HELP ! My wife is pregnant !

All I can tell you is that you need to pray for God to take this resentment out of you heart. If you bring a child into this world and resent it in this way, you won't be doing your "best to help him grow in love and in a good environment".

 

I'm 38, and my wife wants one more...so I understand much of where you are coming from. At this time we do not have the room or finances to raise another child, so you are greatly blessed right there!

One common theme I see in your post is "we were planning", "we were planning". I"ve come to the painful realization what we plan means nothing. It's what God plans that counts. Much of your concerns are actually quite trivial, if you'll be honest with yourself. What would you do if God told you to sell your home and uproot your family as missionaries in a foreign, hostile contry? Believe me, if those are the "major" concerns you have (not being able to travel seems to be the biggest), Thank God every day for His plans in your life! While it may seem unplanned on your end, it was anything but on God's!

 

Spear, it's ok to have mixed feelings and to say so. Your lives are going to change in many ways (again) with the arrival of a new baby. When we got pregnant with our second dd, I wasn't extremely thrilled at first. It had taken us a long time to conceive our first, so we figured we would try for 6 or 8 months before conceiving again. I wasn't very happy when I found out I was pregnant 2 weeks later! I had planned to lose weight, and dh was thinking about moving out of state for another job. All that got nixed real quick! I was VERY sick during pregnancy and wasn't prepared to dive into it again without getting some dental/medical items taken care of first. But. . .God's plans were not my plans. Looking back I see HIS timing was best even though I didn't think so at the time.

It turned out that I had to have a hysterectomy and dd#2 was the last child we could have. I also had extensive medical problems and surgeries that would have prevented a safe pregnancy had we conceived later.

My dh was a BIG surprise to his folks. They already had a boy and girl and were told NOT to have any more due to health conditions, but God sent dh to them anyway. Of their three kids, he was the only one to go to Bible college, become a pastor, and really care about serving the Lord. He has been a blessing to his parents from day one.

The good thing about having a new little one is that your kids will be a HUGE help with the baby. My girls are 13 and 9 and they are CRAZY about babies right now--and babies love them, too! At this age, their maternal instincts are developing and helping take care of babies is more fun than playing with dolls.

You will also have more "experience" at parenting and that's a big plus, too. Lot of parents are senior citizens now when their kids graduate from high school. Who says you have to have a certain number of years to parent your children? God might take you home today, or he might take you home when you're 100 years old. We can't control that anyway--we're just instructed HOW to raise our children to be godly. The prophet Samuel was taken to the temple at a very young age and he still turned out ok. Just trust the Lord, Spear. He has his hand on your family and he's not going to let you down. Just think, this little one may grow up to be the next great preacher for God, or the next Esther or Elijah!:thumbs:

 

I can't add a whole lot to what the others have said, but:

My dh and I will 53 when our surprise turns 18.

We will be 50 when our sons turn 20.

He is 46 and I will be before our eldest turns 18 this summer.

You are NOT to old to have another baby! *I'm* not to old to have another baby! :laugh: (think how old I'd be if God decided to bless me!)

This baby will be NOTHING like your older two were. Why? Because you didn't have two extra sets of hands to help out when your first two were little. That in itself is a huge blessing!

All those things you listed? They can still be done. You'll just do them differently is all.

Now from experience, once you pass 2 children into 3, its NOTHING. 4? No big deal. By now you are an old hand at handling children. Its like riding a bike, once you learn how, you never forget! :laugh:

 

My wife and I have two---ages 17 & 15--------if my wife and I could go back and rewind the "Pregnant" clock---we would have about 10 more where our two came from!!!!!

Praying for ya, Spear!!!! Relax----it'll be fine!!!

 

I am one of those "You're WHAT!?" babies. Mama was tired and Pa was sick. Together they were sick and tired. I was the last of four kids. My older brother was supposed to be the last of three. Mama told Pa that I was on the way. Pa asked how that could possibly happen. Mama said that if he didn't know by then.... but I digress.

Spear, you are having what we call in the Nawth a knee-jerk reaction. You hear news so surprising it makes your leg shake and twitch. You didn't hear your wife say a new life was coming. All you could hear was the death of the one you had planned. Nice list you had there. Don't be blaming the new ankle biter if none of them come true.

It's not the years in the life. It is the life in the years. My Grandpa on Mama's side died when I was 4 months old. In spite of that I've come to love and admire that man. He was a powerful man of God who loved his family. Had neither the pot nor the window to throw it out of but left behind a rich legacy of Godly character.

 

That aint serious, honey. My mama was almost 30 when she had me and my daddy was almost 60. Yep, a vast age difference. But certainly my dad was an old man.

My dad died about five years ago at the ripe old age of 101.

So, don't knock your age.

 

God gives us children, when He choses, not us, there isn't a child who was not given by God, makes your argument against God

 

Yeah, me too! Mine just turned 18 & 16. My 18 year old daughter will be leaving for college next fall, probably Stanford, I went for a tour there with her and it's a great school, but I'm still just sick about her leaving. Two years after that my son will be leaving. I want another one! I'm not ready for an empty nest yet. I'm only 51, but the wife won't cooperate! :tear:

 

Don't feel ashamed. Every parent thinks these things.

As someone who had five children, ages 17-9, when we had another baby, I can tell you that there is some validity to your concerns, but they're also not nearly as bad as you think. Let me address them point by point:

Why? We have twice as many kids as you and we do it all the time. Now, don't get me wrong. It takes a little logistical creativity and you're not going to have a lot of privacy, but we've found it to be a blast.

We've been to most states in the Union with our kids, many places in Canada, to the Carribean...

Also, you said that your parents are still living. Can't your parents watch your kids for a week?

Such is life. Nobody knows how long their loved ones will live. My dad died when I was eighteen. He was fifty-five. A close friend of mine lost his wife when she was in her late twenties. People die. That's why we measure our time with them in quality, not quantity. Even if your child only knows his grandparents for a short time, that's still better than many children, who don't have grandparents at all.

I wouldn't be so sure. I have a brother and sister who is eleven years older than I am. To this day, my sister is one of my closest friends.

Yep. But look at the bright side: when you get old, your children will be changing yours. So you get the last laugh.

That's the same age my dad was when I was eighteen. He was a terrific dad and had a wonderful and fulfilling life that he shared with us kids.

I've got six kids. Even after all of that, I never got used to my saying, "you'd better build another crib" (and, what's more, by my math, we still have a biological window to have another three, possibly four children). Every time my wife has uttered those magic words, "I'm late", my head has filled with every nightmare scenario you can imagine, from "how am I going to pay for all of this" to "honey, the baby's eating out of the dog's bowl again" to long lines of boys wanting to talk to my daughters to wondering if I'm still the "cool dad" to running out of creative places to spend "husband and wife time" together that our kids don't know about.

Everybody has their pre-conceived ideas about the way things should be and everybody has their life mapped out very clearly. But you know by now that nothing ever goes according to plan.

Life is full of changes and many times, the biggest blessings and the biggest adventures and the biggest joys are often in the very last places we thought they'd be.

If you had talked to me when I was first married and told me I'd be a banker with three kids, living in the suburbs and driving a mini-van, I'd have thought you were nuts.

If you'd talked to me when I was a banker with three kids, living in the suburbs, and driving a mini-van, and told me that I'd be a farmer with six kids, living in the middle of nowhere and driving a thirty year old pick up truck, I'd have said you're nuts.

But here I am and I can't imagine anything better.

A lot of people have their lives changed by death or illness or divorce or some other tragedy. But you're lucky. You're having your life changed by something that's going to be a great source of joy for you.

 

Not sure what a passage about church discipline has to do with anything, but you're welcome.

 

No, just an internet message board. But let's not get off the subject.

 

Well, I for one want to see some baby pics as soon as it's born! Ultrasound pics will work, too!:smilewinkgrin: