By Megan Hutchins
For me, the idea of not doing double diapers, breastfeeding all hours of the night and sleeping in sounded marvelous but when putting those thoughts into reality, I became a mess. This had been my life for the better part of ten years.
When I first got married, I believed that I wanted to have seven children as well as own and operate an advertising agency. Little did I realize that by doing both of those things I would be pulled in polar opposite directions. I hung on to the seven kid idea and allowed my dream of the fast-paced, long hour day and night business dream fade away.
When my first daughter was born, I stayed at home with her for six months until it became painfully clear that we needed more money. I became a waitress at a great local restaurant during the business lunch hour and my aunt and grandmother watched her for a few hours. I maintained this job through 2 painful miscarriages, the birth of my son 3 years later and ultimately left it when we moved out of town while I was pregnant with my third child.
I then was in a new city, didn't know a soul and would be delivering my third child soon. I officially became a stay at home mom.
I always enjoyed being pregnant, not over the top enjoy, but was happy nonetheless. I embraced the chaos that came with three kids five years old and under, so much that I went on to have two more kids over the next three years. Five children, healthy and happy, were filling my home with chaos, laughter, and love. I lived this. I reveled in it.
When my fifth child was born, my husband coined the phrase "fifth and final" and would use it constantly, mainly when others would cast judgment on how big our family was onto us. I hated that phrase. We were supposed to have seven kids. At this point, I would even settle for six. Yet, in my husband's eyes, we were DONE. Two boys, three girls, everyone was healthy and he was ready to turn the page. He would also say "it's time for a new chapter."
For me, the idea of not doing double diapers, breastfeeding all hours of the night and sleeping in sounded marvelous but when putting those thoughts into reality, I became a mess. This had been my life for the better part of ten years.
When our "fifth and final" child turned one, I managed to convince my husband to half-heartedly try one more time for another child. In full transparency, I got him drunk and only then was he willing, mainly because it involved having sex. I got pregnant.
After about a week, which is still early to test, I knew I was pregnant and I was happy. I technically had been pregnant seven times prior and was very in tune with my body. A week later, when it was time to test, I got a very faint positive on the 30+ tests I had taken and I knew something wasn't right. I scheduled a blood draw with my doctor that day and it confirmed a pregnancy but my numbers were not normal. I had to go back in a few days later to confirm that something wasn't right with this pregnancy.
I fought back the tears. This was my last shot was what I kept telling myself. This was also the very first time in my 12-year marriage that my husband and I were not in agreement with this decision. He truly was happy with our crew and did not want a sixth child. I was feeling the effects of not being unified in this decision and now my thoughts were wondering "what did I do?" I was wondering if I was going to be bringing a handicapped child into our life or if I was going to create a division with my husband. I had realized how big of a decision having a child was and I feel like I tricked my husband into giving me my way, which was now backfiring.
Looking back on this moment now, I realize how silly those thoughts truly were. Yet, I had convinced myself that my husband would hate this, not embrace a handicapped child if that was the outcome and I began to hope that I miscarried the pregnancy. It was in this very dark and sad place that I didn't even recognize myself. I was hoping this baby didn't make it? I have never experienced a darkness like this before and I hated myself.
Two weeks later, I did indeed miscarry the pregnancy. It was almost as if that baby wasn't even given a fair shot and I knew it. I began to realize that making uniform decisions is extremely important in a marriage, especially when it comes to family size. In this moment, I honored my husband’s wishes to not have any more children and I scheduled his vasectomy for the following month. I could not trust myself to go another cycle wondering if I was ovulating and thinking about possibly getting pregnant again. I, for the first time since my marriage, did not want to be pregnant ever again.
His vasectomy was a success and we actually celebrated. We honored our five healthy kids with what I called a "ball party" and invited all of our friends. We served food in ball form, meatballs, chicken balls, cake pops, ice balls in drinks and even threw bags of peas on the cold beer that was available for our guests. This was also honoring to my husband who had just recovered from his vasectomy. We had a slide show of the kids from birth until then playing on the t.v.s and it was a great one-of-a-kind evening!
But something still wasn't right inside of me. About a month later, I was driving our SUV listening to the radio and an adoption story came on. It melted me. I pulled in the garage and cried. I realized that maybe this was a solution to the void I had been feeling, maybe we could adopt. I immediately charged inside and blurted my experience out to all to hear, hoping it would pull at my husband's heartstrings a little. I told him we should look into this, after all, our SUV at the time had six seats in the back. Yes, that sixth seat was a bargaining tool.
He told me to "look into it" and I bounded off like a happy gazelle. I scheduled lunches with friends that had adopted, I researched websites and adoption programs, I called and texted with people I hadn't met and asked them their experiences. In two weeks time, I had enough material and resources that I approached my husband again. I was excited. I simply said to him, "Hey babe, I like this program that works with Ethiopian children the best. Sign here, here, here and here, give me $400 and we will be on our way to adopt our sixth kid."
As you can imagine, his response to that was less than enthusiastic. He looked at me and said in a completely exasperated voice "I said look into it, not pull the trigger! I am done having children and I do not want to adopt!" Not giving up yet, I simply said "But my heart is not full. And we have six seats..." I seriously thought he would hear my irrational thinking.
"Remember how when we bought that truck, you wanted the sixth seat and I wanted navigation?" was his only response. I thought back and at the time, we did not know if our fifth kid was a boy or a girl. I knew that if we were having a girl, there would be a good chance we would try again for one more boy so I demanded at the time to get a vehicle with six seats in the rear. He desperately wanted a navigation package built in the truck because we always got into arguments over the navigation on our phones. He caved and I got my six seats. "Yes," I answered. "I remember that." "I am trading your truck in and I'm getting one with navigation. And FIVE seats in the back. We're done."
The next week he came home with a lovely SUV, complete with navigation (that we never use) and five seats in the back. This was the turning point in my life when I realized my heart was indeed full. I had a husband who loved me, five amazing and healthy kids, a new chapter in life and a really nice truck that had a heated steering wheel that I still to this day enjoy!
Megan Hutchins
owner of Megan Hutchins Art
@meganhutchinsart on Instagram
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