Playing With Fire…

Have I told you the great news? 15 women in my life are pregnant {1 is my sister…and no, she isn’t finding out if she will break the streak:)}. Can you even believe it? I’m not exaggerating. As a 30 year old mom of two {when, on earth, did that happen?}, the amount of women having children around me is growing by the week and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Truly. Thrilled.

All of these peeps packing peanuts right now have me thinking. Thinking so fondly about my first pregnancy. About the fear I felt after birthing Barrett. About the joy I experienced after the arrival of Jonah. Thinking about life before children and then life today. Thinking about the anger I felt when I was enthralled in every moment of bearing Barrett and seasoned moms who’d been there and done that, who’d “earned their stripes” snidely warned that I had know idea what I was in for. And thinking about how Adam and I knew we were “ready”.

One of my friends, {my oldest friend} called several months ago to reveal that she and her husband would be embarking on parenthood. I was both elated and shocked. How was it possible that this girl, whom I’d known since I was basically a babe, could be old enough to be a momma?! And how was it possible that I had become a mom of two?! I, of course, never having developed a filter, asked her every question I could think of and she answered. Her best answer, when I asked her the question that I say people shouldn’t ask {okay, okay…I do ask my closest comrades}, was that while it wasn’t exactly planned they had played with fire and were prepared to get burned.

I love it…played with fire. While I know that not everyone can play with fire and find their inner fertile Mertyle, I love it because we’ve all heard someone, somewhere say it before… if everyone waited to have kids until they were ready, no one would ever have kids. So, when two consenting adults in a committed loving relationship {see how pc I’ve gotten?} play with fire, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. I mean honestly, if we had really drafted a full out pro/con list prior to pouncing into pregnancy the first time, I don’t know that we would have pulled the trigger when we did…if ever. Let’s be real, taking out the emotion of the situation, the intangible rewards and benefits that come from having a baby, the cons would heavily outweigh the pros. Just like the decision to stay home, when you actually put the pen to the paper and figure out what it’s all about {which, btw, is not the hokey pokey}, parenting can seem more work than it’s worth.

I imagine that pre-Barrett, our pro/co would have looked something like this…

Seems a little harsh, right? But is it? Not really…because it’s often how people look at it. So black and white. So pro and con.

When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned. And other times, you get a baby… And as I’ve said before, very few moments are easy, it’s hardly ever the classic definition of perfection but somehow, it’s still so stinking awesome. Loss of sleep. Loss of money. Loss of independence. These are all true to some extent. There is no denying it. But the gains are worth more than any of those things. They are better than any trip I’ve taken. Better than any size I’ve ever been. Better than any piece of furniture I could have bought. Any car I could be driving.

We have two little boys. We adore them. They truly have become our every thought. Our every consideration. Our every thing. We have become those people who talk about our kids incessantly, who repeat stories about them ad nauseum, who spend our weekends playing with Legos and planning around nap time. And it’s not because we are just trying to get by. It’s because the intangible gifts of parenthood can never be explained or felt until you are a parent. It’s just that incredible. And I don’t intend that statement to be condescending as if to say, if you haven’t harbored a human or become a parent you’ve no clue, but rather to communicate that there is no other thing that is comparable to it. There is no other experience we had prior to Barrett and then, Jonah, that could have prepared us for the emotional attachment. To the need to be everything for them. To them.

I’m so glad we played with fire when we did. I can’t imagine a better burn.