Looking Forward

I would like to have more than 1 child. I always have imagined myself with 4 or 5 kiddos, though especially after having Clara, I realize that that would be a lot of hard work. But I'm okay with that, because I know how worth it is to work hard and be a mom. I value my role as a woman and as a mother and would be so honored to be the one to help those 4 or 5 sweet souls of Heavenly Father's learn and grow up. And it's more than that. I just don't know if I have the words to describe why I feel I want several children. But I think it would be a beautiful thing and that is what my heart desires.

Unfortunately, I am coming to learn, God doesn't always desire the same thing for us as we do. Not because our desires aren't good, but because He knows there are specific things that we need in our lives to help us develop into our best selves and embrace our full potential. I have a hard time grasping why that plan of His might not include having more children, but I have to accept that it might not.

Lately I've been trying to tell myself that Clara may be my only child -- because I feel like I need to be okay with that possibility in case that is what Heavenly Father has planned for me. She may be my only opportunity at a child of my own to cuddle, to sing to, to watch her firsts, to see her little personality develop. I may have already experienced my last deep breaths of that new baby smell, heard my last baby coos, kissed my last baby toes and fingers and cheeks, experienced all the baby firsts. It's so very fleeting. I feel like I truly tried to embrace and live in each sweet moment with Clara as a baby. I savored every minute with her tiny self that I could. I had waited so long for that time with her and it was not something I took for granted. But it's still gone. Time still passed just as quickly and now my baby is a toddler - a beautiful, smart, hilarious toddler at that, but a toddler. I look forward to the future and continuing to watch my sweet girl grow - there are so many things that we will share in and that I will witness and my heart is so incredibly excited for those times. Yet I still have to allow myself a moment here and there to mourn what is gone.

That's normal, right? That's human and it's okay -- isn't it? I don't intend to dwell in a state of mourning, because I know that that's not healthy. But when we experience loss, it's okay to allow ourselves time to be sad. I learned that during our years of infertility. I had to cry almost every day because I hurt so much inside and everywhere around me there were reminders of my situation. Crying was my release that I so desperately needed. And I think that's okay to have those moments of sadness. . . as long as we always remember to return to hope and to joy. Joy and hope didn't mean I always had a smile on my face or wasn't hurting inside - it meant that I understood that somehow, in the end, because of Jesus Christ, everything would be made right. That one day my aching would subside - it wasn't a permanent condition - and that even in the midst of my pain and sorrow, I could feel sweet peace and experience happiness.

And so I allow myself those times to mourn and to hurt because it's possible my only moments with a baby of my own are gone. And then I look with joy toward the future. I hold my Clara in my arms (for as long as she'll let me ;) ) and I look forward.