April 31, 2017
Today we went out with Darren's family to celebrate his 35th birthday. With 2 year old twin boys and baby Judah, we get a lot of attention wherever we go with our bandwagon of baby wipes and toys and snacks.
On our way to the car we passed a table with a lot of people. "Big family," a guy commented to me as Judah was chewing my finger and I was trying to push the stroller.
I smiled, "Yep, 3 boys!"
A woman, face full of the disgust I would expect from seeing smeared poop on the walls (#thathappendFridaymorning) scrunched up her face and said, "Three boys? Oh G*d." It wasn't like Oh God-what a great creator we have, it was the bad kind, the in vane kind.
As a woman, we have the blessing and a curse of being able to think about 184712875104104819041 million things at once. In 1 second it all flashed through my head.
11 failed IUIS
2 egg retrievals
5 IVFs
202 2inch needle progesterone shots in my butt
an early miscarriage
a d&c
a miscarriage after seeing a heartbeat
my water randomly breaking
the loss of my daughter at 18 weeks
a stich to hold my cervix closed
the loss of my son at 24 weeks
another woman having to carry my biological children because my body failed us
another stich to hold my son closed
living an entire pregnancy in fear that it would all happen again
getting the stich removed without pain meds
my body carrying my 4th son to full term and labor
I smile at her. "It's fun."
Because of my God and my husband, I am learning to be full of grace. This lady doesn't know any of what it took for me to be a mom. She just reacted. The sample lady at Costco that says "Your not giving up yet mom right?" referring to the most obnoxious phrase ever "are you going to try for a girl?" while I know we have 1 more precious son on ice (aka 1 more male frozen embryo). Then there is that checker at Walmart that asks if the baby in the Ergo is a girl. She realizes he is my 3rd son (not counting little Jude), and barks out, "my condolences to you mom." I ignore her, acting like I don't hear. She repeats it, a bit louder.
I don't need your condolences.
This little family of mine? It was always supposed to be this way. God always had it planned out that Darren and I would have the life of raising 3 boys to grow up in this crazy world that needs strong men. Men that serve. Men that respect. Men that lead with boldness and fairness and confidence. Men that are kind to their wives and gentle and loving towards their children. While our hearts will always ache for the daughter we had, we embrace our calling. The literal blood. The literal sweat. The literal millions of tears that were shed in bringing in each of these little living souls into this world.
So, to you, Woman who said "oh G*d" to me when I said I had three boys, it's not really that bad.
