Dear Baby

Dear Baby,

I prayed for you. Before I even knew you were to be, I prayed for you.

It was the longest I have gone without being pregnant since I learned I was pregnant with Paxton in June 2006. I found out I was pregnant with Porter shortly after Paxton's first birthday. I found out I was pregnant with Charlotte when Porter was 9 months old. Charlotte was over one and a half, and I wasn't pregnant. It was about that time. But was it?

We always knew we wanted a "big family" before we even started having kids. How big is a "big family" anyway?

We went through all of the usual questions, I guess you could say. How would the kids respond to having another sibling? Can my body handle this again? Can our marriage handle this again? Can our bank account handle this again? The answer was simply, "We don't know." But we have never known. Not before Pax or Port or Charlotte. We never knew how all the pieces would fall together, but what we did know is that our lives would be richer, our hearts would grow bigger, and we would slowly figure the answers out. But with all of that being said we weren't really sure if it was time again. So I prayed.

I prayed that I would KNOW. I would know if it was time now, or later, or ever. I prayed and I didn't think about it anymore. I didn't think about it anymore until that day I drug the babies into Walgreens on the way to pick Paxton up from school. I was anxious and impatient. We had plans after school and I knew I wasn't going to be home for a while, so what else is a girl to do but take the pregnancy test right there in the Walgreens bathroom with the babies slithering around on the dirty floor. It was one of those pregnant/not pregnant tests so it seemed like an eternity before the word PREGNANT popped up in that window. WHAT?!?!?! I mean I know I had asked for guidance just a few weeks before, but I thought that I was going to get this feeling like "oh yes we are supposed to have another baby." And I would go to Scott with this beautiful story of how it had been in my heart to have another baby. Instead when we got home from the park I sat him down and said point blank I'M PREGNANT!! And what does Scott say? I knew it!

So there you go, baby. We are over the moon excited to meet you. Do we still have all of the same questions? Of course. But now we have other more important questions to ask ourselves, like, are you a boy or a girl? What are we going to name you? Who are you going to look/act like? And all of that other fun stuff. The unknown will all come to be known in due time. The one thing I know NOW is that you were meant to be a part of our family, and each and every one of us loves you more already than we ever knew we could!

Love,

Your momma