A personal Christian reflection on motherhood regret after getting a tubal ligation. How faith, Scripture, and God’s mercy helped me move from regret toward contentment.

Years ago, I made the decision to have my tubes tied. I was just 27 years old.

At the time, the decision came after years of physical and emotional exhaustion. I had been pregnant or nursing for nearly eight straight years. In total, I experienced eight pregnancies and three miscarriages.

Because of a condition my body has, several of those pregnancies were what doctors call a blighted ovum, where the pregnancy begins, the gestational sac forms, and all the symptoms of pregnancy are there, but there is no baby developing inside. My body still went through the entire process of pregnancy before eventually miscarrying, which sometimes took months.

Those seasons were incredibly difficult, physically and emotionally. By the time we made the decision to get a tubal ligation, my body was SO exhausted.

A Prayerful Decision

My husband and I have always believed that children are a blessing from God. So when the time came, this decision wasn’t made lightly.

During that time, we were also in the process of adopting two boys from Africa. My heart had no desire to stop having children. I simply didn’t think I could mentally or physically handle another pregnancy. Especially bringing in two children from another country. They would need so much care and attention!

My husband and I prayed through it carefully. We asked God for wisdom. We asked Him for peace. We even prayed that if it wasn’t His will, He would close the door and prevent it from happening.

We moved forward the best way we knew how, in faith. And for years after the surgery, I felt peace about the decision.

When Regret Set In

Five years later, something unexpected happened. One evening, I was watching old home videos of our children when they were babies. As I watched those tiny faces, the sounds of their little voices, and those early moments of motherhood, regret suddenly punched me straight in the gut.

For FIVE years, I had been completely content with the decision we made. I believed we had made the right choice for our family at the time, but in that moment (and for the next two years), the weight of realizing I would never experience that stage of motherhood again felt overwhelming.

Not only that, but the adoption we had once pursued had fallen through. Those two sweet boys we had hoped to bring into our family never came home with us. Suddenly, the finality of my decision felt very real, and that realization brought a season of deep regret.

Not just a passing thought, but real regret. I cried. I prayed. I asked God to have mercy on my decision. I asked Him to help me feel differently because the sadness felt shattering at times.

My husband reminded me that God is still sovereign over our lives.

One of the hardest parts was when my husband would jokingly talk about babies. He loves children, and sometimes he would make playful comments about having more. He never meant anything by it, but each time it happened, it reminded me of something I could no longer give him. This was a devastating feeling.

Eventually, I told him how much those comments hurt. He had no idea it was affecting me that way, and as he normally does, he began to comfort me.

What helped me most in talking with him was something he reminded me of: God’s sovereignty.

While he admitted it was a little sad to him, too, he remained confident in the decision we made together years earlier. We had prayed through it carefully. We had asked God for wisdom and peace. We had even prayed that if it weren’t His will, He would close the door. He reminded me that God is still sovereign over our lives, even over the decisions we make.

Maybe we went through all of that because God knew our family would be complete with the children we already had.
Maybe God knew exactly what I would experience, and what it would lead me to do…
Just maybe God is merciful and gracious, even in all our choices.

A Quote That Stayed With Me

A year before I ever struggled with regret, I read something that stuck with me. In Eric Metaxas’s biography of William Wilberforce, he recounts something Wilberforce’s wife said after she finished having children. She simply said,

“I have had my babies, and it is good.”

When I first read that line, I remember thinking how beautiful that perspective was. She had the ability to look at the family God had given her and recognize its completeness. At the time, I admired the sentiment, but it didn’t feel particularly personal to me yet; it was just a thoughtful line in a biography.

Returning to Scripture

Fast forward to my season of regret, and the quote from Barbara Wilberforce came back to my mind.

“I have had my babies, and it is good.”

But this time, instead of simply admiring the quote, I started asking myself if I could ever truly see my own life that way.

That question led me back to Scripture. I knew Barbara was referencing Genesis, so I went back to read it with fresh eyes.

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
— Genesis 2:2

God didn’t stop creating because He ran out of power; He stopped because the work had reached completion. Creation had reached the point God intended, and God looked at it and called it good. Around the same time, I found myself reading Ecclesiastes and reflecting on another truth Scripture teaches:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1

Creation has seasons, life has seasons, and motherhood has seasons, too.

Gratitude Instead of Discontent

I have five beautiful and healthy children. Five lives that God entrusted to me. Five people I have the privilege of loving, discipling, and raising. Yes, part of me can imagine what another baby might have been like, but another part of me knows something equally true: my family is not lacking.

Many women long for children and never have them. Others lose babies they never get to raise. I don’t take lightly the gift of the five children God gave me. Motherhood has shaped me, stretched me, and exhausted me in ways nothing else ever could, and perhaps my role now is simply to pour everything I have into the five lives already in front of me.

I was reminded of this reality when I sat across from a pastor’s wife who was sharing how she desperately wanted to have children, but only ever miscarried her pregnancies. How could I complain about not having more children when this woman couldn’t even have one? Her story was more heartbreaking than my desire to reopen a closed chapter.

The Strange Grief of Past Decisions

It’s a strange feeling. I don’t believe the decision I made was sinful or wrong. It was made honestly, thoughtfully, and out of genuine physical exhaustion, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t sadness. I’ve had to learn that sometimes the grief we feel in life isn’t over mistakes, sometimes it’s simply the realization that life moved forward and a chapter closed.

Even when we were the ones who turned the page.

This is true in other areas of my life as well! I could go into several other stories that would share the exact same sentiment, though they may not seem as life-altering.

In everything, I have to trust in the sovereign reign of Jesus over my life.

When Regret Visits Your Own Story

Maybe you don’t struggle with regret over getting your tubes tied. Maybe your regret in motherhood looks different…

Maybe it’s something you said to your children in a moment of anger. Maybe it’s a season you wish you had handled differently. Maybe it’s a decision you made when you were exhausted, overwhelmed, or simply doing the best you could with what you knew at the time.

Motherhood has a way of exposing our weaknesses.

But one thing I have come to realize through this experience is that God’s mercy and grace are bigger than our choices.
He is sovereign over our lives. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the places where we will struggle long before we ever reach them, and sometimes, in His kindness, He even prepares our hearts ahead of time.

Looking back, I could see that God knew I would wrestle with regret over this decision. Maybe that’s why I happened to read Barbara Wilberforce’s simple words earlier:

“I have had my babies, and it is good.”

At the time, I admired them, but later, I needed them.

God is not distant from our struggles. Scripture tells us that He is compassionate and sympathetic toward our weakness. He cares deeply about our hearts and our minds, knowing we are fragile and finite.

So if you are carrying regret today, take courage. Bring it honestly before God and ask Him for peace. Ask Him to help you see your life through the lens of His mercy rather than through the weight of your own self-judgment.