Matthew 19:26

It was a Thursday night.

I was a day late.

Our family of four sat at the dinner table, and I told T I was late, and that I was thinking of taking a test.  He looked at me like I had three heads.  After all, I had been told in January of 2014 that I only had a couple months left before I was completely out of my quickly-diminishing eggs.  Which is why we immediately forged ahead with an IVF cycle to try to get our miracle (if you missed our journey to get our Everette, you can read that here).

Anyway, I understood why wanting to take a pregnancy test sounded crazy to my husband.  But I had a weird feeling.

We put the kids to bed, and he went downstairs to do the dishes.  I dug out an old, cheap, expired pregnancy test and took it.  As it started to process, I looked at it and thought, "Negative, of course."  I walked away to get my pajamas on, etc.  I came back to the test and held it up to the light... and my heart skipped a beat.  Was that the faintest, barely there, squinter-of-a-second-line?  I dipped the final old, cheap test into my cup of pee, left it on the counter, and headed downstairs with my squinter.  I still wasn't convinced it was positive, thought I may be seeing things.  I mean that second line was BARELY there.

T was washing dishes, his back toward me.  As I walked into the kitchen I said, "Do you see a second line?"  I will never forget the look on his face when he whipped around and snatched the test out of my hand.  He held it up to the light, pointed to the barely, barely there second line and said, "Right there?"

"Yes, right there."

He then walked into the bathroom with the test, held it up to a different light, handed it back to me, went and sat down and said, "I'm gonna throw up."

:: nice reaction Daddy... ha! ::

My reaction was even better.  I had taken the week off from my nightly glass-ish of wine to give my body a wee little break after multiple holiday shenanigans.  "I would've had a drink this week if I thought for a second I'd be abstaining until the fall!"

"All you can think about is having a drink?!"  T asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

I told him I had one more test upstairs that was processing, and he told me to go get it.

See?  That barely, barely there, squinter of a second line beside the dark line?

I then asked him to please go to Walmart and get a not-expired, legit, First Response pregnancy test.  

I didn't... couldn't believe it was true.

After what seemed like an eternity, he returned from Walmart with the test.  I took it and handed it to him.  I told him it needed 3 minutes to process.  He sat at the table, test in his hand, staring at it.  About a minute and a half later he said, "You'd better go ahead and call Dr. T."

"No way," I replied.

Yep.... That's a positive, no doubt.

I walked over and looked at the test, which - still faint - was definitely positive.

It was my turn to sit down while my head was spinning.

HOW was this possible?!  HOW did this happen?!

Well, obviously we know how it happened.

But two years ago I was told I was pretty much completely infertile.  TWO YEARS AGO.  This wasn't supposed to be possible.  And even so, T and I were being a *little* careful.  Obviously not careful enough, but careful enough when coupled with the fact that my ovaries are supposedly shriveled up and empty.

I guess there was one, lone egg in there, like HEY!  DON'T FORGET ABOUT MEEEEE!!

Because I'm crazy, I immediately texted my OB (because yes, I'm crazy, she knows I'm crazy, and she loves me for it  still agrees to deal with me.  Have I ever mentioned how absolutely amazing my OB is?!).  She immediately told me to come in first thing the next morning for a blood draw and baseline ultrasound.

Needless to say, I barely slept that night.  It was all so surreal.  I was so shocked, immediately scared, not wanting to get my hopes up but also incredibly excited.  Never in a million years did I think I would ever, ever be pregnant again.

Friday morning I was up and out for my normal 6am run, which did my racing brain some good.  A blood draw and ultrasound at the doctor confirmed  I was, in fact, pregnant.  But barely pregnant.  Which was good news, because I needed to start blood thinner injections ASAP due to my Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome.

Prenatals were purchased, a slew of prescriptions were filled - pills were ingested, shots were given - prayers were said, our shock still intact.  Our families and a few close friends were told, and we held our breath for the results of our next blood draw, which would check to see if my numbers were increasing adequately.

And they were.  A phone call from the nurse confirmed that all was well at this point, and we scheduled my first ultrasound for Friday, January 29th.

Because I HAD to take another.  And yep, that was DEFINITELY a second line.

And about a week later the misery began.  The constant, 24/7, debilitating nausea - the same I experienced while pregnant with both CK and E.  While at first I welcomed the nausea - our two babies we'd lost didn't come with such misery, so in my experience the nausea was a "good" sign - but I think I'd forgotten just how bad it could get.

When it was finally time for that first ultrasound, I think T and I held our breath on the way to the doctor's office.  I swear he and I both have PTSD from so many awful ultrasounds in the past.  But we said our prayers, squeezed each other's hands three times, and knew it would be okay - we would be okay - no matter what.

CK was at school, but we had E with us (since he doesn't know what the heck is going on).  I forgot about how miserable I felt once I saw our little nugget on the screen, with a tiny little heart flickering away...

Hi #3!  We love you!!

It was absolutely unbelievable, you guys.  Absolutely unbelievable.

A checkup with my awesome OB, another ultrasound scheduled for four weeks later, and a prescription for an anti-nausea medicine and we were out the door.

And thank goodness for some meds, because y'all... words on this blog can't adequately describe just how miserable I have been for the past seven weeks or so.  (Hence the lack of blog posts.)  I hate to even complain, because man, what a crazy, amazing blessing... but WHEW it's been rough.  Like lying-on-the-floor-with-E-crawling-all-over-me, NOTHING-sounding-edible, in-tears, the-worst-nausea-I've-ever-felt ROUGH.

My biggest accomplishment lately.

Which made it hard to keep the pregnancy a secret!  I was trying to put on a brave face everywhere I went, while really I was always taking deep breath after deep breath, counting down the hours until T would be home from work so I could curl up in the fetal position (how fitting) and block out the world, knowing every passing minute got me closer to hopefully being done with morning all-day sickness.

Finally, it was time for our next ultrasound... And this about sums it up:

Another awesome checkup, and I think - while still shocked - this was the point we really let ourselves believe that I'm pregnant... that we're actually going to be a party of five.  That Everette gets to be a big brother!  THAT WE'RE GONNA HAVE ANOTHER BABY!

We still hadn't told CK, for many reasons.  But after this appointment, we decided it was time.  So that night at dinner, we said our blessing, and after it was over T said, "And thank you for the baby in mommy's tummy."  You see, he used to always say that when I was pregnant with E, so we knew it would throw CK for a loop.  She immediately started giggling and saying, "Nooooo!!  Silly dad, there's no baby in mommy's tummy!"  And we kept saying, "Uhhhh, yes there is!"  Until we finally, finally convinced her that it was true.

Y'all, for some reason I was SO nervous to tell her.  I really and truly wasn't sure how she'd react.  But the minute she realized what was going on, she was the sweetest.  She wanted her own ultrasound picture to keep in her room and wanted to know if Aunt Beth would keep her while we were at the hospital having the baby.  Such a planner, my girl.

The sweetest, proudest big sister.

 

And E?  Well, anytime you ask him about a baby he just points to his own tummy.  So there's that.

I don't know what this picture is but in my other hand is an M&M!!

And CK has been so sweet ever since... asking me how I'm feeling, reminding me to make sure I'm taking care of the baby, kissing my tummy spontaneously... just the best. <3

So over the next few days we decided to fill in a few more people, and then we wanted CK to announce to her preschool class that she was going to be a big sister again.  The next week at school she was Child of the Week, which gave her the perfect chance to announce.  It was awesome, and she continued to be so proud.

  And then, finally, it was time to announce to the WORLD (aka Facebook and Instagram and this ol' blog) that our little family of four would be turning into a family of five this fall.  And whew, did it feel good to let the cat out of the bag.  Or rather the muffin top out of the pants.  

Because this girl is getting chubby and it's been hard to hide.

You guys, the response we got - the love and support and congratulations and sweet words and kind messages - were just so incredibly humbling.  I know it's just social media, but you people sure know how to make a girl feel good and loved.

And now, if you don't mind, if I can please ask selfishly for some prayers for our sweet #3, and prayers for me to trust Him and find peace in His promise... We have two babies in heaven, and two at home in our arms... and I would love more than anything to bring this sweet little surprise of a miracle home to the Peele house this September. <3

...
 
And that, my friends, is the story of #3.  And now, here we are:  giddy and shocked and prayerful and hopeful and undoubtedly still scared of something going wrong and crazy excited and humbled and just so overwhelmed by God's grace and how His plans always, always far exceed our own...