This post will be long and very personal

(Warning! If you don't think people should reveal personal stuff on their blogs, if you're uncomfortable reading about the gyrations of someone's deep inner soul, please skip this post, go look at our crafts or something, and come back another day. Only the few and the brave should read on.)

OK. Okay okay okay.

Here I am. I'm writing this. I've procrastinated like crazy -- exercising, reading shoe reviews on Zappos.com, you name it. Normally I'm bursting to write about things that are on my mind, but this time I'm suffering from writer's block, stymied by all the many versions of this post I've been composing in my head. So, this won't be very well-written. It will be a series of words, probably too many, spilled onto the screen like the beads that keep falling off my daughters' homemade necklaces.

But I've been getting some significant nudges, so I'd better stop hemming and hawing, stop waiting for the perfect time, and write this promised post.

Many of you have wondered, and have asked at various times, what Tim and I are thinking about our family size. Others just assume we're "done," and still others, living in the society we do, like to think that by now we've figured out "what was causing the problem and how to fix it," as someone so nicely put it, in reference to her own family, at a party the other night. (Those comments always make me sad.)

But something strange has been happening lately. Background: I calculated the other day that I have been either pregnant or nursing a baby/toddler, or both, for the last nine years (yes, Anne, I know you have me beat). Without interruption. Yes, for those of you keeping score at home, that means that Caroline is still nursing. In a few weeks, she will be my first child to make it to three without a new baby in the house. Until recently, I felt fine about that. OK, maybe not 100% -- I've never been able to say with finality, except during and immediately after Caroline's birth, that I am DONE -- but close enough.

Lately, though, my insides are all scrambled. The bottom line is, even since Caroline was a baby, I've always felt that three is an odd number. Wait -- I didn't FEEL that three is an odd number; it IS an odd number. Growing up, I had several bad experiences with friendship threesomes, and maybe that's why the idea always unsettled me a bit. I've felt for a long time, so deep inside that I hardly breathe a word of it to anyone, that someone in our family was missing, like another soul hovering nearby, wanting to fill a chair at our table or a space on the tire swing. Does that sound weird? I've told myself over and over, looking at my mostly-happy kids together, "Yes. Our family is complete," but it always feels like I'm trying to convince myself.


Why should I convince myself? Why not just go for #4? Oh, the reasons are many. My fears, my innate tendency to laziness, most of all, my LOGIC, supply plenty of arguments, many of which are sound. Here's a sampling:

- Money. This sounds so trite, but the reality is that children cost money, and not just the birth. Things are already tight around here with Tim in school for another year-plus. After that, we'll be trying to recover and save like mad for college. How could we afford to give a bigger family the lifestyle we want? (I'm not talking ski trips to Vail, folks. I mean stuff like the violin lessons Eliza's asked about and maybe a family vacation that doesn't involve a tent and lots of rain. Oh, and grocery shopping without getting palpitations at the checkout line.)

- My physical health. I am not a great pregnant person, if you know what I mean. My last pregnancy involved varicose veins in my legs that got so bad I had to wear compression hose (like really tight medical grade panty hose) all through the summer. I had sciatica, bad. In my first trimester I didn't get sick (unlike the nightmare of Ian's preliminary gestation) but I'd drop onto the couch in the middle of making dinner and Tim would have to take over. Once I have the baby, I end up needing to see the chiropractor, lots, because carrying around a baby all the time does unpleasant things to my congenitally weak neck.

- My mental health. No joke, people, I have been on antidepressants three times, after each baby, after things get so bad hormone-wise that I think obsessively about driving to the airport and flying away. Is it fair to put my family through another year or so of Moody Mommy? Can I really come up with the energy for another one?

- Speaking of antidepressants, since I'm on them now (see? I'm telling all!), I know I'd feel bad about taking them during a pregnancy -- but I haven't found anything natural (and affordable) that works well enough for me.

- My husband. I'm thinking that when it comes right down to it ... well, neither of us is Superman. I can't do this by myself, and pretty soon he'll need to be launching his career, ergo with even less spare energy and time. I worry this might send him over the edge. ;-)

- My capacity. I have friends with four, and read blogs of other moms with four or mom, and most of them seem to do it with such grace and relative ease. But I am not them. There are so many times when Caroline, that dangerous little girl, will say or do something that delights me so thoroughly that my heart breaks at the thought of not sharing these unique and fleeting toddler moments with anyone again. Or the kids will be playing together, getting along famously, and in a burst of quiet euphoria I'll think, "Oh, what's one more to add to the fun?" But then we'll have moments, or days, when I think, "Another child? WHAT AM I SMOKING???" 'Nuf said. Oh, and sometimes I think that my eldest may count as two children in terms of parenting energy required. Oh, and when they all talk at once my head feels like it's going to explode. Oh, and I couldn't count on any help from my side of the family because all the family womanpower is sort of concentrated elsewhere right now. And rightfully so.

- And that brings me to ... My dad. The ALS is progressing, and when the time comes that I need to be there and do more than periodic weekend visits, what if I can't legally get on an airplane? Just because Sarah Palin got on a seven-hour flight after her water broke doesn't mean I think it's a good idea for me. Just one of the many ways in which I am not Sarah. (For you, though, Dad, I might pretend.)

- My "plans." Ever since Tim started school, I've sort of held onto this dream of taking a trip together, probably with the kids, after he graduates. A celebration of sorts. A baby in our midst would change what we'd be able to do. Why not wait until after graduation? Because I don't want the kids to be so far apart (Caroline will be four by the time he graduates) that they don't mix well as a group, you know? I've seen my youngest sister, who's sort of our "caboose," struggle with feelings of being left out or not always sharing the same set of memories or jokes that we older ones do.

Ahhhhh. Have you made it this far? If so, I probably have you pretty convinced that I shouldn't have another kiddo, right? Hey, if you happen to be a relative, you're probably shocked that I'm even HAVING this conversation monologue. You're running to the phone to ascertain what I'm smoking. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received ...

But. Despite all that, the reality is that since Caroline was the wee-est of bairns, there's hardly been a day gone by that I haven't had some little conversation with the Lord about this very question. And I wonder, why can't I let it go? Why can't I just sell that box of cloth diapers that's been sitting in my room on eBay? Why do I have save all those baby clothes for my sister? Why not get rid of the Maya Wrap that's toted three babies through countless hours of their little heads against my heart? Why can't I feel, with full peace, that we are complete?

"Tell me, Lord," I've begged. "Tell me what You want." And even though I think I see signs from Him -- "See? I don't have the patience for another child! God is clearly talking to me here!" -- I have no rest in my spirit. Lately my prayer has been more, "Whatever your will is, to remain as we are or to expand, give me peace inwardly. I don't want to struggle against You, and I don't want to struggle against my own complicated mind." In other words, regardless of the outcome, I want the source to be faith, not anxiety or a sense of what we "should" do.

Thank you for listening, dear friends, if you've made it this far. Perhaps I should have broken this up into two or more posts, as if that were possible by now! Please pray for us, that Tim and I would both have the same feeling and that any decision we come to would be one that brings joy and peace. I have a feeling that many more conversations, between the two of us and between us and the Lamb whom we follow, lie in store.

(P.S. Yes, we've considered adopting, thereby circumventing the hormonal rollercoaster that is pregnancy and postpartum in the House of Hannah. But financially, that's unfortunately out of the question, much as we'd love to rescue a little Chinese bambina from a future as an underpaid, undernourished factory worker...)