Never Take Target Practice Lightly!

It was the last day of our vacation.  We were killing time in sunny Fort Lauderdale between the end of our week-long Caribbean cruise and our flight home.  I had left my husband and my two girls at Dave & Busters and made the two kilometre-long trek to the local Kmart .  It was a long walk there and back, but I have to admit I enjoyed the excuse for some time alone.

Before going to rejoin my husband and the girls, I went straight to the washroom.  There, the test kit I had just bought confirmed what I already knew. I was having another child.

After my second daughter was born, there was a brief period of, “Oh, this wasn’t so hard!  Maybe I can do this one more time.” That notion vanished once my second daughter started moving. As far as I was concerned, it pretty well closed the door on the possibility of a third child, until a close friend of mine became pregnant.  It inspired me to give it go.

Because I wasn’t 100% convinced that this was the right move, I vowed to try for exactly one month and not a day longer.  After nearly two years on the pill, I was almost completely sure that my one-month trial wouldn’t succeed anyway.  Two weeks in, I decided that I must have been crazy to even consider this and discontinued any further reckless target practice.

It was on the last week of that trial month that we embarked on our cruise. We were having a wonderful time, but I soon noticed that my hankering for red wine and coffee had diminished considerably.  To me, it was a sure sign.

And now, here I was, sitting on a public toilet at Dave & Busters in Fort Lauderdale, feeling at once blessed by the gift of my awesome fertility, and at the same time completely overwhelmed by the thought of raising another child at this stage in my life. Words like “mini-van”, “budget”, and “nanny” hammered at me.  Just a week prior, I had been planning how I’d focus on rebuilding my career, and now it felt as if it was all on hold again.

For the next twelve weeks, my husband got a refresher on what it’s like living with me during my first trimester.  I was miserable.  I was literally counting the days until I hit the twelve-week mark, knowing this grey cloud would eventually lift. True to form, on Day One of Week 13, everything changed.

I’m now twenty-four weeks pregnant.  I’m not entirely clear on the math and whether that actually counts as six months, but whatever it is, I’m in my Glory Phase.  I very obviously look pregnant, so there’s neither the need nor the possibility of hiding it with oversized pants and lumpy tops. This is my sugar- and doughnut-loving phase, which is just fun.  And because this is definitely my last baby, I’m allowing myself a lot of indulgence, knowing full well that I’ll be getting a personal trainer so can get back in shape for my 40th. I’m sure you’ve heard the “I’ll be ripped by the time I hit 40″ story before, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

Meanwhile, my five-year-old and three-year-old daughters talk to my belly every day.  I’m genuinely excited and happy for them, and for myself.  And for my husband, I’ve fallen completely in love with again (today, at any rate).

I’ll keep you posted as this  trimester progresses. I’m not looking forward to slowing down, to the increased moodiness, or to the fat ankles. But I’ll take it all and more in stride as I look forward to finally getting to meet this happy, healthy baby!