and I felt sure there was another waiting to come to us and he felt the same. Due to my age (43), my doctor recommended some testing. Results showed extremely low egg supply and I was told we had less than 1% chance of conceiving. We prayed about fertility treatments, but I really felt like if it was meant to be then it would and if not, then I would feel at peace with that. One month later I was pregnant with our fourth daughter. My older girls were devastated! The trauma of being abandoned by a parent runs deep. They were 14, 10 and 7 the last time we saw him and they are 20, 16 and 13 now. They were not happy about the marriage or the baby as they felt that I also was slipping away into a new life. You can probably guess what happened when their baby sister was born. We all instantly fell in love. She is his, mine, theirs…ours. She is the glue that binds us all together. When I try to think of another one, I am also reminded of the toll it took on me physically. I had gestational diabetes, sciatica, inflamed Plantar Faciatis and knee problems from the extra weight. I am still fighting some of these conditions a year later. Isla is a gift and answer to a mother’s prayers to somehow mend the broken hearts. She is meant to be in our family, but I know that we are now complete.

By Laura Myers After my second marriage, when I found myself shepherding both my biological children and my bonus children through life and I realized getting a dog sounded better than having another baby, I knew I was done. There was a completeness that hit me when my stepkids entered my life. I didn’t need more. My family was just right. By Amelie Prouteau We already had three boys, when we felt we had to have a fourth one. We were happy to find out that another boy would join our family. Once he was here, it just felt as if our family was complete. I feel so happy now to move on and focus on my boys growing up. I am excited for all the things that will come ahead. I am grateful for those beautiful years of pregnancies and little babies at home, but I feel so strongly that our family us complete. That’s what I tell my kids when they ask if we will have another baby: We are all here. No one is missing. By Kathryn Ottosson I felt very complete with three but wondered if that was “right” since many in our faith tend to have more than that. Both my husband and I prayed and felt total peace that we were done and the Lord was pleased with our family. By Athena Blakely I knew my family was complete when my two year old was diagnosed with Autism and I was pregnant. Even if the second child didn’t have Autism too, I knew the one I had would need extra attention. I felt we owed him the very best we could give him. Having several more children would either deprive him or them of the proper level of attention. It was not too many years later that my uterus failed and I almost bled to death. One year later, both my ovaries had to be removed. It only confirmed to me that we had made the right decision earlier. My life could have been endangered if we had tried to have another child. We have since learned that my husband and I, and my older children from a previous marriage, are all on the Autism spectrum. So we made the right decision. Even if we had been able to have more kids they most likely would have been on the spectrum and there is no way we could have handled them. I have always felt like the feelings that I had were the whispering of the Holy Ghost. We both knew we had made the right decision and we have never regretted it.

By Rachelle I vividly remember sitting at my kitchen table pumping after I had my second son. I looked around the room and counted my two children. I counted them again and the number felt wrong. I was confident someone was missing. This happened to me many times over the years. I got pregnant again and then had a miscarriage. A few months later, I was lying in bed and I was overcome with the feeling that we had another little girl who needed to come to our family. I could feel her in the room with me. I didn’t get pregnant right away. One day, my mom called and told me that as she was praying about me she felt a deceased relative tell her that I was going to have a little girl—that she was waiting to come down. I got pregnant a few months later . . . and it was a boy. I knew we weren’t finished. I knew someone was still missing. When my third was seven months old, I got pregnant again. This time I knew from the beginning that it was my daughter. When we went to the ultrasound and we were told it was a girl, such a strong feeling of peace and completion came over me. I immediately knew her name and I knew that she was the one I had sensed. She is now five and my husband and I both feel that we are finished and that we are ready to move out of the childbearing years. It has been a bit bittersweet to slowly let go of the crib and the other baby things, but I am excited to see where our lives take us next!

By Debra Gale My husband Jesse was the youngest from a large “yours, mine, and ours” family of nine children. While I was the oldest of only three girls, I also wanted a large family. After we were married I got pregnant right away. Thirteen months later our first daughter Melissa was born, healthy and fine. Sixteen months after that we had another daughter, Suzie. At seven months we noticed she wasn’t reaching her baby milestones and she was hospitalized for tests. The doctors told us she was born without part of the cerebellum but they were 99% sure it wouldn’t happen again. Suzie needed lots of extra care with all her physical, occupational and speech therapy. Plus I was a little afraid of having another child. I think my body also knew I was scared as I had to take fertility pills to get pregnant with our third daughter Nancy. She was born five years after Suzie. Then she too started showing the same problems as her sister—not gaining weight or reaching her baby milestones. She was also hospitalized for Failure to Thrive and had a feeding tube put in at seven months. This time the doctor said it must be genetic. It wasn’t until the girls were eight and three-years-old that we were given a diagnosis: they had a rare disorder called Joubert Syndrome. This is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder which means both parents carry the gene and we would have a 25% chance of passing it on to any future children. We thought about adopting through church services but from our understanding since we already had three children we would only be able to adopt a child with special needs. We figured, well we can do that ourselves and knew what we would be getting into. We fasted and prayed and received blessings that we would be able to have more healthy children. Four years later when I was pregnant with our fourth child, our son Jesse, I was at a doctor appointment with one of my daughters at a special needs clinic in Phoenix. The pediatrician there seeing me very pregnant asked me if I had heard of birth control. Little did she know that I again had needed fertility pills to get pregnant. She wished me good luck. Jesse was born healthy. I was still nervous until he started gaining weight, rolling over and sitting up—milestones his sisters had struggled to accomplish. We again fasted and prayed and had another daughter, Rebecca, three years later. I was again nervous until she started her baby milestones. With Rebecca’s birth I knew she was our last due to the stress and worry of having another child with Joubert Syndrome, which causes mental and physical challenges. I had faith but was still nervous until I knew our two boys did not have Joubert Syndrome. Suzie is now almost 36 and Nancy is 31. They will always live at home with us to take care of them. We had wanted a larger family earlier in our marriage, but after having our fifth we knew we were done having children. We now have five adult children and four grandchildren so far. Our youngest daughter Rebecca is attending BYU majoring in Genetics. Someday she may be helping families like ours with genetic disorders.

By Gail When I was a teen I suffered pain every month my period came. I’d miss school, stay home, take medication and wonder why I had ovaries. It wasn’t fun. By 18 I had said more than once that if I’m not married and don’t have a child by 28 I’ll take it out when I’m 30. When I was 20 I made an appointment to talk with my G.P. Could I as a disabled woman have a healthy child without the disability I had been born with? She told me I could. That visit gave me some peace of mind. I developed violent PMS and the mood swings were terrible. My family thought I was nuts. In a very real way I was, and it was all hormonal. It scared me. Being on the pill didn’t help and I was told that there was nothing to be done. I lived with it. 30 came and went and at 31 I did take it out. I had it out the day after my sister-in-law gave birth to my new nephew. When I returned from the hospital we went to visit the family. “Do you want to hold him?”  No, I couldn’t hold him. I’d had the entire kit and caboodle yanked and it hurt. My body stabilized and for the first time in years without PMS I was calm and happy. I mourned quietly over my state but tried to move forward. The fact is that it wasn’t okay to talk about it in my family. I was in grad school at this time and the surgery had been scheduled so that I wouldn’t miss any class time. Life just went on.   Three years later I met the man that I would marry. We’d have to adopt and he was fine with doing so. We were married after four years of knowing each other and by this point in time we were both in our late 30s. He had a son who was not in his life on a regular basis. It has never really felt right to be called a stepmother, even though in technical terms that is what I am.   Once after a sacrament meeting I was asked by a woman when I was due. I cried all the way home. (I’d gained just enough weight that I looked slightly pregnant.) The question hurt me deeply and by this point in time we had decided that children might not happen. It was a painful choice, but the right one. Mother’s Days are hell as I’m not a biological mother and my stepson doesn’t think of me in “mother terms.” Being told that I can mother is a slap in the face. I don’t attend church on Mother’s Day. I don’t celebrate my womanhood. Writing this feels cold. It shouldn’t matter: it matters. And now at almost 60 and widowed there is not one soul to carry on when I’m gone.

By Anonymous A couple of years after our fifth baby was born, I began to hope each month that my period wouldn’t come, that our birth control method of choice would fail, and that I would unexpectedly be pregnant. I’m not sure how many months that went on, but it definitely turned into years. The obvious truth is that it takes more than one person to make a baby. In a happy, well-adjusted marriage, it also takes more than one person to want that baby, and I was the only one hoping for that. After number five, my husband didn’t give a definite no, but he said things like, “let’s pray about it,” or “I just feel like our family is complete.” I couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t it a righteous desire to bring more babies into the world? How could my husband deny me the joy I wanted from feeling another baby move inside me, the adrenaline rush of giving birth, the spiritual connection from gazing into an infant’s eyes as they received nourishment from my breast, and the happiness I knew the other children would experience from having another sibling? Bitterness started to creep into my heart. An unspoken tension wedged its way into our marriage. I didn’t know how to react in circles of my peers. I tried to laugh in agreement as other moms, knowingly done with having babies, spoke of the relief of getting rid of car seats, high chairs, and strollers. I tried not to show the longing in my eyes as friends would tease and say “Isn’t it time for you to have another one?” It was too hard to explain to them the complexities this topic created in my life and marriage. The truth was I felt pretty certain that I could actually convince my husband that we needed another child, but I also knew that wasn’t really the right thing to do. At first, I prayed and pleaded that my husband’s heart would change, but as the years went on, my prayers changed. Eventually, I began to pray and plead to know the will of the Lord. And He began to teach me. Motherhood had taught me about sacrificing my own desires, and putting the needs of another before mine. It’s a crash course in that, really. From the moment I began to share my body with another human being, to cleaning up various bodily fluids belonging to a child, to the nights spent waiting up to talk to a teen when they got home late at night, I had learned this. I began to see that it was time to apply these lessons to my marriage. After all, as Elder L. Whitney Clayton said of marriage, “No other relationship of any kind can bring as much joy, generate as much good, or produce as much personal refinement.” I began to see that I had been thinking about having another child from the perspective of my own needs and desires. I prayed that I could understand my husband’s needs and desires. I began to see that, although he would love the joy of adding another baby to our family, perhaps he wasn’t able to mentally and emotionally handle the stress of it. It wasn’t all about me. As I began to accept this, peace came into my heart. The longing for a baby didn’t go away, but I began to understand that it was a selfish desire, one that only took into consideration the needs and desires of one half of our eternal relationship. Our fifth child is twelve, and the last year has been the most challenging of my marriage as I have helped my husband as he has struggled with some pretty severe depression.  The lessons I learned about putting his needs before mine, as well as insights into the Atonement, have been the rock of foundation I have needed to carry me through. I knew that childbearing would teach me to be unselfish, and about sacrifice. I just didn’t know that closing the door on childbearing would teach it to me even more fully.

By Mary M. I was married at age 30 after a three-year courtship with my husband. I come from a family of 9 children and throughout our relationship I was in a hurry to have children of my own. We tried unsuccessfully until, at the age of 36, I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. I had never heard of this condition and spent time researching the term online trying to figure out my new reality. This diagnosis is based on a combination of hormone levels and for me, it hit during the 18 months that I underwent three rounds of IVF and one round on IUI so I wondered if all the intervention had caused the problem. Doctors said it was a coincidence. The terminology was difficult. I was being told my ovaries had failed, but I only heard I was a failure. Even without this official diagnosis I had felt like a failure in the family-centric LDS church for years. As a thirty-something woman without children, church was by far the most difficult setting for me. Although the term is ovarian failure, there is still a small chance someone with this condition may go on to have children of their own. My husband and I were given the number 92% infertile with an 8% chance of having children with my own eggs. My husband was more optimistic than I was hearing these numbers. I thought it was the end. I decided to pursue IVF with a donor egg based on the recommendation of my doctor, and because my sister called within a week of the diagnosis (without knowing about it) to offer her eggs. I went on to have one child using my sister as an egg donor and then another with no intervention. Both children are incredible gifts, both coming after I had completely lost hope. I grieved the loss of the children I would never have at age 36. And then I had my two children. During my four rounds of IVF I depended on the support I got from a series of infertility groups I attended. The first was a group for women experiencing primary infertility. These women were generally younger than I was (I was 36 at the time) and then I attended a support group for women pursuing children through egg donation. These women were generally older than I was, in their forties or even fifties. Both groups and leaders were incredibly helpful in dealing with loss and disappointment at not having children in the way we all thought we might. I had a tendency to dig into each stage and identity and had difficulty transitioning from childless to pregnant with one little miracle baby, and then from being a parent of one to being pregnant with a second. Now that I am 41, and my youngest is coming up on her second birthday, I have transitioned out of childbearing, and I feel like I’ve been here before. This time, however, it is easier for two reasons. One, I have already grieved so thoroughly, and two, I have two children to care for. Still, the primary word that resonates is confusion. Occasionally, people will ask me if I’ll have any more children. I want to laugh, it seems such a bizarre (and intrusive) question.

By Diane Lambert I have never been baby-hungry or had a desire to have a big family. In fact, for much of my youth and young adulthood, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to have children at all. But twice I felt a calm certainty that it was time. I know it was the spirit speaking to me, and my husband felt the same spiritual prompting at the same time. Both times I became pregnant within a month. The first time, we had been married for four years and I was in graduate school. I was content with my life, and starting a family was the furthest thing from my mind. Then one fast Sunday I got up from my morning prayer and told my husband, “It’s time to have a baby.” It was like someone else opened my mouth and said the words for me, but I absolutely knew they were true. My husband replied, “I just had the same thought.” I stopped taking birth control that morning, and three weeks later I was holding a positive pregnancy test. I actually enjoyed pregnancy, but when I went into labor the reality hit: I was about to become a mother! The idea scared me so much that I decided to just stay in labor for the rest of my life. Luckily my son didn’t listen, and I got a wonderful little boy who I grew to love wholeheartedly. Two years later the spirit spoke to us again. I felt positive that it was time to have another baby. This time I actually looked forward to adding to our family, right up until the delivery. My daughter was born through an under-medicated emergency c-section. She was 9 pounds and footling breech, doing the splits in the birth canal when we got to the hospital. When I started going into shock in the operating room, my OB/GYN knew she couldn’t wait any longer. However, the epidural didn’t fully take effect until after the surgery, and I felt the whole thing. My daughter was born 35 minutes after we arrived at the hospital, and she was perfect. The surgery saved both our lives, but I felt like I couldn’t face another pregnancy after going through that. I enjoyed motherhood. I was content with two children and didn’t feel anything was missing. My husband did, though, and two years later he said it was time to have another baby. Even though I was still nervous about giving birth again, I agreed to pray about it. I never received the spiritual certainty like I did before, so we didn’t pursue a pregnancy at that time. By the time my children were five and seven years old, I was divorced (unrelated to wanting/not wanting more children) and engaged to a wonderful man who already had five children. When I asked him if he wanted more, he said he would support me fully if I wanted another baby or two. I asked him again, “But do YOU want more?” He replied, “I think seven is a good number.” The complete relief I felt confirmed that we were done. We have been married almost twelve years now, and we’ve raised our seven children together. Four are grown, and we still have two left in high school; two are married; one has a toddler. I have never regretted not having more—my family is complete!

Janet Houston Potts Between four healthy babies and several miscarriages I still had the yearning for another baby. I even named her Briony Judith. My specialist strongly advised me against another pregnancy and then nature made the decision for me. I had to have a hysterectomy, and so my little Briony didn’t come to join our family. For quite a few years I made up seven plates instead of six. Strange how our hearts miss things and babies that didn’t happen. Iris Alton I wanted more than two children and even felt incredibly guilty for a long time after having a hysterectomy when my youngest was two. Years and experiences proved that this was the right number and I was able to let go of the guilt. After I let it go, I had an experience in the temple confirming that our family was just the way it was supposed to be. A friend who had six children laughingly told me when she was pregnant with her seventh, she was having the ones I didn’t. If she had said that before I would have been crushed, but now I could happily laugh with her. Franzi Patterson I knew I was done when I was pregnant with our fourth, and the thought of this being the last time made me happy. We were on the fence before the pregnancy about adding one more child, and gave it a three-months window for things to happen or not. Then after our fourth was born, there was never a moment where it even crossed my mind to have more. The wish or even the question of whether we should have more completely disappeared. I just felt done, and felt happy about it, where previously there was uncertainty, questions, wondering and feeling a little sad at maybe being done. I’d be horrified at this point to suddenly find myself pregnant somehow. Although we are open to fostering teenagers down the road, we are absolutely done having biological kids!

By Valerie Gardner As a convert to the church in 1971, it was difficult for me to even fathom having more than two children, since that was the model I’d grown up in. That was also during the time when the church was, in many ways, discouraging use of birth control. I was so new in the church, I was young, and I was not mature enough at the time to know that some of what I had experienced with ecclesiastical leaders amounted to them overstepping their authority. Several years later, when my husband and I had three children, I started to question and struggle in earnest to know when our family would be complete. We were not in a good place financially, and I didn’t feel like I was in a good place emotionally or mentally, to be adding to our family. We discussed it at length, and basically my husband let the decision be mine. My husband was a very involved father, and very willing to help shoulder the workload, but since I was a stay-at-home mom, the bulk of the burden would be mine. As I fretted and stressed over this decision, I somehow felt that we should have another baby, but I was just so unsure. I made it a matter of serious prayer, and one evening, as I was pouring out my heart and my tears to the Lord, I had an unforgettable experience. I literally felt His arms around me, and heard Him speak words of comfort and direction meant just for me. I was told that, yes, we were to have another baby soon, that it would be a boy, that everything would be okay, and that our family would be complete. That was 34 years ago, and I have never doubted that answer. That specific and powerful experience has been my touchstone through many other trials and doubts. I cannot say that I have had very many specific answers to prayer over the years, but the Spirit has gently reminded me numerous times that, “when I said everything would be okay, I wasn’t talking about only that situation.” Each time I read a scripture that admonishes me to “remember”, I think of that answer. I am reminded that the Lord knows each of us so well, knows our needs, and knows how to communicate with us individually and specifically.

By Janelle Nutter Our first daughter joined us rather unexpectedly, a month early. Aside from some minor drama and unanticipated excitement surrounding her birth, everything went well. She caught up in her growth very quickly, and brought us great joy. She was a very temperate child, gentle and mild-mannered. She didn’t go through “terrible twos,” or even a threenager phase. My husband and I often joked that we couldn’t have another child, because she had spoiled us so much, that we would only have an uphill battle from there. After joking about this for long enough, I began to believe it. I could be happy with just one easy child. That would be okay. My husband (who first made that joke) realized he had planted a seed that wasn’t meant to grow. He began trying to convince me that we weren’t actually done. It took probably over a year before I was ready to admit to myself that even though I was scared of trying to manage two children, I knew that our first wasn’t our only one. Neither of us had that nagging feeling that we had another child specifically waiting for us; we just weren’t comfortable stopping at one. We were fortunate with both pregnancies to conceive on our first attempts. I was soon pregnant with our second, and though we were both excited, I struggled to connect with that baby. She felt like a fetus, not a baby; I might as well have been a surrogate. I found myself frequently annoyed at her constant movement and my resulting discomfort. As I headed into my third trimester, I finally admitted publicly that I wasn’t excited, and wasn’t connecting. Several friends empathized with me and thanked me for sharing. By the time our second daughter arrived, I was happier and more excited. I just took a longer way around. I quickly fell into a postpartum depression, though (I already suffer from Major Depressive Disorder). My husband and mother-in-law recognized it within 36 hours after delivery, but it took me about five weeks to realize it. I started taking medication, and gradually adjusted to life with two children. Before this second pregnancy, we had known that we knew we would be done with only two or three children. I secretly hoped I was having twins, because that would make the decision an easy one. She wasn’t twins, so it took me longer to understand when we were done. One day, when my baby was around seven months old, I was working at the computer while she was under her play gym, my four-year-old playing with her. I became distracted when I heard them both start giggling. I pushed back from the desk to watch them for a moment, unbeknownst to them. I watched for about 30 seconds when I was overwhelmed with a feeling of intense contentment and peace. Though I hadn’t thought about family size in months, I knew in that moment I was looking at my whole family. We were complete.