tick, tick, tick

That my friends is my maternal clock ticking away. I know what you're thinking "But Mandi, you already have three kids."I know, crazy right!!!  Its really a strange feeling and most days I don't understand it. I always thought we would have three or four kids. Well I always thought that until I had two little ones at home that left me feeling completely overwhelmed. I will even go so far as to say that finding out we were pregnant for the third time wasn't the most exciting news at the time. The strange part is that having Laney and bringing another person into our family is actually what "planted the seed" as it were to having another one. Laney was only a couple of months old when I told Ben that I wanted to have another baby. At first he was really convinced that I was joking. My pregnancies were not easy, preterm labor started around 31 weeks with all of our children. I would spend the last six to seven weeks of each pregnancy on lots of meds to stop the contractions that came every 3-5 minutes. Then after many trips to the hospital they were all born at 37 weeks. Ben seems to have a much better memory of how miserable I was in those last few weeks before my babies were born. I on the other hand, seem to forget almost everything within weeks of giving birth. 

I am almost 100% certain that I will not be having anymore babies. It would take an act of God (which was pretty much what Laney was, so I know they happen) for me to get pregnant again. But my whole life I have thought that I would be one of the lucky women that adopted a sweet baby into my family. Its something I have talked about since Ben and I got married years ago. I'm pretty sure that he thought it was something that would go away after having our own children. But it hasn't, quite the opposite has happened. My internal nudge has been growing for some time now. I am lucky enough to have friends that have recently gone thru the international adoption process. They're beautiful son Josh is home with them now after a very long three year process. I feel like everywhere I turn God is reminding me that this is the path he has chosen for us. I don't know when our journey will start (some time after Ben actually has a new job) but we know now that it will. So for now the waiting begins, not because of any government agency (not yet at least). But just waiting for when we are where we should be in our life to start our adoption pregnancy. 

So for now... tick, tick, tick... I continue to listen.