QUESTION:  When did you KNOW that Cayden would be your only bio child? Did you have any feelings of mourning that he would be the only child you birthed? Or did you begin the process for Deacon, Amos and Story and then realize that 4 completed your family? Or maybe it's been the plan from the very beginning, I don't know.

ANSWER:  I love this question, because I seriously have no answer for this.  I mean I know what you want.  You want me to tell you that after we did _____, then ____ made sense, and then I never thought about ______ anymore, and our final plan looked like _____.  That's what you want, but for me, that's not what building our family looked like.

When we got pregnant with Cayden, it was a surprise to us and not in our plans.  I kinda like to joke that my only planned babies ever have been my 3 adoptions.  Weird, but true.  After we had Cayden and were in the midst of a domestic adoption, we honestly weren't thinking any further down the road.  I mean I'm sure in the back of my mind I was totally thinking about more kids, but we weren't the kind of people that had a 5 year baby plan.  I think that's fine to do, but you should hold that very loosely.  What if you can't get pregnant?  What if you can't get approved to adopt?  What if your adoption falls through?  What if?

Two kids was perfect for Aaron and he was done.  I on the other hand was not done, and never felt complete with two.  After many months of praying, Aaron finally felt as though we should move forward with adoption.

This led us to Amos.  After a few months of doing paperwork for our child from Haiti we decided to adopt two from Haiti at the same time so we wouldn't have to do this paperwork ever again!  That put us up to four kids after we were matched with Story.

So, for 2.5 years I was momma to four but only two were with me.  During those years I still had a desire to birth another child.  I loved being pregnant, and loved nursing, so deep down I had this desire to birth one more.  I mean five kids isn't really that many, right?!?!?

Aaron wasn't on this page at all, but I just thought surely he would catch up to my feelings.  I never talked about it much or made a big deal out of it, but it was just always there, this feeling of not yet complete.

Then Story came home and I went from two kids to three and my world turned upside down.  I now had a 4 year old, almost 6 year old, and almost 2 year old.  It was crazy.

This is when those feelings faded away quickly.  I remember thinking after Story was home, that I still had one more child to mother that wasn't quite home yet, and all of a sudden my heart felt full.  I was done and I knew it.  It took child #3 joining us for me to feel that peace about not birthing another child.

Aaron and I never set out to birth one child and adopt three, but that's just what God had for us.  I honestly can't imagine it any other way.

My advice for you is to take it one child at a time.  Don't stress over something that's so far away.  What does God have for you right now?  What's next is a good question, and not what's baby #4 look like for us when you don't have #1 or #2 or #3 yet.  So much can change, that those worries will take care of themselves.  Think about baby #1 right now and that's it.  God will put all the other pieces in to play.  Let him make the first move and follow him where he leads.

{I love reader questions, and I'll try and answer them here.  Email me and I'll get yours up:  jamie@aaronivey.com}