And I thought I would be alone...

It's been almost 6 years since I was married and it's often hard to imagine another life without my husband, my daughter, being an adult and the never ending bills, laundry, and cleaning that comes with it. That was not a complaint...just the life of grown-ups! We got married later than most of our friends (at 32 years old) and waited a year to even begin thinking about starting a family. We wanted to enjoy being married first.

Most of my friends already had kids by the time I got married. The oldest turns 18 tomorrow. Most of them are dealing with school age children and are at different stages in their lives with sports, dance, homework, and a variety of other activities that consume your children. Most of them have at least 2 and many of them more. Since we got married much later than them and therefore were going to have children later, I figured that I'd be alone in my pregnancy and child-rearing stages. It would not have been exactly how I would have planned it, but we plan and G-d laughs.

When we struggled to even get to the first stage of the game by getting pregnant, I knew for sure that I'd have my children but all my other friends would have theirs first and we'd be at different places raising our kids. Hard to take. Hard to explain. Tough to manage emotionally even though there was not a lot I could do about it. I even had a friend tell me that it didn't matter so much because I would make new friends who had kids the same age.

BUT I DIDN'T WANT NEW FRIENDS!!! I liked my old friends and the history and time we'd invested. I wanted to be a mom with these friends and not have to start all over.

Rewind to 2 years ago when our daughter arrived on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning. In our group of friends, she was 7 months younger than 2 of our closest friends girls, 4 months older than another friends' daughter, just over a year older than my best friends twins, and 2 years younger than the group of our friends who had boys all at the same time. She fit right in age wise with everyone else and we couldn't have been more delighted! It was great.

Now she is 2 (as are most of the other girls or about to be!) and we are delighted to find ourselves pregnant with a healthy baby due in just over 2 months. When we first found out, we were thrilled to be adding to our family and being able to experience the joy and miracle of pregnancy. It doubled when we found out our dearest friends (who have a daughter 7 months older and a son 2 years older than H) were also expecting and due 9 days before us!!!

I WAS NOT ALONE! I was going to have a baby at the same time as our close friends.
WOO HOO!!

It gets better. . . we have since found out that another set of our friends (whom we do not see enough of) are having a baby boy 6 weeks before us and another good friend (whom we do not see enough of) are having a baby boy 4 weeks after us!! There is another friend of a friend due a few weeks before me and another due 4 months after me. Then we just got the best news that our other friends are having their first baby about 3 months after us and we couldn't be more thrilled for them. Our friends who have a daughter 4 months younger than ours are also having another baby due 4 months after this one of ours! SO our two kids will be about the same age difference!!

That's a total of 8 babies born within 6 months of each other. I am so excited and so thrilled to not have to make new friends. To have families with other kids having kids about the same age. This is my babies hebrew school class. It's the b'nai mitzvah track. Even though I had a plan, G-d's plan was better. Have faith and look what happens.