10 Reasons Why Pregnancy Bed Rest Is Secretly Awesome

Some people might say it’s too bad that instead of spending the last three weeks of my pregnancy organizing the nursery and re-folding baby clothes, I spent it in the hospital on bedrest.

But it wasn’t all bad. In fact, being on bedrest had some amazingly unexpected perks…

1. Feel like a champ as you overcome your debilitating fear of needles, one stick at a time! Who needs a pregnancy glow when you're sporting black and blue bruises all up and down your arms from getting a new IV port every day?

2. Complimentary arm waxing when they rip off the tape at the old IV site. And those nurses like to use a good square foot of it every time. I knew girls in high school who shaved their arms to achieve that baby-smooth softness. Guess they didn’t know the hospital would do it for you for free.

3. Be on trend with your very own pair of compression boots. These super-fab moon boots not only squeeze and deflate to keep your legs from atrophying and falling off, they also look stunning with a pair of skinny jeans! The sweaty plastic interior and the way they give you restless leg syndrome are small prices to pay for fashion.

4. Having your vitals taken several times a day, every day, becomes a game! Guessing if your temperature is still 98.6 degrees never gets old, and the blood pressure cuff gives you a nice little hug every time. You won’t even mind it when a nurse wakes you up at 3:30 a.m. for this crucial medical examination.

5. If you didn’t get enough of having your stomach slathered with goop during routine ultrasounds, you’ll love the constant monitoring they do in the hospital! Round the clock, you’ll wear a monitor strapped around your belly, listening to the “woom, woom” sound of your unborn baby’s heartbeat. You may not need 24/7 monitoring after the first few days, but don’t worry. You’re still guaranteed a few 20-minute sessions each day.

6. Peeing in a bedpan makes you feel like the ultimate rebel! You’re lying in bed peeing, for goodness’ sakes! You know those dreams where you wet the bed and wake up frantically wondering if you actually did? This is your time to turn dreams into reality.

7. Cross your fingers and you might be granted “bathroom privileges!” Try not to leap for joy as you make your first excursion to the toilet ten feet away from your bed (after all, you’re still on bed rest.) If your body continues to behave, you could even make this a regular thing! Of course, one iffy-looking readout on the monitor and it’s right back to your old friends Bedpan and Sponge Bath.

8. Take your pregnancy insomnia to the next level! Since you’ve been lying in bed doing nothing all day, you probably don’t feel like sleeping, anyway. But just in case, there are also weird lights from the equipment in the room, unfamiliar noises in the hallways, nurses waking you up each time the monitor slides off your ginormous belly, and an IV port digging into your arm whenever you move.

9. Write with authenticity a novel narrated by a crazed shut-in! Within a week you’ll be talking to yourself, interrogating visitors for news of the outside world, and possibly even grabbing them by the collar and burying your face in their shirt to smell the outdoors.

10. Someday, you’ll be off bed rest and back to your normal life at home — this time with an increased appreciation for what it feels like to live without a sore butt, sore back, and sore everything else from lying motionless in bed all day long.

Ironically, when you go home with your newborn you’ll be so exhausted that all you’ll want to do is lie in bed... but you won’t be able to. Enjoy it while you can, ladies!

© 2015 Jenny Evans, as first published on Scary Mommy

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My Miscarriages Are the Reason I'm Announcing My Pregnancy Early

In case you missed my big announcement on Friday, I'm pregnant with baby #6!

I won't go into details (you're welcome,) but because my body and my cycle are super-weird I'm not sure how far along I am. My guess is 9 weeks, but I hope to know more after an ultrasound on Thursday.

In the past, Phillip and I have always waited to announce our pregnancies until much later. After all, goes the standard wisdom, the risk of miscarriage is highest during the first 12 weeks, and you wouldn't want to announce a pregnancy and then lose it, would you?

I don't even know where I first heard the advice to keep quiet until the second trimester "just in case," but all I know is that I took it.

And then "just in case" happened, three times.

Because we'd so zealously guarded the secret that we were pregnant, when we had those early miscarriages between 6 and 10 weeks, no one knew. Just Phillip and I. Not even our own children knew. 

Why I'd ever believed that keeping the 12-week rule would safeguard me, I really don't know.

I still endured the grueling physical process of miscarriage and struggled with the messy emotions of grief, sadness, frustration, and anger. I just did it alone.

In the days and weeks afterward, friends at church smiled and chatted with me in the hallways like they always did. Why wouldn't they? The other parents at my kids' schools were cordial as ever. Life went on just like always. 

Not a single soul so much as acknowledged that we'd just lost a baby, because no one knew there'd been a baby to lose.

We did, eventually, tell a handful of people — namely our parents and the people who watched our older kids while I went to miscarriage-related doctor's appointments.

But sharing the news afterward, saying "I was pregnant but now I'm not," wasn't helpful.

It was passed, gone, something that had already happened. Whoever I was talking to learned of my pregnancy and my miscarriage in the same breath. No one was shocked or disappointed at the loss; it was just presented to them as a fact.

For the most part, I'd kept my pregnancy a secret and I felt so awkward about opening up after the fact, I kept my miscarriages a secret, too.

I wish I'd told someone, at least my family and close friends, as soon as I spotted two pink lines on my pregnancy test. I wished a friend could've asked me in those dark days after a loss, "How's the pregnancy going?" so that I could share what happened with someone.

Instead, I swallowed my feelings when I knew I was going to be interacting with someone that day so I could keep acting normal.

Waiting to announce our pregnancy hadn't made things better when "just in case" happened. It actually had made them worse.

It took me years to come to terms with my miscarriages, and I think the silence was part of the problem.

It was only after I "came clean" with my children who were old enough to understand, and started talking about it here on my blog, that I began to feel like I was finally processing my emotions instead of just shoving them down to wherever you shove feelings you're avoiding.

Following the 12-week rule had been, for me at least, damaging. In fact, I'm not sure it's doing anyone any favors.

If it weren't so common to keep quiet about a pregnancy until after the risk of losing it has passed, maybe my first miscarriage in particular wouldn't have been such an exquisitely painful introduction to how statistically common pregnancy loss is.

At the time, I literally knew no one who'd had a miscarriage — none that they'd ever talked about, anyway. 

I'm encouraged by the openness I've been seeing on the Internet about pregnancy loss lately. I hope the stigma is disappearing. It's okay that some women prefer to keep their miscarriages private — but it's a problem when they feel like they have to.

I hope that going forward, more women who lose a pregnancy in the first trimester know they're not alone.

I hope that they already know friends and family members who've been there before, so they don't have to be the first ones to speak up in order to get some support.

So I'm sharing the news of our pregnancy early, not in spite of the risk of miscarriage before 12 weeks, but because of it. 

The only times the 12-week rule worked for us was when the pregnancies were healthy ones. For the sake of those pregnancies that weren't, I wish we would've told people sooner.

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Happy First Birthday, Unremarkable Files

Can you believe that Unremarkable Files is one year old today?

Even though I'm excited, I have to tell you that I don't really know how to celebrate a blog's first birthday. I mean, with a kid you can just give them a cardboard box and let them push all the buttons on the elevator and it'll be pretty much the best birthday ever. But a blog?

So I decided to let my kids handle it.

My 3-year-old was adamant that we needed a cake. She's a smart girl, because even she knows that blogs can't eat cake and the leftovers would go to her.

This is what she chose at the store:

Special edition watermelon-flavored cake mix... this could get weird.

Actually it tasted like regular cake, smelled like a watermelon Jolly Rancher (so totally natural,) and had little black sugar crystals that were supposed to look like little watermelon seeds.

Greasing the pans while the preschooler was trying to gnaw the bag of cake mix open with her teeth.

Really upset that the box warned "DO NOT EAT RAW CAKE BATTER." We ate it, anyway.

The toddler helped by fetching multiple random colanders and breaking the grid off the windows.

Then it was time to frost the cake. Each kid got a turn to do it completely their way, even though I had to ball up a rag and shove it in my mouth to keep from offering helpful hints or just cleaning all the crumbs off the knife first.

Don't think I don't see that hunk of cake you broke off while you were busy "frosting."

There were 128 sprinkles in the package. I know because she put each one on individually.

Happy Birthday to you, Unremarkable Files.

Okay, so maybe my blog's first birthday cake didn't turn out so beautiful. I guess that's kind of what you get when you're the sixth kid in the family. We tried.

At least it tasted good.

I'm sure the kids are all planning which of the inanimate objects around our house can have a birthday next.

Then it occurred to me that I wasn't sure any of them really knew what a blog even is. It was quite possible they were all just thinking, "Okay, mom's obviously crazy but since we get cake we'd better keep our mouths shut."

I decided to interview each of the older 4 kids separately to find out what they knew.

Q: What's the name of my blog?

3-year-old: Blog.
7-year-old: I didn't know they could have names.
9-year-old: Ummm ...Unremarkable Files?
11-year-old: Unremarkable Files.

I thought it was interesting that both of the older kids put the emphasis on the word "Files." How do you say it, readers?

Q: Have you ever read my blog? Do you want to?

3-year-old: No.
Me: Why not?
3-year-old: Because it's boring.

In retrospect, there are probably more mature ways to respond to this than "Yeah, well you're boring!"

9-year-old: If I was supposed to I wouldn't mind, but if I wasn't supposed to, I wouldn't.

11-year-old: Yes.
Me: Did you like it?
11-year-old: Yeah.
Me: Why?
11-year-old: Because it's funny in a realistic way. Or realistic in a funny way. Whatever.

Q: Do you know what a blog is?

3-year-old: Computer.
7-year-old: A thing people can look at and I think you can put pictures and video on it.
9-year-old: Not really...
11-year-old: A personal website about something that interests you.

Q: Do you know what my blog is about?

3-year-old: [totally blank stare]
7-year-old: Our family, but mostly you.
9-year-old: Unremarkable stuff?
11-year-old: Being a mom and having a family and stuff?

Q: Do you think I'm funny? 

3-year-old: YES!!! When you do whalefoots with me! Can you take a picture of doing a whalefoot to me?

Not sure why we call this a 'whalefoot.' It came from some friends of ours.

7-year-old: You? Most of the time. And you're funny-looking.
9-year-old: Sometimes, when you're being weird. [starts laughing] And when you dance. [At this point she was laughing so uncontrollably we had to stop the interview so she could get ahold of herself]
11-year-old: Including looks?

I'll have you note that these interviews were done separately and they couldn't hear each other's answers.

Q: Do you have any ideas for my blog?

3-year-old: Maybe take a picture of me with my pink baby?

There, child. Now my blog is perfect.

7-year-old: [giggling] You should've taken a video of the baby ripping the hairs off the toilet bowl brush! Or flushing the toilet so many times he broke it.

I assure you, if I'd been standing there with a camera in my hand I wouldn't have just pressed record and watched the baby decimate the toilet bowl brush with his bare hands or break the toilet...

9-year-old: [laughing] You could write about how when Dad reads us the bedtime story he always takes out random nouns and says "your momma's underpants" instead.

That's right, we like to keep it classy here in the Evans household.

11-year-old: Tell everyone, "All my kids are so awesome, especially my oldest."
Me: How's that?
11-year-old: Well for one it's part of my title, and two, I'm an award-winning—
Me: What awards?
11-year-old: The spelling bee, and—
Me: Wait, you won a spelling bee?
11-year-old: Yeah, in my class. For "correlation."
Me: What else?
11-year-old: Runner-up in the geography bee, and... [running out of steam] ...lots of participation awards...? [starts laughing]

Scraping the bottom of the prize ribbon barrel.

Lastly, I asked my 3-year-old to take pictures for this post.

I thought she'd be thrilled since she steals my camera and takes blurry upside-down selfies and pictures of the toilet "for my blog" on a regular basis, but when I asked her to do it she was bound by the Preschooler's Code to refuse on the grounds that she was too tired, too busy, and didn't want to.

But she eventually decided that she could be bothered to take at least a few. So here, my dear readers, is what my 3-year-old thought was important to show you on my blog's first birthday.

Yes, that last one is the contents of the trash can. Sorry about that.

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7 Quick Takes about a Not-So-Elaborate Announcement, How to Be a Hillbilly, and the Real Reason I'm Always Late

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! Summing up the last 7 days in 7 quick takes. How was your week?

—1—

Big news, guys. Here's the email I sent Phillip at work to tell him about it:

World's smallest pregnancy test, bought at Dollar Tree.
Readers on my blog's Facebook page assured me they were accurate. Thanks, guys!

We're expecting #6! 

(Phillip did email me back to say that "it was upside-down," which actually isn't true. I'm not sure why the control stripe on top is fainter than the test stripe below it. I guess I am just SUPER pregnant.)

—2—

As I typed Phillip's email, all the elaborate "pregnancy reveal" ideas floating around Pinterest and the Internet in general went through my head.

It made me laugh because Phillip is so chill about everything that putting effort into any type of reveal for him would be a hilarious waste of time.

I could take him out for dinner and secretly hire the waitstaff to perform a musical number I'd written and choreographed months beforehand that ended with an explosion of confetti and the words "WE'RE PREGNANT!" spelled out in flatware from the kitchen, and he'd be like, "That's great! I think I'll have the grilled salmon."

Engineers are stable folk, and that's one reason I love Phillip. He keeps me grounded.

—3—

My 6th grader has always been artistically-minded, and lately in school they've been talking about something called "foreshortening." It makes a flat drawing look 3-D from a certain perspective.

Here are some cool examples:


Inspired, she went outside with some sidewalk chalk and made this cool "splash" in the driveway.

I think she's on her way.

—4—

Phillip is always experimenting in the kitchen and going on food jags of one kind or another. Lately he's been mixing up some kind of lemonade-like drink every night after the kids go to bed and sipping it as he works overtime on engineer-y stuff.

I give him a hard time about it because he shakes it all up in a quart-sized mason jar and drinks it right out of the jar. I call it his hillbilly juice.

Yeee-hawww!

—5—

What would you say if your preschooler came to you with this and asked, "Do you know what this picture is?"

Preschool pictionary: the game where nobody ever wins.

Usually I sidestep the question with a Mr. Rogers-like statement: "It looks like you worked hard on this. Can you tell me about it?"

But no, she wanted me to guess what it was.

"Okay..." I said, exhaling for a long time. "A caterpillar? A laser gun? A block of charming San Francisco row houses with a big satellite dish at the end?"

All wrong.

"What is it, then?"

"I don't know," she replied, and skipped away.

She set me up!

—6—

I'm always late, and it's partly a conscious decision. I actually dread getting somewhere early and then having time to kill, especially when I've got little kids in tow.

Except every now and then when I decide, "Let's go early so we're not rushed." Like Thursday at the doctor. My toddler, preschooler, and I arrived nearly 25 minutes early!

I sauntered up to the receptionist's desk, feeling excessively proud of myself, and was notified that the doctor was running a half-hour behind.

The universe is reinforcing my bad behavior.

Over the next 50 minutes, my toddler and preschooler and I took walks in the hallway. We read books, made commentary on what was outside the window, and ate snacks out of my purse.

All the time I was desperately hoping that no one in the waiting room would say THE WORST THING anyone can possibly say in that situation.

And then some well-meaning soul went ahead and did it: "Your kids are being so good!"

Practically before she could finish her sentence, my son threw himself on the floor like he was at a Pentecostal revival, kicked and screamed his way under a chair, and had a convulsive fit over a water bottle.

This is why I'm never, ever early.

—7—

As I write this, the kids are repeatedly asking Siri, "What does the fox say?" and laughing at her answers.

What did my children do before they could badger an inanimate being with the same nonsense question over and over?

Oh that's right, they badgered me. Well, maybe technology isn't so bad after all.

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Why I've Never Bought School Pictures... And I Never Will

My oldest daughter brought home a school picture order form on Friday, which I immediately tossed in the garbage without looking at it.

To make sense of this post, you need to know that I'm frugal. Really frugal. I've worn shoes until they literally disintegrated and I found myself walking down the street barefoot. I'll put items in my cart at the dollar store and then end up putting them back because we don't really need them. At the dollar store.

So please understand that if you send my child home with an order form where the "Most Popular" package costs $82.10, I will swiftly burn it and not look back.

I love pictures of my kids. But school pictures, let's face it, are only slightly prettier to look at than mug shots.

The kids have usually got weird hair from running around at recess or a smudge of jelly on their lip left over from lunch, or a funky expression on their face. The pose is exactly the same, year after year.

And if you've got more than one child (in my case I have 6!) to buy pictures for, good luck to you and the second mortgage you'll be taking out to pay for them.

So I came up with a great money-saving solution that allows me to have current photos of my kids on the walls and not overpay.

Every year on the kids' birthdays, I make an appointment at a department store photo studio and get their pictures done there. I use J.C. Penney, but there are also studios at Sears, Target, and Walmart.

Once you sign up on their mailing list, they'll regularly send you coupons several times per year. I come home with a boatload of prints for under $40 every time, because I never go without a coupon. (The important part here is that you read the fine print and don't allow yourself to get pressured into buying fancy photo enhancement options or overpriced packages that aren't covered by the coupon.)

I love the results: I can get a variety of poses and if I like, a few shots of the kids together. One year, my daughter even brought her violin for pictures.

They're like pictures I would take at home, only better because the cameras are nicer than my phone and the photo studio doesn't have balled-up socks and abandoned bowls of raisins in the background.

If you like shelling out $296.50 for forty-eight identical head shots before you've even seen what they look like, then more power to you. Buy the school pictures. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

It's nothing personal; I just don't have a need for a dozen copies of identical mug shots of my daughter looking like, well, like she's tired of waiting in line behind 50 other kids for her turn all morning.

Our walls are hung with professional portraits of the kids, except with this money-saving alternative the pictures in my frames are better quality and cost a fraction of the "Best Value" packages the school tries to hawk to me every year.

So it's safe to say I will never buy school portraits, and I'm 100% okay with that.

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If I Were Captain Jack Sparrow

You know how some movies are just your "comfortable" movies? One of mine would be Pirates of the Carribbean. (Except all the ones after the first one — I prefer to forget those were ever made.)

I can't help but think things'd be different around here if I were Captain Jack Sparrow. For instance:

• Being loopy and incoherent would be endearing and funny, not embarrassing (though in my case, it would be from sleep deprivation rather than excessive rum-drinking.)
• I could get away with not brushing my hair. For like, a really long time. And somehow the look would still work for me.
• I'd be capable of fancy footwork and near-impossible acrobatic feats, instead of tripping over my kids' shoes in the hallway and almost dislocating my shoulder.
• I could enter the scene with my own majestic theme music (see video.)

• I could rock a headscarf.
• I'd finally stop being surprised when I get out of the shower to find that my crew has been busy pillaging and plundering the whole time.
• I wouldn't get bent out of shape when my stuff got ruined, house got messy, ship got sunk, etc.
• My eyeliner would always be done, no matter what.
• I could respond calmly to the most catastrophic event or discovery with a nonchalant, "That's interesting."
• I would pretty much always be savvy.

Enjoy the rest of your day — it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day, you know! 

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7 Quick Takes about Kindly Forest Creatures, Finding a Balanced Meal in the Sofa, and Elvis in the Jurassic Period

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

My daughter really wanted me to take her to this indoor butterfly garden near us, so the two of us went as a special date.

I don't know if it was the color of my shirt or if I was just totally Zen that day, but butterflies landed on me not once, not twice, but 7 times. My daughter: none. I last went there a few years ago and it never happened to me then, either.

A really excitable Italian lady kept saying, "Ohhhhhh! Move a-this way! I take-a your picture!" and calling her family members over to see the butterflies on me.

Here's one on my back:

And one on my head:

Don't worry, that vein on my forehead didn't explode. I don't know why it looks like that.

And on my shoulder:

Taken by the nice Italian lady.

And on my hands:

Contemplating singing to it, so it will come clean up my house with its forest friends.

—2—

We have an unspoken understanding in our family that we do not buy snacks when we're out. If I happen to buy the kids a treat when we go to the grocery store they act like they've won the lottery (because they practically have.)

Sadly, a can of worms was opened at my oldest daughter's soccer game on Saturday when she forgot her water bottle and we bought her a Dasani at the concession stand on the field.

Then the baby lunged at it like he was dying of thirst so we had to buy one for him, too, and then the wheels in my other children's heads started turning as they realized the concession stand also had popsicles, and donuts, and Pop-Tarts, and candy bars...

I'm scared for the rest of this season, frankly.

—3—

My 3-year-old started a little rotating home preschool this week, and it was my week to host at my house. So of course I had to clean up the dump first.

Of course the kids (my eye is on the 3-year-old) had done me the courtesy of smearing lip gloss all over the bathroom the night before so it looked like someone had died in there.

Judging by the handles on the faucets, I'd say that the culprit was right-handed, which actually does rule out one person in the house, at least.

—4—

You know that saying, "a messy child is a happy child?" Well, we like to apply that to our van. And let me tell you, it is HAPPY.

I noticed the other day that my kids were drawing funny pictures on the dusty windows, but didn't get around to really looking at them until just now.

One of the first things you'd learn if you lived in our house is that 'HP' stands for Harry Potter.

This evil-looking man is saying "MWAHAHAHA" and has no nose, meaning that he's probably Voldemort.

Not sure what to say about this guy. Snape, maybe? He had a mustache and goatee in the books.

Whatever happened to writing plain old "Wash Me" on the back windshield?

—5—

This goes to show that you never know what you're going to find in the couch cushions.

If you dare to remove the cushions or stick your hand down between them, watch out. It's like a wormhole to an alternate universe. You could find anything in there.

I'm thinking I should make sure it's not becoming my preschooler's default place to store her half-eaten snacks, actually.

—6—

I'm beginning to realize that kids have literally no concept of time. My 9-year-old was telling the 3-year-old about Elvis Presley, and here was the conversation:

9-year-old: He was a famous singer, but he's not anymore.
3-year-old: Why not?
9-year-old: He lived a long time ago.
3-year-old: Like when the dinosaurs were alive?

She must think I'm a million years old. Also that snack time in 20 minutes is forever.

—7—

Lately I've been obsessed with spaghetti squash pizza. We got the idea from here, but you don't really need a recipe. It's pizza toppings on top of spaghetti squash halves.

I'm in love with it. I ate it for dinner last night, and was slightly hungry after putting the kids to bed so I thought, "I'll just take a few satisfying forkfuls of the leftovers." Three bites in I knew I was lying to myself and demolished the entire thing.

I regret nothing.

I've been having fun finding this and other recipes using the "search by ingredient" feature on Yummly. I affectionately refer to this feature as "okay, we are three days overdue for a trip to the store and all we have in the house is 2 potatoes, some macaroni noodles, and a bag of frozen peas... can we do something with that??"


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Why Having (a Lot of) Siblings Is Great for Kids

"You're crazy!"

"I don't know how you do it."

"God bless you, lady!"

As a mother of 5, I've pretty much heard it all. Life is busy and crazy in a house full of 7 people, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

And neither would my kids.

I've written several posts about why I love having a big family, and even a post about how my kids still get enough love even though my time is divided by five. But I haven't written about what my kids have to say, or what they get out of the deal.\

1. Never a Dull Moment

"What's it like having older sisters?" I once overhead my oldest asking one of her younger brothers as they brushed their teeth.

"It's like real life," he answered in his 6-year-old wisdom. Then he clarified, "You know, like, lots of persons to play with me."

And that pretty much sums it up, from their point of view. Do they get annoyed with each other? Fight? Of course. But not nearly as much as they play. They would be bored to death without each other.

They don't know it, but the time they spend together translates into the world's most intensive course in sharing, compromising, and getting along with people who share your space, and one day I think they'll all make better roommates, spouses, coworkers, and parents because of it.

2. Allllllllllllll the Love

When my fourth child was a baby, I used to attempt snuggling with her in the rocking chair after she woke up from her naps, but I was never very successful.

She'd only humor me for a minute before squirming out of my arms and crawling down the hall to look for her siblings. 

I knew exactly when she found them because the house would erupt in a loud chorus of "You're awake!" In response, the baby would start emitting happy squeals so that practically only dogs can hear.

The way they express their love changes a little as they grow. The older kids are more likely to pounce on each other and start talking about Minecraft (ugh) the moment they're home from school, but the love stays the same.

3. Learning the Fine Art of Compassion

When you have siblings of both genders and a wide variety of ages and abilities, you quickly learn that everyone is different.

I love it when the kids genuinely compliment one of their younger siblings scribbling their first few letters or building a simple jet out of Legos. They understand that everyone deserves congratulations for doing their best, even if it's not the best.

Was praised more highly than most Rembrandts.

It goes both ways, too. The older kids feel important because their little siblings look up to them. The little ones thrive on compliments from their cool, older siblings. And everyone learns that 'love' equals 'help.'

Partly out of necessity, members of big families know that pitching in and doing things for others is just a part of life. Not coming from a big family myself (it's just me and my brother,) I was always paranoid about asking the kids to help each other, fearing they'd feel like "little parents" forced to raise their siblings.

But in my experience, that hasn't been the problem I'd thought it would be. I do ask them to help pour the milk for their sister sometimes, but more often it's them asking, "Can I get the baby out of the crib?" (or, more heart-warming, "Can I share my Skittles with my sisters?") and I'm the one stammering, "Uh, sure... but you don't have to!"

4. The Best Is Yet to Come

Although I see great things happening right now in our big family while my kids are still young, I don't think the best part will really emerge until after they're grown.

I think about our family reunions and how much fun they'll be. I think of the all the cousin friendships as they start to have kids of their own. And mostly, I think of how awesome it'll be for them to have each other as adult friends.

Phillip is one of 7 children, and I've seen how it works.

When my sister-in-law had some pretty severe health problems, the family network was there for her. All the siblings are scattered in different states, but a flurry of emails kept everybody updated and praying together for her. People took turns doing what they could to help. One sister was in a position where she could go live with her for a while, and she did. There were many, many hands making her burden lighter.

Everything Is a Trade-off

Having a big family, like pretty much any other choice you make as a parent, involves trade-offs.

Family vacations will mostly mean camping and a road trip instead of a flight to an all-inclusive resort in Europe. Life is more hectic, and we probably spend more of our quality time together as a whole family (or at least in groups of 3 or 4) than we do one-on-one.

Once they've grown up, will my children wish they'd had it differently? I don't have a crystal ball so I can't tell you for sure.

But I do know that if we'd had fewer children, that would've been a trade-off, too.

We'd have more money and time,  but they'd be missing the playmates. They'd be missing the sheer number of people to love and all the chances to learn how to live with others. And when they grew up, they'd be missing the network of family we're building right now.

We realize the trade-offs we made by having a big family. And all in all, I'm pretty sure we traded up.

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