After five days, we were given the option of taking Poppy home on a supplemental oxygen unit and decided we could do that. What a blessing! We had stayed in the hospital with Ruby for ten days waiting for her to wean off the oxygen. For Poppy, no waiting, just the opportunity to go home. We’re so very thankful.

As I look at these photos of myself and my husband, I think, wow, we’re not spring chickens! I think about the fact that I am 44 years old, and that I just had a baby. I don’t feel like I’m 44, whatever that’s supposed to feel like. I consider this pregnancy one of my best, far better than the one I had at 26, and was blessed with a fabulous home birth where for the first time I didn’t really need any help getting through labor at all. What a blessing from the Lord. And the reality that is setting in is this: I am 44 years old. My childbearing years are coming to a close and I see menopause on the horizon. Someday I will not have a squishy sweet little baby to snuggle with as mine own, but Lord willing,  I will begin welcoming grandchildren….while I still have small children at my feet. I envision an overlap of children within my home, fingerprints on the walls and cracker crumbs on the floors the rest of my days.

Our days. For as long as the Lord allows my husband and I to be together. So far we’ve had 22 years together (and four more if you count the years we had before marriage). Having all of these children together, raising them up, has strengthened our marriage and grown us up. I love spending life with my husband; he’s a wonderful man. And he’s handsome, too 🙂

As far as the siblings go, in my mind and experience, there has been no greater gift than the gift of a new brother or sister. Our children have all cheered at pregnancy announcements and were quite eager to have the baby at the end, asking constantly–and hopefully–daily–if I were having any contractions yet. It gives me great comfort to know that when I am gone home to the Lord, my children will all have one another. My hands *are* full. So is my heart towards each of these precious ones.

I am planning to spend the remainder of the year in rest. No schoolwork (for me), no self-imposed deadlines, no new projects to begin. Instead I plan to just pick at the handwork I have yet to finish, decorate for the holidays, and continue to plug along getting this little bungalow in order for our family. I plan to make and drink plenty of bone broth and herbal teas, and to let my mind and body take a sabbatical from the craziness of this past year. Those are my *plans*. We’ll see if the Lord so allows.

Blessings,