So many titles.......

I had so many titles in mind...... Holy !!!!!!......OMG!!....Murphy's Law......Irony.....Never say never........and just plain "!!!!!!!". All fitting, don't you think:

Yes, my friends........let me introduce you to baby #3. Let's start by answering a few questions, shall we:
Yes.....we're absolutely sure it's "just one" this time.
No.......it wasn't planned. I can promise you that no one is more surprised than we were.
Yes......we are definitely excited. It took a day or so for the shock to wear off, but we're excited.
No......I don't think the girls know what's coming to change their lives.

Oh. And.....
Yes......we do actually know what causes this to happen!

Although I've not really blogged about it, we make no secret of the 2 years of fertility treatments we endured to be able to have the girls. And I did always hear that the body has a funny way of being jump started by a first pregnancy and a lot of people have no trouble the second time around. It may sound silly to say, but I still never expected it would ever be "that easy" for us. At first our attitude was "if it happens, it happens" but the more we talked about it, the more comfortable I was with saying "You know what......I'm really good with my two beautiful girls. A 1:1 ratio for adults to kids -- that's perfect. Even #s. No one has to ride amusement park rides alone because it's all even. Our SUV is perfect for 2 car seats and plenty of space." So comfortable were we with this decision that we decided to sell all of our baby gear to a couple expecting twins. All.of.it.

Here's where Murphy's Law comes in. In February I was working out of town and over the weekend, D drove north to drop off the baby gear. Fast forward 2 weeks when I return home. I call to make my appointment for my annual doctor's visit and as I'm preparing myself to answer the standard questions they ask, I'm looking at the calendar and going back one week.....two weeks......six weeks......eight......what?!?!?! Yes. So two weeks after handing off the baby gear to someone who was really going to need it, I realized I was pregnant. Murphy, indeed, had taken up residence in my house.

D was hilarious. For reasons I don't know....I was crying when I told him I was pregnant. Not happy tears, I must admit, just....tears. Tears because I wasn't sure what I felt. We had made up our mind that we weren't going to have more kids and I was fine with that. I was really fine. I think the tears were a little fear, total shock, complete surprise....all bundled together. So I'm trying to tell D and he's trying to figure out why I'm just standing there and crying and I finally get it out. He starts laughing and says "But why are you crying? This is a good thing!" He hugs me and then I think it hits him.....he steps back with his hands on my shoulders and looks at me and says "How did this happen??"

Really? You want (need?) to go there?!?!?!?!?!?

So we head for our first ultrasound only to find a gestational sac but no baby, when we were expecting to be able to hear a heartbeat. Is it possible my answers to the standard questions were wrong? I guess so. Before I was pregnant with the girls, I had an ectopic pregnancy and ended up having surgery. My fantastic fertility specialist did the surgery and was able to keep everything intact. Because I had an ectopic pregnancy before, I was considered a higher risk to have another one so my doctor was concerned because she wasn't seeing anything that resembled the gestational age we were expecting. Before jumping to conclusions, she had me come back every few days to check for any changes but, in the meantime, if I felt any pain on my right side I was to go straight to the ER. Talk about walking around feeling like a ticking time bomb, right?!?! So a few blood tests and ultrasounds later, we are finally able to hear a heartbeat. I won't bore you with the details, but I wasn't as far along as we thought so everything we had been seeing was perfectly normal. You just can't take a chance when the alternative was possible.

Talk about a week taking a year off your life, right? So fast forward to now.....I'm close to 14 weeks (based on the measurements of the baby) and everything is looking good. My doctor is awesome and I'm also seeing the awesome maternal-fetal-specialist who took care of me when I was pregnant with the girls. It was very weird walking into his office, I must say. The last time I was there, I left and headed straight to the hospital for 6 weeks.

The baby will be here around the end of October or the beginning of November and my doctor said we'll deliver between 38 and 39 weeks. Time seems to have gone by so slow, but hopefully now it will pick up.

So there you have it! Baby # 3 is on the way! We're excited........and occasionally I already feel outnumbered - hahaha - but I keep reminding myself that we're not the only ones to ever have 3 (or more) kids.......we can handle it!!

Oh. And the other part of "Never say never"? Parked in my driveway is a shiny new minivan. GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!