Baby Thoughts

First let's start with some fun pictures:

Joshua had a birthday and he was ecstatic to get some Legos.  He's my big boy now!

Delaney was hamming it up for the picture. As was her sister!  Such silly girls!

There was a fun Primary Activity yesterday, and our Primary President thinks that Callie is just adorable to begin with and she thinks that this is just the cutest picture ever of her.  How can I argue when she is right?!

And here we have.... ME!  Courtesy of Callie.  I didn't realize how much bigger my belly looks from the shorter perspective!  Here I was thinking that I wasn't as huge as I was with Delaney, and now I have proof that perhaps I am!  Its a bit blurry, but as I said, Callie took this, and I'm not entirely sure what her focus was.

And now onto the purpose of sitting down today:

I think you tend to hang on to what you have heard growing up, and I know that in reference to bearing her 6 children, my mom would say she knew when it was time to start and she knew when it was time to be done.  I guess I adopted that philosophy myself.  I knew when it was time to start.  I had told Dan no kids for the first year of marriage, and after that first year was over, he started off right away with the nagging.

There were a couple issues going on with why I wasn't ready, but I had prayed about it and felt like it wasn't the time yet.  It took another couple months before the answer I got was yes, now is the time.  It took 3 months of trying to get pregnant.  And interestingly enough, every one of our 5 children has taken exactly 3 months from decision to conception.  But I digress...

After each baby, I knew we had another one coming, and I wanted my children close together.  Partly because I grew up with close siblings, and a lot because I wanted to get childbearing over and done with as quickly as possible.  I did not want to be changing diapers and raising children for 40 years.  I wanted the kids out of the house, all grown up when I was 50.  Okay, so I won't make that goal, but you get my drift.

When I was pregnant with Delaney, I decided I wanted a bigger space between her and the next baby.  We'd gone 18 months between Joshua and Marian, 2 years between Marian and Callie, and 18 months again between Callie and Delaney.  I was tired!  I knew I wanted them close, I just hadn't stopped to think about how rough it would be!  So I wanted a little break.  I figured 2-3 years and then we'd talk about baby #5.

However, Delaney was a joy baby.  She was so happy and content and wonderful!  I loved it.  I had never enjoyed a baby before!  And as she got older, it just didn't seem like I wanted to get pregnant again.  Still, there was that desire to have all my kids close together, and I didn't want to wait too long.  Dan and I talked about it.  We prayed about it.  We went to the Temple about it and we got... nothing.  No definite Yes, multiply and replenish some more!  Yet, also no Yes, you are done!  I really needed to feel strongly one way or the other.  I needed to know I was done, or I needed to feel like we had another baby waiting.  But I felt.... nothing. It was really hard for me.  On the one hand, I really was enjoying the children and having them be older and able to do stuff.  On the other hand, I didn't want to deny a little spirit into our family if they were suppose to be here.  I was afraid my feelings were making me less receptive to an answer.  I wasn't thrilled at the idea of going back to ground zero and putting my life on hold again for another 5 years.

After talking about it, we finally decided that no answer probably was an answer.  Since we didn't have the certainty that we were done, we would go ahead and try for another.  So we did.  3 months later, we were pregnant. And I want you to know that I know now, with utter certainty, I am done!  I have no doubt that this is the last baby.  I have my answer now and that means I can enjoy every second of this baby, because its the last one!

No, we do not plan on any permanent methods to ensure no more children.  I liked the IUD a lot and will go back to that.  But I have the certainty I wanted, and I can say also that yes, I knew when it was time to start, and I knew when it was time to stop!