The next stage, like it or not

My youngest turned 5 the other day. I still think of him as my baby, and I might always. After all, he is my baby, the youngest of my brood.

It's easier in many ways, this stage of our family. It's easier to find a sitter without a baby in the house, there's no one peeing on the floor, I don't have to arrange my life around breastfeeding breaks. Yet my arms ache. There is a sense of completeness missing when I look at our family. I wonder how much of it is the one baby, the one who would be my youngest, the one I never got to hold. Am I missing him when I see our family? Do other women who've miscarried feel this way?

I talk to Aaron about it, and he isn't with me in the missing. He is happy to be "done" with toddlers. I wonder how that impacts our dreams of adoption? I still stop by Reece's Rainbow often, looking at the photos, dreaming of bringing one of them home. Sadness strikes - dozens of countries won't allow us to adopt because of my history of depression. Anger creeps in - do they really think those babies are better lying in cribs, malnourished, unheld, eventually to "age out" of the orphanage and die in a mental institution just because they are physically or mentally disabled? Would I be that horrible of a mother to those children?

I try to make peace with my youngest being 5. I hold him, and he stretches well over half my body length. He is getting so big, and so not a baby any longer.

I pray for peace, too. All those orphans have a father - the Father of the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). Try to turn the lament to praise for what God has given, however incomplete it feels.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (Ephesians 3:18-20)

My lonely heart is made for two

It beats too slowly without you

Tonight the sky is burning blue

Horizon cuts right into you

You'll be the moon I'll be the sea

And you can shine your light on me

I'm calling your name

But you won't listen

Tonight was made for two

But there's one heart missing

One heart missing

~One Heart Missing, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals~

How about you? Do you struggle to feel your family is complete? Do you long for another baby? Does your husband feel the same, or is he relieved to be progressing to "the next stage" of parenthood?