when my children were born

the other day, someone asked me how i felt when i first saw my newborn child being held by my husband (she was referring to the moment right after birth)... i thought back on the occasion and to be honest i don't remember my husband and child together as a clear distinct picture.  so much was happening right before and right after my children were born that that memory is wrapped up in a complete and whole picture of us: josh, the newborn child and me.  Not a jigsaw puzzle pieced together but one whole, glowing and alive moment. we were a newly growing family, i had love in my heart plus the extra Heavenly Father gives as a gift on these occasions.  what my mind and heart remember most about this particular moment is the overpowering feeling of love for my family... just newly grown... and a knowledge that these past 9/10 months were so very, very, very worth it... all the morning sickness for the whole nine months, crippling pain, weight gain, HAVING to eat so you don't get sick... sort of a slave to eating really..., lack of sleep, tossing and turning, braxton hicks that are almost labor, the labor pains themselves... excruciating pain... all of it... every last minute was worth it and would be done again as promptly as possible just to have this experience again... but, to me, this moment is like faith something felt but not seen.  both my first and second babies i would tell myself... this is worth it, as i vomit into another bowl... at the end of this i will have my baby, as i wake up in the middle night having to eat or suffer the consequences of morning sickness... it will be worth it as i fall out of bed unable to walk from the pain in my back... but i did not feel it until the second it was all done... after the last anxious and excruciating push... and this little body... this little person i have been sacrificing everything for and waiting for so anxiously ....wondering about who they were and what they would look like... finally emerges, the pressure and pain is suddenly gone and i see and hold them in my arms... it is a miraculous moment... where i finally know what my heart and mind had been trying to tell me all along... this child was worth it

asher asleep

i still have moments like these... most often at night when my little children are sleeping... and not because i am finally free because they are sleeping... it's because when i look at them and see them... really see them..... and all the fire that glows under their skin (their vast potential/energy and love of life)... i see the sweetness of their natures... their perfect purity and innocence... i am filled with an unspeakable love and joy and feel so blessed to have angels in my home... and i often think over the day and either rejoice that i was a good mother that day... or a sense of sadness comes over me... realizing i missed it...that my day with angels had been split up between chores, the computer and whatever other distraction i could find... and i fervently say to myself... tomorrow i will love them better
in the end i feel grateful for the Savior who makes weak things stronger...me....

isaac asleep