I pride myself on being snarky and sarcastic. One of the proudest moments of my life was finding out that I had been selected as “Most Sarcastic” in my high school graduating class (I decline to mention the year in the event that it may incriminate me). Those who know me only through my blog or my online life may find those qualities a little off-putting. Or believe that I’m not grateful for all I have been given.

They would be wrong.

My vision for this blog is to make people laugh and point out matters of parenting common sense.

This time, I would rather get a little more personal and explain how I came to be a parent, or in other words, how R&B supergroup Earth, Wind & Fire saved my life.

Seven years ago, my husband and I were just another couple struggling with infertility. We were not the first and unfortunately, not the last, to face the problem of wanting kids and failing. No matter how many Barry White CD’s we played, how many romantic getaways we went on or bottles of wine we drank by candlelight, pregnancy the “old-fashioned” way remained elusive.

We found ourselves the best fertility doctor in our area and put ourselves into her capable hands. After trying out all kinds of different hormone cocktails, we settled on injectable therapy and thus began the trust exercise of letting the man I love jab me in the butt with a needle every day. Good times, man. Good times.

When we finally got pregnant, we were ecstatic. A month later, when we found out that we were pregnant with sextuplets, we were, well, I still can’t find the right word to explain what we were. Stunned, gobsmacked, scared, exhilarated, nervous, nauseous, rapturous, disbelieving, thankful, terrified, tearful – pick up a thesaurus and we were pretty much every emotion in there.

We lost one baby shortly after that, and I carried quintuplets for 5 months. Then, on September 18, 2004, my water broke and on Tuesday, September 21, I gave birth to Samantha Ruth, Anthony Gerard, Dominic Vincent, Araina Dolores and Dante Lynch. They were beautiful and perfect and simply not ready for this world.

I spent weeks in a haze of grief and depression. I was angry at God, and felt abandoned by Him. I was a faithful Catholic and couldn’t figure out why He had blessed me with such an extraordinary pregnancy, only to take it away.

(Hold on . . . I’m getting to the part about how Earth, Wind & Fire saved my life. I promise.)

Weeks went by, and a friend’s mother-in-law passed away. I was still not pleased with God, but being the good Catholic girl that I was, I still wanted to have a Mass said for my friend’s mother-in-law. I went to my church and asked them for the next available date to have the Mass said. It wasn’t until I got in the car that I realized that the date they gave me would have been the due date for the quintuplets.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I felt selfish about that date, and didn’t know whether or not I wanted to share that date with any other event. I called my best friend and asked her what she thought. Was I being unreasonable? Was I wrong to want to keep that date to myself? She told me that she understood how I felt, that I could change the date, but to wait a little while before I made a decision. God would show me what He wanted me to do.

I hung up the phone with her and turned the radio on. The song? “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. This has always been one of my favorite songs. It was on the must play list at my wedding, it’s great to dance to and just hearing it has always made me smile. But it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized what the first line of the song was:

Do you remember the 21^st night of September?

September 21 was the day that my babies were born. I guess God was giving me my sign right there. Reminding me that He was still there. Reassuring me that He was still there, grieving with me for my babies. And that when I was ready to stop being angry, He would be there.

Now if the Earth, Wind & Fire references ended here, I think that would be a pretty good story. But they don’t.

When I finally was ready to try again to get pregnant, the song was on in my doctor’s office the day of my first appointment.

The song was on the radio the day of my first ultrasound, when we found out we were having twins.

I heard the song in the grocery store the day I found out we were having a boy and a girl.

The song was featured in a TV show the weekend before I went into labor.

The song was on in my doctor’s office the day I got pregnant with my third child. And for my first ultrasound. And countless other times during my journey to our family. Which leads me to this conclusion:

God speaks to me through the music of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Certainly, if God is going to speak to you through any musical group, picking one named after the basic elements is a pretty good idea.

So I say that Earth, Wind & Fire saved my life, and I still hear that song during moments when I need my faith the most. But it was really my faith that saved my life, that saved me from grief and depression and that brought me my kids, who, despite what I may write in this blog or complain about on Facebook, are the joy of my heart and the reason that God put me on this earth.

Tomorrow is September 21, the seventh anniversary of my babies’ birth. I say goodnight to them every night, and pray that one day, we will be together again.

Samantha, Anthony, Dominic, Araina and Dante – you are always in my heart.