Waiting on Baby 4.0...

It’s funny to me how different it is to be expecting baby 4.0, than it was with baby 1.0!

The days and months before Baby 1.0, who we will refer to as Lars from now on, arrived were filled with so many unknowns and excitement for what was to come! We decorated his room like a catalog and had WAY more baby stuff than any baby ever needs, because we wanted to be prepared for anything! I had even had the pleasure of being a nanny for 2 different friends’ newborn for the couple years before having Lars. While I knew what I thought were the basics it was fun to have all the extras too! For the following year after Lars was born I spent SO much time holding him, reading to him, napping with him, feeding him, just really enjoying being a mom for the first time!

Now that Baby 4.0 is almost here and should be already (she was due last Monday, 1/7/13)! I’m glad that she has waited a couple days at least so we could go get her some diapers and wash a few of her hand-me-down clothes and bottles! I guess I should get that stuff out of her crib (that is in our bedroom) so she has somewhere to sleep when we bring her home! When she gets here I will very much enjoy having her here, but will also be fighting off all the “help” that is ready to feed and burp her! Petra has been practicing her burps so she can teach her!

To those of you, who don’t have kids or are still enjoying every moment of your first sweet baby, please don’t think that I care any less for baby 4.0 (or 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter) totally opposite really! I love them more each day! It’s just that with each wonderful addition I have realized different things about myself and about kids:

1.      The more we have, the more I have to clean and find!

2.      The kids just want to play with what their siblings already have, so there is no need to get more stuff! (Except maybe her own Bunny Blankie!)

3.      My time enjoying each child is really enhanced by watching them interact with each other! Sometimes, I think Lars and Stina were over stimulated by me trying to “entertain them” all the time. I’ll agree it is much more entertaining to just lay there and watch the circus, which is my life, than to read books or play with toys!  

The thing that probably surprised me the most is the anticipation of the birth of Baby 4.0. You would think, I’ve done this before, how could I get nervous about this?! Amazingly all of my kids’ birth has been TOTALLY different than the one before (I think every mother would probably agree)! I went to the hospital to be induced with all 3 previous kids on or before their due date.

Lars- I had gestational diabetes, so I was induced on my due date. Typical induction, went to the hospital started being induced 12-18 hours and 2.5 hours of pushing later, we had a boy!

Stina- I went in to be induced, 2 weeks early because she had stopped growing and come to find out there was a problem with her placenta and umbilical cord, expecting the induction to be similar to Lars’ I was very surprised that it was 3 DAYS later when she finally arrived! Although, I was on Pitocin for 2.5 days, she thankfully only required 10 minutes of pushing!

Petra- Hoping that this was going to be the easy induction, I checked in on her due date to the hospital and instead of being induced ended up with an emergency C-section! Her heart rate was so low that they wouldn’t even consider inducing me. Her heart rate had been an issue for the last month or so, which is why I was being induced anyway.

               Baby 4.0-Story yet to be told, but she is making for a dramatic entrance since we are already 5 days past her due date! I’m thankful that my Dr.’s are allowing me to wait for the best possible chance at a VBAC, but I do wish she would decide to join the rest of us on the outside already! The house is not going to get any cleaner (this is the only child that I have “nested” for), your siblings are not going to get any quieter and they are already squishing you on the inside! If you come out we can try to protect you a little better from the noise and squishing, but no promises! J

As many of you know, 6 years ago Karl and I were told by our doctor that we would never have kids! We had tried a few medical procedures, prayed and cried a lot, but when we decided that we would just not have kids God surprised us in a BIG way! In 2008 we had Lars! I was content to only have Lars if that was all God was going to give us, but only 15 months later we welcomed Stina. We should have considered ourselves warned at that point, but were somehow still surprised to learn that only 14 months later Petra would arrive!! YES, we know how it happens and YES, you can get pregnant while exclusively nursing your baby! As we discussed the future of our family, to have more or not, we decided we would have one more and not wanting them to feel too much younger figured we should go ahead and have #4! She will be 2 years and 4-5 months younger than Petra, which is almost the exact age spread as Lars and Petra (with Stina in between:). Karl and I have decided we would prefer not to have any more biological kids, but we know God’s plan is greater than ours’ and He has a great sense of humor!!

It’s always amazing to me how God allows our life to unfold! A friend recently described life as a puzzle, every day is another piece, we don’t know what the finished product will look like, we try to build the framework, the outside pieces, and then let the inside pieces fill it in. So many aspects of my life have been very different than what I had “planned”, but I’m thankful that I am not in control and God has the lid to the box with the final picture already!

I am most thankful to know that God gave His one and ONLY son to die for MY sin, so that I can live eternally with Him in heaven. I have learned this year that having Jesus as my Savior is really the only piece of the puzzle that really matters…more on that later!