At a recent get together, I had a conversation with a friend.
I voiced my anxiety about having a baby, adding another little body to our brood.
“Why? You already have four. What’s one more?”
I was taken a back. A bit flabbergasted.
Oh boy.
“What’s one more?!” I thought, a bit defensively. “I’ll TELL you what’s one more.”
Then I thought, well, what is one more?
First off, it’s not like just throwing another potato in the pot.
It’s another human being.
It’s true, in many ways, more kids=less work, but there’s also the undeniable fact that each child has their own unique set of needs & wants that must be addressed individually.
A little person that will need to be fed, clothed, loved–and who, for the first years of it’s life will rely nearly 100% on me for all those needs to be me met.
That’s all.
I know I make it look so easy to have four kids, who mind you are always well-behaved, perfectly groomed (never a peanut butter smudged or snot nosed face), & always outfitted in the latest trends from baby Gap.
(And of course, it goes without saying that my house is always clean, my hair always done, my clothes always smashing, my meals perfectly healthy & executed & served on color coordinated place mats at exactly all the right times.)
Yes, I find it effortless to love the ways my kids are brilliant, & adorable. To love snuggling with them, making them laugh.
But is it effortless to love & have patience when:
Our morning routine before school seems to unravel in a split second?
Salem uses my last tube of good lipstick to express her creativity all over my bathroom walls?
I’m exhausted to the point of barely being able to move because I’m 8 months pregnant & the day seems to be just a few hours too long?
The boys complain about doing little jobs like vacuuming or emptying the dishwasher?
There seems to be a permanent pile of dishes in my sink & my floor looks like I haven’t swept in weeks (though it was just yesterday)?
No, in these moments, it is most decidedly not effortless.
In these moments, I’m tested.
And often, I’m not the loving, kind, soft-spoken mother I want to be. Other times, I can only say it’s a gift of grace, where I surprise myself as words & actions come–words & actions that are kind, that are soft-spoken.
I wake up each morning, full of passion. The newness of the day is filled with promise, & the previous night’s gloom & disappointment is replaced with a hope (perhaps a naive one) that I will do so much, accomplish so much.
Do you ever do that?
Say, today I will finally:_______! or _____ or ______!
(For me, nearly every day my fill-in-the-blank is, get the house sparkling clean.)
And then as the day inches forward, you meet some tasks with courage, conviction. But others, you fail or neglect altogether. And then as the day rounds the bend, that sunny optimism of morning is replaced with the pre-dinnertime blues.
I think of all the things that didn’t get done, how tired I am. What a failure I am. And how I just want to go to sleep.
I’m not sure I’ve talked about this before, but with each one of my pregnancies, I get depressed during the first trimester–because all I can & want to eat is crap, & of course, the combo of crappy food & constant morning sickness & needing to sleep 10-12 hours day, day after day takes it’s toll.
And I get depressed during the last trimester. For the obvious reasons–I’ve gained 40 pounds (& the baby at this point only weighs five), it’s hard to move, I feel like I’m always running on half a tank, & glory, it’s hard to get comfortable enough to sleep at night. After all, I can only sleep on my left side for so long before I have to flip to the right, which is always a production that includes a lot of grunting–not to mention the 3 or 4 trips to the bathroom.
I have no idea what post-partum depression is like (once that baby shoots out of me, I am a NEW woman)–but I do know a lot about pregnancy depression.
I think part of what makes it so hard for me at the end is that I have a hard time coping with not being able to do everything I want to do. Life becomes overwhelming because I need to sleep more, housework piles up, & life often seems, well, heavy.
On a recent particularly trying day, I was comforted by these words:
“For we brought nothing into this world, & it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food & raiment let us be therewith content.” (1 Timothy 6:6-7 KJV)
Learning to be content with the present, learning to be content with having enough.
I’m not sure I understand this principle, let alone even come close to living it.
But in this time, when I’m pregnant with anxiety & worry about the future–how I’ll be able to love and care for all my children–I ponder.
I think of those things which are important, and those things that are not.
And try, try to remember that like the babe that I will deliver soon, who will come into this world with nothing, I too came in the same fashion. And, that both of us, all of us really, will leave this world with nothing.
That it’s all the time, the moments of love, grace, & kindness, the relationships in between our coming & leaving this world, that matter.
Further reading:
♥ My friend Jen writes an insightful post about big families: From the mom with all those kids
♥ Meg recently posted about the Intrinsic Value of Woman, as a part of her Call to Womanhood series
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