Patiently Waiting | Dreams Deferred

This post has been on my heart for some time now, but I haven’t really had the time to sit down and write it, nor did I really have the words at the time to share this, so I waited until I felt like the Lord was giving me the words to share.

If you’ve been following my journey for some time now, you know that we have been trying for over two years for our second child. After getting pregnant the first month with our now 3.5 year old son, we really never saw ourselves in this place of still waiting for another baby. When we started trying for our second child, Levi was just 15 months old, so had we gotten pregnant right away or close there after, Levi would have just turned 2 when we had our second baby. I had visions of a toddler running around still in diapers while trying to nurse a newborn. I know those first months would have been hard and challenging. I have seen many of my friends valiantly trudge through those challenging early months of a toddler and newborn and have always been impressed with their ability to keep two little ones alive. 😉

But after those initial challenging months, I also envisioned Levi holding our new baby and kissing and snuggling with him or her. I saw him growing up with a playmate that would follow in his footsteps (literally). I saw my children a few years later running around together, wrestling on the floor, playing together, and developing a lifelong friendship as babies. I think about my sister and I who are just 20 months apart and as much as we did fight as kids, we had a built in playmate and friend to have growing up. We even had the same friends growing up (talking about you Hannah and Rachel) and in high school thanks to our close age and the fact that we were in sports together and were in the youth group. I had ideas of that in my head for Levi and his younger sibling. They would grow up together, play sports together, go to church together, and have similar friends because they were so close in age.

As time passed and we didn’t get pregnant right away, my dreams didn’t go away completely because if we got pregnant “that month” they would still be close in age; but here we are over two years later and still no baby. IF I got pregnant this next month, Levi would be over 4 years old when our second kid came. This is not close in age when you think about it. It will be years before they can really relate or even have anything in common with each other and because of the age gap, they would only go to school together in elementary school for a few years and then never be in school together again. When I originally thought about writing this post, I was going to call it “Dreams Dashed” as in my dreams have been dashed for the plan I had for kids close in age; but the Lord told me that wasn’t a correct statement and inspired me to call it “Dreams Deferred” instead. Instead of looking at it in a negative light, I look at the positives of our journey and just see my dreams have shifted.

So now, instead of visions of my kids close in age, I envision Levi being an awesome big brother. He’s going to look out for his younger sibling and be such a big help whenever we have another baby. Instead of having to divide my time equally between two young ones right now, Levi gets 100% of my attention right now; and because of that, I feel like he and I have a very special bond. We get to do a lot of fun outings and things together right now that I probably would have trouble doing as much with a newborn in tow.

When we have another baby, I will be able to focus on both of my kids and have one-on-one time with each since Levi will be in school part-time or maybe even full-time by the time we have another one. I do like the idea of being able to spend similar time with our next baby that I have been able to with Levi. Levi will be in elementary school when my next kid is his current age, so I will have a lot of one-on-one time with them to do Chick-Fil-A dates and even days to downtown Atlanta. I love the idea of getting to give that much attention to my second kid.

You might hear me talk confidently about us having another kid like I know it will happen. While I know that nowhere in the Bible we are promised a second child and no medical reason to think it would still happen, I still hold onto the promise from the Pursuit Conference from last April that the Lord will give us another biological baby. If you haven’t read this post, I encourage you to do so if you have a chance. I am thankful for this promise from the Lord that we will have another baby. So while my dreams are not dashed, they are just deferred. I have new dreams to look forward to when we have another baby, whenever that may be. Thank you so much for following me in our journey and praying for us.

Our Chick-Fil-A breakfast date before school last week

Our MARTA outing last Friday. We spent the day on MARTA, at Centennial, and lunch at CNN CenterAlso from our downtown outing we had last Friday in