The Baby Ginn Story- Heart Change

Hello All! In an effort to continue to document not only life in the South but now new life, here is the first edition of the Baby Ginn Story- heart change! 

So the goal through this season of life in seminary was to come to Louisville and for me to work while Greg pursued his degree full time (so we could stay on the 3 year plan and not the 5 or 10 year plan!). This meant that we would try to hold off on having children during the first two years and kind of take it a semester at a time. Despite pressure from Greg (and the seminary since EVERYONE here basically has children! We seriously were some of the longest married people we knew without kids) we waited and kept re-evaluating semester after semester to consider whether or not we would actively pursue trying to have children (I say actively because although we played a role in trying to hold off, ultimately God is sovereign and knowing this we always held pregnancy and the start of a family with an open hand knowing that His plans are greater than ours and that children are indeed a blessing from the Lord). 

At the start of this last year, I knew that the door was opening and the light at the end of a surprisingly fast seminary education was fast approaching. However, I have always given lots of push back to Greg's desire to start a family for two reasons, one being wisdom and the second being selfish. The first reason was wanting to finish school and not let this season drag out when he could push through. Well, now that he only had about 7 classes left, this was no longer a issue. The second reason I was hesitant to start actively pursuing childbearing was ridiculous in retrospect, I really wanted to go to Europe. Europe, really? Yes, I really am that short sighted and selfish. I had always wanted to return to Europe with Greg since he had never been and I absolutely loved it when I last went in college. Plus being a European Studies major didn't hurt and all the church history in Rome and England was so exciting. I had always hoped that when Greg graduated in May 2012 we could take a graduation/5 Year Anniversary trip to Paris, Rome and London so much so that I was banking vacation days and starting to research the trip. So what does this have to do with baby? Well, I know that the first trimester of pregnancy is so unknown and you could feel really bad such that a trip would be more of a curse than a blessing. Then in the third trimester it is just a bad idea to travel so far and push your body when it is already rather uncomfortable. Thus, there would only be a small window during the second trimester to travel, but that would have to be timed just right to fall in May basically after Greg graduated but early enough to score cheap travel.Thus, it seemed better in my mind to just wait until after we went to Europe in May to begin trying to have children. So what happened? God's gracious hand.

Several things conspired to change my heart and mind over the course of the summer. One was being at our new church, Clifton Baptist Church. There we were surrounded by tons of new moms and veteran moms and children of all ages. There was such a wealth of resources and so many people there that were on the same page in terms of many child raising practices that I wanted to glean from such that having children sooner so that I could spend pregnancy and the first year of the baby's life at Clifton was very appealing. The second influence was similar. We were serving fairly regularly in the Clifton nursery and for once I started to feel more comfortable around young children. If anyone knows me they will know I love the ages from about 7-13 because they are so fun, but children younger than school aged have always scared me, ESPECIALLY infants. Not being raised around young children since I didn't grow up in the church I was always terrified to do something wrong and felt extremely incompetent with babies. Nonetheless, in nursery I was changing multiple diapers in one morning, soothing crying babies, getting snotted on constantly and even making some little friends. It was also particularly heart melting to see Greg's great interaction with the children of all ages and just how comfortable he was with them. Concurrently, we also had two close friends here in Louisville who recently had babies in the Spring which helped me get a close up view of pregnancy and life with a newborn. We visited both of them in the hospital the day after their delivery and it was such a precious moment and experience. Then later we followed their lives and they changed from being a duo to experiencing life as a family of three and it was very helpful and eye opening to see the joys, blessings and challenges of real life. 

Greg had graciously given me space and didn't really bring up children in the recent months, but unbeknown to him God was working on my heart. At the end of summer before the school year started to pick up I was commenting to him on how through the aforementioned experiences, I think God was opening my heart to being open to children and convicting me of the selfishness and almost idolatrous nature of my Europe trip. Greg was both incredulous and encouraged and after a few more subsequent conversations we decided to be open to whatever God brought over the next few months. So in September 2011 we moved forward in prayer and faith, excitement and anticipation knowing that God opens and closes the womb at will just as he moves the heart and changes the mind, even of the most stubborn.