It makes sense that now that I'm pregnant, babies are popping up everywhere. For one thing, it's the big thing of my age group to have babies. For another, it's simply all I think about, so I'm bound to notice it more in others too.
As I type, my sister in-law is in labor with her second baby. I feel sorry for her-- it's been a long road to delivery, and an exhausting one too, I'm sure. I pray that I will get my mom's short-and-minimal-pain delievery genes. I guess we'll see. But no matter how difficult and long the labor is, it's always worth it when you get to hold that little one for the first time. There's just nothing quite like it. That is priceless.
Another sister in-law of mine is due in April, and yet another one is due two weeks after me. A good friend of mine in the ward delievered her first baby last week, and another friend of mine delivered twins just a couple weeks before that. Two of my close friends recently announced their pregnancy, and several others have been pregnant for a few months. Sometimes in all the excitement, I forget that I am pregnant too! And then I try to stand up...
Having babies is an amazing experience in so many ways. It's not all flowers and sunshine, but that's part of what makes it so awesome. It's those things that make you grow and learn and come closer to God that are truly a wonderful experience, and I think parenting does exactly those things.
It's sad to me when couples put off parenting just because they don't feel like it at the moment, and they are too busy "having fun" to make room in their lives for a family. It astonishes me how much people believe having kids will burden them down and make life less enjoyable. It's a load of junk, and an obvious tactic of the adversary. Of course he doesn't want you to have kids. He wants you to focus only on yourself, to never progress (the definition of damnation) and remain narrow-minded. And it works, too. The longer people put it off, the harder it becomes to make the jump. People become stuck in their habits, they become afraid of change, and besides that, they are at a higher risk of birth defects. Not only that, but think of how old they will be by the time the first kid graduates high school! I for one, want to be able to keep up with my kids-- all of them. So yeah, maybe it means that we will be poor for a long time. Maybe it means it's time for us to grow up just a little more. Maybe it means our house will never be clean again. But it also means that we will be happy. I'll take happy any day over money and tidiness.
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