Haha cricket is safe from me catching her. Dh will be getting the snip verrrrry soon.
Oh sure - we've heard THAT story before....

The family size discussion is ongoing over here too - we're not quite sure what to do. After #6 was born, I thought I could maybe do one more. That was a hard long pregnancy, and the thought of doing that too many more times was not at all appealing. But this pregnancy has (so far, and aside from 6 weeks of horrible morning sickness at the beginning) been quite easy. I'm comfortable and have lots of energy right now, and I'm SO thankful for that! We have room in the van for more kids, and room in the house for one or two more, right now, so we're not going to make any permanent decisions - just take things as they come. DH is a wonderful husband and father - very helpful and great with the kids, and we have supportive friends and family, and we believe that God always gives the strength to handle with what he sends. I think no matter when our family is done, be that naturally or by our decision, I'll be kind of sad too. I love babies, and I love watching my little ones learn to talk, and seeing the hilarious things they say, and seeing them learn to read, and head off to school for the first time.... Maybe I'll just keep having babies until the grandbabies arrive.
Surprisingly, I don't hear negative remarks about our family size when we're out either - 99% of the comments are positive and encouraging, which is really nice. The only time I heard a really rude comment was from a nurse at the hospital when I brought DD5 in at 2 weeks old to have her hernia checked. (femoral hernia - quickly repaired, no big deal.) That nurse said "man, some people just breed like rabbits." and then she said "it's OK, I'm Dutch too, so I can say that." I didn't say anything at the time, but I thought that was SO rude and unprofessional and completely inappropriate! The rest of the nursing staff heard her, so I hope she was reprimanded later.

Anyways, Meow - sounds like you've got a promising group of people to work with over there! (I know you've said before, but you're in the US, right?) There can be quite a wide range of thought and practice on childbirth all over there. It seems like things are not nearly as "uniform" as they are in Canada. The horror stories show one extreme, but there is a lot more out there!

Hope everyone else is doing well. I guess we're kind of in the lull before the rush of September babies, eh? Summer holidays start for my kids in a couple of days and we booked a cottage for the first time. We're all pretty excited about that!