JessDVD

NFP is considered a form of non-hormonal, non-barrier, natural birth control, yes. And there are lots of people out there who don't use BC or NFP and have sex when they do and if pregnancy results, it does. Birth control usage is not specifically addressed in the general fundamentalist contingent, to my knowledge. These fridge sorts are the 'lots of people'. It is, however, my hope for Jill and many of the Duggar kids that they silently practice NFP or a variety thereof (basically, abstaining during fertile periods), and naturally don't end up with as many 'blessings' as a result. Nobody would ever have to know! My impression of Derick is that while he's fine with the Duggars in general, I don't really see him buying into as many kids as possible. The Duggar girls should all be aware of how the monthly cycle works from the god-awful calendar of Michelle's cycles.

I get asked that question enough by my small-ish group of friends & acquaintances (which is super fun when I actually am, but don't care to announce yet), I would be so irritated if complete strangers were doing it. But, agreed that if you're going to make your family's primary marketing strategy that you don't use birth control, you have to be prepared for it. When I was newly married (this has a connection to Josh & Anna, I promise), I had all sorts of ideas about things I was going to do because my mom had always done them. Of course I'm going to cook great meals, of course I'm going to bake bread like she always did, of course other things not related to food... and then real life set in, and I realized those things are hard and kind of annoying sometimes, and developing those habits takes time, and not all of them are really me. So, I kind of wonder if the same might be happening for Josh & Anna and/or future married Duggars. It sounds great to say "We're going to let God control our fertility like our parents did!" and so on, but then you do it and you have 3 kids under 3 and you're like "This blows. Whose dumb idea was this?". Of course, this is why parents make clear that their kids need to make their own decisions about things, something that JB & M say they do but I'm skeptical.

That's not tacky at all.... but thanks for assuaging all of our curiosities, mildly invasive fans...

I would bet that there is some measure of natural family planning or at least natural ovulation awareness going on in that house. Kudos to them if so! Have kids but don't feel the need to pump them out at breakneck speed.

Regarding the Michelle wedding dress on display, it does seem like showboating in this case, as well as taking away from a touching memorial to Derick's dad (I heartily hope that it was D & J's idea, or maybe TLC's), but I think it would be neat thing at a wedding to display the wedding dresses of the bride's mother, MIL, grandmothers on either side, etc, if they were in good enough condition. I don't know that I'd suggest it to my daughters just so they don't feel pressured, but I think it would be cool if one of them did that.

It was in the context of a happily married couple and by no means meant to imply that anyone was forcing themselves on anyone else. The wife just didn't "feel like it" and the mom's point was, it's important to him, you love him, encouraging her to "just do it" unless she had a good reason to abstain.

It's from Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. It's written from a Christian perspective but I do think it has lots of good points even for those who might want to skip those parts. The basic concept is that women need love, men need respect, and wives act disrespectful when they feel unloved, and husbands the other way around. Then he has an acronym for the areas in which wives need love and husbands need respect, the last one for the husbands is sex, and that line is right at the beginning of the chapter, a newly married wife talking to her mom about her husband being in a snit and the mom asked why and the wife said because they haven't had sex in a week, and the mom says the above line. :)

Ugh, I don't know or really even want to think about what kind of "care package" Michelle would put together for Jill. I really can't even believe she said those things in an interview. GROSS. And the stuff about being "joyfully available", I'm putting in the long list of things that lots of people think are good ideas for a variety of reasons, but JB & M somehow make way weirder and creepier. It's not bad marital advice to suggest putting one's spouse's needs above one's own, which for many women does mean getting busy when she's not particularly interested (It was worded in one of our pre-marital counseling books: "Why would you deny him something that takes so little time and makes him so happy?!"), but then they have to take it to the creepy extremes. Ditto modesty, purity before marriage, being debt-free, on and on. On a happier note, Jill's dress is beautiful. I love that she found something modern but modest. Regarding the strapless thing, I thought we were getting beyond the awful strapless trend, but I was just at David's Bridal trying on bridesmaid's dresses for my sister's wedding and all the styles but about 4 were strapless. Fantastic. I've never heard of a reception dress but am also marginally disturbed. I'm looking forward to the day when the general public returns to spending less on a wedding than many middle-class people make in a year.

Erm, kinda mixed feelings on that one. For those out there who don't just blurt out a proposal over tacos or while hanging out at my parents' house (hypothetically speaking), I can understand rehearsing a proposal just so the propose-er feels more comfortable with it and getting timing down with multiple parties involved. But TLC, did you really have to film it? I'd put that one under too much information. It was neat to see the proposal. I don't need footage of them rehearsing the proposal. That just gets a little too Truman Show.

I think maybe a first pregnancy would look that pregnant at 5 months along, but a 4th pregnancy, probably not. I saw the comment on the Duggar Family Blog site, from someone going by "Anonymous", so no need to take that seriously. If David Waller said so, the chances are a little better but really I don't think I'd take much seriously that doesn't come from People mag, the Today Show, or their official Facebook, which currently says "expecting their third child" so probably not from there either.

Regarding Anna and the alleged pregnancy, assuming that this picture from Josh's instagram was actually taken 3 weeks ago when it was posted, right around the end of May, there is no way that Anna's due in September. She would be at least 5 months along at that point and her stomach is totally flat. Also, I would find it hard to believe that they would keep it secret that long. If she is pregnant though, four kids in 5-6 years is busy but not totally insane. What is insane, is continuing at breakneck speed after that and I sure do hope that they don't.

Yeah, I would read TWOP in particular during a currently airing season to get the comments/snark on newly aired episodes, but usually after the season was over, I would stop reading because it would end up just being lots of the same vitriol trotted out over and over. Snark on them, yes. But the raging hate - find something more productive to do! Regarding the single bedrooms - it's been awhile since I've watched the moving in special, but I thought that they said somewhere in there that they were going to do some number of separate bedrooms, probably 2 or maybe 3 girls or boys to a room, which is not unreasonable in any family size, but the kids said they wanted to be together. As a parent now, I would have said we're building the separate bedrooms and if you actually want to bunk up together at any point, feel free to fill whatever room you want, but then you have the freedom to not if at some point you don't want to.

Southwest Michigan so no, not near the Duggars. I think it's just a fad and will pass, as hopefully glasses with no glass as accessory will also...

Generally their style isn't really my cup of tea, not just the skirts thing, but they tend to be very frilly. I'm not the hugest fan of the flower in the hair thing but I see a lot of girls, older teens, maybe college-age too wearing them and they all look cute. I think the evolution of their style has been very interesting. This past season especially, the older girls' dresses that end above the knee, the little girls wearing "dresses" that are clearly long tops with leggings. I also appreciate comments like Jill's about what she's "comfortable" in because that's really what it's about.

It's been said a few times but to clarify - JB & M did not visit a fertility specialist, they went to a high-risk pregnancies OB-GYN. TLC spun it in the promos as if it were a fertility specialist, and I think AT&T put that in their little synopsis on my TV Guide. A person who doesn't use any artificial birth control, even a normal person who doesn't view babies as trophies, would logically be seeing a high-risk OB at the age Michelle is, in the sense of "If I get pregnant, what are my risks, what can I do to keep the pregnancy, etc". I know I already said this, but COME ON.... MILLIONS of people out there are Bible-believing Christians who desire to follow God's word and apply it to their lives and don't consider having a million kids to be the practical application of that concept.

I had 4 wedding showers which I thought was totally excessive, but likewise, I felt it would be rude to say no. My church hosts a shower for all first-time brides & moms, my in-laws-to-be wanted to do one with then-fiance's aunts, the young marrieds group at church hosted a couples shower for us - that was neat because couples were invited, though a lot of them also came to the church shower AND the wedding also, and my college friends did one also. By the time I had my first baby and people were talking baby shower, I told them all to just come to the church-hosted shower. I'd hazard a guess that most young fiancees just go with the flow on these things, so as to not offend anyone. By the time the babies come around (at least if that's not during the first year of marriage), they're more used to telling people how they want things to be.

I know a ton of conservative evangelical sorts and I don't think I know a single one in real life, and only maybe 3 online, who straight up don't use any form of limiting their family size (natural family planning or artificial birth control). I suspect, though she has never mentioned it, that one tries to get pregnant, and the other 2 just let it happen as it does and one has 12 kids (1 set of twins) and done, and the other has 4 (she's in her mid-30s so could still have more but has had those 4 in about 8 years so not Michelle-rate, at least). The last one has said she doesn't consider herself to be Quiverfull, so I think that some take it to mean that you *try* to have as many as possible like Michelle. I know a handful of people who practice natural family planning rather than artificial birth control, one of whom has had 4 kids in something like 15 years of marriage so clearly it's working for them. And I know a whole horde of conservative evangelicals who either do something preventative or are just not very fertile. I think the general belief among most mainstream evangelical denominations is that while children are a blessing from the Lord, it is nowhere stated in the Bible that people should pursue blessings of any kind to excess, and thus are within their right to choose how many blessings they pursue, knowing that "surprises" happen. This is a little more for the thread about things about Duggars that drive us nuts, but it drives me NUTS how whenever asked about family size, JB & M just say "We believe children are a blessing from the Lord". Well, I do too, but I haven't felt the need to overburden my household with them, thank you. Say the truth, which is that you WANT to have as many kids as you can for whatever wacky reasons you have.

So if I have this straight: side hugs are the only acceptable form of human contact.. but they share beds with each other? That's... one approach.