Blessed

"If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."

I am now 34 weeks. The home stretch. I am getting to the uncomfortable stage again, but not sure if I'm ready to not be pregnant. I am having a lot of "practice" contractions. In the past, I'd start to get nervous and a little scared about giving birth. This time, I feel so excited. I'll be fine as long as I get to the hospital on time. It'd be nice to be in time for an epidural too. I am anxious to see who has been wiggling around in me, but I'm going to miss feeling our child inside of me. The other day baby was cradled in the right side of my tummy. You could feel baby's entire backside. It was amazing. I put my arm around baby and it was as if I was already able to hold him/her. Pregnancy is such a miracle.
On the 4th of July, my niece asked me just how many children do I want to have. My answer? Four - and I smiled. I thought I'd have 4 children, but I guess life doesn't always go as we plan it. Even I am a little "surprised" to hear myself say I have 7 children. When I see other families out and they have over 4 children I think - Wow! Look at all those children! It's very different when they are your own. You don't see a "number" you see individual people that you love dearly.
On Friday nights we try to do pizza-movie night at our home. Our children all sit around a big towel and eat on the floor in front of the tv while Tom and I sit on the couch behind them. Tom and I will look at all of our children lined up and shake our heads while we smile at each other. Who knew? Tom and I met at a bar in '92 and had our first official date in January '93. He brought me roses and took me out to dinner. I still have one of the roses. It is framed and hanging on our bedroom wall. I guess I kind of knew even then that Tommy was going to be very special to me.
Soon after that date I got very sick and Tom was right there by my side through it all. We got engaged that summer and got married 2 years later. 9 months and 3 weeks after the wedding, along came Brandon. Now, 14 years later, we are expecting our 7th. We have such a wonderful life. There have been difficult times, but we've stayed strong and we've stayed close. We might not have all the fancy things, get to travel all over, have a huge house,...but we have the things we really need. We are blessed - and it is sometimes still a little unbelievable just how blessed we are.