{PHFR} + Tales of an Accidental Mega Mom

Well the charger to my fancy camera is still missing. In fact, I think I might have accidentally put it in the Goodwill bin when I was cleaning out my desk. I feel pretty bad about it, but my mom can do one better, she accidentally put our family heirloom handmade baptismal gown in the Goodwill bag when they were moving.

I know!

But after a good cry we were over it and we do have another gown because we needed one when we had the twins baptized, so I just told her we have a new family heirloom now...but I digress.

Also my phone isn't syncing so I can't post any new pictures and therefore I have been inspired to do something a little different today!

I can't tell you how many times I get comments on our family size and how close together in age they all seem.

Truly y'all, all.the.time.

These days the questions don't phase me much. In fact seven kids seems like hardly any kids on some days...except on days when it feels like hundreds!

The real true life story of how we, who never intended to have a 'big' family ended up with seven (so far) blessings is pretty amazing, but also kind of long so I don't really go into detail when folks make those charming little comments...

I would like to tell you though, dear blogosphere.  We always seem to have plenty of time, don't we?

Here goes:

We married on June 14th 1997. I was 22 and my groom was 23. Weren't we adorable little babies?!

{pretty, pretty young!}

I was raised Catholic, Lee agnostic-ish and we ended up getting married in the Episcopal Church because that's where my Mom ended up. I didn't really care and neither did he and my mom did, so that's what happened. 

We knew we wanted to be parents soon. For some paranoid reason I was totally convinced we would have trouble conceiving so of course I became pregnant after we'd been married five months. 

Jake was a darling, easy baby and we thought, hey let's have another! Jake and Ryan are 14 months apart and are best friends.  

When Ryan was nearing two we really wanted to complete our family. You see, when we married I said I wanted 4 kids and Lee said 2 kids, so 3 kids was our compromise.

So cute, so super cute and dumb we were. 

{happy no.1 and no.2}

Imagine then, our shock when the doctor saw Baby A and Baby B on the ultrasound!

Yes, I did think "Ha! I win! I win" :)

Plus Baby B was a girl so that was pretty awesome.

{Ha ha! Twins! Funny!}

And then? Well, I am not one of those ladies that just loooooooves to be pregnant. In fact, I loathe it. I always have morning sickness, terrible, dehydrating sickness that can tend to make me depressed. The twin pregnancy did me in y'all. I was miserable at the end. I had been on bedrest for about 4 weeks with toddler boys at home.

But, even before the very end, we had decided that this pregnancy was it. We were done with four and very happy and thankful. So, when the delivery ended up in a c-section the doctor went ahead and did what I had very explicitly and repeatedly asked him to do over the last nine months. He cut and cauterized my fallopian tubes. 

Yes. I had my tubes tied when I was 27. 

{real, 4 is enough}

Thanks be to God there is more to this story. Much much more, so stay tuned!