The Art of Parenting

So many things to think about....already.  When it comes to having children, there are so many decisions to be made.  Some easy, a lot of hard ones and a lot of not having a clue, but letting God "take the wheel".

I remember how I felt when I first found out I was pregnant.  Although it was something that Chris and I both wanted, it still was a shock.  Our original plan was to wait a couple years before starting a family.  I am about to be 28 years old, and I knew I wanted to start having children by the time I was 30.  So, to my surprise, after being married only 6 months, Chris told me he was ready and wanted to start trying to get pregnant. Huge shock!  I know I bugged him so much with questions like, "are you sure?", "you know this will change our lives forever, right?", "why do you want to have a child now?".  Poor guy.  I just knew what a huge decision it was, especially for a still newly wed couple.  You can probably tell that it took me a couple months to get used to the idea.  I've always wanted to be a mom, but to actually be in a place in life where it was possible, that is a different story!  I was more nervous  at the thought of being a parent than I was actually birthing a baby!  I had a lot of fears to get through to be ready to start trying.  Issues with my health, the migraines I have has always made me nervous to be a mom.  I had no doubt that Chris would be an excellent dad, but would I be a good mom? I felt highly inadequate to raise this precious, fragile child....a child with feelings, emotions, dreams of their own.  What if I was an awful mother?  But, I knew all these fears were not of God.  And Chris helped me to work through them, just like he has in the past with all the different emotions and fears I've had to deal with.  After only about a month of prayer about getting pregnant, if it was the right time or not....I was told I probably had endometriosis.  If you know anything about this female disease, you know that it can make it harder to get pregnant, but at the same time, pregnancy can help it go away.  So, we thought maybe God was directing us to try to start our family.  If it some times took a while to get pregnant, maybe now was the time.  We continued to pray, all while our friends told us their stories of trying for 6 months or more to get pregnant.  I just knew I would be the same way.  I really thought it would take a long time to conceive.

So our time line was....Chris told me in January that he was ready to be a father. February was when I was told about the endometriosis. March I stopped my birth control pills.  April was a normal month, and May I got pregnant!  So, now you know why it was a big surprise even though we knew we were as ready as we could be and weren't preventing it from happening.

So, the decision making started months before our baby was even conceived.  And I think it will only get more difficult making decisions about the pregnancy, birth and life of our child. From the beginning, I have been more nervous about after the baby is born, about being a parent.  Now, that I'm almost halfway through carrying this little one, (and my belly has started growing!), I'm starting to feel more stress of the decisions of tests, birthing methods, medicines and vaccines. And the list could go on.  Our easy decisions were the names for our girl or boy, and how we wanted to decorate the nursery.  But, those are fun!  No wonder they are easy!  The harder decisions are coming quickly.  Thank goodness for a brilliant brother who can help lead me in a good direction as far as natural child birth and alternative health care.  Thank goodness for an excellent midwife.  And thank goodness for tons of friends that have already went through this whole pregnancy process before me!  It has been really nice to watch all of my friends become mommies or add little ones into their family.  Nice because it is a beautiful thing to behold, and nice because I've been able to learn so much from them.  I've learned so many different parenting skills and it's really helped me to decide the type of parent I want to be.  I've learned things that I definitely want to do, and things that I want to handle differently  than some of the other mommies out there.  And that's not to say that the way they parent is bad, at all! It's just different than what I imagine for our family.  And I also know, that even though I have this idea in my head of the type of parenting I want us to do, that it may just not happen like that.  I believe it depends on the child's personality and temperment.  We may end up having to discipline differently than what we plan to now.  We may have to be more lenient on certain things and more strict on things that we wouldn't think to be now.  I really am trying to have the mindset of "We'll learn as we go".  Because no matter how many books I read, or people I talk to...it will be a new adventure for us. 

I think what scares me the most is what will happen when our baby starts getting older, like teenage age and then an adult. I've seen what a struggle it is for some parents to learn to let go and let children become adults.  Although I've only been on the opposite side of the struggle, I know that it is hard for a parent to view their little child as an adult.  My mom and I struggled with this, and I know other moms that struggle with it even today.  There's so much psychology that goes in to this; every person and situation is different.  But, I think it normally boils down to being able to let go, not have control, and realizing that your child is grown.  They will make the decisions they make, even if it is the wrong one or one that you don't agree with.  And the only thing you can really do is pray and believe that you raised them to follow after God and His will for their life. It really boils down to trust.  Trusting in Him.  But, that's a whole other blog.  :) 

I just pray that God will guide us each step of the way through this pregnancy, through each step of our child's life.  I pray He will lead us in every decision we have to make.  I pray that He will mold us in to wonderful parents, the exact type of parents He means for us to be.  And I pray and am thankful every day for all the mothers out there.  For all my mommy friends that I've learned so much from....Thank you!