Baby Number Five!!!

Here is what our Christmas Card looked like this year.....

I am already thinking about what we will do next year with our new little sugar baby.

I have really wanted to document all of the things that have gone on with this fifth baby. Really this is my 6th pregnancy. I lost my third at 15.5 weeks in January of 2004. The reason I bring this up is that this baby's due date is only one day off from my little baby I lost 6 years ago. This baby's whole time line has actually been very difficult this pregnancy.

I have always wanted five children. For as long as I can remember five sounded like the perfect amount to children. Coming from a large LDS family I loved having so many siblings. I know that this is not the case for everyone, but for me, it was everything. When Bob and I really started talking about marriage, we discussed how many children we would like. He and I were on the same page. He also comes from a large family.

After we started having children, and we saw just how difficult, hard, FUN, and rewarding it could be, we talked about it again, saying "just one child at a time." After Gil was born, our hands were full. Gil and Gwyn being so close was hard. When Gil had just turned two, I asked Bob one night if he wanted to have a 5th baby. I told him my hands were full and if he thought that we were done that I could really consider it. I told him he didn't have to answer now but I wanted him to think about it.

One of the reason I love this man is that he doesn't take my words lightly. The next afternoon Bob surprised me, and showed up around lunch time. I remember I was vacuuming with Gil napping and Gwyn playing with some toys. I had almost forgotten about our conversation when he told me that he had really been thinking about us having another child. (Kissed him for it!) He told me he was not ready quite yet but that he felt strongly that we should have another child. I hugged him because I adore him.

After Bob was laid off and Gil fell, I really did question if we should just be done, but Bob once again assured me that things would work out. My mom and I attended the Temple and I was really pondering what our next move would be as far as our home and whether or not we should move to SLC or not. I didn't necessarily get the answer I was looking for but I did have the overwhelming feeling that I should be at peace about having another child. I felt really good about it.

I never get pregnant right away. (Unless I have a newborn already, then I am FERTILE) It took a good 6 months. I was starting to wonder if I should start worrying. So when we found out in October that I was expecting we were thrilled! It didn't take me long though to start really worrying about whether I would be able to keep this baby. I started spotting about a week after I found out. Bob gave me a blessing Halloween morning and he reassured me that things would be okay. I had a Dr.s appt the next Monday and my AWESOME Dr did a little Ultra Sound that day. There wasn't a heart beat yet but everything looked normal. They had me come back at 6 weeks and we did another ultra sound and there was a heartbeat, slow....it had just had started beating but still it was there.

After that, things were really good. I have had moments of panic. It's interesting how things work out. Until I could find the baby's heart with my Doppler (thank you Brooke) I drove Bob mad with my fears about the baby. Everything felt similar to the baby I lost...I didn't think that two kids later I could still remember so much about that third pregnancy. Strange how your brain and heart remember, when you felt it was safely tucked away. It was so fun to go to my 12 week appt and see just how much the baby had grown on the ultra sound. We could not believe how much that little peanut was moving around. We were so thrilled to surprise our kids with the news on Christmas eve. Everyone for that matter, we had told only a select few that we were expecting.

I won't lie and tell you that most of the families hopes were for a girl. I say most because Gil has said all along that this was a baby brother. We knew that when we signed up to be parents again that we would be happy with WHATEVER we had. Still it would be nice for Gwyn to have a sister and I would love to doll another girl up! When the Ultra sound tech snuck us into to peek at our baby at 16 weeks we saw that our baby was most definitely a boy.....