Wow! Lots of questions!

Wow! I checked in today and found a LOT of questions and will try to get to them all:

1. I understand what you're saying about the women being expected to get soon after marriage. But what happens when someone is infertile? Is there a stigma? How do the women in that position handle that issue within your community?

I've never heard of anyone having any problems because they can't have children. It's just the same with us as with anyone else. I know some women who never had kids and no one says a thing about them. It's not a stigma at all it's just something that happens.

2. Do the women in your church primarily have sex for reproduction? Do you ever get to just for pleasure?

Yes, sex is primarily about having children and yes we also get to have fun! It's not like we become celibate when we're pregnant!

3. Do you cook/bake as much as u used too? Do you guys use crockpot a lot?

Yes, I am still getting up early in the morning to get breakfast going and making bread for the day is usually part of that. I'm also a big fan of the crock pot! My favorite thing to do is to sear a pork roast in a stock pot with vegetable oil and then put it in the crock pot to finish cooking. That way the seared flavor goes into the entire roast and not just the outside of it! Crock pots are also good for making spaghetti sauce and it's great in the winter for hot apple cider. I love the smell of apple cider and cinnamon all through the house!

4. Since I haven't identified what religious group your family are members of, I wonder about not using birth control. Do you have a religious belief about this, like the Catholic Church?

Birth control for us means abstinence. A woman can always choose not to have sex if she doesn't want to or if she wants a break from having kids. But we don't believe in using birth control unless there is a good reason for it like I know a woman who has fibroids and it would be dangerous for her to have any more children. It's a faith thing for us but we're not crazy or anything about it.

Drea and an anonymous person had the same kind of question about women not having kids and I think I got that answered with #1.

5. Also how do your kids handle being in a poly family, especially the older ones? Do they think it's odd that their family is not the norm, so to speak?

I guess to the older girls this is what normal looks like and they handle it the same as anyone would handle being in any other family. Kids with gay parents probably grow up seeing that as normal, too. I know I grew up with my parents being pretty violent and on drugs all the time and I guess I was like twelve before I realized that not everyone was like that.

The terrible things that happened this week in Boston and in Texas have been on my mind and my prayers go out to those people and their families who have been lost and who have lost loved ones. I can't imagine what they are feeling and how they are going to handle the future but my heart is just sick whenever I stop to think about them.

In Boston there was a Reddit page for buying pizza for the doctors and families at the hospitals and I sent two pizzas to Massachusetts General Hospital for the medical staff in ICU. If anyone wants to do the same thing it would be a nice way of letting those people know you love them:

http://www.reddit.com/r/randomactsofpizza

Megan