Our Fifth

Yesterday started with a messy house to clean but ended with a yummy Reese's peanut butter egg. I can't even believe they have those out on the 6th of January but this post isn't supposed to be about how the early promotion of holiday candy is contributing to the obesity problem in America. I was already overweight when I walked into the store, and I would have bought chocolate regardless, but there is just something so deliciously tempting about those eggs. I really love them so much more than regular Reese's cups.

I could sing the praises of chocolate all day but I wanted to share some of the truly good stuff, the "what matters most" stuff, and also the other garbage that makes life so excruciating for me sometimes. I am gonna have to type quick though because the kids are out in the living room wrecking as fast as they can!

I haven't saw fit to share much of this pregnancy with the world for many reasons, but I am pretty sure that it was mostly an act of self-preservation. No one likes to be looked at like a freak of nature or have everything in their lives called to question. I thought that having a fifth child would leave me wide open for ridicule and the harsh judgements of those who don't understand how a woman like me thinks. I also had a whole slew of reasons that getting pregnant wasn't exactly the best thing for me at the moment swirling around in my brain. We had just moved to Mt. Pleasant and I had no idea about doctors and hospitals. I had a very young son who would only be seventeen months old when the new baby arrived. We weren't financially ready at all and to top it all off, I had no insurance.

The insurance issue could have been solved easily by going to the Department of Human Services and getting state aid if I had a way to get there which I didn't. Dave works crazy hours and his boss takes the attitude that the schedule can't be bent even for appointments. The DHS is very busy and couldn't schedule around his days off. I couldn't take the van and bring him to work because the van had a faulty transmission and bad tires not to mention Dave is supposed to have a vehicle at work available at all times. Oh, and bringing 2 kids under 3 to any appointment seems pretty frightening to me. I always go the extra mile to make sure they are well entertained and fed so they are less likely to act up but there's no guarantee with a 2 year old and 14 month old.

The worst thing for me about the idea of state insurance was that the fact that a woman whose age 35 and having her fifth child should have insurance in place, otherwise she just looks like she is a.) irresponsible b.) stupid. I really don't think I fit either of those descriptions.

I've been married for 14 years, and I love my husband dearly. Love leads to sex. Sex without contraception leads to pregnancy. I wasn't irresponsible not to use contraception, we just didn't have any time in our schedules to either buy condoms or see a health care professional to get me on the pill. We had used the natural family planning method for years and never had an "oops" but this time passion took over, and we gave no heed to timing even though I suspected and mentioned that I was ovulating that day. A secret part of me thinks that we both needed this fifth child for different reasons.

David left me during my last pregnancy at 35 weeks. It was a traumatic time for me in the most extreme way. The words broken-hearted don't even begin to describe the way I was feeling. I was broken-souled, so much so that I called outreach numbers in the middle of the night and sought help through any means available to me. The pain was so intense that I would cry for hours and pray to God to just let me die. I called family, friends, acquaintances, my OB, my in-laws, and I cried to all of them and begged them to tell me why and to help me fix this or at the very least, teach me how to breathe again, how to eat, how to hope. Through it all there was Noah in my womb and he was kicking and moving and there were my three other children looking up at me and wondering if Mommy would ever be alright again.

So, after we reconciled and put the pieces of our life back together again, a part of me felt cheated about Noah's pregnancy. Joy was tempered with fear, and devotion left me with doubt. I didn't know if he truly loved me anymore, or if he came back because he is a good man and watching any human being suffer the way I did was too much for him. The conception of our fifth child has made many things real again.

I knew that he would never have participated if he wasn't willing to risk a pregnancy, and if he were willing to risk it, then he knew what was at stake. He'd never bring another child into an unstable environment because we both worried so much during the separation about the effects our problems were having on our cherished children. His completion of the act that began the life of our new baby was a huge sign to me. He was saying: I love you for all time and will never leave. My willingness to take the risk was saying: I trust you again.

Sometimes, actions speak volumes when words do nothing but complicate things.