V-day

Tomorrow is V-day at our house. No, it's not the one you're thinking of that happens in a few weeks. There won't be candy hearts and red balloons. Though, devotions of love will abound. This is a different kind of V all together. Rob's getting a Vascetomy. (Yes, honey, I did just post that to all of cyber space. Sorry. But if it makes you feel better, I don't think anyone really reads this anyway.)

It's been on the topic board in our house for a long while. Usually, after each kid is born we contemplate some sort of permanent birth control. For some reason, (actually, 4 little reasons that are running around here right now) we back out.

We get baby fever way too easily. We know it. We still can't help it. Babies are just delicious to our souls. That, and we get pregnant very, very easily. Other than Cordi -and now Max- I've been in some stage of knocked up every time a baby turns a ripe old one in my house. Even with Cordi it was only a couple months later. That's a lot of babies in a very short time. Alex will be eight this year, I'll be thirty. I've been pregnant for 45 months. I've breastfed for three and a half years. I can't even contemplate the number of diapers I've both washed or thrown out. We've been through at least half a dozen strollers, no less than eight diaper bags, and a good solid eighteen carseats. I think I'm ready to move on.

It's not that we're tired of diapers, cribs, car seats, strollers, baby food, soft soled shoes, slings, breast pads, teething babies, sleepless nights and washing bottles -though we are a bit - its more that we realize we're just not that much more elastic. Getting streched between five kids will teach you how much you can take. I love where I am now. I'm just strechy enough for this bunch. I have the strech marks to prove it.

I'm sad. Just a little bit. Hearing that heartbeat for the first time. Watching my belly expand until there was just no way in physics that it could get bigger. But it did. Picking out a name. Feeling the terrifying excitement when it's "time". I won't have it again. If you've ever had life quicken in your womb, you know what I mean.

I won't lie and say that finances aren't a part of our decision. So far, we've been doing fairly well. Of course there are things that we want to give them that we just can't but I think that's true for most everyone. Adding to our numbers will make it just that much harder. We want to get the farm built. Get out there on the land and make our kids lives rich that way. I can't build a house with a baby belly.

We've done our share of populating the world. If we have any more children they'll be children of our hearts, not my body. That's okay. I'm actually excited about that. We want to adopt siblings in a few years. After the house is done and we're settled on our farm.

So, at 8am on the 21st we'll be solidifying our committment to having no more biological children. I'm ready, yes. But I'm still grieving. Just a little.