Yesterday I heard this baby's heartbeat for the 1st time. It was good to have proof that the last 16 weeks of morning sickness has not been in vain. Being pregnant with #8 made quite a few people gasp, especially those who know we already have 4 with special needs. My husband and I, of course, have been wondering when should we get fixed and stop having babies. We knew we had to wait for after Arwen (she came #7, not #5, like we thought she would). And Arwen has been the dreamy, happy, cutie pumpkin that inspires us to smile and laugh at all the world holds. She is the child we wouldn't mind repeated. When she was born it didn't feel right to get fixed yet. 2 years later we could feel one was missing- the classic counting up the kids, and they are all there, but somehow one is missing. And sure enough over the full moon in September, we were horny little march hares and just couldn't get enough of each other without caring about birth control, when the time is right to conceive it is really really hard not to.
Yes, I have plans for my future. I am going to school full time in pre-med studies, pulling straight As. I am just your average almost 40, pregnant mother of 7, pursuing her pre-med studies, hoping to become a medical researcher MD at the Mayo clinic and revolutionize something useful and needful. Understanding autism would be fun, applying ground breaking research in neurology and dealing with the related fields of dyslexia and anxiety, but bringing dentistry into the new millennium would also be a worthy goal. Most likely, I will probably end up working on something that I can't even fathom at the moment.
When my first was born, I knew that I had found what I was born to do. I was born to do 2 things. First was to have babies (check, that can be counted as accomplished, mostly, I think), the second was to be a doctor or midwife. Because my first has autism, and required all hands on deck his first 12 years, I couldn't devote the time to continue my schooling until 13 years, and 5 kids, later.
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So with all of this background and thoughts running through my head, I woke up this morning feeling like I want to have babies forever. Which, of course is a big cannon ball in the ships of logic. The advantage is, that I am mortal, and I assume I will follow a mortal course and nature will make it impossible for me to continue child bearing at some point. If I look at my grandmas: one had her last at 44 (thanks to birth control), and the other was pregnant at 50 (in 1956, and the doctors thought it was a tumor, until it starting kicking). If fertility actually declines as you get older (I haven't seen any personal evidence of that yet), then supposedly I should have less children in the next 10 years then in the previous.
So logic or feelings? Well logic has a major flaw. It has to have all the pertinent facts to draw a safe conclusion. Feelings, has a tendency to take into account, things we do not see or understand at the moment. And when in doubt, follow the path of love.
I like the simple things in life. The laughter of children, the work of daily living chores, the snuggling of a sleeping child on my chest, and a good bowl of beans while studying a physics text.
I dream of travel, of serving a mission in other countries and bringing clean water to villages. But I know happiness, no matter what circumstances you are in comes from within, and the life within me has the potential to bring me great joy.
