Sunday Confession: Family

 

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I always knew that one day I would be a mom. I envisioned a large family, it was what I knew. I grew up in a house with four kids. My mom was one of four kids. My grandfather one of five. Large families were my normal.

I met and married my husband, a man who was one of two children. A man whose father was an only child. Small families were his normal.

We talked about children from the very start. We knew we wanted them. We agreed that one or two would be great but never said we had an absolute maximum number. We would play it by ear. See what fate had in store for us. I still had visions of multiple children.

Eight years into our relationship, four years after our wedding, I gave birth to our daughter. It was the hands down best day of our lives. In nine short months, we had gone from "us" to a family. Family. It was incredible. We decided nearly instantly that we would have another. We no longer talked about numbers, we just talked about future children. We were made to be parents.

Multiple losses and two years of heartbreak and we have stopped trying to expand our family. At one point the reality of our situation nearly destroyed me. I don't know what hurt more, the actual losses or the letting go of a dream. Either way, I was broken.

But we were still a family. We still had a beautiful little girl. A girl who filled my days with laughter and smiles and entertainment and wonder. This may not have been what we, what I had envisioned for our family, but it was mine.

They are mine.

My confession: I had dreams of a large family but ended up with the small family of my dreams.