Thursday, August 27, 2015

The Power of 3

No I am not referencing Doctor Who when I talk about the power of three.  I'm talking about two aspects of three:

1) When you have 3 children,
2) When any of them turn 3 years old.


Aspect #1:

After Frank and I had our second child the doctor wanted to convince me that I was done and that I should have my tubes tied. It was too dangerous. Each pregnancy took such a great toll on me and was life threatening to me and the baby. But I knew in my heart that there was one more.  I begged him to let us wait to have one more. He reluctantly agreed.

By the time our second child was 11 months old I went into the doctor and told him, "Yes, I want a third, but they HAVE to be further apart." He laughed. Our daughter Rose and our son Cyprus were only 22 months apart and I couldn't handle it (it was only years later that I learned they had special needs).  The doctor and I laid out a plan, he gave me the fertility meds and told me to go home and take a pregnancy test.  I did. It was positive. I cried. 

I still wanted that third baby no matter what, and YEAH I got pregnant without the fertility drugs, but (insert cuss words) I couldn't handle the two I had.  I was tired. I was frustrated. I was weary. The pregnancy was hard. SO HARD. And a month into it my husband lost his job through cutbacks. Rough rough times for our family. A month prior to delivery I ended up in the hospital with severe migraines, high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia. I was hospitalized for 4 days and sent home on strict bed rest. I was only 33 weeks.  And then my husband started work and had no time off and we had two toddlers at home. Enough said.

Anyway, through prayer and major support from friends and church members we made it and little Juniper was born. He and Cyprus were only 20 months apart.  I gladly allowed my doctor to tie my tubes (though its often been an internal battle since whether or not that was the right decision, I still couldn't risk it).

A few weeks later my husband and I crashed in bed after an exhausting day and he sighed. "We miscalculated."   When I asked him to clarify, he said, "The kids now outnumber the adults." 

That's where the first Power of 3 comes in. When you hit three kids, suddenly you no longer have enough hands (whether or not they are special needs). It takes a good year or two before you can find a natural rhythm as husband and wife to adjust to who keeps track of whom. There were some days I dreaded even stepping outside of my house, it was so bad.


Aspect #2

For some reason when all three of my kids hit 2 1/2 to 3 years of age they put on this armor of anxiety polished with a coat of desire for control and it is bad. It is so rough sometimes. They become bossy, stubborn (okay they have good examples of that from their parents to start with), and full of tantrums.  And if you DARE even think of stepping two feet of where they expect or want you to be they start screaming "MOMMY!!!! DON'T LEAVE ME!!!" loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

Talk about laying on the guilt.

I've really struggled these last few weeks dealing with this second aspect of threes for many reasons. Juniper is my last child to be 3. In fact in just over a week he'll be 4. And sometimes that's hard to deal with knowing that I will never have another child. I can't physically, mentally, emotionally or financially handle it right now. It just won't happen, no matter how much my heart hurts and longs for another daughter, in spite of all the difficulty.

But its also been hard because now I know what my children are going through. Thanks to working with amazing specialists I understand better what my kids see, why they think the way they do, what battles they are fighting internally. I get it.....logically.   But my soul is weary. We've had another extremely hard year. Harder by far than many in the past, even the year I was pregnant with Juniper. My body aches, my heart aches, my soul aches. And my little ones do not, cannot, understand. So as they scream "MOMMY DON"T LEAVE ME!!!!" I cry. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I hide in my shower and let the water wash away the overwhelming weakness that I feel. 

How can I make my little ones understand that I'm only going upstairs to turn on the swamp cooler? Or I'm just going around the corner to flip a light switch. Or going to the store to by bread and milk and that they are still safe because Daddy or Grandma or whoever is still with them, without their world crashing down on them and the fear overwhelming all of us. How can I stop getting into arguments with a three year old who only hears what he wants to hear (and sometimes only what he can hear because his special needs have blocked everything else out)?

I'm never going to give up on my little ones. I still count them as my miracles each and every day. I'm still grateful to have them as part of my life and wouldn't give them up for anything.  But man the POWER OF THREE is hard.  And I look forward to when we move beyond the second aspect and my children will understand that me going upstairs to get a load of laundry does not mean that I no longer love them.  I long for the day when they trust that my love is there no matter what. The day that they realize that I will never give up on them. They day when they can let me go and know that I will always do whatever is in my power to come back (even if I'm only gone for 5 minutes). 

I love to watch my garden grow. These children are amazing. They are my heart. And one day they will know.