Open to Life?

Sunday was Respect Life Sunday. My pastor is big on life issues and spoke about them, touching on contraception, abortion and care of the elderly among other things. He said that God loves to create human life, but needs the cooperation of husbands and wives. Reflecting on that has gotten me reflecting on my own life recently.

I'm 45 years old, the mother of three, ages 14, 11 and 2. Guess which pregnancies were planned by me, and which one was planned by God? I love my baby dearly and in a lot of ways, I'm glad I have her, but I'd be lying if I said I never thought about how life might have been without her (or if she'd shown up a little closer to the other two). I've always enjoyed babies and my first positive thought when I found out I was pregnant with the baby was that I would get to nurse another baby. However, I told my husband when I had her that while I couldn't promise him I'd never want another baby (he was a lot more attached to the idea of two kids than I was) I could absolutely positively guarantee him that I NEVER wanted to be pregnant again.

What does that have to do with recent life? Well, one of the joys of getting older is that clockwork cycles aren't always clock-like anymore. My cycles had started to get irregular before the baby, and getting tired of waiting them out led to her. Last month we took a chance once, and then my period didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come--but the second line never showed up on the pregnancy test either. However, I did worry a lot. Couple this with getting some bug that made me nauseous and I was less than happy. The thought of another pregnancy almost had me in tears. One Sunday I was in bed trying sleep off that stomach bug and the phone rang. It was a friend who was calling to tell me that another friend, about my age, who has a son who is 14, was pregnant. I was elated, because I knew my friend had been trying to have a baby for a LONG time. I started wondering why I couldn't be elated at the idea of me having another baby. Unfortunately my friend lost her baby, and fortunately, I've learned that I am defintely NOT pregnant. I just thought it was interesting that those things happened about the same time, and wondered if Someone is trying to tell me something.