Pregnancy News | Honest Thoughts On Expecting Baby #10

Hi, this is Sheri from the blog OurLifeHomeschooling.com. I started my blog and YouTube channel back in 2020 as a way of sharing homeschooling encouragement for parents that are either just stepping out to homeschool or are currently homeschooling and just need that extra boost. So I've been posting regularly about everything that I have learned from homeschooling. I have interviewed other moms to share their experiences and I have over 70 articles that you can go onto the blog OurLifeHomeschooling.com and just read for encouragement. I also have several videos to just share some homeschooling encouragement that will hopefully help some people who need it. I'm going to go a little off topic today and talk about expecting our 10th baby. My husband and I are expecting another baby. We are just really excited about this. The kids are super excited and I just wanted to share some honest thoughts about what it's like to be expecting another child, especially when you have such a large family as ours. It's not ordinary to have a family of our size and so it's something that I thought would be an interesting thing to share. Neither my husband or I came from a very large family. There are four children in my family, four children in my husband's family, which I guess is considered large in today's standards, but not quite as large as 10 children. So we didn't really come from large families. It's not something that we really ever planned for. When we got married, I said, my husband said he wanted four. I said I wanted six. So our original plan was just to compromise with five. I wanted five kids and I wanted them each three years apart. That was just kind of the plan that I had in my head of how this was all going to work out. We had our first son and three years later we had our second son Luke. When Luke was just seven months old, I got pregnant unexpectedly with our daughter. I actually didn't even find out I was pregnant with her until I was three months along. So he was 10 months old and it came as a big shock. Just completely wrecked all the neat little plans that I had of how I wanted to have children. I am embarrassed to say this, but I cried when I found out I was pregnant with her. This was ruining the plan. I felt like Luke was going to be overlooked and we were going to just miss all this time with him as a baby. This new baby was going to come along and need all this attention and Luke was just going to be passed over. We went on and I had our daughter. She's our oldest daughter and if you've ever met her, she is the sweetest. She's kind of like quiet, more introverted, most delicate, sweet little. She was just a doll baby and she still is just very sweet and kind and innocent. After I had her, just looking at this adorable little baby, I just could not believe that I had cried over this. She was so easy. She was a snuggler and just holding her, I felt like I couldn't believe that this was something I didn't want. Obviously, God knew better than I did. Our son Luke was not overlooked. He still got and gets plenty of attention. We just really enjoy him. We enjoy them both. The Lord used this in my life to really change my heart and my husband's heart. I felt like this was something I didn't want and God knew better than I did. I was so thankful that he intervened and changed our plans and gave us this little girl. After that experience with our daughter Jenna, like I said, my husband and I had a change of heart and I both really wanted to just let the Lord determine how many we were going to have. We just decided these children are a gift. The Lord says that children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is a reward. That is truly what Jenna was to our family, what all three of our children at that time were to our family. We just wanted to put this in the Lord's hands. Thankfully, all along the way, my husband has been super supportive and some men don't want to have more children. I always wanted to just put this part of my life in the Lord's hands. Thankfully, my husband has always been very supportive and on board with that. We went on to have a couple more children. Currently, we have five girls and four boys and they are just the pride and joy of our life. We're so thankful. Like I said, never really expected to have a large family. It was not in the picture, not at the forefront of our mind, certainly at all. This is what the Lord's given us. Now we are expecting baby number 10 and just couldn't be more happy about that. Siblings are a gift that you give your kids for life. Someday, my husband and I are going to be gone and our kids will all have each other. They'll have each other for life. We are just so thankful to be expecting this little one. We just found out what we're having and maybe we'll be sharing that at some point. Our kids are just really excited. When you're in a large family, there's always someone to do something with. There's always someone to play with, someone to sit down and play board games with you or go out and shoot baskets with you. Just having these relationships that are always here and knowing that we get to welcome another one into our family is just really exciting. When you're pregnant, a lot of times you just you can't picture or imagine that new child. It just seems kind of like a blank picture in your head. Sometimes you think, how can I ever love another child as much as I love my kids? I've felt that way with every single time I've been pregnant. Then this baby comes into your life and they grow up and they get a personality and they're completely different from all your other kids. You just think, I can't remember a time when this child wasn't in our family. I can't remember or imagine not having this personality. It's a big mystery what this baby is going to be or what kind of personality this child is going to have. We are just really excited because we know how much they add to our family. As you can imagine, it is not easy to have a larger than average size family. Whenever I get discouraged or overwhelmed, my husband says, if it was easy, everybody would do it. It's true. It's definitely not easy. It has its challenges. With having a lot of kids, I would say everything is more. There's more food to make, more cleanup, more mess, more wear and tear. Everything is more. More laundry. When everyone has the stomach bug, you can imagine what a nightmare that can be. If you're doing any kind of home projects or remodeling, everything is just more. Everything is bigger and more. That has definitely been something that is one of the challenges that, like I said, neither my husband or myself had planned on having a big family. We didn't come from a big family. We feel very much like ordinary parents. Just adjusting and knowing how to manage all that comes with a lot of children and to manage it in a way that is loving and gentle and not rigid and always keeping everything a certain way. You really have to have quite a bit of flexibility in a large family. Our children, we work very hard to keep the house clean, to keep up with the yard maintenance, to do things, but it takes more work. It takes, obviously, a lot more work than it would if we had less. Less to do. Less people to feed. Sometimes, we'll feel like we work really hard to get things cleaned up or to prepare for something. It still is not quite as good of a job or not quite as put together because there's just more of us. That's one of the challenges that comes with having a large family. There is definitely more. More of everything. With a large family, there's also more risk. This is the part that has definitely been the most challenging for me and I'm sure my husband as well. There's always more chances for something to go wrong. What if our kids don't turn out right? There's more of them. It's more responsibility in general. What if something happens to one of our kids? What if something happens in our marriage? We've seen a lot of marriages fall apart in the 22 years that we've been married. It's very sad. Yet, we're adding more responsibility and sometimes more stress to our marriage. There's all of these things that make having more children risky. I am not a risk taker by nature. I like to play it safe. My husband's a risk taker. That's one thing that has been very stretching for both of us and really just caused us to lean into each other and to really put our trust in the Lord. There's a verse in Psalm 118 that has been one that I have really clung to a lot of times. That is, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in the best of men. This is a verse that I have reminded myself over and over again. Back when we decided to just let the Lord decide how many children we were having, we just searched through the scriptures to find what the Bible has to say on this. The only verses that we could find were verses that talk about how children are a blessing and the fruit of the womb is a reward and how God is the one who is the author of life. When things have been challenging, we have had to come back to the bigger picture. It's been confirmed over and over to me that it is not foolish to trust in the Lord, even in this area of your life. Although it has had definitely some challenging moments and just some uncertain moments sometimes, I am so thankful that we've put this in the Lord's hands and have obviously no regrets. I can't imagine missing out on even one of our kids. I can't imagine one of them not being here. They each are so different. They each have different gifts, different abilities. They have each changed me and Nelson in some way and I'm just so thankful for them. Another challenge has been, especially for me as a mom, is being pregnant so many times. I'll be the first to say that although this is my heart's desire and I am so thankful for what God has given us, I have not always had the best attitude about pregnancy. I love the children. I love each of our kids. When they're born, it really is such a gift. And when they grow up and start to become individual people, it's an even better gift. But the pregnancy is definitely a big sacrifice. We live in a culture where body image is everything and sadly gaining weight, gaining 30, 40 pounds over and over and over and then the postpartum of being overweight and not being pregnant and then getting back trying to get back down just as a woman, that is something that has been a huge sacrifice to me. And like I said, I haven't always had the best attitude. There's something about being pregnant that is just a very, it's a very fragile position. It's a vulnerable position. You're not able to do as much. Like I said, you are overweight and that's just not something that our culture values. And for the most part, I think everyone we know has been very positive and encouraging about our children or about us having another child. We have been blessed to have very supportive family and friends. But I would say if we have received, we have received a few negative comments here and there. And it is usually almost always when I am pregnant. I don't know what it is about the humble state of pregnancy or the fragile state. Sometimes when I'm pregnant, I already am having a hard time keeping perspective and remembering the end result. And then when someone makes a comment on top of that, it can make you think or doubt yourself and just think, oh yeah, I don't know. I don't know how this is going to turn out. And so I noticed that in my earlier pregnancies and I started to see a pattern. When the child is born and our kids are here, no one ever makes any negative comment. They think they are just such a joy and such so neat. You know, they're also unique and different. And once that child is here, no one ever would make a negative comment. But there is just something about the humble state of being pregnant that would cause someone sometimes to have a critical response. When I was expecting our son, Will, who is our eight, I remember one particular night. It was at the very end of my pregnancy with him. I just had the worst attitude. I was complaining. I was miserable. I was just uncomfortable. I was very uncomfortable. Literally that night, I was miserable. The very next night, I was laying in bed and he was laying beside me. And he was kind of like our third Jenna. He was the sweetest, snuggler, easy, hardly ever cried, and just a joy. And as I was laying there looking at him, I just had this overwhelming feeling of, again, I can't believe that I was complaining about this. It's so easy to be short-sighted and to lose perspective when you are in any uncomfortable situation. I'm sure if there's anything that you've been through, we've all been through things that have really challenged us or stretched us, things that are difficult or painful. And when you're in those moments, it is very hard to keep perspective and remember what God's calling on your life is and why you're doing what you're doing. But as I looked at him, I just was challenged that my nine months of discomfort was his lifetime. One of the biggest benefits that my husband and I see about having more kids than the average family size is just that they will always have each other and we will always have them. We have friends our age who are able to just do a lot of things financially and saving up for retirement and things like that that we aren't able to do at that level. Of course, we try to be wise with our money and we are saving for what we can, but we have children to feed. And, you know, we really look at this a different way. We have 10 investments and these are lifetime investments. Lord willing, we will have great relationships with them and when we're old, we'll have them. And that's something that is very deep and is also a very valuable investment. When I look back at how we have spent the past 15 years of our life, well, a little bit more than that with our kids, when I think about it from an earthly perspective, we've invested in something that will outlive us and that feels really rewarding. And when I think of it from a spiritual perspective, we've invested in something that is eternal. So it's not been easy. It's had its challenges and I think I've been very honest with some of the challenges that we've experienced. But when the Lord says that children are a blessing and the fruit of the womb is a reward, I just want to say very openly that God's word can be trusted and that these children are a gift. Who knows what plan that he has for them. So I hope this was something you enjoyed just hearing a little bit of our story. Thanks for listening in. If you like my videos or my blog post, would you please like and subscribe? 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