Baby 3, part deux

It's taken twice as long to try and make baby 3 than it did the first two times.

Hmm.

My reasonings about this usually start wondering if I am healthy. I got addicted to coffee several months back. But this weekend I have decided to kick the habit because I finally figured out that I am dehydrated, and it is causing me a lot of problems. One of them is that I can't seem to recover well from little viruses that I catch.

It was something that had to go anyway, if I got pregnant. I just love that mocha thing, though!

But then I remember that the physical and the spiritual are so closely knitted, that it's not fair to not consider what God is doing today. Maybe God is giving me and my husband a break. After all, babies come from God! I have been enjoying the break from conceiving as a gift.

The one thing that keeps rolling around in my mind is, what if I want to just say out loud how much doubt I have about having more children, and then, as soon as I say it, I'll get a positive test and then what I said will haunt me with guilt.

I mean, really, my baby deserves to be anticipated with joy, even before he arrives. Don't you think so? I do.

Ben as the spiritual head of our family has been directing our course as a pairing-down of the presence of multiple children. Yeah--send them home, is the jist. We need our family time. And in my own heart it is such a sore ache I have as well. It is time for a new era in our homelife. God has given me the new goal of being that stereotype. You know, the grandma one? Only I'm in training (Heh, Hee, not quite a grandma yet, not even close! I'm only 27). The homemade food, the big meals when people just drop in, the impeccable house, tissue boxes on the end tables, no dog poop in the lawns, etc. Yes, I am aching more and more for this. It's not funny.

Why is it not funny?

Because other people's homes are nice. Well preserved. And because of it their ability to welcome and relax others is achieved. My neighbors and friends are walking through it everyday. My house, and I do try, is just not making it. Not cool, God says. No. I look at my living room and here is what I say:

1) replace all carpets with pergo so no more stains and germs to bissell out.
2) get that microfiber couch that will withstand any stains
3) sit back and relax...--oh, and one more thing
4) accelerate Liz's dirty hands training, and
5) don't have any more babies

See? My life would be so much more calm and peaceful if I could make these things my reality. I'd of made it. I'd be, as the realm of women in the next higher age bracket growl their respect-my-authority kind of voice, "DONE."

There's a lot to absorb in the insight of their exaulted status.

Yet this is the very thing I have learned through the touchy-feely mix of the Word of God and His holy work I see happening all around me, is a sign of spiritual death: preservation of material things. It rings so true as "what can a man gain if he has the whole world, yet" doesn't have any squishy babies running around expressing the epitome of compassion and protection?

I don't know if it makes any sense. I don't know what the answer is either. I am glad, though, that God is waiting for the right time to give me a child. It will be right.

There is a third option. More babies of mine, no pergo floors, and, not watching any more kids. That's most likely what will happen. My God is not a God of shortcuts. He wants me to be disciplined.