Putting It In God's Hands

Each time Ava and I get home from her school, I immediately pull out her folder and go through all her papers.   Earlier this week, we got her preschool calendar for April.  As I am looking over it to see what is going on next month, I cringed when I got to April 28th.  You see, April 28th is Bring Your Sibling to Class Day.  You may be thinking, "So?"  But what you need to understand is that our sweet, sweet girl

desperately, DESPERATELY wants us to have one of these

so that she can be a

I am SO, SO afraid that she is going to have a meltdown on April 28th because she has no sibling to share with her friends.  She constantly talks about babies.  She loves to go through the baby section at Target so she can look at all the baby stuff.  My child sits and pages through the Pottery Barn Kids catalog picking out bedding and telling me that is what she wants for her little sister's room.  Ava has this game she likes to play where she picks up whatever novel I happen to be reading at the time and she pretends to read it to me.  Tonight, the story she "read" to me was about a little girl who wonders if God is going to give her mommy and daddy a baby.  She wants to know if God is going to put a baby in her mommy's tummy.  After she finished "reading" her story to me, I asked her what she would do if God didn't give her a baby sister (her preference-BTW).  She said "Well, maybe He will give me a little brother."  To which I said, "How would you feel if God didn't give you a brother OR a sister?"  Her reply was, "I would be all by myself and that would make me sad."  Talk about breaking my heart!!!

If you had told me several years ago that Ava would be our only child at this point, I would have been surprised.  Being an only child myself, the idea of one child doesn't bother me that badly.  However, Kevin has always insisted on at least two kids.  He thinks it is extremely important to have a sibling.  So early on, we agreed that two would be a good number.  We also thought we would have them not right on top of one another, but fairly close together in age.  Well, obviously that has not happened.  If I were to get pregnant tonight, our children would still be almost 5 years apart in age.  

We are in this position because right about the time we were ready to start considering trying for another, I began to have a lot of my health problems.  It took a while for me to feel like it was serious enough to warrant a trip to the doctor (because, really who likes to go) and then it has taken close to a year to get some type of diagnosis (which is still a little bit sketchy).  I just was feeling so badly health-wise and I really felt it would be irresponsible to become pregnant when I wasn't sure exactly what we were dealing with. Now that I have received this diagnosis, it has really given me mixed emotions.  With this disorder that I have, my doctor has warned me that the rate of miscarriage is higher among those with MCTD than among those without.  She has also told me that chances are I would feel great during pregnancy because my body would be producing hormones that would help counteract my disease.  The downside is that after delivery, I could suffer a setback and my symptoms could become worse than they are now.  I have a lot of days now where I struggle with my energy level and I really have to work to get through the day.  The thought of feeling that way and having a newborn just seems so daunting to me.  I also think to myself, "What if my symptoms become so bad that I don't ever feel like playing with Ava?"  I would feel awful to give her a sibling and then not be able to be the kind of mom I would want them to have.  Kevin says I can't live life saying, "What if?" and I know he is right but I think it really freaks me out because I didn't develop many of my symptoms until after Ava was born.  Coincidence or does pregnancy make it worse??  My doctor says she can't really answer that and there is really just no way to know how my body will react.  

I have been struggling with this decision for many months now--I mean, I'm not getting any younger here. :)  Tonight, Kevin and I had a talk about it and I feel like I am getting to a place where I feel more at peace with this situation.  We have decided that we will not try to get pregnant again but that we won't  do anything to prevent it from happening either.  We are going to PUT IT ALL IN GOD'S HANDS.  Which, silly me, how have I not come to this conclusion earlier?  I must stop trying to control things and realize that I am not the one in control here.  If God wants to give Ava her deepest desire, than He will when He is ready.  And if He decides not to, that is okay too.  We have an amazing child who has just been such a blessing to us and we will continue to be a happy family of five (you can't leave out our two furry children!)