Song for a Fifth Child

Mother, oh mother, come shake out your cloth!

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

Hang out the washing and butter the bread,

Sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking!

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue

(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(Pat- a- cake, darling and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew

And out in the yard and there’s a hullabaloo

But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look!  Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs.  Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby.  Babies don’t keep.

1958   Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Although this poem doesn't apply to my exact situation just yet, I felt like I should post it for future reference. And even now, even while I can still carry my sweet baby girl in my womb and protect her from everything in the outside world, I can almost hear Ms Ruth Hamilton talking directly to me. I have been getting rather stressed out and emotional lately, which I am choosing to blame on a surge of hormones. I have been worrying about excessive weight gain, and how I can lose it after the baby's born, I've been worrying about whether or not breastfeeding is going to be painful, and on and on and on. But all these things I'm worrying about don't really matter. They'll happen when they happen, and stressing about things I can't control only hurts me. So, like the poem explains, I'm trying to step back, forget all the little things that I feel I "must" worry about, and enjoy this moment I have, experiencing this gift of being able to grow a little person, and feel her movements. That should be the most important thing right now. 

That being said, I also really want to enjoy the last 3 months that I have Spencer all to myself. I want to love sleeping all the way through the night, and enjoy finishing an entire load of dishes at one time. I'm positive that Avery will be the best thing that could possibly happen to us, but there are a few blessings we have now that are probably going to be a rarity in the very near future, and I don't want to discount them. I love our little family, it's exactly what I dreamed about having :)