Perhaps it is as simple as the difference between the incompleteness of merely holding up two helium balloons and the fullness of a bundle of three.

One, Two and Baby Makes Three

    "Tell me again, Mom. How did that story go?" 13-year-old Rebekah grinned while eating her birthday cake. There was a clever expression prominent in those green eyes, the kind that announces to the world: I got one on you!

     "As I remember it," Rebekah continued, without waiting for my reply, "you went to the Fairfax County Hospital thinking I was going to be born. . . but even though it was your THIRD kid . . . it was a false alarm, and you had to go home - right?"

     Somewhere along the way, our family picked up the habit of taking turns telling stories during someone's birthday dinner about the honoree. But Rebekah has always been masterful at diverting the comic tales away from her, as she did then, by teasing me about the details surrounding her birth.

     Every pregnancy, every birth, every child, has taught me many lessons. Yet there is something particularly remarkable and hard to describe about having a third child. Perhaps it is as simple as the difference between the incompleteness of merely holding up two helium balloons and the fullness of a bundle of three. But when that third child was born, all of a sudden our family felt "full," an assembly, a crowd, a congregation.

     From the onset, becoming a family of five was different. We were no longer eligible for sitting at a restaurant's square table. We were directly at odds with the venerable equation, buy one, then get one free. And there were suddenly more of "them" (children) than there were of "us" (adults).

    It seems that as soon as I mastered the circus like ability of reaching out without looking to grab one child with each hand, I lost it. Also gone was the illusion of control that existed from the balanced ratio of one parent per child. Indeed, if I ever believed that I had things under control as a parent of two children, it became immediately evident that I didn't when No.3 arrived. As she loves to point out, I couldn't even tell when I was really in labor.

     Our third child is a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty whom we named Rebekah Elizabeth. Like the Claude Monet flowers that one day she would name as her favorite piece of art, baby Rebekah made our family bloom with her ever present smile and her lighthearted personality. Yet nothing could have prepared us as young naive parents for the reality that each child's uniqueness manifests itself in a myriad of ways, including innate traits that challenge and stretch us in unforeseen ways.

    Even as an infant, for example, Rebekah had a natural ability to wake up and remain alert, late into the night, a prediction of what all-to-soon became her late night/late morning teenage pattern. And her obviously inherent people skills eventually became manifest through her award winning abilities in competitive acting and debate. Yet for me, the most significant lesson of our growing family has been the reality that there is nothing accidental about the people and/or personalities that make up our family. Each person placed in my life is a relationship sent specifically and deliberately from God for our mutual growth and wholeness. And, in a special way, each of my children has been given to me, to us, because - in a specific and providential way he or she completes and challenges and heals and encourages and shapes me as a person.

     This is no coincidence. In His infinite and eternal vision, God specifically chose me for them, and they for me. The fullness and responsibility implied in this reality is both comforting and daunting. But just as I learned that even as an "experienced" mom I could have false labor in my third pregnancy, I take consolation in knowing that I will make many mistakes along the way and that I will continue to learn new and unpredictable truths with and from each child. This, too, is a sign of God's wisdom and attentive care for each of us.