Visiting Teaching, and being taught

Today is a big day for the visiting teaching. My teachers stopped by today with their little ones and some home made peanut butter cookies. It was really great to spend some time with them and let our kids play together. We got to talking about family values again, and how the non-LDS world views families and children. My friends both have a boy and a girl, and one of them is expecting another. She gets alot of flack from the general public about why she would want another child, and what the point of it all is, since she has one of each. My other friend wants another, and says that she gets the same questions and treatment. They both also say that they don't get much appreciation for the fact that they are stay at home mothers. I envy them for their ability to do just that. I wish every day that I didn't have to go to work and could stay home with my boys. My husband refers to my few days off as "mommy day" and lately they've been infringed upon by my duties at work and in seeing to the needs of the family. I struggle daily with my need to advance and be fulfilled in my career, climbing the corporate ladder, and wanting to spend every spare second with my family. I'm finding it hard to balance the two, but the church helps a lot with our Family Home Evenings set aside one day a week, and family scripture reading/prayer. I don't get the last two in every day but I try to fit them in a few times a week and it helps to have that little extra family time.
And while my friends are made to feel like they're foolish for wanting another child when they have one of each, I find that people think it's perfectly normal for me to want a 3rd child because I have same-sex children. Instead of the focus being on bringing souls to Earth and raising good Christian, God-fearing children...it's on having one of each and calling it a day. Anything more or less is looked at unfavorably. It's like you're not a real family if you don't fit into that perfect little package. When did the focus on family shift so much from our Father's plan?
Later today my companion and I will be going to visit one of our 3 sisters, (the only one who we can actually visit in person) and hopefully we'll leave her feeling the urge to attend the next meeting. We haven't seen her or her family in months. It makes me wonder what it is about new members that makes them so vulnerable to inactivity? Many of the newly baptized who had the most Spirit and faith up to and through their baptism just drop off the face of the LDS Earth shortly after. We had one young couple who attended all the time, came to my class early on when I was a newer teacher, and were baptized. They live near me and we talked about the neighborhood, and getting together. I never got a chance to call them, and maybe I should have gone out of my way to make the time because the rumor is that someone got ahold of them with anti-Mormon literature, and they called the missionaries and asked them not to contact them anymore. They just fell away so quickly. It reminds me of the Bible talking about casting seed on the ground. Some is rocky and the seed can't ever get into the ground. Some is sandy soil and the seeds never get very deep roots, and the plants wither die quickly, and some ground is very fertile and the plants flourish. I guess you just can never tell which type of soil a person will be, and that's why we're commanded to spread the gospel to everyone. It just really hurts and feels personal when you see someone getting it, and really accepting the truth of the restored gospel, only to drift away within weeks of their baptism. I know that visiting teachers and home teachers have kept me tethered to the gospel, even in my most inactive times and I hope that my companion and I will be able to do the same for these sisters.