Pizza

For some reason I grew up thinking I could order a baby like I order pizza. I thought when my rich, physician-husband finally set up his private practice, and when I was finally settled into my own perfect, flexible career (complete with great insurance and six months maternity leave) I could place my perfect baby order. 

I would order a healthy, happy, well-behaved little baby girl, with dark curls, bright blue eyes, and long, dark eyelashes. And the stars would align. And immediately I would conceive. And after nine months of pickles and ice cream, the delivery doc would hand me my pain free, problem free, precious little bundle, right on schedule. 

I would take my perfect baby home to her perfect nursery in her perfect designer baby clothes and raise her perfectly. Then, in exactly three years, when my body recovered and when baby one started preschool, I would place my order for perfect baby two. This time I would order a boy. 

But babies aren't pizza.

And life is far from perfect. 

And God doesn't take orders. (Or deliver in 30 minutes or less.)

Babies come when they're ready to come, and when they need to come, and when God wants them to come.

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When I got married I was only 24 and my husband and I were both still in school. We were starving students, working part-time making seven dollars an hour (without insurance) while we finished our degrees. We lived in the ghetto of Provo across the street from illegal Mexican drug-dealers. 

We were a long way from my dreams of our perfect family, and there were a lot of things I wanted (and thought I needed) to do before we could even think about kids.

Lucky for me, I married Garrit. And lucky for me, God had other plans.

Shortly after our honeymoon, Garrit started to talk about babies. 

The closer I got to graduation, the more he talked, and one day I finally conceded. Maybe we could have baby one a little before schedule, I thought. I just stopped taking birth control pills and, miraculously, two months later we were pregnant.

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Fast forward nine (insurance-free) stressful but exciting months. 

Medicaid covered the expenses of baby one's birth. Garrit graduated college and got a crappy job babysitting teenagers while he applied for grad school. 

We were still poor. We both had our bachelors degrees but Garrit needed a masters. There was still a lot to do. And I didn't want to order another baby until he had a job and we had careers, and a house, and insurance.

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Fast forward again seven years (two and a half years unemployed in grad school, and four and a half years at crappy jobs with terrible insurance).

We FINALLY graduated (me with my bachelors and him with his masters),  and he is FINALLY on the path to a good career, and we FINALLY have a house... 

And every night I tuck my FOUR sleeping stinkers into their beds and thank God I didn't wait for life to be perfect before we ordered started our family. 

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Yes getting pregnant again... and again... and again... with hardly any money and without health insurance was stressful... but we made it work.

After my first child, the babies just came when they came. It wasn't ever planned and it wasn't ever perfect. And I don't regret any of it.

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I'm not saying every couple should have kids right away, or have as many children as close together as we did. 

I'm just saying I'm so I'm glad we didn't wait until life was perfect. Because it never will be. 

And I'm glad we didn't wait until I was finished with my to-do's. Because my list is never ending. 

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In the end, through the stress, and the surprises, and the prayers and the faith and the miraculous births of my four miraculous children, I've come to know and trust God. And as I stopped trying to control my life and make things perfect, I learned God is in control and He has something else in mind for us all. 

Thank goodness I can't order babies like I order pizza.