What is the time gap you prefer to leave in between the births of your children?

We have ten children. When we were first married, we were only going to have two, and we did, two girls, not quite three years apart. I wanted more, but had been taught that was the wrong way to think. Three years later, we began doing foster care. A couple of years into it, we had a baby boy I loved so much, but had to let go...something foster parents have to deal with (check out my blog for those stories, raleyfamilysfarm.blogspot.com)and in my heartbreak, we decided to have another baby, a son, who was born when my youngest was almost seven. Two years later, son number two surprised us. Not long after, we became 'quiverful' meaning we quit using birth control and let God plan our family. Less than two years later, I lost a baby, then gave birth to another son, not quite four years after son number two, I lost another baby, then had son number four three years later, three years after that, when I was 42, I had a baby girl. When she was about seven, we went back into foster/adoption to adopt a foster baby my oldest daughter had. We adopted him, and a week later, a little foster girl came to live with us, she was a year older than our son almost to the day. We ended up adopting her too when she was four years old. Two weeks after her adoption was final, we were asked to take her five month old full sibling baby brother, and a year later we finalized his adoption. So now my children are ages 34, 31, 24, 22, 18, 16, 13, 6, 5, and 2. In addition to these, I've fostered more than 50 children over all the years. You can see the age gaps, they were all just fine, as we made a life and coped well no matter what the ages were. They were just all different life experiences. I will say the two that are the closest in age, the five and six year olds, a boy and a girl, really enjoy each other, as do the 22 year old son and the 31 year old daughter, and also the sixteen year old and the thirteen year old! So you never know!

There is a seven year age gap between my two. I would have liked the gap to be smaller but I never actually inteded to have a second child at all. Surprisingly it has worked out good, it turns out that big sister is a really great help and she is the one who got the baby walking. They play together, read together, they do everything together, but I fo expect that to change as my eldests gets a little older.

Yes, that was exactly what I planned. Now, I have a 7-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy. Both have them keep each other company by playing together and learning together. My daughter, being the elder child, helps to take of her younger brother, and also acts as his teacher. It's really heart-warming to see both of them love each other.