children are a blessing - part 2 :)

I just need to say again that this is REALLY long and has WAY too many details!! This story really is so that Randy and I and our kids can someday read this and remember. Please feel free to skip all of this! It's ridiculously eternal! (and by the way, if you haven't read "part 1" you really need to before reading this one).

Okay, so I had another thought today about something I did a lot over my first 8-9 years of parenthood. I acted like my children were so difficult and made comments about it in front of people who were struggling through the pain of infertility. Oh my goodness. If you're reading this and you were one of those people, I apologize. UGH!

On to the rest of this saga! Randy and I went through a pretty serious marriage trial when Isaac was about 3 or 4 months old. It was shortly after this had begun that we had scheduled Randy's appointment for his vasectomy. Now that I think back on it, I am amazed at how many people asked us if we had gotten one yet (again, this is what all responsible couples do). The other day I was going through some stacks of papers on my desk and ran across the appointment sheet for his surgery - finding that is actually what inspired me to write this down. Anyway, for some reason I didn't understand at the time, I did not have peace about Randy getting a vasectomy, and it wasn't because I wanted more children. I absolutely did NOT! But I told him to cancel it because I just didn't have peace. Looking back, this was undoubtedly one of those times when I was hearing the voice of God and obeying it by His grace. He cancelled his appointment and we just went on with life and decided to deal with it later.
I continued to struggle through being a mom and we moved to Como during this time. I didn't plan on having any more children, but I couldn't seem to get that "final" sense of being done. Some of you mommas may know what I'm talking about - when you just know you're "done" having children. At the end of May 2007, my nephew Connor was tragically killed in a car accident. Three weeks later we were back at the lake with our friends the Connallys and I realized my period was late in a random conversation with Randy. I had miscalculated (by a week - everything had seemed like a blur with Connor's death). Let me just say that this was an extremely trying season. The Brown family was in the midst of a huge tragedy and we (esp. I) were in the middle of culture shock in Como. My grandmother had also become very sick and it looked like she would be passing away soon (she did end up passing away at the end of July). I had been really battling depression, so much so that Randy and I were in the middle of a week of prayer trying to decide if I should go on antidepressants. So anyway, on our way to the lake when I realized that I was late I began to get a bit panicky, although Randy and I were both almost positive that it would have been virtually impossible for me to be pregnant. He immediately attributed it to stress. I wasn't quite as convinced because I had never been late when I hadn't been pregnant. I tried to push it out of my mind and waited for my period, but by the following night when there were no signs, I dragged my best friend, Charlotte with me to the Brownwood Walmart to buy a pregnancy test. At the lake I locked myself in the bathroom, saw the positive line show up immediately, and just cried. Never before had I been sad about a baby, but I really thought the world was coming to an end. I just kept saying, "I can't be pregnant. I can't be pregnant." My sweet friend, Charlotte, was so encouraging, and praise God for a sweet husband who was truly happy and assured me that it was going to be okay.
The next a.m. I had sweet time with Jesus and all I could do was hold my hands up and know with absolute certainty that God was sovereign and HE was in control. I was just sure it was a girl because I had always felt like we were going to have a Piper Joy in our family. Well, here she was! Ha! :) Imagine my surprise (and honestly, more disappointment) when the sonogram showed that Malachi was no girl! Again, God was doing something in me about boys. I realized that I couldn't see myself as a "boy mom", even after having three of them! This all changed when I accepted the fact that I was about to have four boys. I began to believe that they were wonderful and that God knew that I needed them and they needed me. I confess that I "grieved" for a few days about not having another girl, but God's grace was available again and I began to get really attached to my new little boy (and still am :)).
The first couple of months were extremely difficult with my little Malachi. He, like all my other babies, was colicky during the late evening. I was very sleep deprived and rarely got opportunities to catch up on sleep because I had a lot of other people to take care of during the day! :) I sometimes thought I was going crazy during the middle of the night. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it out of this dark tunnel (I've always struggled quite a bit with post-partum yuck and this time was no different). But God knows what we can handle and He didn't let go. When Malachi was about 3 months old he became the most delightful little guy, sleeping through the night and generally happy. It was during this little season that God rocked my world with one of the most shocking revelations He has ever given. And He knew that if He had shown me these things at any other time I could not have dealt with it. But again, I have to back up a little bit...
One of my closest friends (let's just call her "Judy") and I had been having an ongoing dialogue over the past several months about birth control and the role of being on a mission as a mom, etc. She had started reading about IUDs and discovered that while they usually prevented union of sperm and egg, they didn't always. If there was an embryo, it just wasn't allowed to implant, so in essence, they could cause abortions. My doctor husband confirmed that this is true and they even learned this in medical school. This disturbed her for obvious reasons and so she had decided to have hers removed (and has since then also decided to leave conception in the hand of God). Soon, many of our LONG conversations concerned what God thought about birth control. I wasn't sure I really knew yet, but I also wasn't pondering it a whole lot (I didn't really have to - I had just had a baby and I was nursing). I did have this sense that we would not be getting a vasectomy. Somehow, it just hadn't made it on to our "radar" and Randy just wasn't too sure HE had peace about it this time. We just kept looking at Malachi....If OUR plans had been implemented, he wouldn't have been here (Randy likes to talk about how he would still be stuck inside of him head-butting a dead-end tube; that's my husband). That's what Judy and I couldn't stop thinking about - you just can't compare it to anything else - controlling whether or not life is allowed to exist. It's a really sobering and overwhelming thought when you really begin to think about it. And then it happened. I was in my bedroom one afternoon and I knew that I was going to have to make a decision about birth control, every form of it. I started crying out to God because I really didn't want to go there with Him - I think I was afraid of what He might say. So far, I hadn't been able to come up with any Biblical support FOR birth control and this scared me. Earlier during that week I had been praying that God would show me what I needed to surrender to Him - I was thinking it would be something like giving up my guest room for a homeless person or letting more neighborhood kids hang out at my house (I was reading Shane Claiborne so I was ready to take on the world, but God RARELY shows up in the ways we can imagine and this time was no different). I never DREAMED that THIS would be the way He would so faithfully answer my heart's cry. I had had a passing thought the day before that I would like to know the history of birth control in our country, but hadn't mentioned that to anyone. That night Randy had planned a date for us and he had planned a library trip after dinner (yeah, I know you're all jealous of our wild and crazy romance - hey, I love books and the man knows it! i really think maybe i missed my calling as a librarian...). I told him I wanted to read a little about birth control. We found several books, but the one Randy opened up to read was a history of Planned Parenthood. Have you ever had one of those moments with God when you feel as if the world stops and a veil is lifted? As it began to happen, I was thrilled to be in the middle of God's will for us, scared to death at what the implications of this new revelation would be, and so sorry for how my view of children had been just sinful for so many years. I just sat there sort of numb with my mouth open and trying not to lose it in the middle of the library....I'll give a little summary of the history in PART THREE (have mercy!)...