So, All the Uncomfortable Questions

My dear friends, I know I owe no one any explanation, but I know that people have questions. Did we plan this new baby?  6 kids?  Is it a boy or girl?  What are we thinking?  How am I feeling?

Well, officially this baby was a surprise.  To be honest, though, we have been praying for whether we might be done having kids for over 2 years.  While we each went back and forth to opposing sides on the issue, we were both very certain that we weren’t going to do anything permanent to proclaim we were done, and yet we both felt overwhelmed by the current amount of time our current children require

…and yet,

And yet both of us went back and forth between wanting another one.  But the timing was bad.  My neck injury that I will likely always live with was a concern for me, though none of my doctors were concerned about it.  I’m running around with the kids all the time now.  We are reaching this really nice rhythm in our family.  The older kids help out so much.  They are getting so independent.  Why “ruin” it with another baby?

Our discussions went on for months, until they just faded into looks that Knut and I would exchange when he would see a baby that made him melt into a puddle, or I would organize our baby things, or when our kids were super crazy and we hid from them.  Neither one of us was willing to say “let’s have another baby” and neither one of us was willing to say, “we are so DONE having babies.”  Looks for both were shared by both of us.  We’ve been living in this middle ground for awhile, and getting daily more comfortable in not knowing.

And after a couple years of praying about a decision, we had a surprise.  And both of us had a peace about it.  It was like the decision was just too big for us that God took it out of our hands.  I so love when that happens.  It was actually a bit of a relief in some ways.

There’s some definite logistical things that we need to figure out.  The #1 thing there is that 6 kids and 2 adults won’t fit into our minivan.  We’re brainstorming a few ideas about that.

The baby is coming during peak garden harvest season.  (The due date is the end of July.)  I have no idea on my plans for that.  I know Knut will say “Oh, just let the kids manage garden harvest and canning this year.”  Ha.  I’m sure the kids would love to devote every day of the hottest summer months slaving away in my garden.  Yet, financially, it pays for a ton of our family’s food.  It’s hard to say “let’s just not do it this year.”

I will say, I did have a major freak out moment when I realized that the year that Silje would be graduating from high school would be right before the Fall that this baby will start 1st grade.  As a homeschool mom, that idea overwhelmed me like none other.  That was my freak out moment.

But there were other sweet moments.  About 2 or 3 days after I found out I was pregnant, and Knut and I hadn’t told anyone yet, I was helping Solveig buckle in her carseat and she looked right at me when my face was close to hers and said, “Mommy, when am I going to get a baby brother?  I’ve been praying for one again and again and I think God isn’t listening.  I want a baby brother so badly.”  That took me aback a bit, and I just asked her why she wanted a baby brother.  She felt the family was very lopsided with more girls than boys, and she already had a little sister, but she didn’t have a little brother.

So is this one a boy?  Obviously, too soon to tell.

 

Actually, we had a bit of a scare about a week ago.  I had my “big reveal” all wrapped up for the kids to open.  I was “feeling” very pregnant.  (Irritable, queazy, tired.)  Then last week after our kids’ Christmas program at church I started spotting.  We quickly went home and then an hour or two later I really started bleeding.  As a woman who has gone through miscarriage in the past, I knew what this meant.  I called my midwife, and she asked a few questions, and we both thought this might be a miscarriage since I was having stomach pains too.  She gave me some safety information if I thought it warranted a hospital visit, and told me to keep her updated.  I spent the evening crying on my bed as Knut fed the kids downstairs.

Then a few hours later the bleeding stopped.  Just like that.  I texted my midwife back, who said if I still wasn’t bleeding in the morning, she’d get me into an ultrasound so we could check to see what was going on.

The next morning, I wasn’t bleeding, and I was supposed to pick up my parents from the airport for Christmas and the plan was to take them home and tell them without the kids, that we were going to have another baby.  But with everything up in the air, I picked them up from the airport by myself, and as we were leaving the parking lot, I told them we found out I was pregnant, but I had been bleeding, and I didn’t know if the baby was still there, but I had an ultrasound in a few hours to find out.  Oh, and welcome to Christmas.

Thankfully my parents just went with the emotional roller coaster ride with us like pros.  I went to my ultrasound to see a perfectly healthy baby with a perfectly healthy heartbeat, and even a theory in there for what caused the bleeding, though nothing that could harm the baby.  We had trouble getting a solid heartbeat down because the baby wouldn’t be still enough for it.  He/she kept moving too much.  The tech estimated from the partials we got for it to be between 160-170 bpm.

Lastly, how am I feeling?  This baby hates me drinking coffee.  It’s just mean.  Not even my teeny-tiny 1 cup a day.  I can’t even smell it without feeling sick.  I’m getting big quick, and am queasy pretty much constantly, and sleep a lot more, (oftentimes not on purpose) but that’s about it.  I’m so grateful for this baby coming.