3 Things I Learned from My Fourth Pregnancy
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It’s currently two days before my due date for Baby #4. This pregnancy has definitely been more of a whirlwind than all my past pregnancies, what, with three preschoolers (ages four, two and thirteen months) and with a new hat I put on this fall: homeschooling mom.
I probably should have written a blog post about this earlier but writing has seemed a little less doable with new homeschooling tasks and simply staying afloat with household tasks with three very active and mobile kiddos. But I guess it’s for my own emotional and spiritual health that I sort all these thoughts out. And I just hope and pray that my scattered thoughts can somehow help you, my readers (especially my pregnant mom friends) out there who might be feeling something similar.
Here are three important lessons that I learned during the course of my fourth pregnancy.
1. I’ve learned to let go of my reputation.
This is definitely the artist in me, but I hate being misunderstood. I’m a wordsmith, and I carefully and intentionally choose the right words to coincide with my thoughts.
Generally speaking, the common value for us in American culture, is of convenience. This is especially true when it comes to having kids. In other words, only have as many kids as is convenient for you. When it comes to a point that having more children will delay your career plans, culture tells us to stop. If not, you’re “settling” and being unfair to yourself. Especially as a woman, our biological ability to have kids is sometimes viewed as an unfair burden placed on us, not men, that limits our capabilities to pursue our own careers.
I admit, I can be enslaved by this view of children and of womanhood. With the first two pregnancies, I didn’t realize this about myself, because two kids are still within the expectations of having the ideal American nuclear family.
When I first found out about our fourth pregnancy, I was far from confident in our decision to have this many kids, when so many families around us have maxed out at two kids. When I only had my older two, Jeremiah and Eliana, strangers would come up to me on the street, telling me, “You got your boy and girl. You’re done, right?” Even my own obstetrician, while I was pregnant with Phillip, our third, would strongly encourage me to have this pregnancy be my last, since “raising kids is hard.”
Fast forward to this pregnancy. Never would I want others to have the assumption about me that I’m irresponsible, or maybe worse, naive, when it comes to my expectations about raising children. I was never overwhelmed by the idea of having four kids, but more so about how others will think of me as a result of finding out about our decision have a fourth child. Now, as I approach the end of the pregnancy, I have grown to understand that, despite my best intentions, and no matter how well I can articulate them, sometimes people will just misunderstand me. And that’s totally OK.
2. I’ve learned that a formula for work/life balance is a myth.
It’s more about finding a “new normal” for each season of life.
After the pregnancy and birth of each child, I’ve noticed the same pattern emerge in my life:
Be in a set rhythm.
Give birth.
Allow some transition time with no set rhythm.
Get in a new rhythm.
Between steps 3 and 4, however, there is usually an extra step: “Get extremely frustrated and overwhelmed as I attempt to squeeze my new life into the OLD set rhythm.”
I’m so thankful for my husband, Moses, who understands that as a mom, I need to prioritize my self-care time. For two to three hours a week, I can expect that Moses will watch the kids, or if his schedule doesn’t permit, he will find a babysitter. I can use that time for writing or shopping or just sitting in a park to read. It’s just so good to have a window of time during which I’m not needed. It’s a constant temptation for a mom to feel guilty for taking time for herself. But I’ve appreciated more and more that the best way to take care of my family is to take care of myself first, so I can be refreshed and actually have energy and love to give.
3. I’ve learned that pregnancy is one of the best teachers for suffering. And suffering is the best teacher for dependency on God.
Society tends to downplay the hardship of pregnancy. Everyone loves to talk about “pregnancy glow” but hardly anyone talks about how your body feels like it’s under attack and constantly betraying you. During the first trimester, nausea is your most faithful companion, and for the rest of the pregnancy, fatigue is. And I’m lucky enough to have healthy pregnancies. Pregnancy can be a unique form of torture. Everything in your will is telling your body to be productive and active, but it’s no match for the hormonal cocktail flowing through your bloodstream telling your body to shut down.
Whenever I’m pregnant, I realize how much my body is not my own. I remember one moment during this fourth pregnancy when this reality hit me in a new way. I was breastfeeding Phillip, my third, while I was several weeks pregnant. My body was literally responsible for nourishing two children at the same time.
I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, pregnancy is a time in which I am most dependent on God. And it’s not out of some noble and overly spiritual desire, but more so out of pure desperation. I remember one morning in particular when I had been up the previous night with a severe case of heartburn. The thought of keeping up with the two active toddlers and a needy infant for a full day was beyond daunting. Their afternoon nap time seemed an eternity away. I spent that morning in a quick-tempered, zombie-like fog. When all three of the kids were finally down for their nap, in my despair, I sat down to read my Bible and journal.
After, I felt emotionally and spiritually refreshed. And instead of taking the nap I thought I so desperately needed, I felt God graciously give me the strength to clean the bathroom and mop the bathroom and kitchen floors. Then, later, while the kids were up, I was able to get some more laundry put away, cook dinner, and do most of the dishes. Disclaimer: I’m not saying God gives me the strength I ask for every single time; sometimes, He chooses to allow me to be stay weak physically so I actually take the time to slow down and rest. But that was one of the more vivid lessons in which I learned not to rely on my own strength, but on God’s.
I’ll leave you all with the following bible passage, which has become a source of deep encouragement for me for these past nine months:
Therefore do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4: 16-18)
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