Joy and Pain

Before you read this post, go check out this one on our family blog. You've likely already seen it, but just in case.

Waiting...

You saw it? You know this already? A boy. We're going to have a boy! Two little boys in our family. It's awesome and great, and it's going to be so much fun, me and my little gang of boys.
But.

Aaron and I decided last year that we were going to try for one more baby, and then that would be it. The heartache of all our losses left its mark, and we felt we could handle maybe a couple more, but if we finally got to keep one, we would be done. We wouldn't put ourselves through that any more. After going through the early, anxious, on edge weeks of this pregnancy, that decision is only concreted.
I had to go through a grieving process after that realization. I had always imagined my family with four children, with hopefully a brother and sister for everyone so no one would miss out on those great experiences. To accept that two would be all was hard, but eventually it became the new "dream" and I settled into it.
Now there is a new grief. Because of this decision, I will never have a daughter.
There will never be a little "me" running around, never a little girl with my dark curls to charm her daddy, and capture her brother's heart. No frills and fairies and fluffy tutus. I don't have words to capture all of the idea that "little girl" entails that now leaves a hole in my heart.
When I was pregnant for the very first time, Aaron and I were in a store one day and passed by this adorable, melt-your-heart, soo pretty, baby girl's dress. We stopped for a moment to "aww" over it and dream together about being able to buy something like it for our baby girl when we had one, maybe this baby. We lost JJ shortly after, but that memory never left me and I always assumed that somewhere down the road would be my chance to buy that tiny piece of a dream for a daughter of my own.
But I won't. And my heart hurts. I'm crying over the baby girls I lost, and the one I will never have.

I know some won't understand this, and some might be critical of me for feeling this way. I should just be grateful to have a baby, shouldn't I? And I am grateful, but there is no "just" in this world. Feelings rarely come as singular entities. They bring their friends - companions from all the other experiences in your life that are tied to this one. I love every time I feel our little boy kick, and I'm so looking forward to when I get to meet him, to learning all about him and who he is, but I may forever miss the daughter I will never have. Joy and pain often go hand in hand.

The Fight for Rest

Figuring out all of this "rest" stuff is turning out to be way harder than I thought. I knew I needed to stop holding myself to these standards that I wasn't sure I could ever reach, but what exactly should my standards be? I mean, I need some, right? I can't just sit around all day, call it rest, and be happy with that life, as appealing as that sounds a lot of the time.
As I'm trying to figure out how to make a restful life without simultaneously feeling like a lazy ass who never does anything, it occurs to me that it's not truly rest if you haven't worked, if you have nothing to rest from. I know! Epiphany! So after I get past feeling slightly ridiculous that this is just occurring to me, I can process the fact that I need to work at my life, to live with purpose, to put in effort, and then rest will be truly restful.
Figuring out my current purpose is not too difficult. I'm at home with my son, which I believe is exactly where I'm supposed to be. Teaching, guiding, and building that relationship is possibly (probably) the most important thing I'll ever do. The difficult part is figuring out how to do that. What is this supposed to look like? I have this idea in my head, but it's the one that stresses me out, making me feel like I'm just never going to get this right, this life style that I'm just not sure I have the ability to accomplish. You know, the shiny family in the shiny house, where the mom has done her prayer time, her run, her shower, and gotten everyone fed and dressed by nine when they all sit down for a morning of school work, with an afternoon of  "fun" stuff like science experiments and all the children (it's always multiple kids, you know) playing nicely together outside to look forward to. She also does all the cooking and makes most things from scratch.
Even though I'm trying to get our mornings trim and smooth, it still takes me until around eleven to get all of that done, and my kid doesn't even get dressed. Our days don't have a schedule, or routine, or even a decent rhythm really. Bug spends 50-75% of his day on the computer watching things like toy reviews and Power Rangers on YouTube. Some days that number is more like 90%. I often get to the end of the day and wonder where my time has gone and how I didn't manage to get anything accomplished or spend any real time with my son.
So, I need a new frame work, a new picture. I want more than we've got, more than this feeling of skimming the surface of every day, floating through them never really getting anywhere, and I can't keep putting that "perfect" ideal on myself. It's only real result is to make me feel like I can't get it right, and emphasize the "I'm a failure" days that come occasionally.  I know that I need something that works for me, for us; a flow and structure that suits our personalities, that plays to our strengths. I need to find our ideal life. And this is where I'm finding some of the difficulty.
I used to have a pretty good idea of who I was and what I was good at, and of course some of that stays with me and continues to be true, but that was before I was into this role of mother. I don't know who I am as a mother. I don't really know where my strengths are, how to use my personality and spirit to our best advantage. I don't know what kind of lifestyle is ideal for our family, or what will help us flourish and bring purpose to our days. I know with just one four year old, I'm a relative newbie to mothering, but you'd think I'd have some idea at this point.
So I'm struggling to figure this out, to take tiny baby steps forward. I'm wrestling every day with trying to identify myself, to see where we are doing ok, where we need work, which step of change I can make today. I'm nervous, scared really, because often change isn't lasting around here, and what if it all falls apart in a week, and I just feel like a failure again? What if I never really figure this out, and we end up wasting every day, letting it slip through our fingers, until I look back and realize years of our lives have gone by simply vanishing into nothingness? I'm definitely a little bit lost (and freaking myself out right now), but I'm still in the fighting stage, and all I can do is pray that I will keep fighting until I find some solid ground to pull us up onto. I have a lot to figure out, to learn, discern, and I feel like I'm wading through muck and fog searching for light and dry ground. But over the fear I have strength, perseverance, and hope.

Mama of Seven

I wrote this post and first shared it on The Frugal Foodie Mama's blog, but I wanted to post it here as  part of my story as well. The Frugal Foodie Mama has a great blog that is about, well frugal fantastic food, and being a mama. She also shares her story of the two babies she lost in early pregnancy. I invite you to check out her blog and share some love.


Whenever I meet someone new, I harbor a tiny feeling of dread for the moment I get asked that question, especially when that someone is a parent. What do parents like to talk about the most? Their kids. Somewhere in that initial conversation, you're bound to get some variation of the question, "How many kids do you have?" Doesn't really sound like such a horrible question does it? An innocent conversation maker. How do I always answer?
"Just one."
Just one. Except I don't have just one. I have seven children. Seven. There's just only one on earth with me. I hate answering that question. I always feel a little bit of guilt, a small feeling of betraying my other children, because they all deserve to be recognized, to be known, acknowledged. I love them all, I miss them all, they are all part of my life, of what makes me, me. Part of me longs to answer, "Seven," or, "One on earth." I want people to know I have all these wonderful, amazing children, but except for the very, very rare time, I can't bring myself to do it. It opens me up to questions I don't always want to answer, things I don't necessarily want to share with relative strangers. It would make people feel sorry for me, or just sorry they asked the question in the first place, because "Woah. That's far deeper water than I was intending to get into," and then the conversation becomes all awkward and stilted. I don't want to be the one to bring a dampener to a casual conversation.
I think that if I could just say it casually, a simple statement of fact, that maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but then I'm afraid that I'll appear callous, making little of miscarriage and related losses, the permanent mark left on my soul. Or be reinforcing the idea that miscarriage is not a big deal, sad, but you get over it, you know? But it is a big deal. It's huge. It's heartbreaking and life changing. And you don't really get over it, you just learn (or try to anyways) to accept it as part of your life. The losses become part of who you are.
I also have trouble answering this question as honestly as I want to, because I don't want to be known as the women who had six miscarriages. I don't want this to be my identity. I have had six miscarriages, but more than that, I am Mother to seven children. Seven children who I love dearly, six who I miss daily. One amazing boy that I get to cuddle, hug, and put to bed every night, and six that I love from a distance. I call them by name, I tell them how much I love them and I miss them. I tell them how glad I am that they are happy and that they have each other. I remind them to look out for one another, even though they really don't need to do that there (the mother in me can't help it). I ask Jesus to give them the hugs I so long to give to them myself. I can see them, how beautiful and strong they are. I see how kind they are and how full of love and joy, and I'm so incredibly proud to be their Mama.
Despite my guilt at not acknowledging them, at not sharing with the world that I have six more wonderful children, I know they hold nothing against me. They love me without hesitance, despite my hesitance to bring them up in casual conversation. They have no needs from me, they simply love me as I am, as I love them. They know how proud I am of them, and with this post I will find a way to begin telling everyone else how proud I am of them too.

- Vanessa, Mama to JJ, Dunadan, Anastasios, Sayuri, Tacey, Aliento, and Nima