This post is a bit out of character for the tone of this blog, but I felt the inspiration to write it and the compulsion to actually post it. I understand if some of you don't agree with me and I salute you if you can stick with it to the end.
I know that this is not the actual time in my life to be asking the question of when to stop having children, but I stumbled upon a Blog Post this morning that caused some serious insight on my part. I'm sure most couples at some point have the talk about how many children they'd like to have, what gender, how far apart and what age they'd like to be when they have said children. I think John and I have been talking about this since we had been dating for a month. But, always in our conversations, has been an open acknowledgment that God plays the largest part in our role as parents--we may know what we want, but he knows what we need. In our lives, we've been fortunate that these two opinions seem to have intersected for the most part.
We've been blessed with an easy pregnancy, Audrey's uneventful birth and a beautifully rambunctious child. This time around, we would have liked to have been pregnant sooner (I'm nuts, right?) I actually would have welcomed a pregnancy when Audrey was only months old, but my (for once) sane husband convinced me that it would not have been a stellar idea. That being said, I feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant again so soon. Once we started talking about having kids again, I tried to prepare myself for a long haul, knowing so many women struggling to get pregnant and a lot of mothers who experienced secondary infertility. I felt that thinking the second would be just as easy as the first would be hubris on my part. Luckily, God has chosen for our first two children to be close siblings and I just pray that this baby will be as safe and healthy as Audrey was.
Now, back to my original point: When to say when? I don't think Norbert is my last child by any means, but I think it's important to remember that God brings children into our lives in so many ways. I have an older "brother" who came to us as Joe's best friend and, subsequently, a sister-in-law and nephew who I cannot imagine not being a part of our family. Shawn and Angela found two of their children in Liberia; countless others are blessed by adoption, surrogacy and in vitro procedures.
A favorite story of mine is of my maternal Grandmother (Pfaff), who never thought she would have children. She was in her thirties when my Grandfather was widowed with two girls and they were married six months later. She thought that this was how God had given her children. She told my mother that even though she thought she couldn't have children because of her age, she prayed to have a little boy: my Uncle Bill...and then she prayed to just have one more girl: my mother. Those three sisters have one of the most beautiful bonds I've ever been witness to and they were all given to a woman who thought she would have no children.
The moral of the story as I take it? God says when...and how...and how long. Who else could mastermind such beautiful bonds of family and friendship?
3 comments:
Beautifully said!
Coming from a woman who thought she couldn't or would never have children and now has 5, I couldn't have said it better myself
Awww, that was beautiful, and so true. Thank you for including us as your family. Not to monopolize your blog, but I can so relate to this post in my own life right now. We didn't plan this pregnancy at all. In fact, had it been up to me, I certainly would not be pregnant now, so close to graduating. But, because we chose to put it in God's hands and follow natural family planning rather than other birth control methods, even though we were careful, God made a miraculous thing happen. I may tell you the story one day, not here, but this pregnancy shouldn't have happened, yet it did. And I know I will love this child as much as I love Isaac, and he/she will have the same special place in my heart. And I'm so thankful that God knows what is best for us better than we do.
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