It Has Been Awhile

Whew it has been awhile. Over a year since I have last written. I have my reasons for that. I always write my thoughts out whether here or personally but at that time I stopped writing on here I was feeling very exposed. I had some insecurities going on so I withdrew.

This time last year, which seems like a lifetime ago, I had my fourth baby who was getting ready to turn a year old. My fourth baby... this is where so much of my insecurity came from. My growing family. When I got pregnant with my first one... of course it was a big deal. Congratulations and uplifting messages came pouring in for the fact that my husband and I were starting a family. Then my second one... again congratulations and well wishes... and then I almost lost him and it was an even bigger deal when he got here. Then my third one... still congratulatory messages came in but then started the other messages... the I hope you get your girl ones... and then when we announced it was indeed another boy..the pity messages... I hated how it made me feel because we decided to keep having children for the sake of having a child not for a specific gender. Did I want to have a girl? Of course I wanted the opportunity, but I was happy for whatever baby I was being blessed with. Then came our fourth pregnancy....and everything was different.

Congratulatory messages were few and far between. I got comments about people being in shock that I was having more. I got comments about how my body can only take so much. I got comments that they couldn't believe I kept going just to have a girl (which again wasn't the case). People straight up asked how we could afford so many. People started treating us different. We stopped being invited to some events because we simply had too many kids. I didn't even want to share that our fourth was actually another boy because I didn't want the pity messages. It is crazy how opinions came out of people about the size of my family even when I didn't ask for them.

Then at the beginning of the year I decided to homeschool which brought a whole different set of opinions. It all became too much on top of dealing with all the emotions from post partum hormones.
So I withdrew. Stopped putting my life out there to an extent. Some may wonder why I let others opinions get to me. We don't have much family here. We rely on the village of people that we surround ourselves with in the city we have made a home. So when some of these people were being hurtful and unsupportive, well it sucked.

But here I am more then a year later. Lots of things have happened and I feel like I am in a better place. We took some really fun trips last year that were good for my soul. Disney at Halloween and Colorado at New Years. We sold our first house and are about to purchase our next home. And also... we had another baby! Five babies is not something that I ever pictured for our life but they are here...each one of them planned and prayed for and oh so loved. Yes we got a girl...We are over the moon in love with her but please don't ask if we are done :)