Our favourite blog from last week’s iBlog Friday has been chosen. Lisa Baker is the winner with her moving post at Little House Inspired
You heard it right folks. We finally made our decision. To have another baby or not to have another baby? We went with 'to have'.
We took the plunge, did the deed and got ourselves (myself) well and truly knocked up with the long awaited and highly anticipated baby number 3.
I had been going over it all in my head for months and months. Weighing up all the pros and cons over and over and over again. Can we do this? Will we cope? Will I cope with 3 kids at home?
What if we have twins.....?!?!
Do we have the room?
Will we still be able to travel, go on family outings, afford private schooling??
Will we be able to afford to eat????
Urgh, Ill get fat again. And unfit. Could I possibly end up with any more stretch marks??
Does it really matter.....
There I was. Having this debate with myself, inside my own head again when suddenly I had an answer for all those questions.
Yes we can do this. Yes we will cope, we always do. And yes I will cope, because being a mother is the most important thing in the world to me. I wont not cope.
If we have twins, we have twins. It will be scary and awesome and cute and loud and expensive all at the same time.
I lived in a house much smaller than ours with 4 other children for a decent chunk of my childhood - yes, we have the room. Kids can share a bedroom. It won't kill them.
Travel and family outings will just take a little more time and consideration, but they won't need to cease to exist.
Private schooling? The more kids you have, the bigger the discount. We'll be fine.
We will always be able to afford to eat. C'mon woman, stop being so melodramatic.
Get fat, unfit and end up with even more stretch marks? Probably. But you've survived twice before and you can do it again.
And you know what, the day I had this 'epiphany' of sorts, just so happened to be on a day I was ovulating (according to my period tracker app thingy). When the husband arrived home that night I put it all to him with a 'no pressure, if it happens it happens but I was kind of thinking we should just go for it' approach. Mister 'play-it-cool, I don't care if we have another baby or not' was a little more eager than I expected.
And that was all it took. Yes, we are that couple. The ones who think about having a baby and magically become pregnant. Luckily we have only thought of it 3 times because otherwise we might have a whole soccer team trying to share 2 bedrooms and 3 car seats...
But that was where our luck ended.
I knew pretty much straight away that I was pregnant again. I could sense all the subtle changes. I was doubtful though, even I didn't think I could fall pregnant three times in a row, first try each time. But 10 days later that familiar faintest-of-faintest lines started to appear on the first of many home pregnancy tests. I think I did about 15 before feeling confident enough to go to the GP and get the process started. I was about 4+4 at that visit so when I did the pee test and it was barely visible, the GP seemed a little doubtful that I was pregnant. And then she got my blood test results. My HCG levels were only 35. I didn't know what that meant then as I had never known my number before. I had never needed to know. But apparently it wasn't a good sign. My GP tried to reassure me by telling me I just wasn't as far along as I thought, but I knew my dates. Still I persisted and tried to remain positive. I had another blood test done 48 hours later. My levels had tripled to 102. There was hope. But after way too much Google 'research' I realised that this was still way too low for 5 weeks pregnant.