The phone rings around 3:00 in the afternoon. I am busy reviewing my lecture notes for my class that evening, so I reflexively silence the call – a bad habit of mine when it comes to phone numbers I don’t recognize. But as I watch the phone continue to buzz on the counter, something nudges me to answer this one. I pick up on what is probably the last ring before voicemail. 

“Katie,” I hear a voice nearly whimpering from the other end of the line. “They won’t let me keep her.” 

It’s Hannah*, the young woman I had met two months earlier through an organization that helps homeless and transient young adults in our city.

“Hannah? Are you ok? Where are you?” I prod for more information.

“The social worker’s office,” she says.

Hannah’s baby had been born four days prior, which I knew, because I had taken her to the hospital. For months, we had anticipated that keeping and raising a baby would be exceptionally challenging for Hannah for a multitude of reasons – reasons that belong to her story, not ours. But we never expected her to call us when those reasons all came forward. 

With a spinning head, and knowing I would not get much clear information from Hannah, I ask to talk to the social worker. I hear Hannah pass the phone over, and then a distant she wants to talk to you.

“Hi, Katie?” the woman asks. “Hannah’s told me about you. My name is Rachel, I’m with Child Protective Services.” 

Over the next few minutes, Rachel explains as much as she can about what has transpired since I left the hospital on Thursday afternoon. The bottom line: no suitable caregiver is available to care for the baby girl, whom Hannah had named Ava. 

Ava, what a gorgeous name, I think to myself. 

Ava needs a place to go right away, and Hannah wants us to take her. 

I pull the phone away from my ear and try to communicate to my husband – with the social worker waiting on the other end of the call – about what is happening. CPS won’t let her keep the baby… She’s asking us to take her… as soon as possible… now… I have no idea for how long… what do you think? Alex looks at me with big eyes, shocked and overwhelmed, but also filled with tenderness. He nods.

“We will take her,” I tell Rachel.

Seven minutes after the phone rang, with no foster license and very little information, we start making arrangements to bring a four-day-old baby girl home to our family that night. 

The CPS office handling Ava’s case is just over 90 miles from us. We make the plan to meet a different social worker halfway between our hometown and their office. 

“How about the McDonald’s parking lot right off I-90?” she suggests. Perhaps I should question handing a newborn off in a fast food parking lot right next to the freeway, but I don’t argue.

As we wait for a quick background check to go through, in a blur of feelings and trepidation, I call my friend, Kelly, and beg her to come with me to pick up the baby while Alex stays home with our other three children.

Of course I don’t need to beg. She says yes before I could nervously finish the question.

We get in the car a little after 7:30pm and make the fifty-minute drive to our meeting point. I tell her everything I knew about the situation, and she – a foster parent herself – gives me a blitz lesson in the state foster care system and everything she thinks we can expect in the coming days and weeks – home inspections, health and welfare checks, doctor appointments, court reviews. Then, as we approach the freeway exit, Kelly puts her hand on my shoulder and starts praying out loud, for everything.

I am told to look for a white SUV, and with little competition for space at 8:30pm on a Monday night, I spot it right away. Kelly and I both get out of the car at the same time the social worker does. The woman had just fed Ava a bottle in the backseat of her car, and steps out of the door with the tiniest little girl wearing a pink onesie in her arms. She hands her to me for a moment, and then a clipboard. 

You must be Katie/can I see your driver’s license/please sign these/Ava just spit up and I don’t have a change of clothes for her. 

The words seem to come out in one sentence. She is busy, in a hurry, business as usual in the life of a social worker. Without being asked, Kelly grabs Ava so I can sign all the paperwork, and immediately brings her over to our car to get warm and safely snuggled back in her carseat. Everything Ava owns, from the crocheted blanket to the skin at the top of her little bald head, is thick with the smell of cigarette smoke.

She sleeps the whole ride home.

By the time I pull into our driveway around 10:00pm, Alex and my oldest daughter, Harper have the whole house clean. My friend, Annie, had dropped off newborn baby girl clothes. Kelly had grabbed formula, bottles, and a pack of diapers. Everything else can wait until the morning. 

And Ava sleeps more – peacefully unaware of the chaos of parental visits and court dates and home inspections swirling around the first days of her life story. I look down at the cadence of her chest moving up and down through the heaviness of newborn sleep more times than I can count. Her breath reminds me to take a deep one, too. 

She is so beautiful. 

And to think I almost didn’t answer the phone. 

//

Our McDonald’s baby turns four years old today. 

Four years old. I can hardly believe it. We are entering a season of her life when we will talk to her about adoption, about her biological mom and dad, about surprises and blessings and divine interruptions to our plans. There is so much I want to tell her, and there’s a lot I don’t. Kids don’t enter foster care because of beautiful beginnings; they enter because of broken ones.

But like most things, I trust the Lord that we will sort that all out with his help over time. 

Today though, we will mostly talk about miracles, over McDonald’s french fries.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

After I took my three youngest to the apple orchard and farm — $53.00 in Honeycrisp apples later — I called my mom and told her, “It’s just so different now. When my first three were this age, we couldn’t go anywhere. Cannon was such a risk, such an unknown. Autism felt impossible. I was so limited when I had three under three the first time around. I almost feel like God is redeeming that entire season of motherhood with these three.”

I don’t think many other mothers will really understand that, and that’s ok.

But I guess I just wanted to say that I’m grateful.

Ava woke up with the messy morning hair and it just made me smile.

The toddlers laughed and made a big mess at breakfast because their toys wanted to eat their food, too.

Cannon made art, because art makes him happy.

We played with bubbles in the backyard and ate snacks in the garage, and I never want to forget that Beckett calls them sprinkles instead of Pringles.

The kids went roller blading and bike riding and made a gymnasium out of our basement.

The neighbor kids came over and one of them told me “No offense, but you have the messiest garage I’ve ever seen.”

Harper made cupcakes from scratch, without following a recipe. I told her I didn’t think they wouldn’t turn out without a recipe, but everyone loved them. I look forward to her proving me wrong even more in her life.

Braylen fell off the back porch stops and every single one of his big siblings came and kissed his bruised forehead.

Beckett saw me get the vacuum out and demanded that he do it by himself, and I had the thought, “Ah, this is when stubborn independence begins to pay off.”

The kids waited for Alex to get home from work on the front porch, like they always do in the summer. He brought Wendy’s home because I didn’t want to cook or go to the grocery story, like I always feel in the summer.

A few monkeys got caught jumping on the bed, and then we washed the day away to rest up for a new one.

This life is rich, isn’t it?

I said no for months. I didn’t want the mess, the smell, the extra responsibility that I was sure would fall on me.

But she was so persistent, watching videos, learning from other pet owners, making lists with prices. Assuring me over and over again she could do it, she could clean, so could do extra chores, she could be responsible for a pet.

And then finally, after she made breakfast for her siblings and asked me a dozen times if I needed help on an evening I was stressed, Alex and I looked at each other and thought, “she’s ready.” We surprised her after school last Friday with a cage and then took her to the pet store to pick out her buddy.

Meet S’mores. He is a guinea pig, eight months old, given to the pet store by a family who could no longer take care of him, so we adopted him into ours.

And dang, he’s pretty sweet. I kinda like him.

Isn’t everything sweet and worthwhile right on the other side of that thing you don’t really want to do?

Last week, we packed up the back of our van with seven suitcases, a pack-n-play, a double stroller, a wagon stuffed full of towels and blankets and toy shovels, a cooler, and three kites. It’s a big van, y’all. We made the seven-hour drive to the Oregon Coast in a little over nine hours, because we’ve learned to stop for picnics and google the nearest park to let the wiggles out at least every three hours. No rushing the road trips in this family. 

We pulled up to our adorable rental with only one truly unhappy toddler, and as soon as the front door was unlocked, the kids were running through the house exploring their new surroundings like little puppies who’ve just been let outside. I get this bed! I call the top bunk! This room has a tv in it, mom! 

Once the suitcases were unloaded and the dinner we brought from home was in the oven cooking, I was itching to go to the beach. Our house was just a few blocks up from the shoreline, and since there are at least six years between me and the last time I heard the waves close up, I couldn’t wait one more minute. Jordi and Beckett came with me while the rest of the crew stayed at the house, and as we got closer and closer to the water, my boys’ anticipation took over their voices and bodies. There it is! There’s the beach! Beckett squealed. Mom! It’s the ocean! Jordi pointed. The wind was truly wild, so fierce that you nearly had to turn your head away from it to keep your eyes open. But it was their first glimpse, their first taste of something so vast one can barely comprehend it. And it was magic.

After a morning looking at starfish and playing in the low tide, a day trip to Cannon Beach and flying kites at Haystack Rock, then a fun morning at the Tillamook Cheese Factory where we had amazing grilled cheese sandwiches and big bowls of ice cream, our last night came quickly. It had rained most of the morning and into the early afternoon, but just after we had pizza for dinner, the sun finally made her appearance. Anyone want to go get one more look at the ocean with me? I asked. Cannon and Jordi were in, so we put our shoes on and headed out. 

It was another windy evening, and the waves were strong, but nothing could stop the boys from playing tag with the water rolling onto the shore. Their confidence grew with each narrow escape, but before I could even warn them, a stronger wave rolled in quickly. Cannon was able to mostly outrun it with only wet ankles, but Jordi was not so fortunate. The wave caught his feet, then his knees, then knocked him forward completely and my six-year-old, who had walked to the beach with me fully clothed, was suddenly under water up to his neck with a wave still rolling over him. The whole scene was much funnier to me than it was to him.

Mom! Help me! He yelled. And as the wave began to roll back where it came from, I walked over and lifted his soaking body up from the sand and stifled my giggles. It’s not funny mom! He said to me. It was scary.

I’m sure it was, bud. I was watching though, you were ok. The ocean is strong, isn’t it? I told him.

After a few deep breaths and an assurance of safety, he started smiling. Yeah, it knocked me right over! He giggled. 

It sure did, bud. I’m glad you’re ok.

Me, too. I’ll be more careful next time, he tells me.

I smile at him and send him back to his game, my little but getting bigger boy with the bluest eyes you ever did see. I’m so glad you learned that, I think to myself. Because we are all, always, learning what to do differently next time.

We put on the hypnobirthing playlist to fall asleep to every night when I was around 32 weeks pregnant.

I started eating dates everyday when I was 35 weeks.

At 37 weeks, I added raspberry leaf tea twice a day.

At 38.5 and with some steady contractions going, I put 2 tablespoons of castor oil in my smoothie. It wasn’t as bad as I had always been told, but it also didn’t do much for me.

After my 39 week appointment, I went home and pumped until I got a contraction, paused, and started again until I got a few more. 

I drank all the water. We had all the sex. I walked laps and laps around our indoor mall. Squats. Cat-call positions on my hands and knees. And prayer, a whole lot of prayer. When you are very pregnant and your varicose veins are very swollen and you have five other very busy children to keep up with, the last few weeks of pregnancy are a long, long wait. I was so very ready to have this baby.

And I’m not saying you cannot prepare your body for labor, or that there is nothing you can do to get ready. I am saying that no matter what you do on your own, babies just don’t come until they are good and ready. 

//

On Saturday, February 20, I called my parents and asked them to come watch our oldest five so that Alex and I could go for a walk. It was Braylen’s, our sixth, due date, and while my contractions were nothing more than they had been for several weeks, I was so physically and emotionally spent that I needed a break from the kids and some fresh winter air, and a walk was the perfect excuse for both. Alex and I ended up walking just over 2.5 miles, until the contractions were good and steady, like they usually got after a walk.

But this time, on his due date, they didn’t stop when we got home. 

Around 6:30pm, we checked into the hospital, where the admitting nurse told me I was 3cm dilated and 90% effaced. She was… not gentle in her checking efforts, and I cannot say I was sad about the shift change at 7:00pm, when Emily - who would become our angel of a nurse - walked in and introduced herself. By 9:00pm we were back in a labor and delivery room, I had my IV antibiotic for Group B strep (which I have been positive for all five of my births) and I was in the bathtub letting things progress slowly and steadily. 

Around 10:30pm, Emily checked my progress and I was between 4-5cm dilated. She called my midwife, Lisa, to update her, and within an hour Lisa was at the hospital to check on me. What Emily and Lisa did so well from the beginning of my labor was to remind me that my body knew exactly what to do. Things were not moving quickly, but they were moving. My contractions were consistently 3-4 minutes apart, strong but not too painful, and I was still feeling very in control of myself (i.e. I was not a feral animal, yet). I wanted to stand and squat and bounce on the birth ball to keep things going, but Emily encouraged me to just lay down and rest until the first dose of antibiotic was done, and then we could reassess. 

So I did. And with consistent contractions I still slept on and off for nearly two hours, breathing and remembering the instructions from my favorite doula (who could not be with us during this birth) to keep my forehead relaxed. “As soon as your face starts to wrinkle around your eyes and forehead, relax them.” 

It sounds strange, but worrying about my forehead wrinkles actually got me through the rest of my labor.

A little after 2:00am, I got my second dose of antibiotic and with it, the green light to have the midwife break my water. Once she did, contractions started getting stronger, and quickly. I got back in the bathtub and found the most comfortable position to be on my hands and knees -- so that is where I stayed for the next two hours. Alex got in the water with me, and every time I had a contraction, he pushed my hips together and all I can say is how in the world it took us five labors to figure out how amazingly helpful that is I do not know. I breathed, he pushed on my hips, I kept my forehead wrinkle free as much as I possibly could, and I swear I could feel Braylen slowly slowly slowly making his way down. It felt like he and I were working together. In an hour, I told Alex I was starting to feel a ton of pressure and to grab Emily, our nurse.

“You’re at 8cm, Katie, let me call Lisa,” were basically the best words I’d ever heard.

I don’t know exactly what time they came back in, and I was so focused on the forehead wrinkles that I didn’t do much chatting with them. But things were moving fast at this point, everyone could tell. Lisa asked me if I wanted to stay in the bath or get back in bed, and I told her as long as I could get back on my hands and knees I’d get in bed. She was so calm, so reassuring, so soft spoken and measured. “Absolutely. Your body will tell us what to do.” The exact right thing for her to say in that moment. 

So I climbed in the bed and -- because you don’t always lose all your dignity in labor -- I immediately requested my black cotton bra. I have nursed five babies, friends, and when you are on your hands and knees with no bra, well, let’s just say that fact is very obvious, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. Once the bra was back on, I could focus on the forehead wrinkles again.  

I knew Bray was so close, because with each contraction I felt like I could not possibly do one more. I’m not an expert, but in my three experiences with unmedicated births, it really is at the point that your body is so close to giving up that you are also so close to having a baby. The most incredible joy and relief is right on the other side of the most unbearable pain. As I groaned and tried to keep breathing and begged God to allow Braylen to come soon, Lisa stood on my right side and gently kept her hand on my lower back, repeating over and over again, “You’re doing great, Katie. Your baby is doing great. Your body knows exactly what to do.”

Alex was still pushing on my hips with each contraction, and when I felt Bray’s head crowning (and maybeee let out a good yell), Lisa quietly replaced Alex, and I heard the chorus of three people -- Alex, Emily, and Lisa -- encouraging me to keep pushing. It took two minutes and three of everything-I-could-give pushes, and Lisa had our baby boy in her arms. She cleared his mouth of mucus, and then said, “Katie, here’s your baby!” I was still on my hands and knees, and not wanting to waste a second getting Braylen into his mama’s arms, she handed him to me right through my legs, then she and Alex helped me roll onto my side and squeeze him close. 

Understatement of all understatements: this moment is miraculous. The unbelievable pain that was there just moments before is gone. The little person that has been kicking and hiccuping and growing inside your belly is now crying and moving and breathing outside of it. It is unlike anything else in the world.

Braylen Kai made his arrival on February 21, 2021, at 4:17am. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 ounces, and was 20 inches long. I think back often to the day I found out I was pregnant, how unexpected and impossible that reality felt. How not ready I was for another baby. And then he was there, in my arms, right when he was supposed to come, and a dozen times a day I asked him if he knows he’s a miracle, and tell him that he is my reminder that you don’t always need to be ready, you just need to be surrendered.

I see the pregnancy tests on the end of an aisle out of the corner of my eye. I’m just here for eyedrops, I think to myself, just eyedrops. But as the line inches forward and social distancing gives me a few extra minutes to stand within arms’ reach of the pink boxes, curiosity - or maybe it’s premonition - gets the best of me. I throw one in my basket, behind the back of my seven year old, who will surely have a dozen justifiable questions about this little box if she sees it.

I just need to rule it out, so I can stop imagining things. Nine dollars is a small price to pay to have my sanity back.

I purchased the little box undetected, but I did not get my sanity back. 

Baby #6 will be here in February.

//

There’s a well known story about Jesus in the gospels, when he takes five loaves of bread and two fishes and miraculously multiplies this meager serving of food to feed thousands of people. The awe of this event causes the people to call him a prophet and a king, and beg him to overthrow the oppressive Roman rulers of their time. If he can make food just appear, surely he is capable of all kinds of miracles, and these people were there for it. I get that. I would be, too.

But I can’t help but sit with a small detail of this story that comes a bit earlier in the day. Jesus and his disciples had gone up on the mountain to sit down for a bit. From their vantage point, it wasn’t difficult to see the huge crowd following them. Jesus sat there unbothered. The disciples on the other hand, they saw reality. It was Passover, one of the most sacred holidays of the Jewish people, and there were thousands of them making the long trek toward their small crew to learn more about this mysterious Jesus figure. 

So when Jesus asks his disciples where they might be able to buy food on the top of a mountain, you and I can certainly understand the skepticism of their response. Are you serious, Jesus? They had to be thinking, You did notice we are not exactly near a market, yes?   

Andrew, one of the disciples, finally voices what feels obvious: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

What are they for so many? Like, come on Jesus. You aren’t really thinking about feeding this crowd, are you? This is enough for one, maybe two people. It’s certainly not enough for what you are thinking of doing. We have to face reality here. 

At least, that’s what I would be thinking. 

So I get Andrew on this question. I really do. I’ve asked it of myself a hundred times in the last three months, since that small premonition in the line at the drug store became a stark reality. Who am I for so many? I am already giving all of myself, every minute of every day.

I don’t have enough for what you are asking us to do, Lord. 

//

I took the pregnancy test late in the afternoon, but I had already planned a fun evening with my oldest daughter that I wanted to be so present for, and because we would be gone for the night, I waited until the next morning when we got home to tell my husband. We pulled up to the house just after breakfast, and Alex already had the other kids loaded in the stroller to head down to the park. When we got there, our big three ran off to their favorite spots, and we stayed back pushing the littles in the swings. 

I had been sitting on news that I had to tell him for 18 hours. That’s the longest I have ever held this secret from him. I wanted to tell him. He’s an incredible dad, and one of the most selfless men alive. But this would be our 6th child. All of them under eight years old. We never planned on more than four. Did I mention we were already giving all of ourselves, every single day? Special needs, two busy toddlers, a curious seven-year-old with incessant (but very good) questions about life, and a four-year-old still learning to write his letters and control his anger - it takes all we have. 

The smallest, apprehensive fear of how is he really going to feel about this? caused me just the slightest bit of trepidation, but because I could not do 18 hours and one more minute of secret-keeping, I decided to jump in with no introduction.  

“Babe, I took a pregnancy test last night.”

“What?!” he responded, wide-eyed and confused, but rightfully, more concerned with the result than my motive. “Are you pregnant?”

I smiled/grimaced/braced myself and said, “I am, Babe. It was positive.” 

He laughed - laughed - which was the best thing he could have done in that moment - and then wrapped me up in a hug. Despite my anxiety, my heart knew he would react this way. The worry was more about our coming reality than my husband’s attitude toward it. We both know what a miracle this is, and it’s one we never have taken for granted. 

“Wow! Ok. Well, not sure what you’re doing here God, but…” he stopped for a second, looked down at me and said, “are you doing ok?”

“I think so. I have... complicated feelings, babe.” I got quiet for a minute, still unable to name it all, sitting with the very real tension of gratitude and overwhelm, sorting through what I thought I was allowed to feel.

“Ha!” he chuckled back. “I think you’re allowed to have complicated feelings right now.”

“Thank you for saying that,” I said through an insecure smile. I’m sure I mumbled a few other unremarkable things, but mostly I remember us being ok, just not saying much; pushing our two toddlers on the swings to the background of giggles and squeals and requests for help reaching the monkey bars from our older three.

“It’s going to be ok,” Alex pipped in. “One day at a time, that’s all we can do.”

//

I wonder what the disciples really thought after Jesus fed all those people in such an improbable manner, as they cleaned up after the crowd and had twelve baskets of food left over. 

Were they shocked, but not surprised? 

Were they shocked because they saw a miracle, something they could never manufacture on their own. They did not believe it was possible to meet the physical needs of so many people, and who could blame them - it did not look possible. Until it happened. 

But were they not surprised because it was Jesus, after all, the man they left everything to follow because they believed that in Him, they would find everything they were looking for; they would find life. This was not the first time they had seen something miraculous, they could not have been too surprised Jesus made it happen again.

I think that’s where my heart is, somewhere on that vacillating line between shocked and not surprised, if it’s possible for a heart to live in that paradox. 

//

We know now that two fish and five loaves of bread was indeed enough to feed more than five thousand people on that Passover holiday all those centuries ago. It was sufficient “for so many.” 

Will I be? 

The news of a 6th baby shocked me, because my husband got a vasectomy a year ago, I only have one fallopian tube, and we still got pregnant anyway (while I was breastfeeding!). I'm shocked that we now own a 12-passenger van, as if I'm running a summer camp or working for the HVAC repair company. Nothing practical in me says this pregnancy is possible, or that my capability is enough. 

But I'm not surprised either, because there is a sovereign God behind every detail of life, and statistics have never been in the way with him. It is Jesus, after all, who feeds the masses with only enough for two, and comes back to get us every time we wander away thinking that He just isn’t facing reality when he puts good work before us, forgetting how safe we are with him - a God of unexplainable miracles.

Who am I for so many? I don’t know the answer. But every day I think I'm not capable of raising six children, I’ll take comfort in knowing someone much greater than me says otherwise.

I hear the scuffle from the basement as I am putting laundry away. “No, Cannon! It’s my turn to pick the show!” our four-year-old, Jordi, yells in frustration as his older brother fights him for the remote. I know before I go back upstairs who will win this battle.

“Nooooo!” Jordi continues, frustration now turning into sobs and anger as his big brother refuses to give back the tv remote. I walk in the family room and he begins pleading his case with me in one breath between the sobs. “Mom, Cannon took the remote and it’s not his turn it’s my turn and he just took it and I was watching sumfing!” 

“I know Jo, let’s ask him nicely and with self-control if he will give it back.”

“Nooooo!” Self-control be damned, Jordi takes a swing at Cannon’s back, who yells a little bit but continues trying to navigate the buttons on the remote without acknowledgement of his brother’s feelings. 

Jordi’s cheeks grow redder and redder and his voice more and more upset. He and I both know what will happen if we force the remote back out of Cannon’s hand: aggressive swings and high pitched yells and a little boy who will be unable to calm back down for who knows how long. 

Finally, Jordi finds the sentence, the thing that makes him more upset than just having the channel changed in the middle of his show: “Autism boys don’t get to pick! Only boss boys get to pick. I am the boss boy! Cannon is an autism boy!”

I stand there looking at my boys, one wildly upset and the other seemingly indifferent just two feet away. It is the first time I realize Jordi knows his big brother has autism; the first time I understand that he is well-aware of the differences in his brother, and that those differences feel frustrating and at times, very unfair to a four-year-old mind. 

And it is the first time I realize I need to help Jordi figure out something I am still very unsure how to do every single day. 

“Oh JoJo, come here,” I say as I pull him into our bedroom and onto my lap. We sit there in silence for a few minutes, as I pretend my big four-year-old is more like a baby so he can snuggle up really close. His body isn’t the only thing I am holding; the heavy feeling of his sadness about his brother and mine at not knowing what to tell him next felt like more weight than his body. 

“Hey bud,” I finally break the silence. “Let’s talk about Cannon, and about why you are sad, and how we can help him learn to do better.”

Jordi sniffs a little, then nods his head. 

//

For the last four and a half years, our family has been learning how to live with autism, and for almost all of that time, I have seen the struggle through two sets of eyes: the parents, and my son’s on the spectrum. I’ve sat and held him tightly to keep him from hitting his own head on the wall. I’ve reacted in anger when he slapped me in the face for asking him to put his clothes on. I’ve researched and googled and read books and spent a lot of money on oils and supplements and vitamins and anything that promised the slightest glimmer of hope that tomorrow would be better than today. And of course, I’ve wondered how impossible it must feel for a little boy to be living with a mind that will not form the words he needs to tell me what hurts, why he is sad, what he wants to do, or what happened at school today. It’s been me and my husband, and it’s been Cannon - the three of us living in this little complex word; and because our other children were so young, I have enjoyed a few years of compartmentalizing my parenting into two categories: autism - with it’s stringent therapy schedule and special diet and separate classrooms - and “typical” children - with social rules and manners and reasonable expectations for what the day will bring.

But now, I see there are not two categories. There is just us.

Special needs is a road the whole family has to walk, but the truth is—separating the paths is easier, for my heart and for my hands, than bringing everyone on the same one. But here we are, my husband and I leading the way with a trail of Cannon’s siblings behind us, who are too young to fully understand developmental disabilities, but plenty old enough to know it makes them frustrated. And right now, I have to find the words to tell another little boy what it means for his brother to be an “autism boy”, and after more than four years of searching, I still don’t know the answer.

//

I sat there with Jordi on my lap, still reeling at the injustice of having his tv show taken from him so abruptly, and knowing full well I would never let him do that to someone else. I truly thought when the time came, I would be ready for this moment, this delicate conversation that introduces two opposing truths to the world for my kids: Cannon is a good boy, but autism is a very hard thing. 

Paradox is hard for everyone, but it can be especially disorienting for a child. 

Alas, I’m not ready for the conversation, because on any given day, I deal with that paradox differently as well: sometimes with solid faith in a good God and other times with desperate cries and genuine anger that sovereignty could allow a child to struggle so much. 

“Jo,” I whisper to him as I scratch his back and watch his sad breaths slow to a calmer cadence, “I know this is so hard sometimes, to have a brother who has different rules than you.” 

He nods again, lulled into listening with the magic of a mom’s light touch.

“And bud, I get upset too, but I also know this: Cannon loves you, and he loves jumping on the trampoline with you, and chasing you, and squirting you with the hose!”

“Yeah, Cannon loves that,” Jordi says with the slightest hint of a smile as he pictures the hose and the backyard and the laughter from the day before in his mind. “He likes to put it on my head!”

“I know, he thinks you are the most fun brother ever!”

“Mmm hmm,” Jordi responds, a satisfied smirk settling in on his face.

“So I think, Jordi, in the really hard moments when we don’t understand what Cannon is doing, or why he is doing it, we just have to work really, really hard to remember how much we love each other. Autism makes so many things hard for him that are not hard for me and you. But,” I lean my face in as close to his as I could get and heighten my pitch with a little bit of excitement, “God knew he needed a little brother exactly like you to make him laugh and to play with him, didn’t he? No one will love him better than you will, JoJo.”

Another nod and smile - not one of resolution, there will always be much to be resolved, but one of acceptance.

“We will keep learning together, Jo. And so will Cannon!”

Maybe the only answer to two opposing truths is a third one: we love each other.

And wouldn’t you know, Cannon walks in the bedroom just a moment later, holds out his hand and says, “Heee go, Jordi,” and hands him the tv remote.

“Fanks, Cannon,” Jordi responds, then walks back out to the living room to finish his show.

//

*This essay first appeared on the Coffee + Crumbs Patreon site.
If you have been encouraged by my writing here or on the C+C blog, consider becoming a patron and joining the community for as little as $1 a month.

It’s been three years since our little man was diagnosed with autism, though closer to four since we knew it was coming. When I look back, it feels like time has roared by, almost like it has gone on without me. Three years? It can’t possibly have been that long. Was I really there for all of it? 

I can also recall a good number of evenings when I looked at the clock at 4:00pm, again at 4:18pm, 4:29pm, and wondered if it would ever just be bedtime, so yes, I know I was there. That long days fast years thing is the truth. 

When it comes to autism, time and I are in an awkward relationship. It wants to show up and live at the same cadence every single day; I want it to notice when something is good and slow down, then catch on when something is hard and, obviously, speed the heck up! It prefers sameness though, a lot like autism does, and refuses to bend to my desire for it to play by my circumstantial rules. This is mostly fine; time is given to all of us fairly every single day and there are not many things that are, so I won’t begrudge it.

Four years ago, even with the evidence of autism hovering around us, a staunch and hopeful defiance characterized most of my days. It’s hard for me to say if it was hopeful defiance or fear, actually - even though one should be able to tell those apart. I guess it doesn’t matter much; whatever the feeling was, it was near impossible to live with. I refused to google anything other than speech delay, superstitiously thinking if I typed a-u-t-... or any rendition of it into a search bar, it would make it true. I clung to every possible sign of engagement from my two year old, unsuccessfully believing one imitation of a syllable counter-acted two dozen failed attempts to get him to respond to his name. I constantly measured him against his peers, looking for evidence that his development was ‘normal’, begging my friends to tell me it was ‘normal’, cheering wildly when he demonstrated anything ‘normal’. Still the chasm grew with each month, and hopeful defiance simply could not stand up to fact. 

We were going to live with this thing, this word that carried more weight than I was prepared to lift. But the first step was learning not to be afraid.

A-u-t-i-s-m. 

I typed it. I bought the books about it. I cried about it, but I said it.

The funny thing is, hopeful defiance might have crumbled when it met reality, but God rebuilt it in our lives as real hope, no longer in the outcome, but in the Author of the story. No defiance necessary.

There is an old video on my phone, a dark and early January morning that I was awake with Cannon, reading his books on the ground with him. I am pointing to a mountain on the cardboard page, willing Cannon to take my enthusiasm in and speak, anything, just speak. 

“Mow-nnn-ten.” I say loud and slow, holding each syllable for his ears to process. “Mow-nnn-ten.” 

Silence hangs for a moment, then his tiny fingers point to the mountain and he manages a “Mmm-mmm-a. Mmm-mmm-a.”

“Good job!” I squeal in the background, so delighted with his effort, with the “m” sound coming from my silent boy. 

That same video I am giddily happy in brings tears to my eyes today. Tears that I wouldn’t see what was so clear in moments like that, how profound his struggle with communication truly was; tears that I couldn’t will the words to come from his mouth, that no amount of enthusiasm on my part would bring them out; and tears that he has come so far since then, gratitude that while autism still makes sentences a challenge, he doesn’t have to fight with each syllable in that same way anymore - a luxury not everyone has. It’s moments like this when I am so thankful for both time, and hope.  

Cannon is in Kindergarten today. The many, many weeks of standing at the door of the therapy room so he would not escape feel so distant as we wait at the bus stop together, no need for a tight grip on his hand or prodding to get on the bus. He waits patiently on his own. He sees the door open and runs on like he’s been doing it forever. I could not even imagine this would be possible back there in those therapy rooms; something as normal as sending your child to school on a bus were not possibilities I allowed myself to think about. But time and hope, and no small amount of hard work from all of us, and look where we are, where he is. 

I am amazed by this boy. I wish I could have just a moment in his world, to see and hear and think about things how he does. I wish he could tell me everything, that we could take a walk after school and laugh and ask questions and listen to each other. It’s not possible right now. But he also points to that same book in the video and says as clear as a sunny day, “Let’s go to the tallest mountain!” and you know, a few years ago that wasn’t possible either. 

Jesus answer to his disciples in John 9 about a man’s blindness has for years been our comfort and our rallying cry: “That the works of God might be displayed in him.” But more importantly, it’s been true. There is so much about our good God on display in this boy. I was so afraid of it all just four short years ago, so scared about navigating a life that promised nothing but unpredictability. I was dreading the time and out of hope. Today, holding both the moments we struggle and the moments we celebrate, and constantly seeing this boy surprise us, time and hope are two of my favorite things to depend on.   

I was 14 days late when I really started to consider the possibility, 18 when it went from possibility to legitimate anxiety, and 21 when I finally went to the dollar store for the test – I always get them at the dollar store. I was with my three-year-old when I threw the little pink and white box in to the cart, along with a few other things we did not need because I don’t know, somehow it feels less awkward for me to buy six random items than to just plop a pregnancy test on the counter and smile at the checker.   

When we got home, I put the shopping bag on the counter and tried to think about other things: the three-week old foster baby in our home, the three other children who were already being such troopers in the midst of a huge and sudden change, and the husband who was pretty darn certain he was done wanting children at three. 

It could all be stress. And newborn sleep. And I haven’t been eating much. It could just all be stress. 

But still, 21 days late? I went to bed that night and prayed for my period. 

The next morning, my prayer still unanswered, Alex headed off to a day-long men’s conference at our church and the four littles and I resumed our typical fall Saturday morning routine. Right around lunchtime, with two of the four down for a nap, I opened the pink and white box. I knew that 22 days late was a lot, but I was still convinced it was my body adjusting to all the things we had just said ‘yes’ to with exactly 60 seconds to make a decision. 

It just cannot be possible, can it? I opened the app that I do all of my monthly tracking on, and I counted everything for the 22nd time. Nope, not possible. I’m going to pee on this little stick and then be exposed for the crazy person I am. There is no way this thing is positive. 

***** 

The truth is, I have always wanted a fourth baby. I was fine with three, and felt full and busy with three, and I loved life with three. But I never truly felt the “I’m done” feeling, even if I thought we were. I had spent much of the last year assuming I would just always wonder what it would have been like to have four kids, and that that feeling was ok. I know a lot of women who are done and will always wonder what one more child would have been like. I also know a lot of women who have never been given the blessing of a positive pregnancy test, or still have empty arms after many. Honestly, I can’t think of a more seemingly “unfair” system than pregnancy, and adding to our family is not ever something I have taken for granted.

But even with my desire for a fourth child, I knew we were not ready for one. Entering the foster care system, especially in the manner that we did, saying yes to a constant shuffle of social workers, visits, court dates, and paperwork confirmed that in one way. My actual reaction when the test was positive confirmed it in another.

I panicked. 

I couldn’t feel happiness or sadness for weeks, just shock. And then I couldn’t feel anything but nausea for another ten weeks, and that didn’t help matters. But mostly, I felt fear. 

Fear that my marriage would be pulled too far.

Fear that my children would be stretched too thin in their own little capacities. 

Fear that I would do something, eat something, take something, be around something that would cause autism in another one of our children.

Fear that our life had crossed from busy to unmanageable, unaffordable… all the “un” words one does not want to describe her life at all.

There is a popular song on Christian radio these days that repeats the line “fear is a liar” in the chorus. As much as I’d like to, I don’t think I agree with that. Fear can indicate something very valid to be concerned about, and it is not necessarily lying to you that proceeding with great caution is a good idea.

But while fear may not be a liar, it is rather bossy, and it fogs up your life so much that you can’t see through it to move forward. 

That’s where I lived for three months, being bossed around by fear – feelings that could have been turned around and taught me about the great care and stewardship we would need to move into this new season with, but instead they stopped me completely. I laid on our couch much of the day, sick and exhausted and pretty much the hardest person to live with, all because I couldn’t find God – I wasn’t even looking for Him – through the hazy fear that laid there with me.

The fog didn’t clear for me until I started to confess it. And started looking for truth again.

*****

We sat around our friend’s living room with our community group, and as we usually do, spent some time catching up with one another. It was the first time I had been at group since we picked up our foster baby and found out we were expecting – almost three months after both of those things had taken place. When it was my turn to share, I started out on the surface, laughing about going from three to four and possibly five kids, about how I would not be going anywhere for the next two years and the amount of laundry I already cannot stay on top of. And the more I spoke, the more the group laughed with me and nodded their heads as I shared, the deeper I went. One feeling, one sentence, one confession at a time. Finally, the two things that had truly been consuming my mind came out of my mouth, and they had little to do with laundry. 

“I am afraid of everything, you guys. Afraid of having another child with special needs. Afraid that our foster baby will have to go back to a situation that might be a tiny bit better but still is impossibly hard to let her go to. And mostly, I am afraid that if any of these things do happen, I’m not going to be able to believe that God is still good.”

It was the last sentence that broke the damn of tears that had been building for months. 

I wonder if fear really has two components: living with the anxiety and what-if scenarios of the thing we fear, and then trying to make sense of God, of what we believe to be true about Him, if that thing does happen. 

I looked down at the sweatshirts sleeves pulled over my hands and now covered in wiped tears and mascara, and I didn’t even have time to say another thing before tissues were in my hand and eight other people were around me and Alex with their hands on our shoulders, praying honest, earnest, sincere prayers for us. The kind of prayers I hadn’t been able to pray for months; the words of truth fear would not let me remember.

God, You are knitting this baby together in Katie’s womb… Psalm 139:13

You placed this little baby girl in this family, at this exact time, knowing exactly what they would be given right after you did… Psalm 139:16

You gave Alex and Katie one another years ago knowing full well what you would equip them to live, even knowing how unequipped they would feel… Philippians 2:13

You know Cannon’s heart and mind perfectly, you have beautiful purposes for his life, and know his parents’ heart for him... John 9:3

You know Harper and Jordi and can perfectly guide their understanding of the family they have who loves them so… Psalm 119:34

And God, You alone are good… Psalm 73:1

I realized as the tears continued to fall down my cheeks that my thoughts had spent all this time replacing “You” with “I” in that prayer. That’s when fear is the thickest and most impossible to see through, when you think everything depends on you. 

***** 

Today, I am 24 weeks pregnant with our third baby boy, an already wild man in my tummy – the final recruit in what we joke is Harper’s crew of soldiers. And we still get to steward, for now, the life of the sweetest baby girl on earth – one who sleeps through the night and spends the entire day smiling and wanting to be near the other kids. 

And I can’t believe we are here. 

It has not been easy to leave fear behind, and it still creeps in often. But our world is not nearly as foggy anymore. My husband fights hard to be an incredible leader for our family, our friends show up to clean our house, and our community still prays urgent, earnest prayers on our behalf. And every day, many times a day, we look at one another and remind ourselves that there is a God, I am not Him.