and God laughs

Here's the post that I hastily published on April 23, and took down 12 hours later at the urging of my beloved husband. Over the past couple of weeks, the people that needed to know, have heard it first hand from me.

So now, here it is for the world.

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Charlie and I struggled with infertility for years. We went through countless surgeries and procedures to try and conceive. It wasn't until our third round of IVF, in March of 2004, six years ago last month, that we were finally successful just getting two lines on the stick.

When we conceived Henry, it was such a wonderful, incredible, miraculous surprise. For all that we had been through to get pregnant in the first place, I was in complete disbelief that I had conceived this child, naturally, until the moment they handed my newborn to me in the delivery room.

Henry has been such a wonderful blessing to our family, but especially to me. Because he is the baby that just happened. There was no looking at a calendar, scheduling appointments, having prescriptions filled, enduring painful subcutaneous and intramuscular shots and standing by the phone, quivering with anticipation and dread until the call came through.

With Henry, there was none of that. With Henry, there was a fun church service, a glass of wine, and a severely strained back. Nine months later, he arrived on his due date, weighing almost more than his triplet siblings did, COMBINED.

Just before Henry was born, my OB asked if I would like to have a tubal ligation at the same time as my c-section and I said absolutely not. Because it seemed like such a final thing. What if at some later time we decided that we wanted to have more children?

Of course this sounded totally crazy coming from a woman who was going to birth four children in less than three years. But I wanted to keep my tubes as open as my options.

Whether or not we would ever really try for another child was questionable. Because all along, Charlie said NO while I said MAYBE yes?

My husband's argument was that we'd probably need a larger car. And we would feel even more crammed for space in our small house. And why?! Don't we have enough children, now? Could we ever give the same amount of love and attention to a fifth child? Why can't we just enjoy the beautiful children that we have? And really, could I handle another pregnancy and the associated 100 pound weight gain that always seems to occur?

My argument was that biologically, I have a very small window of opportunity remaining and I don't want to go through my life wondering what if? I'm from a large family and although we definitely have our struggles from time to time, I adore them and I've always dreamed of having a large family, myself.

Then there's the flip side, where I contemplate overpopulation and responsible parenting and all the things that can go wrong with an advanced maternal age and pregnancy in general. And there's also that bit of me that feels guilty and greedy for wanting more children - when there are so many without.

Those things definitely mean something to my brain - that component of my body that thinks and processes information. I consider the strain each additional human being puts on the earth and our natural resources. And I consider the strain each additional human being puts on our wallet, especially once they enter college.

But money and overcrowding mean nothing to my heart.

So about 20 months ago, we decided that we'd just see what happened. If, you know, we threw caution to the wind. After a full year and a half, nothing did happen. Which in many ways (and quite ridiculously, perhaps), made me incredibly frustrated with my body in a way that was eerily reminiscent of the feelings I'd experienced when we were struggling with infertility way back when. The primary difference being that now, I'd have four gorgeous children to scoop up and hug. Which meant the sting wasn't nearly as painful, although still there.

Eventually, and somewhat tearfully for me, we concluded that my spontaneous conception with Henry truly WAS a miracle. We concluded that we'd focus on our blessings and raising our four amazing children.

We concluded that we would move 3,000 miles cross-country this summer. We concluded that I'd accept this position in Virginia and work from an office. We concluded that sustaining my career was truly the best option for our family, now and particularly in the long term.

We concluded that Charlie will be home full time, working on his business part time. We concluded that this arrangement will be wonderful for all involved. We concluded that the triplets will be starting kindergarten in the fall at around the same time Henry will be starting preschool two to three mornings a week.

We concluded that the baby stage was firmly behind us and it was time to clean out our garage and give away our cribs and baby gear.

So that's exactly what we did.

We began fixing up our house for sale or rent, and we began looking at houses in Virginia within five miles of the office. And then, we truly experienced a feeling of peace as we focused on this next new and exciting phase of our life because (repeat after me) THE BABY PHASE IS MOST DEFINITELY OVER FOR US.

And well, as I learned on the night of my 39th birthday...

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