Every Sperm is Sacred: Upcoming Babies 17

[SolomonFundy]

My great-grandmother had 4 children over the course of about 20 months (singleton-twins-singleton) when she was first married. Then, her husband's sister unexpectedly and tragically died. They inherited her three (slightly older; I think the eldest was about 5-6?) kids, plus a child that she'd been raising for a neighbor. 

So over the course of about 24 months in 1916-1918, my great-grandparents went from expecting one child, to raising EIGHT children. She got pregnant again about a year into the 8-kid chaos, and again a year after that. That last pregnancy was her second (and final) set of twins. She didn't like having twin newborns, and decided to give one of them to her own sister to raise.

I've never had newborn twins,  so I guess I can't really judge fairly, but I have never been able to understand how 10 children under the age of 6 was fine, but 11 was just unthinkable. 

[lilith]

2 hours ago, SolomonFundy said:

My great-grandmother had 4 children over the course of about 20 months (singleton-twins-singleton) when she was first married. Then, her husband's sister unexpectedly and tragically died. They inherited her three (slightly older; I think the eldest was about 5-6?) kids, plus a child that she'd been raising for a neighbor. 

So over the course of about 24 months in 1916-1918, my great-grandparents went from expecting one child, to raising EIGHT children. She got pregnant again about a year into the 8-kid chaos, and again a year after that. That last pregnancy was her second (and final) set of twins. She didn't like having twin newborns, and decided to give one of them to her own sister to raise.

I've never had newborn twins,  so I guess I can't really judge fairly, but I have never been able to understand how 10 children under the age of 6 was fine, but 11 was just unthinkable. 

The informal moving around of children just blows my mind. I know it was relatively common too - it pops up a couple of times in the first half of the 20th century in my family history. Just seems so strange to me. 

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

My colleague is a midwife who visits high risk mothers. She recently did a home visit of a mum who had had IVF triplets - super rare in Australia with our strict ivf rules (2 embryos implanted as she was over 40 and had 3 years of unsuccessful IVF, 1 split in 2) and hasn’t used birth control. She had fraternal twins 10 months later (!) born 8 weeks early. So 5 kids in 9/10 months. 
so insane.

i think she must have got pregnant straight after the 6 week check up! 

 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

5 hours ago, lilith said:

The informal moving around of children just blows my mind. I know it was relatively common too - it pops up a couple of times in the first half of the 20th century in my family history. Just seems so strange to me. 

It makes sense if you think about how life was in that part of history. There was practically no government assistance. You were on your own to raise the kid. There wasn’t any daycare. If you had no money you were pretty much screwed. Plus women had no access to birth control. Sometimes their only choice was for the child to go live with a family that had more resources. 

[Bethella]

14 hours ago, SolomonFundy said:

I've never had newborn twins,  so I guess I can't really judge fairly, but I have never been able to understand how 10 children under the age of 6 was fine, but 11 was just unthinkable. 

I can maybe see it for a while if the baby was colicky but not permanently. 

[Aine]

2 hours ago, Bethella said:

I can maybe see it for a while if the baby was colicky but not permanently. 

In a way, I admire her for clearly realizing she was completely overwhelmed with how many kids she already had! But I dislike the idea of twins being raised apart, although I guess the other twin was still within the family. It's so weird to think about making a decision as to what twin you'd keep and who you'd give away!

[SolomonFundy]

22 hours ago, lilith said:

The informal moving around of children just blows my mind. I know it was relatively common too - it pops up a couple of times in the first half of the 20th century in my family history. Just seems so strange to me. 

It's pretty hard not to be shocked by it. I'm a historian by education, and a genealogist by hobby, and I'm fully aware of the plethora of logic that dictated such choices. But it's so odd to think of someone happily making room for a neighbor's toddler, or an in-law's orphan, but not their own newborn. 

16 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

It makes sense if you think about how life was in that part of history. There was practically no government assistance. You were on your own to raise the kid. There wasn’t any daycare. If you had no money you were pretty much screwed. Plus women had no access to birth control. Sometimes their only choice was for the child to go live with a family that had more resources. 

All of these things were factors for many families. In the specific case of mine, I think that there were some other considerations. I have no idea why the neighbor child was being raised with my GG-mother's in-laws, so I can't attest to that. But she took in the orphaned children because there was simply nobody else to do it. Giving the twin to her own sister later IS something I know about, though! Her sister (my great-great aunt) was infertile, and had lost several pregnancies. She wanted a child badly, so my GG-mother probably felt that splitting the twins solved two problems. They were girls, though I'm not sure if they were identical. Unfortunately, the one that stayed with her birth family passed away sometime before the age of 1. 

My great-grandmother lived until I was in my 20s, and had a very long and full life. She was extremely blunt. When my mother asked her about splitting the children, she said quite frankly that she hated having two babies to nurse at once. Her second pregnancy had been twins, and so she'd had experience with it. I vividly remember her saying that she felt like "a nanny goat", and wasn't interested in doing it again. 

9 hours ago, Bethella said:

I can maybe see it for a while if the baby was colicky but not permanently. 

In this case, the rehoming was permanent. The baby that remained with her birth family passed away before she was 1. The adopted twin is still alive! She's in her late 90s. She apparently found out that she'd been adopted when she was in her 40s while settling her parents' estate. The families lived very close together, but it just wasn't ever discussed openly.

7 hours ago, Aine said:

In a way, I admire her for clearly realizing she was completely overwhelmed with how many kids she already had! But I dislike the idea of twins being raised apart, although I guess the other twin was still within the family. It's so weird to think about making a decision as to what twin you'd keep and who you'd give away!

I dearly regret not asking my great-grandmother this. She would have answered bluntly, and it probably was based on whichever one was loudest/most demanding at the moment she made the decision. The elder twins (that were not split) were identical boys, and she had a hard time telling them apart. She used to say that people cautioned her to cut their hair differently so that they wouldn't be mixed up, and she'd just shrug and say "one name is as good as another." She was... pragmatic.

I agree with you regarding recognizing her limits, and I'm glad she had a way to ease the strain on her body and mental health. These were farming, country people. They lived in a VERY rural area, and there were no extras or down time, or luxuries. They lived in a 3-room cabin in the woods (She actually lived in the same cabin til she died), and the family slept in a common room during the coldest months of the year. Trying to get any amount of sleep while tandem nursing in that situation is nightmarish. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

7 hours ago, SolomonFundy said:

My great-grandmother lived until I was in my 20s, and had a very long and full life. She was extremely blunt. When my mother asked her about splitting the children, she said quite frankly that she hated having two babies to nurse at once. Her second pregnancy had been twins, and so she'd had experience with it. I vividly remember her saying that she felt like "a nanny goat", and wasn't interested in doing it again. 

I feel like you’re talking about my great grandma! She also lived until I was in my 20s and was extremely blunt. However she was also a great person so her bluntness wasn’t a huge problem. She didn’t say mean stuff. Just bluntly honest stuff. I’m pretty sure I get my bluntness from her. I hated breastfeeding one baby so I’m sure I would agree with your grandmother and would hate breastfeeding two. 

Edited July 25, 2020 by JermajestyDuggar

[anjulibai]

I think moving children around was pretty common throughout history. Survival likely dictated it, both for the family as a whole and for the individual child. 

[KO84]

Apparently my great-great grandparents sent a few of their younger kids to live with a childless aunt/uncle.  I think it was Bout providing farm labor for said relatives as much as it was to allow them to have their own family.  I was told it was fairly normal at the time.

[Jana814]

1 minute ago, KO84 said:

Apparently my great-great grandparents sent a few of their younger kids to live with a childless aunt/uncle.  I think it was Bout providing farm labor for said relatives as much as it was to allow them to have their own family.  I was told it was fairly normal at the time.

I’ve heard that too that it was common to send kids to childless relatives especially during the depression.  

 

[FaithAndReason]

My mother spent most of her summers with her childless aunt and uncle. They loved having her around, she loved being by lots of cousins (in the area), and it got her away from her parents' bad marriage for a while. This was in the late 40's and 50's

[JermajestyDuggar]

Think of all the kids in foster care that are placed with relatives. It’s not actually that different. 

[Aine]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Think of all the kids in foster care that are placed with relatives. It’s not actually that different. 

My childhood. The most disruptive parts were when my mother absconded with me on unsupervised "access" or my Dad's wife not wanting to deal with a kid who wasn't her own. Time with my grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle during school holidays were pretty great. I imagine childhoods could be easier with an alternative arrangement from birth.

[Coldtoes]

The new Collins baby is ANTHYM BLISS.

[Aine]

4 hours ago, Coldtoes said:

The new Collins baby is ANTHYM BLISS.

I think I called Anthem! With a variant spelling of course...

[VBOY9977]

Rebekah Sanders Cortner gave birth to Mason Gabriel Cortner in July 25th

[Bethella]

I've been updating the list. Does anyone know about the following pregnancies?

• Hosanna (Krahn) Bladine, due June 20
• Rachel (Corbett) Smith, due late June with a boy
• Abby (Paine) Unruh, due July 2
• Lauren (Hope) Berkompass, due July 
• Dakota (Young) Paine, due July

[lexiloumarie]

2 hours ago, Bethella said:

I've been updating the list. Does anyone know about the following pregnancies?

• Hosanna (Krahn) Bladine, due June 20
• Rachel (Corbett) Smith, due late June with a boy
• Abby (Paine) Unruh, due July 2
• Lauren (Hope) Berkompass, due July 
• Dakota (Young) Paine, due July

No news on Lauren Berkompass but I think she isn't do until the last day of the month so she may go into August. 

[Hortense Peyrac]

Rachel Corbett Smith had her baby, a boy, according her FB but she does'nt reveal name nor date... Maybe around July the 13th......

And no news from Krahn family, the blog https://greenpasturesfarm.blogspot.com/ is very quiet......

Edited July 29, 2020 by Hortense Peyrac

[VBOY9977]

Dakota Paine posted that she was 39 weeks pregnant on the 20th and hasn’t posted since, so I guess she’s late or maybe waiting a little while to announce the birth. 

[Triplet3]

Brianna Jeub had her baby on the 28th. Atlas Isaiah. Seems odd that a fundie would call her child after a mythological pagan god, but maybe she didn't know the origin of the name?

Edited July 31, 2020 by Triplet3

[JermajestyDuggar]

4 minutes ago, Triplet3 said:

Brianna Jeub had her baby on the 28th. Atlas Isaiah. Seems odd that a fundie would call her child after a mythological pagan god, but maybe she didn't know the origin of the name?

She has a Jeub cousin born this year named Hermione so who knows? My guess is that Hermione was named after the character in Harry Potter. 

[LucilleJ]

 

17 minutes ago, Triplet3 said:

Brianna Jeub had her baby on the 28th. Atlas Isaiah. Seems odd that a fundie would call her child after a mythological pagan god, but maybe she didn't know the origin of the name?

 

11 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

She has a Jeub cousin born this year named Hermione so who knows? My guess is that Hermione was named after the character in Harry Potter. 

Maybe they are naming their children after boat/ship and I'm kinda liking the idea (I couldn't really find a ship named Atlas that did great but there were a few of them).

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

On 7/20/2020 at 11:57 PM, Jatalie1996 said:

Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that she tried calling him Elliott when he was younger, but people gave her shit for it. Thankfully, she seems to have learned her lesson.

More shit than for calling her kid Spurgie? People are weird.