She’s Got This

This post has been in the pipeline for quite some time. Now it’s time to share it.

It started.

The doubt. 

Creeping in to ruin the party. It was only just hours earlier that I was happily buzzing about the house. Mind racing, mind planning. Trying to calculate. Walking on air.

That morning I stood in socked feet in our upstairs bathroom. Morning sun streamed in through the blinds. Bed-head and pajamas everywhere. Morning eyes squinting, looking away and then looking quickly again at the faint, but present pink line next to the OTHER pink line. A pair of them. Twins. You know those lines – they’re pretty important.

I had to keep looking back at it, waiting to see if it would disappear or if the fog would lift from my eyes and I would realize that I’m just seeing things. Maybe I needed coffee? Because no matter how much you prepare yourself for it, no matter how much you are aware that it could happen, when it appears, that second pink line changes things forever. It’s a significant mile marker in one of the greatest ways possible.

The voice in my head said to tread carefully because maybe it wasn’t true and if I looked away it would disappear all together. I had already tried that. Nope. There it stayed.

Then came the rush downstairs. I needed to tell someone NOW. Like, an hour ago. The husband had gone to work. I was there with only the kids. Jerry was namely concerned with breakfast, Honey Nut Cheerios and cartoons. Confident that he wouldn’t know what he was looking at, I showed Jerry the screen so that I could have confirmation that it wasn’t coffee deprivation that had me seeing strange, pink things.

“What do you see buddy?”

” A pink line…” (he looked up at me)

“Yea…but just one?”

“No, (matter of fact) there is a pink line AND a dark pink line,” he said in a sort of, “how can you NOT see it” and “do you really need me to point that out, mom?” kind of way.

Boom! goes the dynamite. I just needed someone else to see it for me, because don’t most women?! My four-year old did perfectly. Good kid, that one. I made him his breakfast.

I got to call the husband and tell him for the third time in our years together that we were going to have a child. It’s humbling. Our third time taking this journey. It’s more than you could hope or ask for. I could hear the grin in his voice, see the smile on his face. He’s calm though, not one for jumping up and down and shouting much and making a scene. He’s a chuckler and a big smile if you’re lucky. He’s a quiet reveler, that one. He’s wonderful.

We exchanged I love you’ s. I was sad that I wasn’t able to wait so that I could tell him in some over-the-top and adorably cute fashion when he walked in the door. Don’t people bake cupcakes and put color inside of them, or a bun in the oven or have a t-shirt made up and printed and shipped express to their house within 6 hours or something for things like this? The thing is, I couldn’t imagine knowing even a minute longer than he.

What a morning.

Now, hours later those creeping thoughts came in. The prince of lies made his presence known.

At that point, it had been recently that I was thinking that perhaps I was built to simply be a mom of two. Two has its rewards, two is wonderful. Two meant that I could start de-cluttering the house of things that they were growing out of. Two meant that there would be no more midnight feedings. No more infant induced fog. And, very soon, no more diapers. Two could be convenient since we had already hit that number.

There really is nothing overly simple about two babies. But, really, what was I going to do with three? There we were that day, snowed in with not much to do, mom seriously lacking in the creativity department. I was already symptomatic: tired, a sour stomach, preferring to strictly lounge on the sofa. Some days, pre-pregnancy, I was beyond maxed out with two of them.

How would three little pairs of hands work at the grocery store? Where would the car seats go? Who was going to have to share their room? How was I going to get rest after the delivery with two of them underfoot? What about my thoughts on homeschooling Jerry in the fall? How would I do that while I’m up nursing all night?? What if this baby has colic? What if it happens….what if I *gulp* never sleep again??

And, am I even that good at mothering? I fight distractions and impatience on a normal day. It’s hard for me to be needed, sometimes. It’s a struggle against yourself to hold it all together and make lunches and wipe noses. Now a third one would put an even greater stress on those limits.

And don’t even get me started on my physical appearance. I’d been working at wanting to get back in shape, (is that a thing? working towards WANTING to get back into shape?) and now a third baby? Yea, that’s really gonna help matters. No perfect basketball sized bump for this woman. And I’ve been blessed with two relatively smooth pregnancies. So this on will probably be a doozy….

So many things, so many details. All robbing my joy from news that wasn’t even 12 hours old yet. I was struggling, and baby LeCompte was only newly known to the world, to their parents.

Some gifts come with assembly required.

I’m terrible at seeing opportunities within every problem. I tend to see a problem within every opportunity. I let it all amount simply to how it’s going to affect me, my day, my time and my ability to function. I begrudgingly see the work laid out before me as a burden. Make no mistake, I’m sure that three children is not a joke. I also believe that it is a gift. Just sometimes, those gifts come with assembly required. You open the box only to find that it’s going to take you five hours, a screwdriver, a flashlight and nuts and bolts to put it all together.  What in the world???

But aren’t those sometimes the best kinds of gifts? 

Don’t they end up being the most worth it? The ones that you’re the most glad to have?

I spent the evening, somewhat lost in my thoughts, making a pot of chicken and dumplings. The husband approves of my chicken and dumplings, and so do I, actually. I plopped each dumpling into the boiling pot, and began the waiting. Waiting for them each to float. The heat cooks them and I watch, just until they’re right.

The kids came bouncing into the kitchen. The games began.

The chasing. The giggles. The tickles. The silly faces and noises and raspberries. The hiding and the seeking. The silly mom faces that I do. The tricks I play to lure babies into my clutches for more tickles and to steal more kisses. All while the dumplings cooked gently on the stove. The clothes hummed in the dryer. The snow fell outside.

In those instances, when my mind is off of myself, it’s really actually on. On to what matters. I forget about the loads of laundry spilling into the hallway. The floured mess around my kitchen. The toys underfoot. The busy day. I forget because I’m really not going to remember and count those things as important when time melts away one day at a time. But this, with the kids, now that was important. It was a gift. It’s all a gift.

And every perfect gift comes from the Father of Light in heaven. And He gives the best gifts. How much more does He give us? He gave His son, the best gift of all. And it’s a gift that I receive, over and over again, everyday. A gift that gives strength and hope on the days when time runs tight, when moms are maxed out and minds are fragged. If that is the best gift, then I can’t wait to see what the rest of them are.

Two pink lines do change most things. But only Jesus changes everything. And as I was crawling around on the floor, I heard it clear as day in my head and in my heart.

“You’ve got this. Because you’ve got me.”

The great I Am.

If you didn’t quite follow this post (seriously, if you didn’t, were you sleeping or something??) then I’ll say it plainly: I’m happy to announce that our family will grow by one more minion come October (ish). We are overjoyed and so fortunate. And we cannot wait. Only we can wait…because this means that we have a lot of stuff to do between now and then.