Family of Four

I stopped at a friends house tonight to drop off our infant carrier carseat/stroller combo and a couple other baby items as she is expecting this fall and was more than excited to take these items off our hands and I was happy to give them to someone who appreciated them so much.  As I pulled out of her drive and started my drive home I started to cry a little.  This is it, we are finally saying that we are done having kids.  We are a family of four and that is it.  This idea all of a sudden seemed very hard to accept.  

Growing up I always saw myself with a couple kids, 3 or maybe even 4 of them to be exact.  I come from a bigger family and I loved having so many siblings to play with when I was growing up. My dad also comes from a big family and I love that I have so many cousins, many of us who remain close well into our adult years.  Frankie and I always talked about having kids and he had always said that 2 was a good number and I always said maybe more!  After Colton we knew wanted another but it took almost 2 years for us to get pregnant and when we did I once again dealt with some crazy morning (all day, everyday) sickness for the first trimester and then delivery was a quick one (barely made it to the hospital) and I lost a lot of blood and ended up passing out (twice) about an hour after delivery.  So needless to say, not the ideal pregnancy/delivery.  And since having our second child I have developed some crazy anxiety - finally went to my doctor about 11 months after delivery and now two years later I have it much better under control however still have moments of anxiety/depression flares.  

So when Frankie and I talked about stopping at two many things came into the conversation, the stress of trying to get pregnant was very hard emotionally on both of us and we didn't think we wanted to do it again, the pregnancies were hard on me for the first 12 weeks which of course was hard on Frankie too and the next one would probably be delivered in an aisle at Target if goes faster than child #2 went.  Also with my anxiety issues I know that pregnancy/post postpartum will probably just cause that to flare out of control and I don't want to go back to that feeling again.   Also, kids are expensive.  Two in daycare is about equal to our mortgage payment each month, sports and activities add up and putting two through college will be expensive no doubt! So we decided two was it for us.  

Now I thought I was okay with this but tonight as I drove away leaving behind my baby items and officially telling myself that I never get to feel those belly kicks again, never have that first amazing touch with my newborn child, never sit up in the middle of the night rocking my amazing baby in my arms and all the other things that go along with a new baby I started to think that maybe I don't want to be done having kids.  I cried it out for a while when I got home (a couple different times) and then I started to think about what I do have and that is two amazing little boys who are my world.   These boys have made me a mom, which is the only thing I have ever dreamed about being (I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up like so many people do but I always knew I wanted to be a mom)!  And I just want to say that I am so grateful that I have been blessed with these two beautiful boys, I know there are people who struggle to get pregnant and I know there are people who have lost their babies before they ever got to meet them so believe me when I say I am truly blessed to have to two healthy amazing kids in my life.  And now as we get ready to put our house on the market and hopefully purchase our dream home it is comforting to be able to put the wondering behind us about another baby and know that the next house just needs to fit our family of four.  We are excited to start the next chapter of our life. We are excited to leave the baby days behind us and move full speed ahead into a life filled with sports, outdoor activities, cub scouts, camping, bugs, dirt, wrestling matches and everything else that goes with raising two boys!  I am proud to say we are officially a family of four and that is how we will stay.  

Did I mention how much I love these two boys.  This is an old picture but it is one of my favorites.  I am happy that we were able to give Colton a little brother and while they may fight and annoy each other I know they love each other more than they can even understand right now!  And I will say it one more time, these two boys make me the happiest that I could have ever imagined and I love them more than I ever thought was possible - they made me a mom!