I have five kids. For many people, that seems like a lot of kids or perhaps even too many. I’ve known I wanted a lot of kids for as long as I can remember. I grew up with three siblings and I always thought big families were the way to go. In this case, I guess I got what I wished for but I couldn’t have predicted the course this pursuit would follow.

My husband, Andrew, and I were married 20 years ago. About thirty seconds later, I was ready to have children. It was one of the few things I always had great confidence in. It took a little longer than I would have liked, but about two and a half years later we had our first son. I was 24 at the time and I was in my happy place.
My baby was beautiful and perfect and he was pretty easy going as far as babies go. I felt like I had this parenting in the bag so it didn’t take long before I was itching for one more baby. Zac needed someone to play with, I wanted another baby to squeeze and I had parenting all figured out, so, why not?

Gabe came less that two years after Zac. I was in the zone now. I have gone from new mom to mother of boys. My heart and my days were full. Gabe wasn’t quite as easy going as Zac had been but I was up for the challenge and I had very little to complain about. After all, I was lucky enough to be able to stay home and mother for a living while Andrew went off to work.

That’s how life was for a couple of years. I wanted to give the boys my full attention for a few years before we continued to grow our family.

When Gabe was around two and Zac was around three and a half, I started having baby thoughts again. Just one more. I miscarried a short time later but soon after, I was pregnant again and happy to be moving in the right direction again. About five months in, I had some bleeding and was terrified of a repeat occurrence of my last pregnancy. I turns out, I had a placenta issue, and I needed to adjust my lifestyle a bit to protect my baby. I wasn’t supposed to do any lifting, vacuuming, or anything that required too much exertion. My mom came and stayed with us for almost two months to be my muscle. I had two little boys who didn’t take kindly to the idea of not being picked up.

I worried constantly for the rest of that pregnancy and at the time I considered the possibility that this may be my last. I didn’t think my heart or nerves could handle another risky pregnancy. Three was going to be my number. Rory was born a perfect, full term, baby girl. Delivery was calm, relatively quick and textbook.

I stuck to my guns on the three kid thing until Rory was 8 months old. I just wanted just one more. Gigi was delivered 10 months later by a nurse, while the doctor was down the hall. This was a sign if things to come but we didn’t realize it at the time.

You see, number four was a doozy.
Geneva Grace, Gigi, changed the game of parenting for us. By the time she was 18 months old, she spent more time on the counter than the floor. Her first words came and went. Sleep was not something she required.

We had her evaluated at 3 years old. Autism was in the house.

She started in home services through the school district, went on to special ed preschool, then, in home autism therapy from a behavioral therapy group, back to public school into a developmentally delayed classroom and finally, to the right place for her, an autism school where she receives the type of therapy that works best for her. The school is year round and they “get her” there.

Did I mention that I had started a home daycare when Gigi was about 18 months old? Because what’s a few more kids? And how else to earn an income when you have so many kids of your own. I was pretty exhausted a lot of the time but I made some money and was able to stay home with my kids. As time went on, I had the thought that I would actually be doing more good by fostering kids rather than doing daycare. I did both for short while then, transitioned entirely to doing foster care.

We had three placements over the course of a couple of years. The last placement was particularly difficult and coincided with a particularly difficult period for Gigi so we took a break from foster care.

My kids were all in school at that point and Gigi was doing well so I decided to clean houses to make some extra money. It was nice to do my work in peace and quiet on my own schedule. There was still lots of parenting to do after school, so I could save my mental energy for that.

As I entered my 40s, I started to ponder the fact that the window was closing on my child bearing capability. I tried to overcome this feeling. “I have a bunch of kids already.”, “I’m too old.” People think I’m crazy as it is.” I couldn’t shake the feeling. I talked to Andrew about my thoughts. We decided we would let nature decide if we would have just one more. Nature was on my side. I had Ezekiel at 42, eleven years after Gigi and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

So, now I have five kids. And Ezekiel is so much younger than his siblings that they won’t be around to play with him and there are so many kids out there that need a family so maybe …