I’ve never been much for birthing stories. I mean I love reading them, pouring over the beauty, but I’ve never been very good at writing them. Remembering even the most beautiful detail is often difficult for me as, bottom line, I feel like I’VE JUST FREAKING BIRTHED A BEAUTIFUL BABY, and at the end of day, it doesn’t matter how it happened, just that it did, and that it’s ALWAYS a miracle.
We are now two months into becoming a family of eight. I have a little bit of time and space to reflect on what has just happened. {Whoa} Welcoming twins into our family has rocked us in the most beautiful of ways {like whoa, we have a lot of kids} and has given birth to the most beautiful of stories.
A birth story of healing….
Healing from the loss of our last baby.
Healing from feeling disconnected in our marriage. Now on the same team.
Healing from a life that’s scared of joy and hope.
Healing from bringing our children home to a house that didn’t feel like home, to one that is.
Healing from a life solely focused on ourselves.
Healing from fighting the expectations of others and creating needed boundaries.
Healing from all the fears that our kids would feel displaced. And realizing they feel loved, cherished, and needed.
Healing from the fear that God isn’t good and leaves us in our grief.
Healing from the idea that somehow we deserve anything we have. It is truly a gift, a grace, a mercy.
Healing in finding joy in the man I get to do life with.
Healing in knowing we will one day meet the babes we lost.
Healing in the face of two growing babies and four wonderful kids.
Healing in knowing this chapter of our lives has ended, not on a loss, but in gain.
And yes, this has been so unimaginably hard. Labor intensive doesn’t even begin to cut it. No sleep, cranky, fighting, unable to figure out how to leave the house, not a single clue how raise six kids?! Yes. All of the above.
But when people ask us how we are doing, a birthing story of healing cuts right to the heart of it all. Healing is the nucleus of all that is truly going on in our lives.
And finally? A birthing story I can articulate.
Healing.