For a few months, when my youngest son would name the members of our family of seven, he’d say, “Daddy, Mommy, Bubba, and Yaya.” Bubba is his brother, who is seventeen years older than he is. Yaya was his name for all three of his sisters, who didn’t mind being called the same thing. Whatever their baby brother does, they think it’s the cutest and most clever thing ever.

It’s a peculiar thing—this stage of life I’m in with my children ranging from age nineteen to two. I’m talking about scholarships, majors, and career paths with my oldest two. They both drive and pay for their car insurance with the income they make from their part-time jobs. My next two are old enough to stay home together, just the two of them. They go outside to ride bikes in the street without supervision and make breakfast for the family. All four big kids have camped outside with just peers and siblings for company. Then we have my little buddy who still wears a diaper and is small enough to be carried around everywhere on my hip—or on the hip of one of his big sisters because he does, in fact, have three of them who are all happy to carry him.

When I was pregnant with him, I overheard a friend field the common question asked of us older moms: “So, are you going to have more children?”

She quickly replied, “No! Goodness, could you imagine me having to start all over now?” She went on to name all the freedoms she’d lose and the inconveniences she’d experience.

Truth be told, I couldn’t imagine what adding another baby would be like, even though I was six months pregnant. I had wanted another child for several years. Yet, when I was pregnant and tired and hurting from the changes in my body as another human grew inside of me, I had no idea what it would be like. My children had not needed diapers, sippy cups, pacifiers, or afternoon naps for many years. They helped with chores that kept our house running, could hike several miles on their own feet, and even packed their bags for overnight trips. We had a busy schedule with four active kids. What would it be like starting all over again—the labor and delivery, postpartum sleep deprivation, nursing around the clock, nap schedules, potty training?

When I had a miscarriage a year before I was pregnant with my son, I grieved for months. I didn’t understand why God gave me the pregnancy only to take it so quickly. It was actually my second miscarriage—I had my first after baby three—but the second one hit me harder for some reason. Maybe it was the reality of my advanced maternal age, as the doctor noted in my visit summary. Maybe it was because my history of miscarriage decreased my chances of having a healthy pregnancy. When I miscarried that second time, I had four children who were largely independent and capable. I still wanted another. Start over? Could you imagine?

I couldn’t.

I wanted that baby I miscarried, and I wanted the baby who was born healthy eighteen months after the loss, and I didn’t even have a large enough imagination to know how much richer and fuller and sweeter our lives would be because of him. Baby brother has brought back wonder, affection, and playfulness for all of us. Today, I found him sitting in the lap of his nineteen-year-old brother as they played Legos together. My oldest hasn’t played Legos for years, but he was laughing and playing in the sweetest of manners with his baby brother. My big kids race to get the toddler out of bed when he wakes up because everyone loves his sleepy voice and the things he says when he’s not quite awake. Our hearts were expanded the moment we met him and are still expanding because of him.

In some ways, life has been simplified because of him. I have more of a daily rhythm because he needs it as often as I can possibly give it to him. Naps, meals, and bedtime at regular times help make life easier for him, but we have older children whose lives don’t stop because they have a younger brother. We’ve learned to work out the busyness of life with a little one in tow. And while we may move a little slower and need to pack a few more items for outings, having a toddler around makes everything more fun. The big kids hear him cheering for them during their soccer games. When we’re at the grocery store, and they go to a different aisle, everyone laughs as he beckons them to “Come back!” He reminds us to slow down and look at the flowers, the leaves, the big trucks, the birds. He prompts us to sing and dance and splash in puddles—all things we should do anyway, but we’ve become too busy and important to.

When people hear about the gap between my two youngest children, they assume our fifth baby was a surprise. In some ways, he was. I fully expected to miscarry and was surprised at each doctor’s visit that I hadn’t. But that’s not what they mean. I wanted him before he was conceived, even knowing that many years had passed between children and that I’d be starting all over. Even in my desire, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like with another baby. I couldn’t imagine how, simultaneously, everything would be better with him while it also wrecked me.

The first year depleted me of almost all my belief in myself. I needed help in ways I would have never asked for before he was born. I was humbled, I was spent, and I was unable. When I had nothing left in me, when sleep deprivation and postpartum depression took over, I was at the end of myself and was unable to even imagine how to do the simplest of tasks. 

As a parent of a newborn, you learn all about the state of a helpless person. My son, like all newborns, was unable to do anything to care for himself. He needed me to feed him, change him, even roll him over so he might strengthen different muscles. And there I was, caring for him in his helpless state all day, while beginning to recognize how helpless I was too. Like my little newborn, I was crying out for help and waiting for someone to reach down, pick me up, and make me all better.

Could you imagine having everything your children need, even when they don’t know what that need is? Could you imagine a parent who is limitless, who doesn’t tire, who is always able? Could you imagine the depth of love and grace and mercy that it would take to send your only son to die for your enemies that you might reconcile them to you?

Like newborns, when we cry out to our Heavenly Father, he is ready and waiting to care for us. Even when we’re unable to reach up our arms to be picked up, he’s ready to carry us. When we need his care, he is there, handling all the details. When we don’t know what we need or when sobs are all we have, he is there, ready, and able.

In Psalm 147, we are reminded of God’s care for us. Life in this broken world has a way of battering and beating us down, but our God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground” (147:3–6). God used the good gift of my fifth baby to bless me and reveal more about him and me. He humbled me and lifted me up.

Isn’t this what many of the best gifts in this life do to us? They wreck us so that we might be put back together in ways we couldn’t be without being ruined first. In fact, the best news of all required the death, burial, and resurrection of the very Son of God.

I was an older mom by the time we brought home my youngest. I had experienced the joys and love of motherhood as well as the troubles. I knew what I was getting into. But there’s no imagination strong enough to know how your heart bursts with joy when you have another baby. There’s no preparing for the ways you swell and hurt and ache when you love a child. And there’s no human understanding of how rich and deep the Father’s love is for us.

Could I imagine? No. It’s not possible.