There is so much to celebrate this holiday season. I’m wrapping up this year with more than I could ask for including another baby on the way. Baby number 4 making us a soon-to-be family of 6 with 4 babies under 4 years old this June. Everything about the fourth baby feels different and it can be summed up in a 1-minute exchange I had with a coworker when I ran into him at our kids’ swim lesson.

“Hey! Congratulations… question mark?” He smiled with one eyebrow raised as he scurried towards the pool with his two children.

I joke that I have been pregnant since 2018 when I was carrying our first daughter, Skylar, but it’s not far from the truth. I have returned to work from each maternity leave… pregnant. Twelve weeks after pushing another life into this world, I am nauseas and bloated and my body is put back to work on creating another heartbeat. With each pregnancy, the experience has lost a little bit of luster especially in the midst of Covid and I imagine it still would even if I wasn’t knee-deep into a pandemic. With Skylar, my husband attended all of the ultrasounds. We floated away amongst hundreds of hot air balloons in Turkey for our baby moon. I posed for elegant maternity photos and over 100 guests attended our baby shower. For Maverick, Ricky called into my appointments on speakerphone as visitors were restricted. We were lucky enough to ride camels in the Sahara desert before the world shut down. No photographers were working and we had no plans for a large gathering like a shower. My husband also suggested against any sort of baby registry considering that some of our loved ones were out of work. With Naomi, we had an intimate gender reveal with our closest friends and family. Our baby moon was kept domestic as international travel remained shut down and we scheduled an induction solely for planning purposes around the older 2 children’s start date at daycare. With this pregnancy, our announcement has an entirely different feel. Tiny, cute converse chucks between mine and Ricky’s told the world Skylar was coming. A halloween costume with Ricky as a Italian chef, Skylar as a slice of pizza and my apron labeled Prego announced Maverick’s bump. Giant letter/number balloons spelled out Naomi’s appearance. This time, our photo is of Ricky laid out on our living room floor, face down, in sweat pants and overdue for a haircut holding my positive pregnancy test, surrounded by our 3 littles ones. This is how we really feel! Overwhelmed not only by the love but by the rapidly growing chaos.

The thing is… This was/is the plan. We thought we wanted 5 kids, we settled on 3… then 4 because Maverick needs a brother and we all need another Maverick. I started out categorized as a ‘geriatric multigravida’ (advanced maternal age), and we finally finished all of our medical training so it made sense to have one baby after another. Rapid fire… If you can’t take the Heath, get out the kitchen! Right? We were not going to put the diaper genie in storage. When everyone is out of diapers, the diaper genie is going in the trash. They’re going to entertain each other and grow up to be best friends, they say. It’s going to be worth it. We’re sprinting and if we stop to take a break, we might not pick up the speed again. We might realize our legs are sore, we didn’t drink enough water and we desperately need to stretch. So here we are, going from outnumbered to doubled up. Two against one.

Like anything else in life, plans don’t always play out the way they do in our minds. Raising babies is hard. Hard in it of itself, hard on myself, hard on my marriage, hard on life in general. It requires every atom of my existence and provokes parts of me that I am still learning as my babies expose them. The challenge isn’t the love. One of most beautiful lessons I have learned after having a child is that love is indeed infinite. Before Skylar, I believed that. I would see quotes that read that love is eternal or endless, and shake my head in agreement at how beautiful that concept was. When I had a child, my heart exploded because I had no idea what true infinite love was. There is so much love inside of me that I had not tapped into. For me, each time we bring another baby into our family, it feels as though there is love that has been living inside me that now has a chance to reveal itself. Or maybe it is brand new love that has been born with this child. Either way, this a mind-blowing phenomenon. It takes my breath away. There is nothing on earth more infinite and I have been blessed to feel that now.

Love is not the problem. However, how I express my love as a mortal seems to be. My love may be limitless but my patience, my energy, my hours and my attention are limited. And all of it is being tested every single day… When Skylar refuses to eat the tenth option for dinner in a row, or when Maverick takes off his shoes and undresses right before we’re finally ready to leave the house, or when Naomi decides she’s not going down for a nap today when I have a to-do list that I haven’t started. In a perfect world, Skylar’s bedtime story would never be cut short because Naomi needs a bottle, Maverick’s hug wouldn’t be interrupted for Skylar’s and Naomi would be included in all of the activities rather than stay home with Grandma. In my world, it does and I can only hope that what I am able to show is enough to make them each feel loved equally and tremendously. At the moment, adding a 4th baby feels like it may limit me more.

Today, on Christmas, the universe showed me how I could be slightly better as I constantly evolve as a mother. Maverick is sick so he hardly napped at all. Skylar is getting over something so she was taking the longest nap of her life. While Skylar and Naomi were down, all Maverick wanted while he was awake was to go outside for some fresh air. It happened to be sunny and almost 50’ degrees in the middle of December (thank you, Universe) so we put our jackets on over our matching pajamas, slipped on our shoes and went outside. He slipped his chubby hand into mine and talked baby jibberish as we walked around the house and up and down the driveway. In this moment, he was my only baby. I usually clean the kitchen during nap time but I left the sink full of dishes and my phone inside. I had no idea what he was saying but I imagined that it was something he would only tell me so I listened to the incomprehensible babbles carefully. He had all of my attention.

Then when it was bedtime, Maverick was ready to go to bed early and Skylar was up past her bedtime because of her long and late nap. She had asked me to read her new books to her since she had opened them at 7am this morning. There were 8 of them and I had read one to her so far, which was amongst a lot of noise so I was yelling the words. We turned off the TV, we sat on the floor and we read all of them. In the middle of the book, Skylar got up and repositioned herself cozy into my lap. After the books, we put together a puzzle from beginning to end, one of her favorite things to do. When she saw the big picture, she said, “Wow, Mommy, look at that. It’s beautiful!” I can’t remember the last time we were able to complete a puzzle. Maverick is frequently stealing the pieces and walking over the parts Skylar put together as Naomi chews a piece until it’s soggy and no longer fits. In this moment, she was my only baby. I was going to take a shower and let her hang out with Daddy, but we had run out of hot water so I decided to wait (thank you, Universe). She had all of my patience.

As we add a 4th, I must be more aware of the opportunities that the universe presents that allow me to give my all, even if it is for a few minutes, to each baby. To find a moment in our chaotic lives to be still and show them that I love them like they are the single perfection in my imperfect world. These moments will inevitably be rare making them special and so very important.

With an open heart and high holiday spirits, we are letting the love rush in. The four, the merrier!