Hello,
My name is Isobel and I am due to turn 36 this year. I am the mother to seven wonderful children, with one more due any day soon.
I live in Scotland and am now a happy stay at home mother to my great family. However things were not always this way.
I met my husband when I was just thirteen. We were not Christians, neither were our parents. We were happy and everything was good between us. By the time I was fourteen (he was sixteen) we were dating. Going out with an older guy gave me chance to do things that other people my age weren't doing. I was a little reckless and loved the attention I got from dressing and dancing provocatively with my darling.
When I sixteen he moved away for university but we regularly visited each other and so when the time came for me to finish school I was lucky enough to secure a place at a university not far from his. Everything was good for about a year and a half. Then I discovered that I was pregnant. You see, at this time we didn't hold the good Christian values that we now hold.
My world was shattered. The baby was due at around the same time as some very important exams. My now-husband, Alasdair, was determined to stick by me. Which is an admirable thing considering how often it seems that young men abandon their responsibilities these days. However we both knew that we could not financially cope with a baby and we were both very young and had great plans for ourselves.
Alasdair did what he thought was best for us and the baby and we were wed. Nothing fancy, just a simple ceremony with a few close friends and family. And our lives seemed to proceed as they had done with us trying to get on and not think about the timebomb that would soon change our lives.
It was then that a distant cousin came into our lives. She and her husband were a lot older than my husband and I. They had always hoped for children but had been unable to conceive. Helena and Maurice turned out to be our lifesavers.
Helena and I spoke for a long time about whether I could cope with the baby and whether I had considered adoption. I told her that there was no way I could give up my baby. Despite not being saved I knew that I couldn't kill it with abortion, nor just hand it off to someone else.
So Helena and Maurice suggested that we might want to simply let someone else take responsibility for the care and raising of the child for the time being, until we had ourselves settled with jobs and were secure enough to take back the child. They did not expect any money from us and were happy to cover all of the baby's expenses and needs. As long as we were a part of the child's life.
This suited us well, however I see now that we were taking the easy way out. So when little Hannah Kirstin was born at the end of April I went with her to Maurice and Helena's house.
That summer Hannah had two mothers. Helena and I both looked after her, and I learned that I was actually a very good mother. Or I would have been, had I not been so worried about my career. At the end of the summer my course began again and I moved away leaving my little daughter in the care of people who up until a few short months beforehand had been strangers.
The next year progressed much as it had before Hannah was born, with the exception that about once a month we travelled back to see our daughter.
Then in my last year of University my husband came home from work telling me about a new man who had just joined. This man seemed quite strange to my husband, he was an older man with a large family and a stay-at-home wife.
Little did we know that this man would help to change our lives.
The man in question's name was Joseph and he happened to invite us round for dinner one night. I got round to their house to find that I was incredibly underdressed. I was wearing a favourite little short skirt and tight top while his wife was wearing a long dress which looked incredibly feminine and was no where near as clingy as my outfit. She had twelve children who were so polite and were very charming.
That evening we had a great time, the men chatted and Sarah and I chatted. It was as I was bouncing her second youngest (an adorably chubby little baby boy) on my knee that I shared about my own daughter who was living with her 'Aunt' and 'Uncle'. Sarah told me that she would pray for me and that we could be reunited.
I don't know what it was about that statement exactly, but it made me think. After that dinner many more followed. We began to home church with them, and I would go and help Sarah homeschool her brood, help her with washing and other tasks that I could.
It changed the way that I behaved around my husband as well, I asked for his approval of things whereas before I just would have gone on and done them. I changed the way I dressed. I often got the impression that Joseph felt uncomfortable around me, so at first when I went to their house I would dress in more modest clothes. Then Sarah got me involved in sewing and I began to make dresses and other comfortable and feminine clothes.
Our friendship progressed and within a year of first meeting them we were changed people. We had started to live by the Bible.
Meanwhile Hannah was thriving. She was growing into a beautiful little girl who was truly happy where she was living. We were still not financially stable, and she seemed so happy that we did not want to uproot her. So she stayed with Helena and Maurice.
I left University and got a job and Joseph and Sarah moved on and for a while our ways lapsed. Then, when I was 23 I got a shock. I was pregnant. Since Hannah we had been ever so careful, but obviously, God had other plans for us.
I wrote to Sarah and once again she told me that she would pray for me.
And I knew that everything would be alright.
We had been hoping to suggest to Helena and Maurice that we should take Hannah back, but the pregnancy changed that. Surely it wouldn't be fair to bring Hannah into such a chaotic household.
At the same time we made some big decisions. I gave up work and we moved to the countryside. The distance between us and our daughter was difficult but we kept on telling ourselves that in time she would be back in our arms and things would be the way that they should be.
While I had shown a certain aptitude for being a mother when I shared the role with Helena, when Timothy Alan was born I struggled. Alasdair was having to work long hours to support us and I was mostly alone with the baby. It was tiring and difficult and so another year passed before Hannah could come home.
By that time she had started school and was loving it. Again we decided that it would be unfair to bring her home when she was just settling into a new environment. We continued to visit her each month (that was all that we could afford with the distance between us), and whenever they could Helena and Maurice would bring her to visit us.
When Timmy was about two I started to get familiar feelings and a test showed that I was expecting again. By this time we had decided that we shouldn't use contraception. Timothy had been born at home and so the next baby would be as well, we had also decided that when the time came Timothy would be homeschooled. There were no local churches that shared our beliefs so we homechurched as well, life was difficult at times, but generally we were surviving.
Jemima Lindsay was born in the early hours of the morning and the labour itself was blessedly easy. However, once again, the time after her birth was difficult. I struggled to feed her, then, when she was still less than six months old I found out that I was pregnant again.
Isaac Gordon was my saving grace. Just when I had reached the end of my rope I was given this little angel who brought me right back again. His pregnancy was amazing, and after he was born I bonded with him right away. I think that through prayer and our relationship with God the damage that we had caused by giving our first daughter away was slowly being healed.
We hoped at this time that Hannah would come home to us. But she was about 8 by now. She was beginning to develop her own opinions and had far too much knowledge for a child her age should have of the world around her. She liked to visit and see the babies and her younger brother, but she liked it best when we went to see her. She was used to being an only child and going to school.
We knew that it would probably be disruptive to take her out of school mid-year anyway, so we gave her a few months to say goodbye to her friends and began to prepare for her returning to us. But then when she came to stay one night and we prayed with her she prayed that we would let her stay with her Aunt and Uncle. We realise now that we should have continued with our plan, especially as Helena and Maurice were beginning to get older.
But we didn't, and instead decided that we would wait until she was due to start secondary school at about 11/12.
But then then twins came along. Selfishly we put ourselves above what our daughter needed. Susanna Bridget and Rebecca Maisie, identical little bundles of joy. Hannah was fascinated by them, but by this time she had grown up far too quickly for one so young. She struggled to agree with our beliefs and often found excuses for why we shouldn't have her come and stay.
By this time we decided that we should wait for her to make the decision to join the family. We knew that with time she would come back to us. Meanwhile Aaron Niall was born.
Then at the beginning of this year Maurice died suddenly. Hannah and Helena were devastated, and Helena (who is now in her mid-sixties) realised that she was really struggling to cope with Hannah. After many meetings it was decided that Hannah would come back to live with us.
And so in the space of a month I have had my daughter returned to me, and we are expecting our fourth son in the next couple of weeks.
Anyway, I had better go - that laundry isn't going to fold itself.
In Christ,
Isobel
My name is Isobel and I am due to turn 36 this year. I am the mother to seven wonderful children, with one more due any day soon.
I live in Scotland and am now a happy stay at home mother to my great family. However things were not always this way.
I met my husband when I was just thirteen. We were not Christians, neither were our parents. We were happy and everything was good between us. By the time I was fourteen (he was sixteen) we were dating. Going out with an older guy gave me chance to do things that other people my age weren't doing. I was a little reckless and loved the attention I got from dressing and dancing provocatively with my darling.
When I sixteen he moved away for university but we regularly visited each other and so when the time came for me to finish school I was lucky enough to secure a place at a university not far from his. Everything was good for about a year and a half. Then I discovered that I was pregnant. You see, at this time we didn't hold the good Christian values that we now hold.
My world was shattered. The baby was due at around the same time as some very important exams. My now-husband, Alasdair, was determined to stick by me. Which is an admirable thing considering how often it seems that young men abandon their responsibilities these days. However we both knew that we could not financially cope with a baby and we were both very young and had great plans for ourselves.
Alasdair did what he thought was best for us and the baby and we were wed. Nothing fancy, just a simple ceremony with a few close friends and family. And our lives seemed to proceed as they had done with us trying to get on and not think about the timebomb that would soon change our lives.
It was then that a distant cousin came into our lives. She and her husband were a lot older than my husband and I. They had always hoped for children but had been unable to conceive. Helena and Maurice turned out to be our lifesavers.
Helena and I spoke for a long time about whether I could cope with the baby and whether I had considered adoption. I told her that there was no way I could give up my baby. Despite not being saved I knew that I couldn't kill it with abortion, nor just hand it off to someone else.
So Helena and Maurice suggested that we might want to simply let someone else take responsibility for the care and raising of the child for the time being, until we had ourselves settled with jobs and were secure enough to take back the child. They did not expect any money from us and were happy to cover all of the baby's expenses and needs. As long as we were a part of the child's life.
This suited us well, however I see now that we were taking the easy way out. So when little Hannah Kirstin was born at the end of April I went with her to Maurice and Helena's house.
That summer Hannah had two mothers. Helena and I both looked after her, and I learned that I was actually a very good mother. Or I would have been, had I not been so worried about my career. At the end of the summer my course began again and I moved away leaving my little daughter in the care of people who up until a few short months beforehand had been strangers.
The next year progressed much as it had before Hannah was born, with the exception that about once a month we travelled back to see our daughter.
Then in my last year of University my husband came home from work telling me about a new man who had just joined. This man seemed quite strange to my husband, he was an older man with a large family and a stay-at-home wife.
Little did we know that this man would help to change our lives.
The man in question's name was Joseph and he happened to invite us round for dinner one night. I got round to their house to find that I was incredibly underdressed. I was wearing a favourite little short skirt and tight top while his wife was wearing a long dress which looked incredibly feminine and was no where near as clingy as my outfit. She had twelve children who were so polite and were very charming.
That evening we had a great time, the men chatted and Sarah and I chatted. It was as I was bouncing her second youngest (an adorably chubby little baby boy) on my knee that I shared about my own daughter who was living with her 'Aunt' and 'Uncle'. Sarah told me that she would pray for me and that we could be reunited.
I don't know what it was about that statement exactly, but it made me think. After that dinner many more followed. We began to home church with them, and I would go and help Sarah homeschool her brood, help her with washing and other tasks that I could.
It changed the way that I behaved around my husband as well, I asked for his approval of things whereas before I just would have gone on and done them. I changed the way I dressed. I often got the impression that Joseph felt uncomfortable around me, so at first when I went to their house I would dress in more modest clothes. Then Sarah got me involved in sewing and I began to make dresses and other comfortable and feminine clothes.
Our friendship progressed and within a year of first meeting them we were changed people. We had started to live by the Bible.
Meanwhile Hannah was thriving. She was growing into a beautiful little girl who was truly happy where she was living. We were still not financially stable, and she seemed so happy that we did not want to uproot her. So she stayed with Helena and Maurice.
I left University and got a job and Joseph and Sarah moved on and for a while our ways lapsed. Then, when I was 23 I got a shock. I was pregnant. Since Hannah we had been ever so careful, but obviously, God had other plans for us.
I wrote to Sarah and once again she told me that she would pray for me.
And I knew that everything would be alright.
We had been hoping to suggest to Helena and Maurice that we should take Hannah back, but the pregnancy changed that. Surely it wouldn't be fair to bring Hannah into such a chaotic household.
At the same time we made some big decisions. I gave up work and we moved to the countryside. The distance between us and our daughter was difficult but we kept on telling ourselves that in time she would be back in our arms and things would be the way that they should be.
While I had shown a certain aptitude for being a mother when I shared the role with Helena, when Timothy Alan was born I struggled. Alasdair was having to work long hours to support us and I was mostly alone with the baby. It was tiring and difficult and so another year passed before Hannah could come home.
By that time she had started school and was loving it. Again we decided that it would be unfair to bring her home when she was just settling into a new environment. We continued to visit her each month (that was all that we could afford with the distance between us), and whenever they could Helena and Maurice would bring her to visit us.
When Timmy was about two I started to get familiar feelings and a test showed that I was expecting again. By this time we had decided that we shouldn't use contraception. Timothy had been born at home and so the next baby would be as well, we had also decided that when the time came Timothy would be homeschooled. There were no local churches that shared our beliefs so we homechurched as well, life was difficult at times, but generally we were surviving.
Jemima Lindsay was born in the early hours of the morning and the labour itself was blessedly easy. However, once again, the time after her birth was difficult. I struggled to feed her, then, when she was still less than six months old I found out that I was pregnant again.
Isaac Gordon was my saving grace. Just when I had reached the end of my rope I was given this little angel who brought me right back again. His pregnancy was amazing, and after he was born I bonded with him right away. I think that through prayer and our relationship with God the damage that we had caused by giving our first daughter away was slowly being healed.
We hoped at this time that Hannah would come home to us. But she was about 8 by now. She was beginning to develop her own opinions and had far too much knowledge for a child her age should have of the world around her. She liked to visit and see the babies and her younger brother, but she liked it best when we went to see her. She was used to being an only child and going to school.
We knew that it would probably be disruptive to take her out of school mid-year anyway, so we gave her a few months to say goodbye to her friends and began to prepare for her returning to us. But then when she came to stay one night and we prayed with her she prayed that we would let her stay with her Aunt and Uncle. We realise now that we should have continued with our plan, especially as Helena and Maurice were beginning to get older.
But we didn't, and instead decided that we would wait until she was due to start secondary school at about 11/12.
But then then twins came along. Selfishly we put ourselves above what our daughter needed. Susanna Bridget and Rebecca Maisie, identical little bundles of joy. Hannah was fascinated by them, but by this time she had grown up far too quickly for one so young. She struggled to agree with our beliefs and often found excuses for why we shouldn't have her come and stay.
By this time we decided that we should wait for her to make the decision to join the family. We knew that with time she would come back to us. Meanwhile Aaron Niall was born.
Then at the beginning of this year Maurice died suddenly. Hannah and Helena were devastated, and Helena (who is now in her mid-sixties) realised that she was really struggling to cope with Hannah. After many meetings it was decided that Hannah would come back to live with us.
And so in the space of a month I have had my daughter returned to me, and we are expecting our fourth son in the next couple of weeks.
Anyway, I had better go - that laundry isn't going to fold itself.
In Christ,
Isobel
