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To The Parents of More Than Four,

Hello. I hope this letter finds you well. (As well as can be expected, with more than four kids in your house!) We are thrilled to let you know that God added to our family yesterday. We are now the proud parents of four healthy children! The latest is our second daughter, Julia Gayle. She’s beautiful! And very content, as far as 1-day-old infants are concerned. She’s definitely a joy, and every step of her life so far (most of which has been in the womb) has not been taken for granted. At least, not by me.

What I wanted to write to you about was this interesting sensation I am having as we sit in the quietness of this birthing room at our hospital. I am noticing that even though we came in here maintaining our desire to have many more children, both my wife and I, at least at the moment, feel like four is quite enough, thank you. We think about the three rambunctious kids we have at home, and the thought of adding another to that mix is somewhat daunting, now that it is a reality. We are not completely excited at the moment to go through the whole first weeks of a baby’s life again, with one or more feedings in the middle of the night. Sleep can be addictive, you know. And, at some levels, we almost think we don’t want to “chance” breaking our streak of amazingly healthy, awesome babies. I mean, we can’t really keep this up, right? Surely there will be some complications among eight to ten children?

So what motivated you to have more children? Or, to let God give you as many as He chose? Did you ever have a moment where you wondered if (Insert Number Here) was enough? If you did, was there a point where you changed your mind? And overall, how is life with four or more?

We are thrilled, as I said, to welcome our new family member. It’s especially cool that Julia is a girl – a sister for Kirstie. I just thought that perhaps you, with your experience, could help us if indeed we are to press on and allow God to add more to our family in the future. Any advice you could pass along would be wonderful. I imagine at some point down the road (as He has done with most of our kids) God will place a desire in both of our hearts for more children, though that’s harder to see at the moment!

Thanks in advance for your help, and may God continue to bless you in abundance through the families he has given you.