Pregnant!

Pregnant! We found out the morning of Grant's birthday that our family will be growing one last time. To give a little background information I did not think it would happen this year. Danny was certain he wanted to wait a couple years for him to be done with grad school. I was hopeful that it would happen though. I do believe that it only happened because of quarantine. I think it's going to come as a shock to our families, because everyone knows I was ready for one more but that Danny was not. He's been very vocal about his desire to be done. But what no one knows is that he was not done. Danny has felt for over a year now that there was a baby in heaven that needed to come down. He accepted it with his heart but wasn't ready to accept it with his brain just yet. Of course I also felt that one needed to come down but wanted Danny to get to the point where he felt ready for it. Last year when he was away in Vanuatu he started feeling that we weren't done, despite him wanting to be. He video called me one night and told me how he knows there's one more. I was happy to hear this. It's funny that we both felt done after Hudson but then Grant happened and ever since he was born I knew I wasn't done. Anyway I remember telling Danny that once he got back home his mind will change because life in grad school with young children is really overwhelming at times. To my dismay I ended up being right. Shortly after Danny returned from Vanuatu he was back to being done or at least waiting a couple years. Six months later on this past January he took a trip to London. While there the same thing happened. He called home and said "I think we need to have another one". Even though it was music to my ears I still told him that once he got home he's going to change his mind again. He did. His mind was changed. I started looking forward to our European trip because I thought for sure the prompting would come back to him and this time I'd be with him. I really thought the best chances of adding another baby sooner rather than later would happen in Europe over the summer. Then Covid 19 happened and I knew the trip wasn't going to happen. I started accepting that it just wasn't going to happen this year and that we could wait to revisit the conversation in a couple years when Danny is all done with grad school. I also felt that in a couple years when we're all out of the young toddler stage that I won't even want to jump back into the baby stage. I'll actually know what a full night's rest will feel like which sounds pretty good these days. I started seeing our family as a family of five and actually felt good about it. It seemed like the perfect size. 

As I started getting to the point where I was content with just three kids I started having these weird panicky moments where I'd be getting the kids ready to leave the house and then I'd start looking around with the thought that I kept forgetting a kid. It was so weird, because I knew I had three kids and could be looking at all three kids yet still briefly panic because I felt like I forgot someone. These moments always were super fast and didn't last long but it would happen so many times. It was weird. Even though I'd have those moments I was still okay and content with putting off any pregnancies because we were using this year to really work on ourselves. I started waking up at 6:30am every morning and would go for a run before the kids even got up and Danny would be home doing his morning routine, before settling in his makeshift home office for the day. 

Having him home all the time was awesome. Campus was closed because of the pandemic so we saw a lot of him. He did learn though that working from home is really hard. There's a lot more distractions and harder to stay focused and on task. I tried to keep the kids out of the office so he could work but Danny always seemed to wander into the kitchen haha. The kids would see him out and think it's play time. They had a hard time accepting that Dad was still "at school" because to them he was home. I'm also not innocent and would often "visit" him at work because I was just excited to have another adult in the house since I spend every single day surrounded by our little kids. This quarantine period has definitely had it's hard moments with almost everything being closed but as in our case it has also opened so much more family time. Anyway, back to the current pregnancy. A month ago Danny decided we should leave it in God's hands and if it happens it happens. It happened. He was hoping it would take longer like it did with Hudson. I was actually a little nervous to even see the test results because I wasn't sure how he would handle the news if it was positive. I was supposed to start my cycle and I hadn't started. I waited five days and it still didn't come. Then Friday night Danny asked why I hadn't tested yet. I told him I was nervous and that in this case no matter what result it is one of us would be sad about it. I told him I'd rather be the sad one in this situation because if I am pregnant it's going to be a life changing thing where as if I'm not then I'll just endure another cycle for a couple days and get over it. He said "please don't think like that, I think you should take the test". I told him I'd wait until the next morning because then the HCG levels would be stronger (I don't know if that's true). At this point though with me being five days late I don't think we even needed to test. We both knew. 

The next morning on Saturday the 25th I woke up early. I thought Danny was asleep as I snuck into the bathroom to take the pregnancy test. I wasn't surprised to see a positive. Of course it would be. I was nervous though. I snuck back into bed where Danny instantly rolled over. He was not asleep. He knew exactly what I was doing and was waiting to hear about it. "So? What did it say?" I probably sounded so scared as I told him I'm pregnant. What happened next was not what I was expecting. His reaction was so good. He instantly started laughing but it was a happy laugh. "Congratulations! This is good news!" "It is?" "Yeah it really is". He then went on to tell me how he stayed up all night thinking about this baby. He knows this baby is supposed to be here but was always too overwhelmed to think about it or try to plan for it. He just needed it to happen so that he could fully embrace it. He explained how Grant was unplanned but turned out to be the best thing ever and feels this will be the same thing. This baby will be the best thing ever. Thanks 2020 for not being the complete worst year after all.