Entering a new season of motherhood

We had four babies in 5 1/2 years — and now I’m learning to settle into what we’ve built.

I’ve wanted to be a mom of four children since I was a little girl. I grew up as the oldest of four kids and loved having a busy home where “the more, the merrier” reigned supreme for afternoons on the trampoline and bustling Christmas mornings.

When my husband Will and I had our first baby in September 2019, a difficult postpartum recovery fueled by an unexpected episiotomy gave me momentary hesitation about how soon we would be interested in having another child. But by the time Teddy was 7 or 8 months old, the baby fever was in full swing and we welcomed our son Peter in April 2021. His early arrival and brief stay in the NICU left me riddled with postpartum anxiety, watching his every move and constantly adding to a list of questions for our pediatrician who repeatedly assured us he was completely healthy and happy. We welcomed our third son in August 2022, an eventful birth of an 8 pound 9 ounce Tucker and the start of a whirlwind season of having three under 3.

I knew my body (and brain) needed a break after these three back-to-back pregnancies where I had also breastfed 2-3 months into each subsequent pregnancy. After nursing Tucker for a year, I wasn’t sure when I would feel ready to try for a fourth, but I knew I needed a few months where my body was truly my own. This was an important stage of delayed postpartum recovery where I got back into strength training, pelvic floor therapy, and a few months of talk therapy too.