Growing appreciation for life

You’ll have to forgive me for not blogging in some time. I write this now on my phone with a sleeping baby on me, which is less than ideal but you take the moments you get…
I am now proud mother to three under 2 and a half – two beautiful, helpful, blossoming wee girls and a content, bonny, fast growing wee boy.
Multitasking has taken on a whole new level. Washing and nappies are circulating the house continually and I hardly get a moment (literally) to sit down. But I am loving the challenge and watching each of my children grow in relation to each other. Life has never been so full and yet so fulfilling. I am genuinely happy.

Our son very unexpectedly spent his first week in Neonatal Intensive Care. He was a 4.53kg/10lb baby and he somehow (we will never know exactly) caught an infection at birth. His first hours and days are a blur of him being taken away from us, talking to doctors, approving procedures (tests – bloods and lumbar puncture) and worrying and praying that we would find out what was going on and that he would be ok. He was precautionarily (is that a word?) put on antibiotics, which was just as well as within the week he was a healthy little boy again.

Being in NICU and having a sick baby and seeing the other babies who were in worse situations than our own son really made us appreciate life and all the gifts God gives us. It is so easy to take for granted everything that we have, and to worry and fuss about things that in the scheme of things really don’t matter. I think that this challenging experience has been such a gift. It has strengthened our marriage, together going through the anxious days and nights caring for our sick son and changing the plans that we had thinking we would be out of hospital within 48 hours. We have greater faith, depending on God and prayer to get us through tough times. We have recieved so many great gifts from family and community – prayers, meals, care for our children and our household at a time we couldn’t manage everything. And coming home to be reunited with our other two daughters has made me further truly appreciate each moment of watching them grow and blossom, as healthy and beautiful children. Our time with them as they are is so short and we never know what is ahead.

Being open to God’s plan in our life especially for us includes being open with our fertility, through using natural family planning rather than contraception. Although this has led us in ways we least expected (4 pregnancies in 3 years), it has brought us more joy than a route of life that I think we would have “idealised” for ourselves. Though this way is often challenging, the fruits of it make us so much richer. I would never take back the children we have or the experiences that we have gone through. For all that we go through makes us more “whole” as people as we put our trust in God through all that we face.