If someone would have approached me six years ago and told me that within the next five years I would get married, my sister would die, I would have a preterm baby and then get pregnant again, I would absolutely not have believed a word of it. Yet here I am, expecting, another child waiting to come take his (or her) turn in the world.
I have never been a baby person; my "babysitting money" as a teenager came from yard work. The first three months of marriage, I cried every Sunday. The wailing babies, the rowdy toddlers, the pregnant women on every pew... The pressure to start procreating was overwhelming. When I was younger I had imagined myself with a family of my own on occasion, but in my mind's eye, the kids were always at least ten years old. I could never picture myself with a baby, which is how all ten year old kids start off.
Trusting to a doctor's diagnosis, my husband and I had "relations," and not two months after said diagnosis, I was pregnant with my first kid. I was in shock, denial, annoyed that God would give me this task before I was ready. My sister thinks that's why I had my little one early; I had to go through the risk of losing him to come to love him. That month I spent in the hospital before he was born, she pointed out I stopped calling the baby "it" and finally started calling it "him."
I never liked the idea of women in my area getting pregnant while their husbands were still in college just so they would be qualified for government aid and basically have their babies for free. Yet I was very much forced into this position with my first one. There is no way I could have ever paid off the $250,000 hospital bill it took to get him here. Heck, I would still be paying off the ambulance ride ($9k) if it weren't for programs like Medicaid.
Some have reassured me that since I am a taxpaying citizen and I am paying my dues, I have the right to use the aid out there. It might seem racist, but there are those who say better me using it than some illegal alien. Yet there are others who think it's wrong to sponge off the government no matter what, that you should never go into a pregnancy knowing full well you can't pay for it. The situation with my first one was unique, since I wasn't purposely procreating at the time.
I am keenly aware, however, of my using the system to my advantage this time around. I know we can't afford another baby right now. I only get health insurance when I'm pregnant. I know it looks so unwise to so many people; looking at it myself I can see how dumb it looks to have another kid when we can barely support ourselves. I just can't shake the feeling that this is what I need to do in my life right now.
I need family; my sister's death has helped me realize that. My little one needs a sibling; I can't wait until things are perfect to have another child, because that would guarantee he is an only child. (Only children miss out on a lot socially and developmentally, and I can't wait for my kids to have the type of bond I had with my sister.) I could have waited another year, so my husband would be graduated by the time the baby came. In fact, that was my plan if I didn't get pregnant by November (it may seem odd, but I don't want to have a baby during the winter months). But apparently God thinks now is the right time to add another member to my family.
This is what a leap of faith looks like, everyone. I know the struggles I will face, waiting for my husband to figure things out with schooling and his career. I know the challenge of caring for one child, and I can imagine how those challenges multiply when adding another child to the mix. I am an intelligent person, and it makes my awareness of the precariousness of my situation all the more vivid, perhaps even making my sacrifices all the more meaningful.
In the end, though, having children means more to me than all of that. Having these two children now is more important than waiting until things are financially stable, waiting until the road is smooth and predictable. I am going into this with my eyes wide open. Yes, children are a blessing, and yes there are moments of joy--first steps, first kisses, first words--but it is a long, hard road from here.
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