We have come along a winding path with respect to family size. Diane came from a family of eight children (she was #8), and always wanted a large family; I wasn't quite ready for that. After Rachel was born in 1983, I was ready to take surgical steps to make sure that we had no more, and I somehow convinced Diane to go along with it. We loved our two girls immensely, but wondered if we could have enough energy and resources to love more children as they need to be loved. Little did we understand that our capacity to love would expand, and that the children would add to the love for each other.
God was working on me. I saw that my attitute basically ran along the lines of "Children are a great blessing, but I don't want too many blessings, Lord." I eventually, came to the point of saying, "We will joyfully receive all of the blessings that you choose to give us. We trust you with our lives, and that includes allowing you to determine our family size."
So in 1989, I had surgery to fix what was broken, and obviously it was successful. Will was born in 1990, Joel in 1992, Melody 1993, Esther 1994, Abigail 1998, Rebekah, 2000. We've had 11 years with no dull moments at all! Each one has been a wonderful addition, each one a means of growth for all of us. It looks like John will be the same, and probably moreso.
A friend who visited us remarked (my paraphrase):
It seems like a growing number of Christian families that
I know are having babies with Down Syndrome. Maybe God is
sending them there because some other families would decide
to abort them instead of loving them. And these special children
wouldn't get the chance to fulfill God's purposes for them on earth.
I don't know if she is right, but I think she may be. I do know that in the past 12 days
many people have told us about Down Syndrome kids that they know, and
they always speak about them with such affection. These children must
be having an impact that has dimensions "normal" kids wouldn't
have.
Some people have already asked, "Will you have more children?" The answer isn't obvious, but so far we have not seen a reason to do anything other than continue to commit that area of our lives to the God who knows us, loves us, and knows just what we need and what responsibilities we should have. We can at least say that we won't enter the "banned parenthood" phase simply as a reaction to having a child who is unusual. Is it scary? Of course!