She pauses, and when she speaks up you feel her empathy and sadness, the curiosity and respect for your life experience and courage.

Six kids… it seems like a fantasy story. The world thinks it knows everything, and the comments bring an ironic smile to your face.  “Six kids, you must love being pregnant!”

So actually, no. You are violently ill for the first four months and completely worn out and exhausted for the next five.

“Wow, you have such a big family!” Well, if  all those pregnancies had resulted in a baby… yes, ten kids would be a lot. Your six children, in comparison, seem like a very manageable number.

“You’re so lucky!” Well, yes, you guess, you’re lucky that you’re expecting. But when you’re rushed into emergency surgery because of an ectopic pregnancy, which comes on the heels of two early miscarriages and multiple chemical pregnancies, you can’t help but think that you will never hold a baby in your arms again.

You often gaze at your children in wonder, thankful to your very core for their existence and good health. Though the awe you feel around every healthy, full-term  pregnancy has unfortunately been born from experience. When you find out you’ve miscarried at your 20-week scan, you realize how fragile pregnancy truly is.

You don’t know that you would call your medical history lucky per se, though you do try to remind yourself that it’s a Divinely tailored test, given to you for personal growth.

Each successive loss has had its impact on any following pregnancies, turning each into a marathon of breath-holding, waiting for something tragic to happen, while pleading and begging  with all your heart that it won’t. Nine long months of fear… it’s little wonder your babies never make it to their due dates.

But with the sound of those first panicked cries, as your little one makes his entrance to the world, the forgetting begins. All the pain and trauma seep out of your consciousness and the mood-altering drug called  “newborn smell” envelopes you. The tiny perfect baby who is now sleeping  on you makes it all worth it.

You are no longer the innocent 21-year-old girl smiling down at that first positive pregnancy test  in a musty third-story walk-up in Queens. You are a 37-year-old woman, marked with the battle scars of birth.

And you feel the brachah of each and every one.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 876)