I Can't Know About That

My friend posed a question this week on facebook asking how and when couples arrived at the decision to start building their family.  I had to laugh.  Her question suggests that there is a plan--that people discuss this and arrive at a decision or come to an agreement regarding when the time is "right" for their family.  And maybe for most people that is the case.  I can't know about that.  I do know that I get asked on a regular basis why I have seven children.  Some people have too much tact to voice their question, but I still see it in their expression--the rounding of the eyes, the slight drop of the jaw--"How on earth does anyone end up with that many kids?"  I can't blame them for wondering.  I look around the living room some times and think much the same thing.  It struck me today that at some point, my children may wonder the why's and wherefore's themselves.  Life in a large family is all they have ever known, but already they are catching quite a bit of incredulity when they announce to a new friend that they have six brothers and sisters.  The oldest ones are, by now, well aware that we are, "weird."
So, in case, being my friends, you have not wanted to offend me, but inwardly questioned our motives, beliefs...perhaps our sanity, read on.  If curiosity is not one of your failings, skip it.  It's going to be a long one.   And kids, if you are reading this when your daddy and I have gone to be with Jesus, if you wonder why you had to grow up wearing hand-me-downs and being the center of unwanted attention in any restaurant we frequented, here is your answer.  And after you are done, call one of your brothers or sisters and check in on them, o.k.?
First off, we do not believe contraception is a sin. I recognize that God is in control of everything that happens.  When I get in my vehicle and drive to Wallmart, I know that it is possible that the Lord has purposed that I die in a car wreck that very day.  He is Sovereign.  But I still put on my seatbelt.  We have used different methods of birth control throughout our marriage (some more successfully than others, ha, ha) and I've undergone sterilization. I have never felt conviction from the Holy Spirit that I was in sin regarding this.   I believe life--which is sacred--begins at fertilization, and there are certain forms of contraception that because of this belief, we would not be able to conscience the use of, but for the most part, we're good.   We do NOT think we are more holy than a couple with three children, two children, or no children.  We DO feel that some of the reasons people "choose" not to have children or limit their family size in our culture are selfish and greedy--and that is sin.  Then again, some of the reasons people HAVE children are equally self-centered.  But we are not in the business of judging people's hearts--God is.  Sooo...if we aren't opposed to birth control, and we aren't putting in for sainthood, what gives?
I grew up in a nuclear family, one mom, one dad, one marriage, three kids.  The master the same thing, only with four children.  Pretty rare, I know.  We both loved children and whether or not to have them wasn't a question, whether they would be genetically linked to us was.  Doctors told the master that due to an extremely high fever with measles as a small child, there was a very good possibility he was sterile.  I took this information in stride.  God laid adoption on my heart from my childhood on (for years I diligently campaigned for my parents to adopt a baby brother), so now that I met the man I would marry, this tugging toward adoption made perfect sense.  I told the master not to worry about it, we would adopt.  Having just returned from mission work in Latvia where they taught summer camps for orphans, the master was a 100% on board. Our plan: Get married, graduate college, let the master finish seminary,  get a few years start on our careers, then start a family either through birth or adoption. We were young, I was 19, the master was 25, we had plenty of time.
I couldn't know.
Finding out I was pregnant with K, was devastating.  For us, a baby was not a blessing, not even an accident, but a consequence. The months leading up to his birth was the worst time in my life.  Of course, I'd had a happy carefree life up until then, so the bad seemed so much worse.  God must be very angry with me, and I worried that He would punish me further.  Would my baby be sick?  Would he die?  Would I love him as a mother should?  I couldn't know that from the first moment that I laid eyes on him, God would give me a love for him stronger and truer than any I had ever known.  He is and--though I couldn't see it at the time--always been a blessing to me.
Our second child is the only one I can say was actually "planned."  Our plans for how are life was going to unfold were shot to heck anyway, and--having grown up with siblings close to us in age--we wanted the same for K.  We timed Abby to arrive the day after I walked (more like waddled) across the stage, and she arrived healthy and beautiful and right on schedule.  One boy, one girl: The American Dream.
Graduating in December, I thought I would take the next year and a half to be with the baby, do some substitute teaching here and there, and try for a full-time classroom when she was 18 months.  Once we got our feet under us financially, we would look at moving out to Fort Worth for that seminary degree.  I think we both wanted more children--after all, we hadn't adopted yet--but they were wanted in a shadowy much-further-down-the-road kind of way.   I couldn't know.  I couldn't know that we would be surprised--despite BC, despite breast feeding--with Ian at the exact same time I should have been starting to teach.
Well, we were three kids into this thing, we might as well go for broke.  And broke was the operative word.  It didn't make sense for me to teach with three children in childcare; my entire salary would go to daycare.  The master was pastoring a small country church and I was at home.  But I'm not too keen on odd numbers. Three is an odd number. We got the crazy idea into our heads that we would "finish up" our family by adding that long expected adoption.  We went to our first meeting thinking we would adopt from Guatemala (little brown boys just melt my heart and that was the cheapest, easiest International adoption at the time).  We left the orientation both burdened for Russia (much more difficult process with a 30,000 dollar price tag.  Did I mention we were broke?).  We told the kids to prepare for a three year old brother; boys were more available, and once out of infanthood, the children were much harder to place.  We couldn't know.  We couldn't know how God would provide. How He would make a way were there was NO way.  We couldn't know that a baby girl, blonde, blue-eyed Marina Joy, was meant to come into our family two long years later.
Maybe it was because we moved shortly after Marina came home, and we were all out of our normal routine.  Maybe it was because I was teaching full time and we were making more money than we ever had before.  Maybe it was because we could do it without getting a social worker's approval and a  Russian apostile on 15 different documents.  Maybe we were unconsciously rebelling against the dozens of family and friends who commented, "SURELY, ya'll are done now."  For whatever reason, without ever sitting down and "planning" another baby, we weren't as careful as we should have been.  One morning I woke up feeling pregnant.  I was.  When Randy arrived, I had my tubes tied.
There we were.  Five kids.  I was surprised to find that we were now considered a freak of nature for having SO MANY kids.  My family didn't seem crazy big.  In fact, some time after Randy turned a year old, it began to feel a little small.  I felt like someone was missing.  And, I was starting to see how important it would be for Marina to have someone in the family like her, someone who was adopted.  I thought about the rows and rows of full cribs in baby house #19. No one to hold them, no one to love them.  We would go over there again and get a sister for Marina.  I couldn't know.  I couldn't know that our agency would enforce a new policy barring large families (which I found out we were now considered) from adoption. I was deflated.  Maybe our family was finished after all.  And, drat, it would have to be an odd number
I couldn't know.
In my adoption surfing one night (I would scroll down the photolistings of children, waiting for a mommy and daddy, and I would pray for them), I came across a tiny domestic adoption agency in Houston.  I never considered domestic adoption before.  That was for couples who couldn't have children.  And didn't infertile couples wait for years to have a child placed in their arms?  But the director of the agency had adopted six children, and another worker had raised 15.  Maybe this was worth a try.
We fell in love with AIM the first time we stepped into their office.  Here, at last, were some like-minded people. We had our homestudy updated.  But around that same time, John's bone disease flared up, and he had to have his leg amputated.  We were in a financial bind (when have we not been?), with no available funds to complete an adoption, and to top it all off, we were staring down the barrel of a move.  In my heart, I gave up on the idea of adopting another child.  I couldn't know that a tiny, sick preemie was making her turbulent, brutal, way into the world.  And that she would be mine.  From the moment our agency worker Denise called me with her information, I wanted that baby.  I remember the drive down to Corpus Christi--the master warning me over and over that if she was too sick...if her needs were too great...we just weren't in a place to take her home and give her the care she needed--knowing in my head that he was right, but my heart screaming, "You are her mother."  And I was. Thankfully, one look and John was clean gone, too.
That brought us up to six.  Stick a fork in us, we're done!  Three boys, three girls. Four birth, two adopted, both even numbers. :0) But two and a half years later, and that old, familiar ache returned.  The one that keeps me turning around, looking for who is missing.  I don't like that feeling, and the master says eventually we MUST STOP.  I told the feeling--in no uncertain terms--to go away.  We were done already.  Six kids done. You don't get any doner than us. D-O-N-E. I couldn't know.  I couldn't know stopping by AIM to say hello one afternoon on a trip to Houston would change my life.  Couldn't know that there was a young woman in the exact same situation as Marina and Cara's birthmothers.  Couldn't know that she had called the office just that day and requested information about adoption. Couldn't know that our agency would offer to place this child with us and would tell the birthmother about us.  How could I possibly imagine that this woman would choose us--not in spite of the fact that we already had six children, but because we had six children--to raise her healthy baby boy?  It is unheard of; anyone in the adoption world will tell you that.  How could I know that two weeks later, I would bring that little boy home?  That he would light up my life with his smiles, and that I would feel for Levi the same overwhelming Mommy-love that I felt for K the first time I lifted my eyes over the nursery window seal so many years ago.  I couldn't know.  I couldn't have even guessed.
There you have it.  How we ended up with seven kids.  The master does not have a seminary degree.  My teaching certificate has a thick layer of dust on it. We are eternally broke, and our car has not NOT had at least one car seat strapped into it in thirteen years.  I've come to point where I don't make plans anymore. I wait and see what God is going to do.  It's so much more exciting this way!  Are we done?  I'm 33 and starting to feel my age.  To you it sounds crazy that I have seven kids at 33; to me, it sounds crazy that most couples wait until their thirties to start this insanity.  Yesterday, when Ian broke his sternum, Abby was drama diva over her first pimple, Randy wore through yet ANOTHER pair of sneakers, and Levi tried to choke himself for the 1,000 time that day, I swore that we were.  If that old feeling shows up, I will slam the door in his face.  And the master is right, we do have to stop some time.
But snuggle time is awesome.  Playtime is uproarious. Surely with seven, one of them is bound to be a doctor, right? I am never lonely. And you know, seven is an odd number ;0) The truth is I don't know. So, don't ask me.
I can't know about that.