The Heart of Home

The first days in our house were marked by my baby’s first steps and I remember thinking of how fitting that seemed. I loved the image of my first-born son marking his first footprints on the floor of our new house, instantly making it a home.

A few months later, we celebrated my son’s first birthday even as a tiny new baby grew inside of me. I began to imagine the friendship those two kids would have, especially being so close in age. When we lost our baby twelve weeks later, I was overcome with grief and my soul instantly and desperately longed for another baby to dull the intense pain of our loss. But again, three months after that, we lost another baby.

In the wake of my second miscarriage, my world came crumbling down. My whole life I had dreamed of having a big family. It was my only dream, my identity, and I couldn’t understand why God would not grant this simple wish. I spent night after night, as sleep evaded me, pacing around our home, crying out to a God I wasn’t even sure about anymore.

The footprints I made during that season were marked by heartache and hard questions, but the thing about these walls is they don’t just see the happiness and the laughter, they also see the pain and, just as my son’s footprints turned this house into a home, so did my own in their own way.

The third pregnancy after my first born finally stuck, but after all we had been through I knew I didn’t want to deliver our baby in a hospital. We began planning our first home birth and nine months later, while my two-year-old napped peacefully downstairs, our second son was born. Since that night we have had two more babies at home.

I know for some people this sounds crazy, horrible, or a certain mix of the two, but for us it has been the most perfect experience. There is nothing quite like being in your own home as you go through the pains and joys of labor. I’ll never forget how I could simultaneously labor while listening to my older boys play Legos downstairs. It’s almost too special to put into words the feeling of my three-year-old holding my hand during a contraction or my five-year-old cheering me on. And after the baby is born there is truly nothing like sleeping in my own bed as I relax and recover.

Each time a new baby is born I think about all the things these walls have seen: the footsteps and the laughter, the loss and the sadness, yes, but most of all the new life that has literally been birthed right inside of them.

Lately we’ve been talking more and more about leaving this house and I have had to slowly come to grips with the fact that this may not always be my home. It feels oddly fitting that we might wrap up our season of birthing babies and simultaneously be thinking of moving. It’s almost like a clear shift from one season to the next; one home to another.

I have a vision that someday, long after we move, we will drive past this house. As we pull up to the front I’ll begin to tell my boys about how they were born in the bedroom upstairs and how they used to ride their bikes in circles inside on the long Chicago winter days. I’ll take a moment of silence thinking about this sweet old home of mine and then I’ll slowly drive away with silent tears in my eyes as I remember the million pieces of my heart that live in these walls.

For these are the walls that have seen all of who we have been and are becoming. This sacred floor has been marked by tummy time, first steps, and endless games of chase. This house has watched me become a mama; it’s seen my dreams realized, my identity solidified and, just as our season of birthing and losing babies has made its mark on this home, this home has made its mark on my heart.