The Beauty of Birthdays

Today, I've been thinking an awful lot about birthdays. Probably because it is my birthday. I've been thinking about how I haven't had a birthday this special in a long time. Birthdays, for me, lost a lot of their appeal once I turned 25. That birthday was tough for me... a quarter of a century old! Yikes! That sounds ancient (I know it isn't). And ever since then I've viewed birthdays reluctantly... they're not horrible, but they served more of a reminder that I was getting old(er) then anything else for me.

Since having cancer, my view on my birthday has changed. I view my birthday a little more positively. I realize how easily I may not have celebrated this birthday, or how much harder I could have been fighting to hang onto life at this point. Today, I view my birthday as a blessing. God has seen it best that I stay on this earth into my 34th year! How cool is that?!? I'm enjoying it! Birthdays are awesome!

I've also gone from thinking about my birthday to the birth of my children and how special each one of them are to me. I cherish each of my children's "birth" days and their birthdays. They each have their own batch of memories and life changing moments.

The scenario that surrounds the birth of my fourth child keeps running through my head today. That event is so special to me because my heavenly Father sent a special message to me. I didn't hear it that day, though. Actually, it took me several months to hear that message. And now that I've heard it, it nearly brings me to tears (happy tears) every time I think about it.

You see, part of having breast cancer as a young women, is losing your fertility. Not everyone loses it and you might not lose it forever, but the treatment that you go through can make you infertile for a very long time. That was one of the first things the doctors asked me when I went to Mayo to set up my treatment plan. Was I done having children?

Now, as a mother of four, with my youngest having just turned one my response to the doctors was "Heck, yes, I'm done!". But you see, if I was in charge of our family planning, I wouldn't have been done when they asked me that question. Now, don't get me wrong... ever since deciding to try for a third child, my husband and I have wanted four kids. We had our first two almost exactly two years apart (and swore we'd never do that again). We had a nice five year gap, and then had our third. My plan was to wait about three years and then have our fourth. Spread things out a bit... so I hopefully didn't go so crazy this time :-). Well, thankfully, my heavenly Father is in charge of our family planning. You see, nine months after having my third child and as I was just managing to crawl out of a postpartum depression hole, I found out I was pregnant with my fourth. This is the only time I have ever gotten pregnant without planning it and my husband and I both were shocked that I was pregnant.

I'll be honest... I was not happy at all when I discovered I was pregnant. I was barely holding my head above water the way it was and God wanted to throw another baby at me? I'd barely had time to hold and snuggle my third child, and now I was going to have to spend the next four months with my head over a bucket trying not to puke from morning sickness, and then the next five months become progressively more whale-like, until I had two babies to care for. It wasn't supposed to work out like this... not according to my plan.

But you see, everything worked out according to God's plan. God knew my heart's desire was to have four children and God also knew that that fourth child would not happen if He allowed things to happen how I wanted them to happen. You see, if things were going to happen the way I wanted them to happen, I would have just become pregnant with my fourth child right before being diagnosed with cancer, which may have seriously compromised my treatment or I would have been planning to become pregnant very soon, and our fourth child would have never been.

It was a month or so after being diagnosed with cancer that this reality hit me and I heard my heavenly Father's message loud and clear. "I love you, my child. I am allowing things to work this way because I love you. Your child was a gift from me to you. A gift that shows you that I do care about you and what you are going through. I care enough to orchestrate the details of your life. And I'm orchestrating what you are going through right now. Even when you feel like I am working against you, child, I am working so very hard for you. I love you, my child!".

I love birthdays!