Five years of being a parent

You're never ready for that kind of hit-you-outta-left-field
No, you never saw it coming—how it'd make you feel?
Seeing the nurse put your baby on her mama's chest
Tryna act tough, but you're a train wreck
It's a half smile, half cry, change-your-whole-life feeling that'll stop you in your tracks
People talk about it, and you thought about it
But that kinda heavy, no, you're never ready for that
No, you're never ready for that

—Corey Kent "Never Ready"

My daughter turned five this month, which also marks five years of being a parent. My wife and I have been married for 10 years, so we've been parents for almost exactly half of our marriage.

It's wild to be a family of five precisely because we weren't even sure if we could ever have kids.

Just two months after we got married, my wife got dreadfully sick to the point that she was practically bed-ridden for a few months and we couldn't figure out what was going on. I thought there were just three options:

1. full recovery (which seemed unlikely after so many doctors appointments with so many specialists)
2. being bed ridden for life
3. death

After a traumatic six-month roller coaster through the American medical system we finally discovered that she had a genetic sensitivity to mold. She got treated by an amazing functional medicine doctor and fully recovered, but we still weren't sure if kids were in our future. We had so many questions:

• Can she get pregnant?
• If she gets pregnant will she be able to handle pregnancy?
• If she can handle pregnancy will the baby be healthy?

Early on in our marriage we decided to put having kids in God's hands. From the beginning, my wife and I decided to not use chemical birth control. She tried taking a pill for a brief stint, but she didn't like the way it made her feel at all and we both felt like it made her crazy—tweaking her body's natural chemistry was a no-go. She ditched the pill and was gifted a LadyComp, which is a high-end fertility thermometer that tracked her cycle and told her when she'd be most likely to conceive. We said, "Look, kids are in God's timing. This will help us plan, but if it fails we'll be thankful for His timing."

Three kids in three years

When she got pregnant with our first, it was a surprise. The battery was failing on the LadyComp, and since we had tried to get pregnant several times before with no success, she had stopped using it.

When she got pregnant with our second just 7 months later, she had upgraded to the newest LadyComp model, but mom brain shuffled the day's readout, and told her ovulation had occurred the morning before.

When she got pregnant with our third child 6 months after that, there was no explanation but divine intervention. We thought our family was complete at four, and we are so glad we were wrong.

With each new set of double pink lines we trusted God and His timing. We were shocked with each new kid. Like, how are we going to do this and how are we going to afford another kid. Even though we were surprised, we were thankful for what God gave us, and we trusted His timing regardless of how we felt.

We didn't think we we ready, but His timing is better.

During the past five years, I've been in the OR for three brutal C-sections, the first of which was an emergency job due to infection that landed us a five day hospital stay while my wife's white blood cell count came down from the stratosphere.

I've stood and watched two C-sections as the OB pressed and pushed on my wife's abdomen with the ferocity of CPR after a car crash and watched the doc unwrap the umbilical cord from around my son's neck like an instant replay of a rodeo in reverse.

Three times I've heard that life-changing freeze-frame amniotic-fluid-filled gasping first cry that's simultaneously louder than a sonic boom and softer than a whisper.

I've walked with my wife through the month long and then some recovery process from getting a six inch abdominal incision. It's a major surgery with major surgery recovery timelines.

I've changed hundreds of diapers, made enough PB&J's to feed a small city, and learned that I'm not nearly as patient a man as I thought myself to be.

I have thousands of photos of my kids and I can hardly bring myself to delete any of them—even the ones that aren't "great shots"—because they each capture something special about them: a certain smile, a special glint of light in their eyes, an explosive moment of exuberance in fuzzy pixels.

My wife and I have grown closer as we share together the joy of experiencing something we weren't sure we could ever have. We're a team in this and I 100% couldn't do it without her.

Fresh perspective

We both struggled in the early years just accepting the demands of parenting. It demands more of you than you think you have to give. It demands your time, your emotional involvement, and the sacrifice of many things you took for granted pre-kids such as peaceful grocery trips, manageable amounts of laundry, and uninterrupted sleep.

"He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents..." —Malachi 4:6a (NIV)

I had a lot of fear and lots of self-doubt in the early days of parenting. I wasn't sure if I could be a great dad. But slowly, surely, the Lord has helped me step more fully into the role of being a father, and it is an honor, a privilege, and a joy that I couldn't have imagined.

There is nothing better than hearing my kids shout "Dad!" when I come home from work. Or taking a hike in the woods while my daughter leads us with an upside down trail map. Or taking my daughter to get a treat from the local juice shop. Or cutting grass while my oldest boy follows with his toy lawn mower. Or watching my youngest son race around the living room pretending to be Lightning McQueen. Or mixing brownies together while each kid wants to dump in vanilla and sugar while trying to sneak some chocolate chips. Or being able to pray for them and sing a hymn over them at night.

There are thousands upon thousands of moments that have changed and continue to change my life for the better. Having kids has forced me to slow down, to live more at the pace of relationships, to apologize more frequently than I ever have before, and to recognize that each moment is a gift.

New questions

But perhaps the biggest change from being a parent is this: Before I became a dad I thought a lot about what I'd like to do for a career, where I'd like to go, and what I'd like to to be. That's a lot of "I." Now that I'm a dad, I think a lot more about what I need or to do for them. This involves a different set of questions:

• What kind of influence am I having on them?
• Am I providing an emotionally safe home?
• Am I helping them learn who God is, that He loves them, and that He has great plans for them?
• Am I providing the stability that's needed for them to grow up in peace and security?
• How am I helping them discover their God-given talents and giftings?
• What are the important things about life that I want to pass on to them?

That's just a small sampling of the questions I regularly ask myself. They're questions to grow into, not questions that simply beg for an answer. The thing about kids is that they're always changing, always growing. The "answer" to the above questions changes day by day and depends of the kid. They keep you on your toes.

Five years in, I can honestly say that this has been the hardest class in the school of life that I ever enrolled in.

Five years in, I am so thankful for each of their personalities, their quirks and mannerisms, and the ways that they show me what it means to forgive, to show grace, and to be present in the moment.

Five years in, I have never been more excited for what the future holds. Every day is a new surprise, a new word or phrase, a new question, a new wonder to behold.