The Tuesday before my hubby left for India (he left on a Saturday) I took a pregnancy test and of course it came back positive.  As always he was over the moon and I was just relieved to know that my ongoing nausea was not a sign of insanity or illness.

But I was also not really impressed with the timing.  This is my fifth pregnancy and historically the first trimester is hard for me.  I always get all day morning sickness and without my partner to be home to cook for me at weird times and hours and not to get upset if I then couldn’t eat said food, I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive.

Also it has been six years since I was last pregnant.  So I am almost completely in a different body. A body that remembers giving natural birth four times before, three of which were at home.  A body that grows strong baby girls (my smallest was 8 pounds 1 ounce) and while I am miserable my babies are always healthy and perfect.

 Also we tend not to share this exciting news with many people until after the first trimester.  I had to share with my close girlfriends and my eldest daughter because I knew I was going to need support.  My 7 year old couldn’t sleep one night and ended up reading the word baby over my shoulder. So she was sworn to secrecy for about a week.  

 These days technology has changed a lot since I was first pregnant 13 years ago.  And being 39 this time around checking out the number of chromosomes this baby had was important to us.  There are screening tests you can get at 10 weeks now that are just a blood draw and can look at fetal blood and count chromosomes.  Which means you can also find out if there is a Y chromosome or not.

 This being the 5th time we are over surprises and assumed we were having a girl anyway.  And true enough the test came back and girl number 5 is due in January.

 To say it has been a hard summer is an understatement.  To say that a lot of my plans have been derailed from what I was originally thinking is also true.  I had originally thought I might paint the kids bedrooms and do a bunch of other stuff and besides taking the kids to the lake, and seeing friends regularly so I can get a wee bit of a break, this summer for me has mainly been about survival.  Sleeping when I can, eating when I can, not puking and just trying to keep everyone alive (Minus one dead duck, meat chicken and turkey I have managed).  

 We haven’t even announced the news on Facebook yet, though now that my hubby is home we will probably do that soon.  I feel huge because once you’ve had one baby your body is super excited to expand almost instantly so by the time it’s number 5 well I feel like I look far more pregnant than I actually am.  Of course my perception is probably off.

 Hubby missed the worst of this pregnancy and has come home in time to start feeling her move around and all the fun of second and third trimester.  I have survived. And we will be raising one more girl soon. Now to come up with three more girl names, we have already used 12 as each of my girls have two middle names.

How has your summer been?