It has been a entirely too long since I’ve posted on my blog. Months too long, actually. Between homeschooling and stay-at-home life with two toddlers, blogging has been just a liiiittle bit on the back burner. And that’s okay, but now I have some (big) things to catch up on! I do want to keep this space relatively updated because it’s a diary of our life of sorts, a way for me to look back and enjoy some of our best moments.
And as you’ve probably guessed from the title, we’ve got some really good moments comin’ in hot. 😊
So without further ado, our third baby story.
Written Sunday, December 29th, 2019
I can’t believe I get to write these words! The Lord has been SO kind to us! Today is the day we found out that we’re expecting our third precious baby.
We’ve known from the start that we’d love to have at least three children (maybe four, but don’t quote me on that 🙊). We also knew that we’d prefer to have them close in age if God blessed us in that way. And once Jameson turned four and Nora turned two, we felt like the timing was right to try again.
It’s funny because there were moments over the past two years where our family would be all together, laughing at something silly or playing a funny game and I’d have this weird, almost overwhelming feeling that someone was missing. Even though at the time, I was absolutely content with our family the way it was, even though I was so thankful for the two wonderful children we had. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me. But I do know it was real. It was like I could feel a personality missing from our family.
I wasn’t planning on taking a test today, I really wasn’t. My plan was to wait a few more days because the fertility app I use was guessing that I should test on Thursday, four days from now. But for whatever reason (it was probably the box of cheapie pregnancy tests under my bathroom cabinet, let’s be real) I decided to test anyway. I was pretty sure about my ovulation day because I’ve been tracking it for a few months now and I knew that if we HAD conceived, the test would likely be positive by now. (I’m around 11 days post ovulation.)
So I used a cheap test without telling Alex, assuming it would be negative anyway. Like my early pregnancy with Nora, I had a grand total of ZERO pregnancy symptoms this time around. I took the test without much expectation of a positive.
Before the time frame was up to read the results, Alex knocked on the bathroom door and said that Jameson needed to use the toilet NOW (oh boy), so I took a quick close look at the test. Definitely negative. Yes, that made sense. I figured it would be negative. I jammed it in the wrapper, wrapped it in toilet paper, and tossed it in the trash.
A little while later, Jameson’s bathroom emergency successfully handled, I had a little thought in the back of my mind that maybe I should peek at the test one more time just to be sure.
I carefully unwrapped it (don’t worry guys, it was sitting right on top, nothing gross happened to it), pulled out the test strip, and was shocked to see a second faint pink line!!! What?! That was definitely not there before. When I threw it away I had been sure nothing was showing up. Or at least, I thought I had been sure. I took it to the backyard to see it in natural light and sure enough there it was, plain as day. Two pink lines! I wasn’t sure if I was about to laugh or cry so I kind of did both, all by myself in the bathroom. Well, me and the baby. 🥰 It was a very happy moment.
I like to use those cheap tests whenever I have a suspicion (or a hope) that I might be pregnant. Keeps the costs low(er) when you’re in the process of trying to conceive and testing like a madwoman. But for some reason, I like to see the positive on a First Response test too. I don’t really know why, it’s sort of silly, but something about First Response makes it more real to me, maybe because that’s what I used when we found out about Jameson.
I didn’t have any First Response tests in the house but I did have a pretty good excuse to pick up a few things from Target, so after dinner I asked Alex if he’d mind hanging out with the kids for a bit while I ran to the store.
When I got back home around 6 I immediately used one of the First Response tests. Three minutes later, there was the second pink line again! It was faint but it was there.
I wanted to wait until the kids went to bed to tell Alex so we could enjoy the news just the two of us. But since it was only around 2pm when I took the first test, I had to act like nothing was different for almost six hours (he was off from work). Honestly, though, it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. It was kind of fun being the only person in the world who knew about this tiny person!
Finally we got the kids down and were about to sit and finish a movie we’d been watching over the past few days (we kept getting tired and stopping it partway through to go to bed instead lol #parentlife). Right before Alex hit play I said, in what I hoped was a super casual tone but probably wasn’t at all, “Oh wait, before we start this I wanted to show you something. Come here for a second.” He followed me to our room and I opened my nightstand drawer where I had stashed the two tests earlier.
I turned around and showed the First Response test to him with the biggest, dopiest grin on my face. His eyes got all big when he realized what it was. “Look at that!” he said, and then wrapped me in a huge, happy hug. “First try!” he joked and gave me a high five. Actually it had been like four months of trying, but who’s counting? 😉
To be totally transparent here, I am definitely a bit more nervous about having this third baby than I was with the other two. I was nervous of course with Jameson as my first but it was in a different way. And I was nervous with Nora but mostly because she was so unexpected. But this is different…I’ve heard from multiple friends (including my sister) that going from two kids to three is the most challenging shift in family dynamic. But my hope is in the Lord and I know that he will provide for each of us individually, and as a whole. I’m not heading into this on my own, never on my own. He is always in the boat with us. (Mark 4:35-41) For that I’m so thankful! There are challenges coming but also oh so much joy!
I can’t wait to meet this third little person! I feel, as I always do with my babies, that in many ways I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet them. ♥️
Milk with a Meal 