In my church I work with the children 4-11 teaching them music. I LOVE it! With that calling, I also visit the nursery children (18 months to 3). Working with the younger children like that can be super challenging. Sometimes I am able to teach them a song and other times, we just sing a bunch of silly songs. I have learned how to adapt quickly.
This past Sunday one of the moms of the children was helping in the room. Upon my leaving she told me "You should have like 40 kids! You have a sweet, calm, and peaceful demeanor about you. You have that voice that just speaks to children. Seriously, you need to have a lot of kids." That really meant a lot to me coming from this particular mom-I consider her a super-mom, but as she was sharing these kind words with me I could only think "If you only knew. . ."
If you only knew how hard it is for us to have babies. If it were up to Nic and I, we would have 5 kids (he says 7 but that's just too much for this mama), but it's not up to us. And since we had no surviving embryos, our next go around of IVF (if we decide to go that route) will be FULL price and end up costing us over $20K (yes, that's right $20,000). That's $20k for just the possibility of becoming pregnant. That's $20K for one baby (unless we get a two for one special). Yes, we could adopt again, but that could potentially cost a few thousand dollars as well (depending on which agency we go through). It's a hard reality for me, that we have to PAY to have our children, but that's another post for another time.
If you only knew how hard it is for me to be a mom. After we welcomed sweet baby G, I suffered from "post adoption blues" (think postpartum, just without all the extra hormones). Not a lot of people knew about it, and truthfully, it's not something the adoption community really talks about (at least, not that I found). I had to reach out to someone that I respected to see if you knew of anyone that suffered from this, and luckily she was able to connect me with someone. I think part of my struggle of being a mom is how I have measured my success, it's always been tangible-awards, recognition, raises, etc. Being a mom, you really don't get that.
If you only knew how my heart yearns for more children. I want our family to grow. I want G to have siblings (even with the above mentioned difficulties I have), but with each child that comes into our family I have to be willing to accept that maybe this is my reality. That the dreams of the family I've always wanted are out the window. When G joined our family we were beyond excited! When she was probably around 9 months, I knew I wanted her to have siblings, but I also knew the difficulties that lay ahead for us. I spent a lot of time crying and coming to terms with the fact that we may only have one child. Then of course, everything happened and now Baby #2 is on it's way. Again, beyond excited but I've already started thinking about Baby #3 (sorry, it's the planner in me) and how again, I'm faced with the fact that perhaps 2 beautiful children is all we will be blessed with. Happy? Yes. Grateful? Of course! But infertility is a funny thing-she reminds you of the hopes and dreams you had. She reopens that wound you thought had healed and throws salt on it, bringing about all that pain again.
Maybe we'll never have the family that Nic and I have dreamed of. And (for right now) I'm okay with that. Maybe instead of kids we'll add more pets to our family. Though, that may take some extra convincing with the hubby. Hmmm. . . . ;)
