Parenting: Surprise

Plenty of people feel filled with joy the moment a baby is on the way.  I always expected myself to be one of these people, but sadly I have never felt this way.  Wise people would tell me that there never seems to be a perfect time to have a baby and I wish I had taken that to heart.  Having kids was never really something I questioned.  I always expected to have LOTs of kids, but the when and the how was a bit different in my mind.

I expected to have a full year or two with my husband before having baby number one.  If I were to get pregnant, of course that would be fine, but in the picture in my head, we had about one year or so.  Most families had children two or more years apart.  In fact, many who had tried to have kids closer together physically could not.  Maybe I thought I would start having kids around twenty five years old and end around thirty five.  When I started to think being done at thirty sounded nice, I did not realize I would seriously have A LOT of kids by then.

So my first pregnancy began just three months after my wedding day.  Thinking I had some time with my one and only baby, I found out baby two was on the way and these babies would only be fourteen months apart.  Then there was a time where no babies came.  I almost began to think maybe I would not have anymore children, when along came baby number three.  Then I never got to catch my breath again before baby number four, five, and now...wait for it...baby number six!  It is like my body has tuned into I want to be pregnant all the time mode!  I should be thankful.  Babies are such a blessing from God.  I love every one of my children and could not imagine life without them, but why have I never felt like I was allowed to actually enjoy being pregnant?

Most people do not feel like they have enough money, we do not.  God has always blessed us with just enough somehow.  It has been miraculous all these years. 

Having more than the cultural norm of children is really challenging.  I am from an educated background and of course I understand how to properly use birth control, but I do not believe in using most forms of it.  There are a couple things I consider to be a gray area, but those things have not worked for us the last couple of babies. 

All I can say is I have pictured myself with up to six kids, but beyond that I don't really know.  People ask if I'm done all the time.  I wish sometimes I felt comfortable saying yes, but I don't believe that is really up to me.  I believe that is in God's hands.  I got pregnant this time against most odds and I just have to believe this is something where God is in control. 

I am happy about having another baby, but as one can see, I am not looking forward to comments like, woops, how many children do you plan to have?, are you crazy, here's some birth control, when is your husband getting fixed....and the list goes on.