As summer turned to fall, I noticed that all three of my Mother’s Day flowers had stayed alive this year (in fact, one of them is still thriving in my bedroom window sill). I found this very symbolic (cuz I’m a symbol/patten-seeker, you know) because this is the year I feel like I grew into my motherhood (better late than never, huh?).
What I mean by that is that I finally feel like I deserve to be a mom and I am doing a decent job of it. For the first eight years, I was mostly white-knuckled and horrified that I was constantly scarring my children for life because I couldn’t be the mom I had planned on being. I never foresaw how difficult being pregnant would be, and my fantastic motherly visions certainly never included being exhausted or sick half the time because of a stupid auto-immune disease. For those first years, I pictured myself wearing this Mantle of Motherhood like a robe that was way too big for me, stumbling and fumbling around, trying to see out the hood and get my footing so I could wear the the thing more gracefully. This year, that mantle feels more like my awesome fleece bathrobe, that fits and feels warm and comforting and perfect for me. This doesn’t mean that I am the mother I want to be, but it does mean that for the first time, I can take a deep breath and tell myself, “You can do this. You’re good at this.” And for the first time, I am thoroughly enjoying my children. I guess when I was knee-deep in babies and toddlers and illness, with all those physical demands and sleep deprivation, I just couldn’t see how wonderful it was all going to be when those babies turned into walking, talking, reading, thinking, opinionated, interesting individuals. I can’t get over the delight I feel when my kids express their own totally unique ideas or aspirations. I feel devastatingly lucky to be their mother. I mean, I am their one and only MOTHER. And God thought this was a good idea—isn’t that such a huge vote of confidence from Him?
So this year I finally found the true joy of motherhood and I found my own sweet spot, so to speak—I’m not necessarily a baby person, but after the baby comes the child and I am super into these school-aged kids. This realization led me to wish that I could have at least one more baby and try to enjoy it, knowing now how fast the baby days go and all the fun things that come later. James also had a hand in my making this wish—of all my children, he is the most fascinated and delighted by babies. Smitten is a good word, actually. He is just beside himself around babies, and I have felt so bad that, while all his friends have become big brothers or sisters, he would never get to do that. We have wished together that we could afford a little brown brother from a Haiti or a little Chinese sister. However, we learned that adoption is prohibitively expensive. Sigh. But the feeling would not go away.
This seemed strange to me, since after I had James, I had a very clear and comforting feeling that I was done. In fact the exact words I felt in my heart at our first family home evening as a family of five were, “There—now everyone is here.” So I wasn’t too distraught when my deteriorating health pretty much ruled out any more pregnancies. Rich was more than happy to do his part to be sure I didn’t have to suffer through another pregnancy, so he got “fixed” when James was 2 months old. We mentally switched gears, gave away our baby stuff, savored James’ babyhood, and got on with the business of raising our three children. So last August, after having this nagging wish for another baby, I knelt down and asked Heavenly Father to please either make me feel peace about having three children or to please provide a way for us to get another one.
Then my dear Grampy passed away, and all my emotions refocused on grieving that loss and helping my darling Gram through this hard time. For three weeks in September, I ran on auto-pilot in that bubble of comfort that God sends to the broken-hearted. To celebrate my birthday on the 24th, Rich took me on a delightfully edifying date to the temple in Billings. It was just what I needed to kind of bind up my wounds and move on—to start my own little new year. We got to Billings right before 5pm, so I told Rich we should go straight to the temple and then go out to dinner afterward since we were kind of early. It was a lovely session, but in the celestial room I suddenly felt totally exhausted and totally ravenous. It was probably my blood sugar plummeting, but I thought I was going to pass out. I rose on shaky legs to go change into my street clothes and we beelined to Johnny Carino’s where I scarfed the herb bread and then my lemon-rosemary chicken and spinach. It tasted so dang good! I remember the passing thought, nothing has tasted that good since I was pregnant. (All the ladies who’ve been there know what I’m saying, right?) So we headed home later after some shopping and hit the hay around midnight. At 3am, I got up to use the bathroom and thought about how staggeringly tired I felt. And also how weird that I had to get up because I just don’t usually have to pee in the middle of the night. I reached into the bathroom cabinet and grabbed a pregnancy test (what possessed me, I don’t know, except for that inkling of faith I had that maybe this was the way God would answer that prayer I said).
It was so hard not to scream at 3 am. Let me just tell you, that pink line appeared instantly, like a neon sign and I could.not. believe. it. I thought to myself, “Now I know why Abraham and Sarah laughed!” I laughed. Then I cried, thinking, “Oh my gosh, I am going to die. I am not healthy enough to do this. This baby will kill me.” But then I thought about how this is a miracle, a literal miracle, and if God can put a baby in there, He can also give me the strength to gestate and deliver it. I tip-toed into the bedroom and showed Rich the stick, which I am sure was like some kind of crazy dream to him. We freaked out a little, then laid there in bed talking about what-the-heck we were going to do. I was mostly terrified that it was just an anomaly, not a miracle, and that I would miscarry just like the last time I found out I was pregnant on my birthday, 5 years ago. I almost had the confidence to believe that this time was different, but I decided to keep it to myself just in case. We calculated that I would be 14 weeks right around Thanksgivng, graduating from m first trimester, so we would tell the kids then. A few weeks later, Aunt Marti and Grandma called and said they would come for Thanksgiving, so we decided to reveal the news at TG dinner. The first comforting thing that happened was that I got super nauseated, right on schedule, on October 11th. Even though it’s horrible, the sickness is a sign of rapidly increasing hormones and healthy, beautiful babies, so I’ll take it!
I have regular thyroid hormone checks, so I called to schedule my labs on 9/28 and asked that they include a urinalysis to confirm pregnancy. My nurse, Gloria (she was so excited), called back to confirm and scheduled an ob intake exam with the nurse practitioner on 10/13, then I had my regularly scheduled appointment with my doctor on 10/22. She had just come home from her annual women's’ medical trip (she goes places where women need better care, like the middle east and Africa and rural South America, this time to Morocco), and boy, was she surprised. She did an ultrasound and I measured 9 weeks rather than 10 (where I thought I was), and she changed my due date, picking the middle between May 20th and May 27th. I felt so relieved hearing a strong heartbeat and seeing everything developing on schedule (you may recall that my first clue that I was miscarrying in 2005 was no heartbeat at the 10-week ultrasound—it was terrible). So I kept all that info and suffered though the rest of my first trimester (and Halloween—ugh!) with a big secret.
It was so fun revealing our pregnancy at Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone who knows our history responded the same way—“We’re having a baby in May!” and they said, “HOW?” In my mind, the response has been the same as God's to Abraham: Is anything too hard for the Lord? Apparently not. So I add my testimony to Abraham’s (with caution and sensitivity because I know that there are many righteous desires just don't come and we don't know why), that nothing is too hard for the Lord. If our righteous desires fit into His plan for us, they will be granted in due time. It will be interesting to see how this little soul stirs things up for us.
[I've been looking at old baby pictures to psych myself up...this collage makes me sleepy, though, so I think it's NAPTIME! yaaaaaawwwwn!]
Santa takes a tropical vacation...
Heidi singing in the chorus.
Addie singing in the chorus.
Daddy & James in the audience. 
Addie hung snowflakes and left a note on Mayme's bed.
Heidi made little toys for cats at the animal shelter (she took old socks and stuffed them with fluff and catnip).
Here are the kids delivering the toys to the animal shelter.
They let Heidi take the toys in to the cats.
All three kids had fun playing with the cats.
Heidi is such a sweet animal lover!
Santa takes a tropical vacation...
Heidi singing in the chorus.
Addie singing in the chorus.
Daddy & James in the audience.
There was a sweet dog there, though, keeping the residents company.
There was a sweet dog there, though, keeping the residents company.
Addie hung snowflakes and left a note on Mayme's bed.
Heidi made little toys for cats at the animal shelter (she took old socks and stuffed them with fluff and catnip).
Here are the kids delivering the toys to the animal shelter.
They let Heidi take the toys in to the cats.
All three kids had fun playing with the cats.
Heidi is such a sweet animal lover!
