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Sunday, July 13, 2008

The BIG question...more?

With the birth of our 4th child, I feel like we've entered into a new "group" in society, those with large families. It's kind of weird...it feels almost like people look at us as though we have 3 heads or something when they find out how many kids we have. I'm from a family with 4 children, so I don't consider it to be huge, especially considering we know families with 10-12 children.
While I was still pregnant, people started asking me if we were done or if we'd have more. I felt like saying, "can I have this one first?!" And right after F was born, the question continued. I even had one friend tell me that people were asking HER if we were having more kids!

We haven't specifically talked about it since F was born, but we never really had a set number of kids in mind. When we got married we decided to let God plan our family size. We just said we would take them one at a time (assuming we didn't have twins, that is!) and decide from there. So far we haven't felt a strong need to be "done". We've said, would we be sad if we didn't have more? We decided we would be plenty content with our beautiful girls, but if God decided to give us more, so be it! He knows what we can handle and what our family should look like. My argument would be, later in life you may regret not having more children, but would you ever regret having one more? I look at each one of my kids and, although things are tough at times having them so close together, I certainly wouldn't give one of them back! And though sometimes it feels like I don't have enough time, I certainly have enough love. I just have to rearrange my priorities (and having the cleanest house or nicest clothes isn't high on the list). Yes, sometimes my patience wears thin or I wish I spent more time with them individually, but I remind myself that siblings are a great gift as well. Also, my husband is wonderful and I couldn't do it without him!

And before you all start asking, I'm not pregnant right now and not planning to become pregnant just yet. We still have to talk and pray about it, and now that F has arrived we can start evaluating whether or not we are "done". You'll just have to wait and see! :-)

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I can still remember the same kinds of questions and then when we had number 5 it was just crazy what people said. I even had an older neighbor ask me if I wasn't aware of the over population problem we are facing!! I reminded her that China was helping to take care of that problem. It probably wasn't even worth a reaction but I couldn't believe it. I still cry tears of joy every time I hear of a family choosing to continue God's beautiful plan of procreating for His glory!!

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