Raising Love : Introducing A New Baby to Your Child and Other Parentisms

Chapter 4 - Winding Paths

We made the decision to have a second child in September 2016 and, once we were firmly decided, Jared and I decided to, finally, chat to Jesse about it.

We began by telling him that we had something very important that we wanted to discuss with him and, because he was an important member of the family, we wanted to know what he thought about it. We used small words (he was only 5 and a half at the time) and tried our best to speak to him in a respectful but simple manner.

We asked him what he would think about having a small brother or sister (he understood the word small better that the word little). He just sort of looked at us, a little confused, so we explained further, using examples of our friends and families kids (for example, since he knew his two South African cousins very well, we explained to him that cousin Evan was a big brother to cousin Emma, and she was the small sister. We also used an example of a few other sets of siblings that Jesse knew well).

After a minute or two we could see that he understood, so we asked him what he would think about having his own small brother or sister. He suddenly, FULLY, understood what we were saying because he just went crazy with excitement and started nodding vigorously and clapping his hands.

We explained the following information explicitly to him (and made sure that he understood):

1. The new baby would take time to grow in mommy's tummy, and God knew the perfect time for the baby to be "planted" in mommy's tummy.

(J) I love gardening. 

(K) Oh gosh, I can't believe you said that out loud.

2. The baby would not be a friend for him to play with, immediately. We told him that the baby would be small and cry a lot at first, and need lots of attention and love from all three of us, but that the baby would be a good friend for him once it was more grown up.

3. He and the baby would be a team, because they were, both, our children. And that we would love them the same.

We also told him that we would let him know as soon as Jesus "planted" the baby in mommy's tummy and that he shouldn't think about it too much because the baby wasn't coming anytime soon. He nodded his understanding and that was that.

It took us almost 2 more years to get pregnant, so when we finally found out that we were expecting another baby (in July 2018), we were very excited and rushed to tell Jesse the good news. He was very happy that he was finally on the road to becoming a big brother, but sadly that happiness was short lived, and when that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 5 weeks, we were doubly broken because we had to break the news to Jesse as well.

Sadly Jesse had experienced loss previously (in 2017) when a very dear Pastor friend of ours passed away. That loss taught us, very quickly, how to approach the topic of death with Jesse (who was 6 years old at the time). Jared and I decided that the best approach would be to tell him that the person had gone to be with Jesus. We decided to skip over the details and not show him the body at the funeral and let him just believe that the person was simply taken away to be with Jesus in Heaven.

This enabled us to (at least) know what to say to him about the miscarriage. Summoning up the strength to do it was another matter entirely. I know that many of you may be wondering to yourself, "if their God is so great, how come He couldn't (or didn't) stop the miscarriage".

The answer is: "We don't know". But we chose to still believe that Jesus is God, and that God is Good, because we have seen too much to believe otherwise. We don't have a blind Faith, we have a well-established, "knowing" Faith. We know that the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy, but that God has come to give us abundance of life (John 10:10 paraphrased). I will cover this aspect of our lives in full detail in my next book on our testimony.

So Jared and I sat Jesse down, once we had fully confirmed the miscarriage, and explained to him that the baby had gone to be with Jesus. He was very upset. We explained that we did not know why the baby had been taken away but we knew that God didn't hurt the baby (because God isn't a killer). We also assured him that God had that baby with Him, and that we would see the baby again when we went to Heaven. That made him feel a little better.

After a few months of back and forth debating, we decided to stop the contraceptives, again, in December 2018 and see what happened. In January 2019 we were ecstatic when we got a positive home pregnancy test.

We decided to wait a bit before telling Jesse, because we couldn't bear for him to be disappointed again but, when I started to look pregnant at 8 weeks (the first trimester bloating can be a little crazy)( (J) Don't you mean pregnant glow?  (K) Yes, that too), we decided that we needed to tell our family and friends, before someone looked at me, properly, one day and asked if I was pregnant.

We wanted Jesse to be the first to know so, once again we sat him down and explained that God had planted a baby in mommy's tummy and that he was going to be a big brother. He was very excited.

From that point onwards, we started preparing him to receive the new baby. We reiterated the things we had explained to him all those years ago, when we first discussed the idea of a second baby with him, and we added a few new ones, such as:

1. We reminded him that he would always be our first baby but that mommies and daddies have enough love in their hearts to love, even, 10 or 100 babies equally.

2. We told him that becoming a big brother was a promotion. That he was such a wonderful boy, so he was getting rewarded by becoming a big brother.

3. He really wanted a sister (how we figured that out is another story for another day) but we explained to him that just like God knew that he (Jesse) was the best fit for our family, all those years ago, God also knew what type of baby would be the best fit for us now. We told him that God would give us the baby that would be the most suited to our family.

He understood that well enough, thankfully.

4. We reassured him that more people in our family would mean that there was more love to go around. So, in his mind, this new baby was increasing the love that we already shared as a family (isn't that how it should be?).

5. Jared and I had planned on buying the baby its own toys, since Jesse was still using all of his developmental toys. So we explained to Jesse that he would still have all his own toys, his own bed, etc. but that we would appreciate it if he would share his books, television and the one or two toys that we could no longer find in stock at the stores. He happily and willingly agreed.

We had banked away a terrific idea a few years back (from a friend of ours who had had their second child) and decided to use the idea now that it was relevant to us. We told Jesse that, when we went shopping for diapers and other essentials for the new baby, we would take him to the toy section and he could choose a toy to give the new baby as a "welcome to the family" gift when he met her. We also informed him that the baby had told me what she wanted to give him as a gift, so we had already bought it and he would get it on the day we brought her home.

This really went over splendidly. He chose a beautiful, pink unicorn developmental toy for Zoe and we purchased a beautiful coral fleece space print blanket for him (Jesse just loves bedding). The day we brought Zoe home, we quickly grabbed the blanket from the cupboard and tossed it into her car seat, so when we put her on his lap, she was holding the blanket and he could take it directly from her hand. We also made him give her the unicorn.

He was really excited about the blanket and about meeting his new sister. In those early days, he found her mildly amusing and a little fascinating. These days he finds her very entertaining and their love and bond has just grown in leaps and bounds since then...