> I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly?

Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we started swimming in that direction and it just kept getting better the farther out we swam.

> I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it.

Here’s the thing: if you’re not a militant atheist and you start spending a lot of time around sincerely religious people who you like, you’ll end up believing sincerely yourself. Since you’re secular, I’ll explain it like this: we’re evolved to cohere around a shared system of belief and the appropriate mental machinery will kick in as part of becoming embedded in a religious community. And that’s what I used to believe. But now I know those were just the breadcrumbs I needed to find my way.