Chapter 1

Being faced with the possible demise (or temporary lay off) of Confessions, I've been thinking of what I'd like to share about my life. Three things come to mind first...My children. So today I will begin a series of posts about the births of my babies. Up front I'd like to warn you that I tend to share too much, so if you are at all squeamish, you might want to tread lightly...and I will apologize now if it's too much.

Husband and I were married in the fall of 1997. At the time we wanted to wait 3 years before having kids. I was going to go back to school. We wanted to pay off the vehicles. Get things in order before baby made 3. In February of 1998 his little sister was in a terrible car accident. She spent 3 weeks in a coma and had to go through months of physical therapy. The day before her wreck I caught a stomach bug and couldn't keep much down for a few days after. That included my birth control pill. So I went off it for two weeks. At the end of the month, when I wasn't pregnant, Husband and I were both surprisingly disappointed. I went back on the pill thinking we still wanted to wait a while, but then the incident with his sister had changed our views on things. We both thought there was no sense in waiting to have kids because anything could happen. So I came off the pill again the first of April.

At first we'd get excited at the end of each month thinking, "This is the week we'll find out our lives are changing." And month after month we were disappointed. For the first 6 months we told no one we wanted to get pregnant. We didn't want the extra pressure. We would vaguely answer questions about it, but never really commit. Finally I told Inkling and Art that we were trying to conceive. Partly because I needed someone to talk to and partly because I knew they'd pray for us. The group of those of us 'In The Know' stayed pretty exclusive for a few more months. Then Inkling slipped and said something to my mom. I wasn't upset, I just wasn't sure how to breach the topic with my folks (Daddy still swears all his grand babies were immaculately conceived...and who am I to argue?).

Once our "secret" was out, we got a lot of support and a lot of prayers. We got a lot of unsolicited advice as well (if I would drink raspberry tea, if we would take extra zinc, if we would just relax, if I would just gain weight...). After the first year with no results, I talked to my doctor. He wanted to start a barrage of test. I was on board until it actually came time to start the testing, then I couldn't go through with it. We said we'd wait another year and then decide what to do.

That was the longest year of my life. Every month we'd get our hopes up and every month we'd be devastated. And everyone around us was getting pregnant (whether they wanted to or not). I took so many pregnancy tests, I thought we should've bought stock in EPT. Then Mother's Day weekend of 2000 rolled around. I took some time off work and went home for the weekend. Mama had gone to Florida with her folks (I think her uncle was ill), but I still wanted to be home.

A girl I had grown up with had just given birth to the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen. She wasn't married, wasn't employed, wasn't stable, wasn't fit (in my eyes), but she had this perfect 13 day old baby girl at church for the first time that Sunday morning. Church service was beautiful. It was all about motherhood and what our mothers had given us. But not only was I not a mother, my own Mother was 11 hours away, and I was watching this girl parade her new baby around.

I held it together very well and was headed out the door when a friend of my parents stopped me. "Kay" asked me how I was doing. "I'm fine! How are you?" "No, Farm Wife, how are you really doing?" I lost it. I wept like a child. Kay held me and prayed over me and comforted me as only one who'd been there could. She was celebrating her first Mother's Day with her son. They had adopted him after years of failed fertility treatments. Once I had composed myself, Kay hugged me, looked me in the eye, and said, "You will have beautiful children. Many beautiful children."

That fall my cycle was late again. Husband wanted me to take a test. I wanted no part of it. They were never positive; what was the point? Finally I gave in and bought one. Husband had left to go run an errand when I woke up the next morning. I decided to go ahead and take it while I was alone. That would give me time to compose myself after the negative results before Husband had to be told.

Without going into detail, there was a line before the test was back on the counter. I tried not to get my hopes up, but I didn't make it the full 3 minutes before I checked again. There were 2 lines. 2 beautiful, glorious lines. 2 lines that would forever change our lives. As I walked out of the bathroom in a daze, Husband was just coming in. "Well?" I just started crying and nodding then sobbing. Husband grabbed me up in his arms and nearly squeezed the life out of me. Then he whispered, "Have you thanked God yet?" I did then and there.

To Be Continued...