Receiving the Gift

A friend of mine told me recently that she was pregnant - unexpectedly.  Of course I gave her a hug and told her congratulations but I knew she had come to me for something more.  You see, this friend of mine also has five children.  And this friend of mine is also striving to live out her Catholic faith and be open to life.  And this friend of mine knows that her family is going to think she is crazy.  So she came to me because she knew that I would be positive and accepting and offer her prayers and encouragement.  She also came because she knew that I had been there.
    
About three years ago life was sailing smoothly.  Paolo was almost three and Mark and I were feeling pretty comfortable as the parents of four awesome kids.  We were not closing the door on having more, but there was sort of an unspoken agreement that things were good the way they were.  I started my certification to teach NFP for the diocese, life was busy but good.  Then - POW!  Guess what? I'm pregnant.  Here I was ready to tout the amazingness (is that a word?) of NFP and tell all these couples how perfectly planned out my life was.  That was what people wanted to hear at these classes, right?  They want to know that there is a Catholic alternative to birth control.  They want to know that they can have the status quo 2.1 children and go on with their lives.  I wanted to be able to tell them that - but that is the wrong message and God sent me a beautiful baby girl to help me figure that out.

That pregnancy was really a 9 month conversion for me.  You see, I was doubting the Church's teaching on contraception and sterilization.  I was feeling out of control and out of touch with the rest of society.  But if the Church claims to be THE church that Jesus established on earth and if the Church puts forth this beautiful explanation about the human body and life and love- but it is WRONG - well then the whole thing just unravels for me.  If I could not trust the Church on this issue then how could I trust her on anything?  So there I was pregnant and following this line of thinking: I am following Church teaching - I am unexpectedly pregnant - the Church might be wrong about all this because, after all it is HARD - if the the Church is wrong about this, she is probably wrong about a lot of things - how could this be the TRUE Church? - no true Church - no trust in Jesus' words - no trust in God - no God?  This is where I was.

I can't really say at what point in my pregnancy I came fully around to accept, embrace and even fall in love with the Church again but there was one significant event that sort of slapped me into the spiritual reality of what was happening.  I was in Mass listenening to the homily and to this day I could not tell you what the Gospel was that day or what Fr. Florea was preaching on but I heard him say, several times very clearly, "Receive the gift".  And from that day on I decided to do just that.  And what a gift we got.

I have been wanting to do an Ava blog for some time because I have all these hilarious pictures of her putting on shoes - dress up, her sister's, at the store -  and walking around like she owns the place.  Ava has spiced up our lives and I can not imagine our family without her.  After speaking with my friend I felt compelled to get this blog put together to celebrate the gift I received.

Well, it is way too late for me to try to figure out why some of the pictures are sideways :)  There were dozens more pictures that I could have included but really all I need is one look at this amazing child to know that I have received a gift.  I hope and pray that I can help my friend to receive hers too.