July 5, 2008
‘Humanae Vitae’ changed couple’s outlook on family
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Nicholas Crumley plays jazz saxophone for the Crumley family. From left: Monica with John Michael on the floor, Greta in cushion chair, Doug and Anna. Cathy Joyce/Herald photo
Monica Crumley came from a small family. Her mother taught her that two children were “enough.”
Doug Crumley also came from a small family. He agreed with Monica that having just two children of his own would do very nicely.
Doug and Monica married and had their two children — a boy and a girl — and felt that their family was complete.
Then Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on married love and procreation, “Humanae Vitae,” came into their lives. As the 40th anniversary of the encyclical is celebrated this month, the Crumleys credit the encyclical as the thread running through their lives to bring them, as Monica puts it, “the family that God wanted us to have.”
“God was drawing us toward him all the time,” Doug Crumley said. “It’s easy to see when you look back.”
The Crumleys, members of St. Mel Parish in Fair Oaks, now have four children: 10-year-old Nicholas, who plays jazz saxophone; eight-year-old Anna, who plays classical piano and is working her way through Nancy Drew mysteries; red-headed Greta, 3, who dances to Nick and Anna’s music; and six-month-old John Michael, current baby of the family, who has Down’s Syndrome and is doted on by parents, grandparents and older siblings.
In a recent interview, the Crumleys recalled how “Humanae Vitae” has impacted their lives. They were attending Mass with Doug’s parents at Divine Savior Church in Orangevale in 2000, the year that Doug had a vasectomy.
Doug was a “cradle Catholic,” he said, but had not known Catholic theology in any depth. Monica was Lutheran. “We had no idea there was anything wrong with getting a vasectomy or using birth control,” she said.
“The doctor said, ‘You could change your mind — you don’t know how life is going to go,’” Doug added. “But I went ahead anyway.”
Several months later, after being introduced to Catholic radio by a business acquaintance, Doug and Monica found themselves listening to Catholic apologists on Immaculate Heart Radio (KSMH-AM 1620). They loved what they learned about Catholicism. Doug enrolled in a parish men’s group exploring Catholicism and Monica decided she wanted to become Catholic.
In the fall of 2001, Monica registered for Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at Divine Savior Parish and entered the church at the Easter Vigil in 2002.
Doug, meanwhile, continued in his own spiritual journey. As he and Monica deepened their understanding of the church’s teachings, he regretted having had the earlier vasectomy. One evening he downloaded the text of “Humanae Vitae” from the Vatican’s Web site and read it that night.
“It is quite a moving document,” he recalled. By the summer of 2003, he decided to have his vasectomy reversed.
The Crumleys agreed with “Humanae Vitae” that part of marriage is being open to new life, but they weren’t quite sure when they wanted to welcome another baby. Monica read a story in The Catholic Herald about Nancy Mattioli’s work teaching Natural Family Planning to couples at Mercy Women’s Center in Sacramento. The Crumleys took the course that fall.
Natural Family Planning is a church-sanctioned method of spacing pregnancies, Monica said, but it can also be used to achieve pregnancy. Through NFP, a couple learns to chart and understand the woman’s menstrual cycle, including the physical changes that indicate whether or not she is likely to conceive.
But NFP is more than a mechanical understanding of human reproduction, Doug noted. Understanding the subtle but predictable physical changes in the woman’s body leads many couples to appreciate the emotional and spiritual dimension of their intimate life together, he said.
Natural Family Planning “changed the way that I understood Monica, and it changed the way I thought about our marriage,” he said.
Monica added that Natural Family Planning “opens up the conversation about the spiritual side of marriage and intimacy. It also brings in a new appreciation of God’s creation and how we are part of that creation.”
Their third child, Greta, was born in 2005. For Monica, having a third child was an act of profound trust in God. She took the leap, she said, and it worked.
“Greta changed the family dynamics, but in a way I would never have predicted,” she said. “We all love her and we are all changed by her. “
“Our previous actions would have prevented Greta from being here,” Monica added. “We would have chosen our own judgment over God’s. But we learned that God doesn’t make mistakes.”
Just as Monica and Doug were settling in to their new identity as a family of five, Monica became pregnant again. She was 40. She had planned to get into shape, she said, and go into her 40s “fit and looking good,” but she accepted the new pregnancy as a gift from God. When John Michael was born, they learned that he had Down’s Syndrome.
“It’s a genetic condition that happened at conception,” Monica said. “Nothing I did caused this. This is God’s doing. I realized that and I accept this child just as I did the others. I love him.”
After his birth, John Michael was in the hospital for eight days. He was allowed to come home on Thanksgiving.
“God gave us our children in a specific order,” Monica said. “God made our family. The children love John Michael and play with him, and he changes the dynamics again, and it’s good.” She laughs. “He makes everything that seems so important and scary fit into perspective.”
“Because of NFP and my Catholic faith, I have a willingness to allow God to create the family he wanted for us,’ Monica concluded. “I could never have imagined Greta or John Michael. I never would have asked for a child with Down’s, but he was given as a gift. I couldn’t have planned my life better.”
For more information regarding Natural Family Planning or classes offered in the diocese, contact Kathy Conner, diocesan NFP coordinator, at (916) 733-0133 or e-mail at kconner@diocese-sacramento.org.
