Listen, you are going to want more kids. You are going to ache to feel them growing inside you, moving, hiccuping, kicking to the sounds of your family. Babies are rad and cute and tiny and usually smell good. The good stuff is easy to remember. You wont need a reminder of the easy parts. You will dream of the good times. This is a note to remind you of why you made a rational decision; prayerfully, wisely, and unemotionally chose to do something for yourself and your husband and your four boys.
The beginning of pregnancy sucks. Once you get past the first weeks where you find out you are pregnant and the joy that someone tiny is growing inside you, you will start puking. All the time puking. And if you aren’t puking for five minutes you will feel like you are going to puke. And you dont feel better after. Its wave after wave of vomitting for 14-20 weeks. And sleepiness. Sheer exhaustion. You don't get a nap because other small people demand your attention every waking second. You will pee a lot. You will check for blood everytime you pee. You will make up that you have to pee just to check. You will live in certainty that you are going to start bleeding and your baby will be lost.
By the time you make it to the second trimester fear kicks in. The 20 week scan will bring sheer terror and will paralyze you. This is when you lost Grace and there is no forgetting those moments, those days, those years. You will live in panic that the baby is dead. A dozen times an hour you will mentally prepare yourself for another D&E. You will walk through how you will tell the boys, how you will catch your breath, how you will keep living. Every doppler scan for a heartbeat will leave you white faced and afraid, holding your breath and desperately hoping to hear a heart beating. Then you will smile because they find it, but the rest only lasts a second. Fear will grip you again as soon as the doppler is put away. It is consuming. You will try to hide it from everyone, but it's exhausting. You won't sleep at night which feeds the beast and you will turn to a monster by morning. You will not wake with joy. You will be angry as you get the boys breakfast. You will scream at their noise and shenanigans. You will say horrible things because the filter you once had, once prided yourself in, is gone. It was washed away by all the crying.
This is pregnancy for you. It is hard. It is painful. You are rashy and itchy and moody and everything hurts all the time. Your ribs spread. You cant wear a bra because even the skin at your upper ribs is raw and sore. You are only comfortable on your back, which is bad for the baby and for the other children running wild in the house while you recline. Then they cut you open and you have 12 weeks of healing and post partum sadness. And even though you hate it, you will want to do it again. You will ache to do it again. You have wanted 5 babies since you were little, but you only have 4. Don't discount Grace. She counts. She counts. You are a mom to five children.
Remember that God is sovereign. He knows how much you want more babies. Remember that He also gave you a vision of loving babies and children and teenagers that you didn't grow. Pray for those faces. You have seen them in dreams. Dont forget them in your sadness. I know you will be sad and it will cover you like a heavy blanket soaked with rain and you will want to lay under it and not come out. Come out. Find Jesus. Seek Him like you did before little boys exhausted you. Parent the way you wanted too.
You will be emotional and cry and regret this choice. But it is the right one. Your boys deserve the best of you. Be the best for them. Stop crying. Throw off the sadness. You have labored to grow your sons, now raise them.
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