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Call it an amusing coincidence: After my last post's lengthy confession of my borderline planning-pathology, I have broken with my plans for this post in order to seize a God-given moment...and invite you to join me in rejoicing! The morning after I published my post about our daughter Mercy--pointing ahead to our youngest child, Sam--I received a call from our #3 daughter Kayla, who was two days short of her due date. She had gone for what she hoped would be her final pre-natal appointment before the baby arrived...and, oops! The midwife accidentally ruptured her membranes! I love a happy...

They are our reversal babies. (Sweet Jimmy B really thought I should have taken the picture of the backs of their heads. Get it? Reversal babies!) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to take a peek at the Pregnant Pause posts. While I'm certain that there are no shortage of folks who are relieved, no one has ever come out and asked me why we haven't been back to the delivery room in over six years. I mean, really...we made that trip three times in 3 1/2 years, after all, so it would actually...

I'm not always very nice. I might as well clear that up right now. Case in point: When I found out I was expecting Mary (pregnancy #6 and child #8, for those of you who have lost count), I had reached the saturation point with snarky comments. I mean...yes, we knew what caused that; no, evidently we weren't done; not really working on our own baseball team; blah, blah, blah...never heard that one before! At best, I got a lot of blank stares, along with a side-order of whispered "Seriously?" whenever I would announce that I was pregnant. Again. So...

It's a quote we've used many times over the years when people ask us how we can juggle so many kids: Any more than three is no big deal, because you have already learned how to make the switch from a man-to-man to a zone defense! (I don't know who first said this, but I thank him...and I figure if my basketball star brother ever finds himself reading this post, he might enjoy the metaphor!) Regardless of who deserves--but, alas, will never receive--the royalties for all the times we've said it, that little witticism bears more than a grain of...

Sometimes God is hilarious! If you read my post about Gracie, you already know how we struggled with infertility before we finally got pregnant with her. So, it's not like we were at all against making a run at a younger sibling for her--maybe even a boy for our estrogen-heavy household!--but we certainly weren't concerned about ending up in the obstetrician's office anytime soon. Like I said...sometimes God is hilarious! Grace was less than six months old when the school year started, and I was back in front of a classroom of students who were just dying to learn everything...

Families with more than 10 children are becoming the norm among a group of traditionalist US Christians. The so-called Quiverfull families believe they are carrying out God's work, and providing a new generation of moral leaders. The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott went to Illinois to meet some of them. The way Psalm 127 talks about children has an almost military sound. It describes them as "an inheritance, and arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior," adding, "happy is he whose quiver is full of them". Many Quiverfull families do indeed sense looming battles for Christians, and often...

Among some conservative Christians, a movement is giving new meaning to the biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply." The movement, called Quiverfull, is based on Psalm 127, which says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." Those in the Quiverfull movement shun birth control, believing that God will give them the right number of children. It turns out, that's a lot of kids. 'We Actually Didn't Want Children' While cooking a typical predawn breakfast in the Swanson household in Shelby, Mich., 10-year-old...

Watching Michelle Duggar manage her Herculean tasks is addictive. We like to marvel at the logistics of life in oversized reality-TV families like the Duggars or the participants of the series "Kids By the Dozen" (also on TLC), which features families with at least 12 children each. How do they do all that laundry every week? Afford all those gallons of milk or cope with a joint birthday party for 13? But there's one big omission from the on-screen portrayal of many of these families: their motivation. Though the Duggars do describe themselves as conservative Christians, in reality, they follow...

I learned a new word today - Quiverfull. According to a blog entry on Sodahead.com (doesn't sound very impressive but hey, let's take our new words where we can get them), "Quiverfull...is a growing movement of Protestants" who believe that "since children are blessings from God, we should receive as many as God will give." Therefore, no birth control. The Duggar family is about to have their 18th child, and they are a quiverfull family. The best line from the Sodahead post is, "I'm not sure how to tell the difference between a husband who wants sex and God saying...