By Bernadine B. Racoma

It’s a dilemma married Catholic women face today: Should we or should we not use artificial means of birth control?

We know that the Catholic Church staunchly stands against artificial contraception. Yet in this day and age when many people believe raring children seems to be more of a burden than a blessing, it becomes increasingly difficult for Catholics to follow this Church teaching.

I was among those women who had to grapple with this dilemma. But something happened that help me make my decision and be at peace with my choice.

I come from a small family. I was born in Tarlac, on February 15, 1958, the eldest of the three children. My father Elino was an optometrist while my mother Julieta stayed home to take care of us kids. Mom’s mother helped her raise us. We lived a fairly, comfortable, happy childhood.

I went to the College of the Holy Spirit for elementary and high school, then finished Medical Technology at the University of Sto. Tomas. My brother Ricardo, now 38 married a pharmacist ns he and his wife run a pharmacy in Marikina. Our youngest, Elino Jr., now 36, is a businessman in Tarlac.

After graduation, I applied for a job at the Medical Center Drug and was taken in as a medical secretary. From there, I moved to the Asian Development Bank where I am now a senior secretary in Education, Health and Population Division. My officemates rib me that I shouldn’t be in this division. Part of the function of my office is to monitor population growth and I happen to contribute to, rather than curtail growth. Maybe because I came form a small family of my own.

I met my husband Allan in a party in 1976. I remember it was October 22. Three days after, October 26, he was already my boyfriend. But we waited two more years before we got married.

Our first baby, born in 1980, was a boy Joseph Angelo. Three years after, we were blessed with a girl we named her Monica Rose.

During those times, the government was intensely promoting population control through family planning. I remember one of the slogans I often heard was “Stop at two” Allan and I already had two – a boy and a girl at that. We were already one little neat family. Allan, a Commerce graduate, held a well-paying job as a manager in the Philippine office of Hapag Lloyd, a German shipping line. Wanted to give our children a comfortable life so we thought we should limit the number of our children.

But we were Catholics, and we knew very well that the Church is against artificial means of birth control. So we tried natural means of family planning. We were quite successful, for we didn’t have a baby for five years. And so we thought it was time we had one more baby. I gave birth to a boy. Bernard Alan. I had a normal delivery for my first two children but Bernard was so big – 9 pounds! – I had to have a caesarian operation. So I enjoyed a 90 day maternity leave.

When I went back to the office, I noticed a number of my officemate had a certain happy glow. They told me they were attending a prayer meeting being held regularly in our office, and they lost no time recruiting Alan and me to attend a Life in the Spirit Seminar. We attended one LSS and our life was never the same again. God became very real to us and we appreciated better our Catholic faith. We allowed the Lord to take control not only of our individual lives, but of our entire family as well. We realized we had limited his reign in our family, not submitting to His will, particularly in the number of children we should have.

We saw children not as burdens – as population control advocates seemed to show. Rather, we saw children as gifts from God. Created by God for a special purpose, as part of His plan to save man and bring him to His kingdom.

With our newfound faith, Alan and I waited on the Lord, telling Him we would gladly submit to His will for our family.

God blessed our faith. Using the Billings method, a natural means of family planning sanctioned by the Church, Alan and I successfully spaced the birth of our next three children. In 1989, God gave us Vincent Paolo. After, I got pregnant again, but I had a miscarriage and lost the baby. But in 1991, the Lord blessed us with a baby girl, Angela Marie Rose. After another years, in 1993, II gave birth to Pauline Rose. All three children, like Bernard, were delivered via caesarean section.

After two years, I got pregnant again but on the second month of my pregnancy, I started to bleed and my gynecologist said I’d had a miscarriage and I must undergo Dilation and Curettage (D and C), a process to clean up my uterus. At this point, my doctor suggested that It would be practical for me to have a tubal ligation following the D and C since I already had six children, four of the delivered by caesarean section. An additional pregnancy would mean a threat to my health.

But I faced not only the health issue. Even if I was still healthy enough to have more babies, well meaning friends and relatives said I should look at the practical side of the things. Too many children meant I would not be able to give each one of them equality time.” 

I thought about that seriously and I must say I asked myself often whether I was giving my children the attention they deserve. The question nagged me. Everyone suggested to me to have the tubal ligation – everyone: my doctor, my family members, friends and officemates.

My husband and I decided to consult some priests. They all told us about the Church’s stand against tubal ligation and other artificial means of contraception. So I decided not to resort to this, I told my doctor that I would have the D and C but not the tubal ligation.

But even as I was being wheeled to the operation room for the D and C procedure, a tinge of doubt swam in my mind about God’s will for me. Was the decision not to have a total ligation a selfish decision Alan and I just made on our own? Or was God with us on this one?

I was lucid. The doctor had not yet administered the anesthesia to put me to sleep. I could still change my decision. I could have the tubal ligation now and Alan and I won’t have to go through the discipline of natural family planning anymore. If we didn’t have anymore babies, we’d be able to save our money for some luxuries which we had not been able to afford for quite some time. But we were renewed Christians, we knew our Catholic faith. Didn’t we believe that these children were gifts from God, that since they were His children, He would provide for them? How I wished God would affirm my faith at that very moment!

Then it happened. As my doctors and their assistants circled around me in the operating room, I saw him. He was standing at my left side, opposite my doctor, behind the assistants. The man was tall. Lean, fair and very handsome – and he had wings! An angel! He stood like a guard, tenderly watching over me, with one of his wings raised like he wanted to cover me with warmth and security. I gazed at him, at last feeling at peace with my decision, until the anesthesia and I drifted into nothingness.

When I woke up in the recovery room, he was the first thing I saw. My angel was still there on watch. He was silvery, almost transparent, but real. He brought down his raised wing and then left, passing through the closed door!

It was too beautiful a vision to share. It took me quite a while to tell my husband and family – and then much later my friends – about my angel, who knew was sent by God to let me know He was happy with my decision.

A few months after this, I got pregnant again. Since I was going to deliver by caesarean section, the issue of the tubal ligation cropped up again. And again, Alan wanted to seek God’s will for us. We consulted a priest we know and he asked: “Is your doctor a Christian?”

In fact, he was, and we told the priest so. “Then he will do the deciding for you,” the priest said. We consulted my doctor, without telling him what the priest told us. And my doctor said, “I will decide for you.” 

So I underwent a caesarean operation and immediately after he took my baby out, based on his diagnosis on the present condition on my reproductive organs, he had a bouncing baby boy whom we named Alan Jr. He is today the darling of the family, doted on by his fast-growing brothers and sisters.

Joseph Angelo is now 16 years old, a fourth year high school student at the Ateneo University. Although we could afford to pay his tuition, he applied for a scholarship and won it.

Bernard Alan, now 9, is a Grade 2 also at the Ateneo. Vincent Paolo, now 6 is in the Ateneo prep school.

Monica Rose, 13 is a second year high school student at St. Therese’s College. Angela Marie Rosario, 5, is in the Holy Family Nursery. Next year, she will start prep school at Miriam College where Pauline Rose started nursery.

Every school year time. We buy an average of 60 books and about so many more notebooks and school supplies, and 20 more uniforms.

My mother lives with us so she is in charge of the kids when I go to work, giving my kids the same loving care I enjoyed form Grandma. We have one maid who has a nine-year old girl whom we consider our eight child. We send her to school and by her the same things we buy our children – school supplies, uniform, shoes and all.

With such a brood, I could not keep an orderly house, but I’ve always believed a happy house is better than a neat house. The children don’t give us much trouble. They bring home good grades. They help each other with their home work. They discipline each other. It is such a joy to have them, really. Allan and I do not have one bit of regret that we received them gladly when God decided to bless us with these children. The more, the merrier, we truly are.