Jack's Birth Story | Part One
You see, Jack Paul was never really….. Supposed to be.
Well, according to us. According to the universe, and God, Jack Paul was always supposed to be.
Jack’s birth story begins way before I went into labor. Jack’s story begins before we even knew I was pregnant.
If you read the story of Jack’s naming (Part 1 seen here), then you know. Jack was always Jack. And was always meant to be.
But we were done. I was done. Two was perfect. We were so settled. So content. Had our shiz figured out.
That’s how He likes it, I’ve found. As soon as you think you have it all down pat, well… Here comes Jesus with a surprise or two or three.
Three for us. Apparently three is our number.
I cried. Adam texted the Lamson brothers faster than I could tell him how upset I was.
“I screwed up, guys” was his text.
Meanwhile, we always knew. Jack was never the result of a screw up. He was the result of a God given, divine intervention we never knew we needed.
Three kids. What? How? When?
Doesn’t matter. We were having a third baby, whether we planned it, liked it, or wanted it or not.
“I don’t want to be pregnant.” I want the baby, but without the means of getting there. So did Adam. Babies, to us, are simply divine.
And now, to the story I have never shared publicly. The story that changed our lives, from the moment it began. The story, that is Part One of Jack’s birth story.
Bailey and Kevin are getting married. The only other couple we know that were dating when Adam and I were dating that actually got married. Adam’s sister, Em, the maid of honor.
We had just had Joey. It was one of our first outings after his arrival and it was glorious. Adam and I never really saw each other that night, except for this particular conversation I recall, and he drank whiskey, and I, regrettably, drank tequila.
Stick with me here, people. This story matters. It’s got lots of divine intervention and it’s important.
I drank with Rylee. Let me tell you about Rylee.
Rylee is adorable. Her, Adam and I rodeoed together in high school, and some in college. But Rylee was always the girl that Adam “should have” been with. His team roping partner. The grounded, cute, God fearing blonde that rode badass horses and was always more cunning than me.
Her hair is always cut perfectly short in an a-line and jeans always tight and waist always slim. But her and I, well, always hit it off. Which made it hard to hate her. So I never did. And secretly prayed that Adam would never leave me for her. Which he never did.
No. Instead, she married my high school best friend’s best friend. I’m not even kidding.
I was pregnant with Joey at her wedding. Again. Not kidding.
And then, to top it off you guys, we live next door to her family now. The Lamson brothers. Again. Not kidding.
But back to the tequila. Rylee and I drank tequila. I wore my favorite, to this day, brown and black dress from Coldwater Creek (of all places). See the engagement photos here and you won’t be so surprised as to why it’s my favorite. But come to find out, her mom, Debbie, joined in our tequila induced joy, and Debbie, Adam and I had a conversion that would change our lives.
Debbie and her husband Wayne are not strangers. They have known Adam and me our entire lives. Watched us grow up, fall in love, marry each other, and have Joey. They know us, from the core. And have four kids of their own. Perfect, wonderful, best friends of ours, kids that have made a major impact on our lives since this conversation.
Anyway. Debbie was so excited about Joey. She already had like, six grandchildren at this point. But she was stoked that Adam and I decided to have kids at all.
“You have to have like, three more.”
No way. I wasn’t even back to working out yet, post-pregnancy Joey, and was not about to get pregnant again. Haven’t even slept through the night yet. For Christ’s sakes, I was taking shots of tequila, I was so desperate for a reprieve.
“No, we are really happy with one.”
And here’s where our lives changed.
Debbie explained. We have to have more kids. It’s up to us to repopulate the world with God fearing, moral bearing, good humans. We can’t just have one. We have to have enough to create a generation that will have other like-minded, empathy driven, compassionate and God loving people to marry one day.
I have never been the same since.
She explained that it’s so common to hear that it’s our responsibility to not overpopulate the world. When in fact, it is our responsibility to populate the world with a generation of good humans. Not depopulate the world of bad ones.
Mind. Blown.
I would have gotten pregnant again that night had Adam let me.
You see. Rylee and her brothers (there’s four of them total), have changed us. Between the five of us families, there are 14 kids. And those 14 children spend a lot of time together. And we are raising these little humans to be members of our world we are proud to raise.
And this is where Jack’s story begins.
Because I could only be upset for half an hour before I realized. God didn’t give us a bigger family by accident. No, we were put here on purpose. And our purpose, as much as we might like to fight it, is to raise little humans to come into this world with Christ. To fear Him. Share Him. Love Him. Strive to be like Him. It’s not up to use to depopulate the world of less God loving humans. It’s up to us to populate the world with more God loving humans.
And so a deep breath we took and I touched my bump that was already there, and prayed. Prayed that I could be a mom of three. Prayed that He knew what He was doing with me. And prayed that Debbie, and Rylee, and tequila, would keep their mouths shut and help me raise another baby.
And behold. I just got home from a night at the “Lamson commune.” With 14 kids that wash up before supper and pray before first bites and may or may not hit each other with baseball bats in a too-rough game of wiffle ball and chase cattle in the field.
So here’s to Kevin and Bailey, a sister I never knew I needed, and a mom of four who drunkenly told me and Adam to have babies until we could have babies no more. And I’m so glad we followed her advice.
Bet that wasn’t the birth story you were expecting, was it?