HaleyI had the best intentions of blogging consistently. I have dozens of post ideas stored away in my head, but have lacked the energy–both physically and mentally–to do much of anything consistently the past couple months. Oh yeah, and the persistent nausea wasn’t doing anything to further the cause.
In case you haven’t guessed, we are expecting baby Hobson #4 the first week of August!
For months I’ve had baby fever watching all these younger women announcing their pregnancies. I kept going back and forth about having one more in my head. I knew one more would just increase our crazy, but then it was so hard for me to imagine that this childbearing phase of my life was over.
Finally, I brought it up to my husband in November, saying that it’s now or never since I’m 35. After talking through all the variables–including his small (still new) business, housing permanency (or lack thereof), my age and some of the health issues our kids have had, we jointly decided that we should move past the childbearing years and could consider fostering or adoption in the future once our kids were a little older. I felt at peace with this decision after talking it through–though it was hard to think the baby years were over.
I laugh now at the sureness of our plans. For me, it always seems that just when I’ve settled on a certain path, God says: I’ll see your plans and I’ll raise you one (literally, this time). So two weeks after our decision, I began having some weird symptoms and decided to take a pregnancy test a couple days after Thanksgiving. Well, what do you know: positive.
Now that we have wrapped our heads around the idea of being “older parents,” we could not be more excited to upgrade our family from five to six!
Upon my first doctor’s appointment, I was pegged as AMA–or advanced maternal age. I knew this was coming–it was something I’d already thought much about. The good news: I’m OK with the doctors keeping a little closer eye on me than the younger patients. Why not? I did opt for genetic testing this time, though I never had it with my other three babies. It’s not that it would change anything, but given my age, I figured knowledge was power. Also, I won’t lie and say that I didn’t care that this blood test could also reveal the gender with 99% accuracy.
I was about 90% sure I was having a girl. Don’t ask me why–it was just a feeling. I’d never had a feeling about gender for any of my other kids. But this time, I felt very confident. So much so that I’d already picked out a girl name.
Just over a week after getting the Panorama screening, I got my test results back. I was low risk for the chromosomal abnormalities it tested for —- and I was having another BOY! I was shocked.
I couldn’t stop saying “Oh my goodness” when I got the results. And now, I laugh once again because just when I think I know everything, God says: “For I know the plans I have for you…” (Jeremiah 29:11).
So, I’m back to the drawing board working on a Southern boy name, trying to imagine if he’ll be dark-eyed like the Shulers or blue-eyed like the Hobsons.
I can tell you one thing for sure: He is already well loved. Beau was telling some of his preschool classmates that his Mama was having a baby back in the fall. And then he asked for a baby for Christmas. James Michael just assumed I would have another one at some point, making statements that began with, “Well Mom, when you have another baby…” And my tiny girl Scarlett is simply over the moon to be a big sister. She’s already practicing diaper changes on all her baby dolls and constantly chides the Rowdy boys, saying, “You need to be more careful because Mama has a baby in her belly.”
It’s so crazy to think that I had three babies in less than three years, then baby #4 will show up 3.5 years after Scarlett. My boys were so young when I had Scarlett, so anticipation was lost on them. But this time, they can all anticipate the arrival of this new baby.
As the old saying goes:
Two’s company.
Three’s a crowd.
Four’s a party.
Five’s not allowed! 🙂
Now that I’m out of the first trimester, I’ll try to do a recap soon on baby #4!
